“I lied to you? Then what of this?” He pulls the Death card, my forgery, from his pocket. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice your mark? I gave you months to confess to me, I probed in case you somehow forgot, and you did not come clean!” He rips it in half, sending the two pieces scattering on the breeze.
“Then we are both keeping the truth from each other!” I shoot back.
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Then what is this?” I do what I couldn’t do months ago and pull out the fragment of the reversed card.
His eyes widen farther, and whatever angry words he was readying are lost. He stares as I draw closer. Eyes glued to the scrap of paper turned into something more than the sum of its parts by wild, raging magic.
“It is your inking, is it not?” I demand. When he doesn’t respond, I snap, “Say it!”
“It is.” A dangerous stillness has overtaken him.
“And this card reversed, didn’t it?” I can almost see him trying to figure out how to avoid telling me that it did. Yet, there is nothing but the sound of wind sweeping across the remnants of utter destruction.
“I’ll give you one last chance to tell me the truth, Kaelis. Have you ever had a card reverse?”
More silent, swift calculations happen behind those eyes. The fact that he’d even think about lying to me again is nearly enough to make me scream. As he makes his judgments, his face becomes as hard and cold as the stone of the crater.
“I have.”
“Fuckingfinally.” I shove the card scrap into my pocket and take another step closer, encroaching on his personal space. “And did it reverse on accident…or did you cast the card reversed?”
His lips purse slightly, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to hold back another lie or if it’s an omission.
“Tell me, Kaelis. You’re ready to remake the whole world just to be with me. So tell me.”
“Don’t make me your enemy,” he finally breathes, eyes filling with pain.
“Enemy? Yourenemy?” I grab his cloak and ball the fabric in my fists, yanking him toward me. Our noses nearly touch. I can’t decide if I want to kiss him or smack him. “My whole life I’ve seen you as my enemy. My whole life I wanted nothing more than to destroy you. To find any possible way to rip your very existence to shreds—to see that everything you loved was turned to ash and dust.
“Youmade it so I could be your enemy.Youcast away our future. If you wanted me to stay your enemy, all you had to do was nothing.
“Youwere the one to fight fate. You were the one to find me. To hunt me down in this world where I’m not even supposed to fucking know you and to drag me into this plot of yours. You were the one who was kind and gentle to me first—who protected me.
“I was ready to be your enemy.Youwere the one who demanded to be my lover. And here we are, Kaelis. Here we are. The world is within our reach. You have me; I gave you my trust. I stopped questioning even when so many things added up in strange ways. So, here and now, all I’m asking for is the truth. And after everything, you’re going to pull away now because you’rescared?” My voice thins with disgust and rage. But the anger is not directed solely at him. “Well, guess what? I’m fucking terrified, too. I’m terrified every time I tell you something and I hear the ghost of my mother warning me not to. Terrified that you’re not the man I think you are. I’ve been terrified for months that I’m going to lose you like I’ve lost everyone else I dared to love.”
My throat is raw, tears that I refuse to let fall sting my eyes, and I continue. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because if I don’t say this now, I never will, and there can never be a future for us. At least not one I want.
“You’re one of the last constants I have. One of the last people at my side. The last place that feels like home. But every time I think I have a home, it’s ripped from me. Are you going to be ripped from me, Kaelis? Am I going to lose you, too? And will it be to all our secrets, or to the truth? Because I don’t know which is worse at this point.”
Resistance is still occupying the voids of his eyes. But now it’s tinged with sorrow. He sees right into me. His brows tip up in the middle, as though he’s in pain. “Clara—”
“If you love me, then tell me,” I blurt. The moment the words—and all their implications—hit us both, we still. We take a collective inhale. “If youlove me,Kaelis, then tell me,” I repeat softer, gentler. “If you believe that I can love you in this world and every world, no matter what, no matter what horrors each of us commits…then tell me everything, and I will do the same for you. Let’s finally do this right,without fear, without judgment, without secrets. If we’re going to love, let us love radically and completely and without all doubt.”
Right as he opens his mouth, right as I know he’s about to acquiesce, a voice breaks the moment in two.
“Did you really think you could evade me forever,” Emilia says triumphantly from where she’s perched just above us, “Clara Daygar?”
Chapter 67
I. Am. So. Done. With. Her.
I stare up at Emilia; she’s flanked by twenty Stellis on either side and who knows how many more fanned out beyond the crater. She already has a card hovering over her shoulder and one in her hand.
“I’ll give you credit, you did a good job changing your face. Too bad you decided to accent your hair with such a noticeable color.”
My hand flies up to my hair, touching the streaks of pink I was so excited to have. A Stellis’s sword clipped my hood in the Stone Citadel and I never mended it during the fight. I think of all the checkpoints I went through without a care on my way here, not bothering to conceal my appearance because I had utter faith in it.
