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“Yeah. It sounds like it.” She bites on her bottom lip, and a hopelessness fills her eyes that tugs at my heart. I can’t let this be it. She’s right…there is something here. Something worthfighting for, at least. Even if we don’t last, at least I won’t regret the fact that I tried.
“We can return to Blackwater,” I tell her. “Get to my place and get a word out to Alora to arrange a visit again. She can set us up with Beatrix, and then we can go from there. But I want you to promise me something, Willow.” I lean forward, clasping her chin in my fingers.
“Sure. Anything.”
“I want you to promise that you won’t put all your faith into this tiny possibility. This couple who made it out of the Cold Tether? I’m sure they didn’t do it without consequence. For them to wind up in The Trench means something terrible must’ve happened. You don’t just get banished to The Trench for no reason. Sure, they may be without the Tether now and they’re together, but we don’t know what kind of hell that cost them. Whatever it is, I don’t want that for you.” I swallow. “Forus.”
She grabs my hand, tilting her head to cradle her cheek in my palm.
“I promise, but only if you promise that you’ll try everything you can to find a way. I don’t want this to kill us.” Her warm brown eyes glisten.
“It won’t kill you. I won’t let it.” I grab her hand, running my lips over her knuckles. Not a kiss, but an action that electrifies the both of us. A coolness ripples down the middle of my chest. “But if it comes down to it and you must return to your world, so be it. Even if there’s a threat to me, you must go back. Do you promise?”
She hesitates a moment, then sighs, parts her lips, and says, “I promise.”
Sixty-Seven
WILLOW
“CanI show you something before we go?” Caz takes my hand before I can give him an answer.
He opens the front door of the cabin, and it creaks on its hinges. Walking out, he rounds shrubs and bushes that need trimming, and an unattended flower bed, until he reaches a dirt path. We take the path, my hand still clasped in his, until we’re behind the cabin.
We stop in a fenced-in backyard that can’t be any bigger than 100 square feet. And though it’s dark out, the moonlight bathes all the outdoors, revealing a plush green garden. In the middle of the garden is a lopsided brown table and two chairs wrapped in vines, the nails rusting. Caz steps closer to the chairs.
Being out here was my favorite thing about this place when I was a kid.
I glance up at him as his voice whispers through my mind, and he tips his chin. The moonlight cloaks him, making his creamy skin more prominent. In the night, he reminds me of a beautiful ghost, standing tall in the darkness.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him.
He’s quiet a moment. “My mother would make me breakfast every morning, then she’d give me a book to read while she tended the garden. Then we’d have tea.” A faint smile spreads across his lips. “It was always black or apple. I hated apple tea.”
I smile. “What happened to her?”
He drops his chin, and a tightness buds in my chest, like someone has wrapped their hands around my heart and is squeezing tightly. The feeling is fleeting.
“Tell me who Warren is.” I meet his eyes, and he’s already staring down at me. I blink quickly, turning my gaze toward the forest.
“That’s not fair.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Because I asked you first.”
“I’ll tell you more about my mother eventually.”
“Swear.” I meet his eyes again.
“Swear on all of Vakeeli.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s easy for you to say. You hate Vakeeli.”
He smirks. “Not all of it.”
I laugh, then sigh. No point in hiding my past anymore. In this world, it feels like all of it can be unleashed. I can be set free from the agony of my memories and never have to take any of it back with me. That’s what this world does. It takes all the suffering, wraps it up in the wind, drags it to the sea, and washes it away, never to be felt again…or it just replaces it with a new form of torture.
“Warren is my brother,” I finally say.
