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She sounded full of despair, and looking at it from her point of view there was no wonder. Keely had always disliked living in her family home in Northumberland, as she craved signs of life and society. This island was hardly her idea of fun. And she’d never really been one for discipline, that was certain. I’d bet if I got Ewella started on that subject she’d never shut up.
I was asking a lot of her. It was quite clear to me now. What had I been thinking?
‘Look,’ I said hesitantly, ‘this is something I’ve got to do. I haven’t got a choice. But you do.’
She frowned. ‘Meaning what?’
‘Well…’ I forced myself to go on, even though it broke my heart to even contemplate a future without her in it. ‘You could go back to Castle Clair with the others. You don’t have to put yourself through any of this. This is my fight and—’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I just want what’s best for you, Keely.’
‘You’re breaking up with me?’
‘No! Of course not! When—when all this is over, I’ll come and find you. I promise.’
‘You will not!’
I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I just stared at her in dumb misery.
‘Lowen Ericson, you really are still an idiot after all,’ she said affectionately, and threw her arms around my neck. ‘How could you ever think I’d let you face any of this on your own? I’m going to be by your side every step of the way. You just try and stop me.’
‘But you don’t like the island,’ I mumbled. ‘And you don’t like bootcamps either.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s absolutely true,’ she admitted. ‘Tough, isn’t it? Look, Lowen, I may not like this, and I may be furious with you for not discussing this with me first, but you’re right. The time’s come. I know it, deep down. You need some time to train, and for that you need your magic.’
‘It’s going to be tough,’ I warned her, while a little voice in my head asked me what I thought I was doing, and did I want to put her off or something?
‘I know it is. It’s going to be a nightmare.’ She shrugged. ‘The way I see it, you can’t be training twenty-four hours a day, and when the working day’s through it will be my job to make sure you switch off and have a bit of fun.’
She waggled her eyebrows suggestively and I laughed.
‘Oh, you do, do you?’
‘I definitely do.’
‘I suppose,’ I said doubtfully, ‘there’s no way we could start some of that training now, is there?’
She kissed me. ‘Close the door and I’ll see what I can do.’
I closed the bedroom door after retrieving the alarm clock from the landing.
‘Sorry about that,’ Keely said, as I set it back on our bedside table. ‘You do know I wasn’t aiming for you, don’t you?’
‘I know,’ I said, smiling. ‘If you had been there’d be no way you’d have missed.’
I put my arms around her, and we lay back on the bed, lost for a few blissful moments in a world of kisses and love and all good things, where no horrible thoughts could intrude.
‘I love you, Lowen,’ she whispered. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’
‘I know. And I love you.’
‘And Wulfram?’
I closed my eyes briefly. So much for putting the future out of our minds.
‘I’ll still be me, Keely.’
