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My heart calmed down, the pain replaced by something new: a strange sort of gentle tugging, like I was the needle in a compass. The more I thought about the people I loved-especially Lend-the stronger it got. I wanted him. I wanted to be with him more than anything in the whole world.
I stood, too scared to think about what I was doing, too scared to hope. I followed the sensation, thinking of Lend. What it felt like to hold his hand. Watching him draw. Those precious times when he got to be nothing but himself around me. The way he laughed. The look he got in his eyes when he was about to say something he knew was clever. The way he looked at me while I talked, like I was all he had ever wanted in the entire world.
I closed my eyes, walking forward with my good hand up, smiling as I followed this feeling. I held on to my image of Lend, surrounded by Arianna, Raquel, and David. That image felt like a place, felt like what I'd always imagined home would feel like. The dead air in front of me stirred, solidified, and I tripped and tumbled out of the darkness and straight into Lend.
My Lend.
And then he was holding me, and I was crying, and Raquel and David and Arianna were there, too. Lend stroked my hair, repeating the same thing over and over.
"It's okay, you're home. You're home. "
And for the first time in my life, I knew it was true.
Chapter Forty-Two
Meet Me in the Middle
Honestly, you little brat," Arianna said, carefully putting the finishing touches on my splint, "if I'd known you were going to be so high maintenance, I wouldn't have agreed to be your roommate. "
I smiled, my teeth gritted against the pain. "I love you, too, Ar. "
"And you're an idiot, by the way. If you had let me talk to you, I would have explained that I took the liberty of putting together applications for you to American University and George Washington University, both of which are a quick train trip away from Georgetown. "
"You-what?"
"And if those don't work out, I'm more than willing to use my vampire tricks on an admissions officer. Just because I can't have a life doesn't mean I'm going to let you be so stupid about yours. You can thank me later. "
I stared, shocked. I didn't know what to say. I'd been so set on Georgetown, I'd never been willing to think of other options. I was beyond touched that Arianna had been watching out for me like that.
Of course, being close to Lend might not matter anymore.
"Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital right now?" Raquel's eyes were still tight with worry. She'd come immediately to David's house when Jack told her I was gone. They sat now, shoulder to shoulder.
"It can wait until tomorrow. "
Raquel heaved a why must you be so stubborn sigh, then shook her head. "I can't believe it about Jack. We'll be on the lookout for him; if we catch him, the iron cells will hold him. The little demon can't make doors there. Speaking of which, I'm still not sure how you got out of the Paths alone. "
"I don't know. Reth and Jack both said you had to have a sense of the place you wanted to go, have a connection to it. For Reth it was names; for Jack it was seeing it before. For me it was-" I blushed, looking over at Lend, who sat next to me, but not touching-me-next-to-me. "Well, it was you. All of you. Once I focused on memories of you, I sort of felt my way here. "
Arianna looked confused. Admittedly they had a lot to take in, between the whole Jack-is-a-psychopath-who-wanted-me-to-destroy-a-species thing, and also the turns-out-I'm-less-human-than-we-thought thing. Lend stayed silent the whole time, which made me increasingly nervous. Was he going to be awkward around me now? I still loved him, I always would, and I'd do whatever he wanted with our relationship, but this whole not-touching-not-talking thing was gonna have to end.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't quite ready to let him go.
Okay, I'd probably never be ready to let him go.
Arianna frowned. "But when you were stuck in the Paths, why didn't you call that one faerie, your father? Didn't Reth tell you his name?"
My jaw dropped. "Bleep. Wow. It didn't even cross my mind. " I couldn't believe how stupid I was, ready to rot and die on the paths when I knew a faerie name other than homicidal Fehl's. But that meant something, too. When it came down to it, I didn't even think of my "father" or where I came from. I thought of the people I had, the people who meant something to me.
So that whole faerie parentage thing? Screw it. Knowing where I came from didn't change who I was. My stupid father could rot in the Faerie Realms for the rest of eternity. He was nothing to me.
And I most definitely wasnot nothing.
Too bad I couldn't have figured that out before destroying my relationship with the love of my life. I had messed everything up, so fixated on trying to create my ideal of a life and so paranoid about losing Lend and being hurt that I sabotaged myself. I looked over at Lend, wishing he'd do something, say something.
As if in answer, he stood and held out his hand. "Can we go for a walk?"
"Sure!" I let him help me up, unsure whether or not I could keep holding his hand. But he didn't let go as he led me outside and down the path toward the pond. He stopped abruptly halfway there.
