Page 37

“Good. She needs it.” I turn back to the darkness, feeling him move even closer. Not touching, but enough I can feel the coolness of him. That’s what he is – a cool calmness. He has always been a calm to the chaos that lurks deep inside of me. “Why are you up?”

He shrugs, the movement fluid and graceful. Everything about Tobias is graceful. “I felt you leave.”

Something in his voice makes me look at him. Really look. There’s tension in his eyes, his mouth slightly turned down.

“What is it?” I ask.

He takes a deep breath. “I need to tell you something.” He takes his bottom lip between his teeth nervously. Tobias is never nervous. Then again, many people wouldn’t believe that he submits in the bedroom – but here we are, so I guess there is no use trying to judge a book by its cover.

“I’m listening …” My words sound collected, though my stomach clenches. If he is nervous, it’s because he’s about to say something he knows I won’t like. He never was good when it came to telling me things I didn’t want to hear.

“When I pushed you away, after … after everything that happened with the Patrons,” his voice catches, “it wasn’t because I didn’t want you.”

I go very still. That’s exactly what I thought. I know it wasn’t because of what the Patrons did, he would never look at me differently because of that. He would take the atrocities, the nightmares … to help me bear them. Back then, I truly did believe that perhaps he did tire of me.

“Then why?”

“The Ringmaster.” Tobias’s cold blue eyes meet mine. “He threatened to throw you back to them if I didn’t.”

All these years, I’d thought –

“You were protecting me,” I say, “again.” The one thing I told him time and time again not to do. He did it anyway.

He nods, swallowing hard, looking away from me. “I couldn’t tell you. He would have known. He always knows.”

I reach out before I can stop myself, my fingers grabbing his chin and turning him to me. “You’re a fucking idiot.” My thumb traces over his sharp jaw, the stubble rough where he hasn’t shaven yet.

His laugh is shaky, a deflection. “I know.”

The Carnival shifts around us, tents rippling slightly as the paths change once again. The carousel spins even though nothing seems to be powering it, the horses rising and lowering while that incessant music plays. Seriously, The Ringmaster could stop that shit when the park isn’t even open. I remember as a mortal the changing landscape confused me, but now we all just walk and focus and end up where we need to be. The newcomers get the pretty little black ribbon to help them locate … or be located … I’m still thankful that particular little bit of magic wasn’t around when I joined. But again, it’s because I tried to run off that it was decided they needed a way to track the ones marked.

“I thought of you, you know. All these years.” I look at him. This man I’ve loved and hated in equal measure. “I thought of you. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. I thought of you. Of how you taste. How you felt. How you saw me, even when I didn’t see myself. Even when I hated you. I thought about you. It’s how I kept going.”

His hand finds mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining, while the other reaches up and brushes a tear off my cheek I didn’t realize I had even let fall. He smiles evenly as my grip on his chin tightens, the emotions rolling through me are something I’m not used to. Not anymore.

“I thought of you too,” Tobias says. “Every day. Everything I’ve done since I’ve met you is for you. I’m so fucking sorry, Kenan.”

I pull him to me, his mouth crushing into mine as my tongue seeks entrance into his. He opens willingly and I find my place once again, between his lips, like the home I’ve been gone too long from. I release his chin, my hand snaking into his hair to keep him pressed against me. Tobias’s hands find my waist, seeming to not want me further from him – which is a space that doesn’t exist.

We sit under the stars, beneath our regrets and unspoken words we don’t dare speak yet for fear that once we do, this small moment in time will pass us by like sand in an hourglass, until we are both breathless and staring at each other, foreheads pressed together.

Finally, he speaks, “And now there’s her,” he says as he steps back, grabbing my hand and intertwining his fingers in mine.

“Yeah,” the word is rough. “Now there’s her.” Emerson. The woman who brought us together again, the woman who threatens us both enough that we would do anything to keep her safe. I wasn’t the only one who tried to help her escape.

“I didn’t expect this,” Tobias says, “any of it.”

“Me neither.” I squeeze his hand. “Does it bother you? What’s happening between the three of us?” That question may be a little late.

He shakes his head slowly. “No. It feels ... right. Like something clicking into place.” He sighs, “The Ringmaster will notice. He always does. He’ll notice the difference between us … with her.”

“Then we keep up the act.” A dangerous edge creeps into my voice. “We pretend we hate each other."

“As long as I know that I have you both when he isn’t watching,” he mumbles, a hesitancy in his voice. For him … for her … I know that I would do anything to keep them safe.

We stand there for a long moment, hands linked, watching the impossible geography of The Carnival shift in the darkness. Then, without speaking, we turn back toward the tent, toward Emerson.

She’s still asleep, her dark hair spread across the pillow, one arm outstretched as if reaching for something. We slide into bed on either side of her, and our bodies curve protectively around her smaller frame.