Page 57 of Truly Madly Magically

“That leaves Jacob and Zander,” Emerson says, looking up at her fiancé.

“I’ll be staying at Wilde House,” he says in that dark, thrilling way that reminds me of the old saying, Beware the fury of a patient man. Not a question. Not up for debate. He’s sticking right next to Emerson.

It reminds me of earlier. Of the fact that they’re always a team.

“Zander can come with us, of course,” my mother says, smiling warmly at Zander. Not a real sort of warmth, mind you. This is a creepy warmth. A kind of I might kill you in your sleep warmth.

Zander’s eyes widen. “Um.”

But no one can stop the Tanith Tsunami when it gets going. “No arguments now. Everyone needs their rest. As Emerson said, you all are meant to stay in pairs as best you can.” She jerks her chin at me the way she used to do when I was a kid, and I feel myself straighten in instant obedience. “Come on now, Ellowyn. Some of us have to get up early no matter how late we stay out tonight.”

It feels weird to split up and go our separate ways, but that’s what we do. Emerson and Jacob go with Georgie, following Elspeth’s trail of Wildes. Rebekah and Frost, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, head in the opposite direction toward my tea shop.

Zander and I head toward my Mom’s house, a few streets away from the house I grew up in and much more on the bricks than we were back then. Mina takes my mother’s hand as they walk in front of us and kisses it. Then they lace their fingers together. I can only imagine the conversation they’re having privately.

“Is she going to poison me?” Zander asks in a low voice, clearly also imagining what’s being said—and threatened—where we can’t hear it.

“She doesn’t want you dead or you’d already be dead,” I assure him. Though that’s a bit of bravado talking, because I’m not sure how true it is until I say it. “If she was going to kill anyone, it would have been my father, and he’s still walking the earth.” Then I grin at him. “She might give you some really realistic nightmares though. Or find some worse ghosts to haunt you.”

“You’re an endless comfort, El.”

It’s much too tempting to let myself dissolve into how good it feels to just...walk down a dark street with him. Talking about nothing, really. We’re not fighting. We’re not maneuvering our way toward our hands on each other. He’s walking beside me. We’re not even touching.

I’m not sure I can remember feeling this safe or warm in years, and I know that’s more than a slippery slope. That’s a vertical drop encased in ice.

“Someone once told me that’s my best quality.” Sarcastically, of course.

I can’t bring myself to put space between us, but I look around the crowd as it thins all around us like I have never been more interested in anything, ever. “Where are our ghosts?”

Zander scans the crowd too, though I feel certain he knows exactly what I’m doing. And why. “If earlier is anything to go by, they’re clearly—” He stops himself. “You know.”

“Are you afraid to say sex all of a sudden?”

“With your mother in earshot? I am, Ellowyn. I really am.”

I laugh before I can stop myself, and it’s a genuine laugh. Not one of the patented snarky ones that I’ve been aiming at him like missiles for a decade. Because this isn’t ten years ago.

I know why he broke up with me now.

It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough for him, which I may or may not have believed myself—but oh, how I hated thinking that he believed it.

It’s not that it doesn’t still hurt. It does.

Regret lingers, and I have to wonder if it always will. Because we could have made such different choices. Maybe we could have tried not to take so many chunks out of each other, over and over again.

At the same time, I know we needed those years.

This baby is a gift, and because of those years, I know it.

She brought us here. To a quiet walk in the dark, side by side, making each other laugh. A little breather between terrifying events beyond our control.

So I breathe. And I walk with the bricks beneath my feet and the only boy I ever loved—turned some time ago into the only man I can’t forget—keeping perfect pace beside me.

Almost like this is meant to be.

Out of nowhere, in the way of ghosts, Elizabeth and Zachariah are walking next to us. They’re not disheveled this time.

But they are holding hands.

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