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I frowned, my heart throbbing for him, asking him for more with my look.
“My father wasn’t the only one who died that day,” he said. “I did too. So did Mother and Sai. So did Stepan and Arseny, Alyona, Taisiya, and Vera. What we were died along with my father that day. We didn’t know it then, we couldn’t have known it, but everything we were ended with his life.
“We all kept going,” he went on, “but it wasn’t the same. None of us are the same now.”
He was silent again for a long moment, staring at the grass beside us this time. I could feel his thoughts just on the other side of his lips, though. All I had to do was wait.
I didn’t wait long.
“It was the same for you, wasn’t it.” He brushed his hand over the side of my face. “Yuri wasn’t the only one that died that day, you died too.”
I sucked in a breath as his words pierced right to my soul. “Yes,” I whispered. “I was someone completely different afterwards.”
Jace smiled, full of love and exhaustion. “Not completely,” he said. “You’re still my Genny.”
“I’ll always be your Genny,” I said, leaning into him a bit. “And you’ll always be my Jace.”
“Always,” he echoed.
After that, it seemed like it was Jace’s turn to lose his words. I felt despair wash through him, felt how lost he suddenly was.
“I think it happens to all of us,” I said softly. “I think we all reach a point where the promises and peace of childhood die and we become someone else. I think Sebald feels like that right now too. And Peter. I think that’s why Peter has been so upset. It’s hard. It’s so hard when we have to let go of who we used to be.”
Jace’s gaze returned to me, and for a moment, the tears were back in his eyes. “Yes, it is,” he whispered.
“We’re not alone, though,” I continued, laying both of my palms flat against his chest and feeling the fast thud of his heart. “The family that brought us into the world is gone, but we have each other now.”
“We do,” Jace said, his voice nearly cracking. He rested his hands over mine.
“And Magnus, Peter, and Neil are our family too now, whether you like it or not.”
Jace laughed, then sucked in a breath when his laughter almost turned into a sob. “God help me, but I do like it, like them. So much.”
“And Nadia is family also,” I went on. “We lose people, but we gain them too. It isn’t all about loss.”
“I guess not.” Jace smiled, blinking away his urge to cry.
“You spent eighteen years with your father and mother and your brother and sisters,” I went on, clasping his face again. “Now you get to spend the next sixty or seventy with me.”
Jace’s expression lit with a new kind of happiness and affection. He even laughed. “You think we’re going to live to see our eighties? That we’ll be old men together?”
“I do,” I said. “Because no matter what happens next, whether we end up struggling to feed ourselves for the next few years, or whether our alliances break down, or even whether the Old Realm decides to send an army to take back the frontier, I know we’ll be together, and I know we’ll get through it.”
“I don’t want to live through a war,” Jace said, fear suddenly pinching his features. “I don’t want to see anymore killing or dying. I’ve had enough of it to last the rest of my life.”
It was my turn to smile and almost laugh. “You and Magnus are so much more alike than you want to hear about,” I said.
Jace made a face that took the years off him. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
I let myself laugh in earnest. “You like Magnus, admire him, even. You can pretend you don’t to anyone else, but I know you esteem him more highly than anyone else.”
“That’s because he lets me hurt and fuck Peter again,” Jace said, trying to wriggle away from his emotions.
“Ha ha,” I teased him in a flat voice. “That has nothing to do with it, and you know it.”
“I know,” he said with a sly grin. “But I do like playing with Peter.”
“And I like watching the two of you play. Neil does too, even though it makes him anxious.”
