Page 67 of The Wicker King

ALLEGRETTO

“Are you … mad at me?”

August shook his head, but he gripped the edge of the blanket tighter. When he turned back, Jack was visibly upset.

“No, I’m not mad at you, Jack, I could never be … I am angry, though. I think I’ve been angry since it began … I’m angry that we have nothing to show for it. I’m angry that we couldn’t fix you on our own. I’m angry that I’m still here and you’re going to leave me here—” August bit his tongue at the pain of that thought, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, Jack was frowning very hard.

August shook his head and forced a smile. “But that’s not important. I’m glad you’re not sick anymore. Do you think they’ll let you back on the team?”

“I don’t care about the team, August. Why are you even … August? August, look at me. Look at me.”

He couldn’t. “It was nice to see you, Jack, but I think you should go,” he said.

“No!” Jack scrambled closer, but August didn’t react. “No, please! I’m sorry, August. I’m sorry.”

August just stared at the floor.

“I’m sorry.” Jack was crying now. Everything in August was screaming at him to do something—he always did something when Jack cried. But instead, he just sat there and said:

“I’m always going to be a part of this world that doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m always going to look at you and…” August paused. “At one point it was just a game. At the river it was supposed to be a game. But now I can’t stop. I never could. I’m always going to want to be at your heels, fighting for you. Hurting myself because you tell me to. It’s fucked up and I’m fucked up now, too.”

Jack’s face constricted with pain. He gripped August’s shoulders and shook him.

“I never said I didn’t feel the same,” Jack said harshly. “Just because I don’t see the kingdom doesn’t mean it doesn’t still exist,” Jack said furiously. “As long as one of us remembers it, it still counts. We decide the end of the game, not them. Not anyone else. You’re so stupid, August. You’re so stupid and I love you so much.”

MODERATO

“I love you and we don’t need the other world to keep that.” He glanced at the small window in the door to see if the guard was watching, then leaned over quickly and pressed their foreheads together.

“It’s just true,” he said. “It always has been. In this world and the next. They could take everything away and leave us with nothing, and I would still love you.”

Jack’s face went blurry, like August was seeing it through the sea.

“Do they still sing songs of my victory?” August choked.

“They do. And they’ll crescendo like beacons to the farthest reaches. With every new breath of life that forms in a world without darkness that came at the price of your hands and your mind.”

“You’ve become a poet,” August breathed.

“I haven’t.” Jack laughed softly. “I’m just telling you what I saw carved into the walls before they stole that world from me. You were chosen as Champion, August. Not a martyr.”

Jack brushed the salt from August’s cheek.

“I’ve never seen you cry before,” he whispered.

Then, with a resolute and terrible sorrow, Jack cradled August’s cheek in his nervously shaking hands and kissed him.

GLORY

August’s heart seized.

He didn’t … know he could have this.

Jack kissed him so carefully that August thought he would fall to pieces. Kissed him with the weight of knowing the price of risk. Then he gazed back at August like his heart was already breaking.

It was the same face that Jack had made on the roof, in the middle of the night, when they rolled in the grass, when he sat back with August’s blood and ink on his hands, when his face was lit orange with flames, when he’d opened the door to Rina’s room, when he stared across the gym at the homecoming dance, when he pulled him from the river and breathed him back to life.