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But I share other stories—less dangerous ones. I read stories of heroes who don’t wear faces I know. Stories captured by people long since dead. I slide into books and lose myself in pages.
“Read more,” Sebrina begs as I shut the worn book. She could listen to stories all night.
“You have to sleep sometime, little night owl.”
Sebrina makes a hooting noise and I grin at her, brushing her hair back and giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. We’re settling into this quiet life at a rate I wouldn’t have thought possible. It has its difficulties, but given the choice between tilling soil to plant food or facing the Guild, I’ll gladly choose this life.
“Ad, when will Jost be better?” she asks me, and my heart skips a beat. She still doesn’t call him Dad. I wish she would.
“I’m already stronger,” Jost calls from the doorway, leaning against its frame.
“You two will have your own home soon,” I tell her, “because your dad is healthier every day.”
Sebrina screws up her face. “I like living with you. Don’t you like living with Adelice?” she asks him.
There’s a pained pause.
“Yes, I love it, but she might want her own space,” he says.
“Do you want us to leave?” Sebrina’s eyes are wide and bright. I think they look more like Erik’s eyes than Jost’s, and I shake my head.
“I want you to stay as long as you like.”
I pull the covers up to her chin and tuck them tightly around her like a cocoon. Then I sing my mother’s lullaby, aware that Jost is still here. I close the door softly behind me when Sebrina’s breathing slows into a rhythmic snore.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jost says when I step into the living room.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I tell him, moving past him to sit down.
“She’s getting attached to you.”
“And you don’t like that?” I ask him.
“No, I do.” He dares a glance at me. There is a mournful sadness in his eyes. “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Adelice. You aren’t the one who’s responsible for her.”
“A lot has changed, Jost,” I say.
But we don’t talk about the gulf between us or the loss we’ve endured. There can be no moving forward for Jost and me. The past has left a wound in both of us that can never heal. We both know that.
And yet, things have changed. Jost has changed. He’s quick with his smile and silly with his jokes. But the fire has gone out of his eyes. He’s no longer consumed by guilt and duty. Now a calm wisdom reflects from them. Perhaps he’s more like Erik than I realized. Maybe he needed Sebrina around to show me. But there’s something else. Something I don’t let myself think about even though it niggles into my dreams and lodges in my unconscious mind, playing tricks on me during the waking hours when I catch Jost looking at me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks. He stretches out his hand and runs a finger along the outline of my techprint. The scarred skin tingles and something pushes against my mind—a thought I refuse to acknowledge even as it trembles through me.
I draw my hand away. “Ghosts.”
Our eyes meet and a chill creeps up my neck.
“No ghosts,” he says, extending his hand again. “Dance with me?”
“There’s no music.”
“I know,” he says.
I take his hand, curiosity getting the better of me and something shivers through me at his touch. A familiarity. An instinct. I stare into his calm blue eyes and swallow the question that wanders onto my lips as he leads me into a sweeping waltz. He meets my gaze and I know him.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
THE END
