“Because I want you to feel it, darling. I want you to know it so deeply there is no way out of it. You did not just somehow hurt me by accident. You did not hurt meat all. You could never have, never ever, and do you know why? Because you are the kindest, gentlest, most loving soul I have ever known. And I am so sorry that I left you here, all alone,” she said, then on the last word, she touched his hand. Just a little, most of her half expecting him to flinch.
But instead, he glanced down at that one small piece of comfort.
He saw it, and felt it, and let himself look back up at her earnest face.
And then he made a sound like someone finding sustenance, after a long starvation, and hauled her into the most desperate embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There were a lot of things that still needed to be said, as they walked back side by side, to the school. But after what seemed like hours of intense emotional upheaval, and the sudden reversal of everything she thought she knew about him, it felt like kind of a lot to keep going.
She needed time to let things sink in.
To sift through what this all meant.
Not to mention coming to terms with all the new memories that were now jostling for attention in her head. She was able to remember a whole other set of parents. A high school experience that wasn’t the same. And sometimes those things made her feel like a slightly different person.
Though she was surprised by how much of the other her felt the same.
The only real major difference seemed to be that Lilibet had known, utterly and completely, that the man now walking at her side loved her. That if she reached out and laced her fingers with his, he would welcome it.
But Mina didn’t know how to process that at all.
She looked down at the space between his hand and hers, and it just seemed insurmountable, impossible, thick with tension. And not just because of the way he carefully held said hand, so itnever moved closer than six inches away. He had also made a fist. A tightly clenched one, thatcouldhave meant nothing.
Even though she was doing the same.
She did it the second she felt the urge to touch him.
So she had to wonder if maybe, just maybe—
Yes that’s why he’s doing it, too, Lilibet said in her head. Though now it wasn’t so much saying from outside, as hearing her own thoughts. And her own thoughts were very persuasive. They forced her to look up at his face, and when she did, she saw what she expected to. Harker St. James studiously trying to keep looking straight ahead, while an actual nervous, embarrassed blush spread over his face.
As if Harker St. James was capable of feeling such things.
But then of course, he wasn’t really Harker St. James at all.
His actual name was Bram. Short for Bramhope, he’d told people.
Though it wasn’t. It was short for Ambramin of Ember, the realm where the Areifen roam. If you said it right, it sounded like water running through rock. It was wonderful, and she wanted to speak it aloud.
But even that eluded her.
“I don’t know what to call you now,” she finally landed on. Spoken low, because they had just gotten to the courtyard. And he answered in kind, leaning down just a little so only she could hear him.
“You thinkyouare having a hard time with that?”
“Yes, but you’ve had chance to get used to Mina. And I am still kind of her. I still love the mum and dad I have now and hate the people who were cruel to me in this life. I recall things that shaped me a little differently. But you...”
She trailed off, thinking of the strangeness of that.
Of how her life had doubled now. But his was a single line.
Even if he had drawn some of his own, between the past and now.
“I don’t mind being Harker,” he said, with a shrug.
“It’s not the real you, though.”
