Page 40 of The Story Between Us

“The wall isn’t the problem.”

Livvie blinked. “What?”

“Aldric doesn’t need to get through it.” Nate still stared at the water, but something had shifted in his face. Come alive. “He needs to understand why it exists. The Keepers didn’t seal it to keep people out. They sealed it to keep something in.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“He’s been fighting the barrier. But the barrier isn’t his enemy. It’s a warning.” He turned to look at her, and his eyes burned differently—bright, urgent, present in a way he hadn’t been since she’d arrived. “He doesn’t need a door. He needs to find the thing the wall protects. And make a deal with it.”

“Nate—”

“The deal has to cost him something. Something real.” The words tumbled faster now. “The thing behind the wall has been waiting three hundred years. It won’t let him pass for free. And his love for Elara—that’s his greatest strength, so it has to⁠—”

“Get back to the house.”

“What?”

“Now. Right now.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward the trail. “Before you lose it.”

They quick-walked to the house, but now Nate kept talking, his breath huffing out fast. “The sacrifice can’t be clean,” he said. “It has to haunt him. Change him. If he crosses that wall the same person he entered as⁠—”

“Nate.”

“What?”

“Save it for the page.”

He took off ahead of her, jogging to the house, the dogs bounding after him.

“I’ll make coffee,” she called, also picking up her pace, her heart hammering.

His office door was shut when she came in.

Livvie stood alone in the clean kitchen, heart thundering.

It’d worked.

The coffee maker still held warmth from the morning. She poured herself a cup she didn’t need and leaned against the counter, listening.

Silence. Then the clatter of keys.

He typed.

She pressed her hand to her chest and let herself breathe.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty. The typing continued—erratic but persistent, bursts and pauses, the rhythm of someone working through something hard.

She should stay put. She should wait. She should absolutely not go wandering through his house while he worked.

But the kitchen had already been cleaned. The coffee had already been made. And Livvie had never been good at sitting still when there might be something useful to do.

She went wandering.

The living room she’d already seen. The dining room revealed a table buried under mail and manuscripts—a project for another day. A bathroom with a leaky faucet she made a mental note to mention. A linen closet stuffed with mismatched towels.

She headed upstairs to the two bedrooms.

Okay, yes, she was headed for Emma’s room. She found it at the end of the hall, a door. Slightly ajar.