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Why couldn’t Gabi have read it when her mum gave it to her, and erased that pain all those years later? She could have accepted her brother, learned to think of him as a sibling, not a cousin. She could have gotten over it, and it might not have taken her ten years to speak to him again.
Instead, Gabi had waited too long, and when she’d read it … she ran to Peregrine’s tent and exploded. And he hadn’t denied it, not their relationship, not the eight years of lying and secrets, the complete and utter betrayal that ripped into Gabi’s soul, barely healed after her mother’s death, and obliterated what was left of it.
It still hurt. Ten years after she’d found out about his lies, the scope of the secret between them, it still hurt. Maybe more so now. She was capable of bigger pains and larger grudges now she was twenty four instead of fourteen. Then, she’d turned her back on Peregrine, not visiting him at the elven community, staying instead in her box room in the house her dad had moved into when living at her mother’s tent had been too painful. She had never been gladder for the brick and mortar house.
A week after she left, Peregrine had sent the first letter. Full of apologies and a desperate plea to talk to him. Gabi had ripped it into pieces. She hadn’t read any of the others, even though they came, four or five a year, even now. But she’d kept his number in her phone, and when her dad had texted her Peregrine’s new numbers when he changed phones, Gabi had saved those too. She wouldn’t let herself question that. He’d hurt her more than she’d ever imagined she could be hurt. Because he wasn’t just her cousin but her brother.
Gabi blinked and realised she was crying. But this was better than thinking about Joy never waking up. In a scratchy voice she said, “You carried me out of that building?”
A heavy moment settled between them and then Peregrine said, “I couldn’t leave you down there, could I?”
She shrugged. “You could have.”
“Joy would have killed me.”
Gabi laughed against her own wishes. The idea of Joy, sweet and kind and generally harmless, killing Peregrine, tall and clever and trained for years as an elven warrior, was laughable. Still, Gabi wouldn’t have put it past her, not with someone she cared about in danger. She nodded.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked and Gabi knew he wasn’t apologising for anything that had happened in Town Hall. She wouldn’t look at him, didn’t dare. But his expression must be wretched if he sounded like that. She twisted her fingers together, her eyes on the street outside.
She took a breath and held it until she was steady enough to ask, “Why?”
He released a long breath. “At first? You were just a kid, and it felt weird. You didn’t feel like my sister, not like any of my brothers … so I thought itcouldn’tbe true. And you were grieving. You didn’t need anything else to deal with.”
“And later?” Her eyes would not move from the street outside, her courage spent in the attack three days ago.
She heard the rustle of cotton as he shrugged. “You were my best friend. I thought if I told you, it’d push you away.”
Gabi laughed bitterly.
“I know. I did that anyway by not telling you. I know that.”
Gabi nodded, was silent for a while. Then she made herself say it, because it needed to be said and he deserved to hear it. “I’m sorry, too. Back there … when I knew you were hurt, I thought you were dying. I thought you’d die thinking I hate you.” She had to stop, to choke down the tears until she could get the rest out. “I don’t. I don’t think I ever did. I’m just… Ithurts, Peregrine, that you lied to me for so long. It will always hurt. But I don’t hate you, and I’m grateful for you coming with us into Town Hall, and what you did, getting me out and healing Joy. The nurses said you saved her life.”
“My healing is shit,” he said with a broken laugh. “I doubt I saved her.”
Gabi shrugged, because his healinghadalways been shit. Elves specialised in environmental magic, manipulating their surroundings, but back when there’d been more of them—almost two hundred times their current numbers—there had been more kinds of magic, healing among them. Every few generations, a random magic popped up, like it must have done in Peregrine’s dad, the old head healer. Gabi hunched over herself; she didn’t want to think about that. All roads led back to her mum, who had kept this secret from Gabi and who Gabi wasn’t sure she could forgive.
To drag herself from her darkening thoughts she said, “Thank you anyway,” and dared to look at him. Relief beat at her when she found his eyes not on her but on the door to her bedroom.
She jolted when his eyes shot to hers and he said, “Joy’s awake.”
Peregrine’s awareness of his environment had always been clearer and stronger than hers; she didn’t bother asking if he was sure. She stumbled to her feet, raced across the living room to her bedroom door, and all her breath escaped in relief when Joy croaked, “Gabi?”
Gabi pushed inside, tense and shivery with nerves, but Joy was squinting at the plain blue lamp shade above her; it matched the plain blueness of the rest of the room. Her hair, bubble-gum pink, and the delicate pastels of the crystal ring around her were the only bursts of colour in the room.
Joy said, “I thought you’d have redecorated,” and Gabi startled when a laugh tore out of her, a sob trapped inside the sound. Her throat squashed with emotion, her eyes filling with tears. Joy—she was still Joy. She looked the same, sounded the same, wore the same downward quirk of a smile.
Gabi crossed the room in long strides, lowered herself to the bed, and drew Joy into a hug that was probably too tight considering she’d been healing for days. Joy leaned her head on Gabi’s shoulder and sighed. And Gabi felt like she had downstairs, with Salma fussing. Everything would be okay—now Joy was awake, Gabi could handle whatever was thrown at her next.
As long as the future didn’t contain gruesome murders, psychotic witches, a whole town turned against them, and invincible evil … everything would be okay.
* * *
