Luella nodded, eyes unfocused, and before Tharen could blink, she stood.
"I need to be alone," Luella announced. She stilled before she left, staring down at Sorill. "Thank you for being kind. I would love to sit with you again."
Sorill smiled up at Luella. "I’d love that, as well. I’ll come see you." But before she could finish speaking, Luella hurried away.
Tharen shot up to follow after her, but Vale called, "No, Tharen. She doesn’t need you to go after her."
The words hurt, but maybe they were true. She stuttered in his presence, could barely look him in the eye—why did Tharen think he could offer comfort to her?
"I’ll go," said Graves. "I will not let her see me."
36
DARKENED BY NIGHTFALL
GRAVES
The tops of the trees swayed in the wind, increasing in ferocity. The bridges that connected them swung heavily, an ominous creaking noise filtering down upon Graves as he stalked through the night, chasing after Luella.
The sweet angel who had her tiny hands wrapped around his beating heart; though, she didn’t seem to realize it.
Just as she didn’t seem to realize that hiding was futile. Her wings were a beacon to all, white and brilliant. A streak of pureness in the forest as she walked through the trees, stopping on occasion to rest a hand on a trunk and lean into it, brow pressed upon the bark, before she moved on.
She never even saw him as he trailed behind her.
His wings were folded tight against his back. The warm air had grown slightly nippy as the sun dipped, and it made his flesh pebble as wind skittered over his exposed back.
Finally, she stopped at the point where the line of towering trees met the sharp fall of a cliff’s edge, leading right down into the ocean. Her feathers twitched, and through their bond, he sensed an amalgamation of feeling.
How much of it was uniquely hers and how much was Graves’s?
He reached for his amulet, but his fingers drifted through nothing. Right. It was gone. His wings were here, and the amulet Tharen had crafted for him to hide them was not.
He’d grown so used to reaching for it for comfort that not being able to feel the cool chain or warm amulet—warm from the heat of his body or the magic teeming inside—made him feel one gust away from falling.
Or flying.
His wings twitched. What he wouldn’t give to fly right now.
Instead, he focused his gaze on his Vincire.
It was a gorgeous vision. With her standing before the cliffside, as if wishing to tip her head back and scream. Air sifted through her feathers, and he wondered what it would be like if she flew with him. Alongside him. Together, in the skies.
His gloveless hands flinched by his sides. No, she’d never allow that. He had ruined any chance with her with his lies.
A soft sniffling sound carried to him on the wind, and he took one step forward, boots shifting on the vibrant grass and fallen leaves underfoot. The crunch made her head snap toward him, and her blue eyes were just like the sea, just like the sky when it wasn’t covered with her clouds.
"Graves," she whispered, and he took another step closer, not stopping until he was right by her side, standing at the edge of the cliff.
He waited for her to speak.
She turned back to stare out at the ocean, darkened by nightfall, and he studied her profile.
"Why do you always find me when I am on the edge?"
Graves traced the shape of her wings with his eyes as he said, "Maybe because I am already there, too, waiting to fall."He didn’t know what it was about her. But every hang-up he had disappeared in her presence. He no longer minded his tongue.
"You know, if I had paid closer attention to you, I would like to think I would have figured it out. Eventually," she added softly.
