Page 59 of Truly Madly Magically

She frowns at me, clearing not understanding my meaning.

Or possibly she doesn’t want to understand me, so I keep going. “Horizontal polka? Bumping uglies? Hanky-panky?”

Elizabeth looks more and more puzzled with every ridiculous term.

“Sex, Elizabeth,” I say at last. “Did you and your husband have sex?”

I can’t magic her a bed tonight, not with my powers at such a low ebb, but she doesn’t ask. She settles herself on the little cushion that sits on the bay window, but she looks so stiff and prim I almost feel bad for teasing her.

Almost.

“What we did in private, Ellowyn Sabrina Good, is absolutely none of your business,” she says reprovingly as she gazes out into the night.

She’s right, of course, but... “You were holding hands.”

It was sweet. Kind. I feel like I have to understand what it was all about.

For reasons.

Elizabeth turns her gaze to mine, cool and dismissive. “Are you not recovering from near death? Shouldn’t you sleep, child?”

I sit cross-legged on my bed and study her. “I’m fine. The meeting is a little bit fuzzy, I grant you, but Emerson will have detailed reports upon reports. Jacob said it went well. You two did good.”

“Because you did.”

She does not say this with a kind smile or an attempt at comfort. She says it like it’s an indisputable fact. I did good. I want to say it out loud to test it, but I can’t bring myself to do it in front of her.

Besides, I’m seized with the need to find out what happened between the only other Good and Rivers union I’ve ever heard about. “Ever since you got here, you and Zachariah have sniped and argued and fought like you spent your entire marriage hating each other—before and after death. He told us what your parents did.”

She plucks at her skirt. “Yes, well.”

“I’m sorry—”

She pins me with a glare. “There is no need for you to be sorry. My grief is my own. It is not yours to carry. Besides, it has always been tempered with happiness, whether that’s clear to you during our afterlife or not.” She frowns, and I wonder if she’s having a moment like I had in the linen closet at Wilde House, finally considering how her relationship appears from the outside. If she is, she keeps that to herself and focuses on me. “I am happy for you, Ellowyn. Another Good woman in the world is always a good thing.”

“Always?”

“Always,” she says firmly. As if she has no doubt or ever could.

I want a little of that.

What I should do is curl myself around that certainty and sleep. Let my magic heal up. Recover for what’s coming, as the Undine promised. (Threatened?) I’ve never been good at should. “What happened with you and Zachariah, Elizabeth?”

She looks out the window again. She’s quiet for so long I wonder if she’ll just ignore me until I fade off into sleep, which I don’t think will take long. I can already feel that amped feeling beginning to ebb away.

Eventually she sighs, still plucking at her skirt. “Sometimes a woman, even in spirit, gets tired of being angry.”

That lands hard. I’ve held on to my anger so long. Those edges. The armor that keeps me from crumpling under the weight of it all. Because I have no idea what might happen if I let go of being mad.

Earlier this evening, what Zander told me, the way we didn’t fall into old angry habits—I know that’s a good thing.

That’s about our baby girl, though, not any real desire to mend fences.

I tell myself that in my head.

“Anger doesn’t serve you. Not really,” Elizabeth says.

“Are you sure?” I ask on a whisper. Elizabeth feels like the only safe person to ask. Because she’s got to leave sometime...doesn’t she?

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