Page 73 of Grim Tidings

It’s beautiful. Color everywhere. The boat ride here was static black and white, shadows and grayscale, but now the world is waking up. Deep purple melts into cotton candy pink. Tangerine orange. Buttercup yellow. A kaleidoscope explodes above our heads, reflecting against the sparkling water below.

“Over there,” Gabriel says, right against my ear. I tilt my head and follow where he’s pointing. Four small fishing boats bob together on the incoming tide, silhouetted black against the rising sun.

“What am I looking at?” I ask.

“You were right. Even out here, they gather. They’re drawn together. They’re not alone.”

I suck in a sharp breath. I remember every word of our conversation on Gabriel’s living room floor, but I wasn’t sure he did. I turn to look at him, leaning with his forearms braced on the railing.

“Is that why you brought me here?” I ask.

His face angles toward mine. His eyes are dark, dark blue, and his smile is lopsided, one of his sharp incisors flashing briefly. “Wanted you to know that you’re not alone, either.”

I have to look back out over the water. Tears blur my vision and everything turns into watercolors, the sky bleeding into the bay. My magic isn’t the only thing I’ve been keeping buried. My fledging feelings for Gabriel take flight, fluttering beneath my rib cage like ten thousand butterflies.

He listened to me. He remembered. He brought me here.

I’m not alone.

“Gabriel,” I whisper.

He hums, his face still turned toward the sun.

Hope is a decadent, disastrous thing. “If I weren’t a Reaper, and you weren’t a Guardian, what do you think—” I have to pause and take a breath. “What do you think would happen if we were ordinary?”

If there weren’t a thousand untold consequences hanging in the balance. If we weren’t destined to oppose each other at every turn. If he hadn’t been hurt and neither had I.

If he were just a man, and I were just a woman.

He turns to look at me.

“What do you think it would be like?” I ask. “If we could be people?”

Gabriel studies my face, his lips in a line. His silence is painfully loud.

“Oh,” I whisper. A short sound lodges in my chest. “Oh,” I say again.

He turns away with a grimace, dragging his hand roughly through his hair. Fisting the dark strands until his knuckles turn white.

“Darcy,” he whispers.

“Never mind,” I choke out. Embarrassment burns hot across my cheeks. I want to scurry back through the lighthouse and hide in one of the narrow closets. I want to fling myself over the railing and float back to shore. I don’t know how I’m going to climb into a boat with this man. I don’t know how I’m ever going to look at him again.

Gabriel stills me with his hand on my forearm, squeezing gently. The look on his face is faintly pleading, and I hate it.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. His eyes search mine. “I don’t know what I’d do, Darcy.”

It’s not the answer I want. I gently pull myself out of his grip, curling my arms around myself. “Yeah. Okay.”

I feel exposed. Stupid. I’ve been over here developing feelings while Gabriel has been scouting the chessboard.

Why did he bring me here? Why did he listen? Was all of this meant to distract me? Is he simply trying to expedite our deal?

“Darcy—”

“It’s okay,” I rush to say. My voice is high and tight. “I understand.”

But the truth is, I don’t. I don’t understand why he brought me all the way out here. I don’t understand why he wanted to add something to my list. I don’t understand why I feel this way, and I don’t—I don’t understand why I can’t seem to shake it. Since that very first night, I’ve felt drawn to him. I’ve tried convincing myself it’s because I need his help, because he knows what I am and I can be my true self around him, but that’s not it at all. I’ve been trying to earn his trust because I want it. I’ve been chasing his attention because I want it. I want all of it.