Page 113 of A Debt of Darkness

“I can do it myself, Mia. You need to get ready too.”

She smiles and she isn’t buying it.

We’ve done this dance before, and Mia knows I want some time alone. She’ll have heard my racing heart and smelled the anxiety dripping from me. This is the same as the last time she helped me dress for an unfamiliar ceremony, except it’s completely different.

I stare at the pale pink dress hanging in my closet. It’s perfect and I dread to think how much Henry spent on it. It’s soft and elegant and the layers make me look like I’m floating when I move. Make me feel like I’m floating.

I’m anything but elegant as I twist my arms awkwardly trying to get into the dress, and Mia intervenes, securing thedress before I rip it to shreds in frustration. The door creaks as she fastens my shoes, leaving me fiddling with the dress and wondering who’s walked in.

“You’re late,” Ryan says.

He pokes his head into the closet and freezes. Mouth open. Eyes wide as they meet mine in my reflection. The paleness in his eyes floods with color and for a moment, they’re as dark as the ocean.

“We need a minute, Mia.”

She frowns and complains that Ryan’s changed his mind, suddenly deciding there’s a reason to delay. One that cannot wait. One that trumps Henry and the coven waiting for my arrival. Mia rolls her eyes as she leaves, agreeing to meet us outside the hall.

The door slams shut and Ryan exhales as his eyes dart wildly around the room, looking anywhere but at me. He shoves his hands deep into his pocket and his weight sinks as if he’s resigned to doing an odious task. Something unpleasant. Something that’s going to hurt.

“Ivy, Henry and I…” He tips his head back and stares at the ceiling, praying for salvation. “We’re close because we were turned together. By the same sire on a battlefield when he led the Roman army for Aurelius and I led the Gauls. In the thousands of years we’ve known each other, he’s saved me more times than I can count.”

I nod and wait, uncertain where the hell this is going.

“I know you didn’t want to be here,” he says, edging forward. “We all knew. But I didn’t understand it. Not until…”

His eyes meet mine and they’re wild with emotion. He’s torn and this is killing him. Ryan’s teetering on the verge of madness, and it won’t take much for him to fall into its troubling waters.

And I don’t understand what’s wrong.

“I know, Ivy,” he says in a terrifyingly calm tone of voice. “You didn’t mean to share it, but you did. I know all the hate and anger and pain of all of it. Of everything Henry did.”

I nod and he turns away.

“Of what we did.”

I recognize the emotion far too late to save him from it, and Ryan’s carried this burden silently. Alone. And I understand both the shame and loneliness he’s experiencing. The fear too. I’ve been wary while he’s been distant, and until the night we saved each other, barely a kind word passed between us. Now, he’s struggling to find a way to tell me what he knows and I don’t know what to say.

“If you don’t want this,” he says, pausing too deliberately for comfort. “If you’re not ready, Ivy, then so help me I will stop this. Henry isn’t always right and if this is wrong, you need to tell me now.”

I stare at my reflection, looking at a girl who seems so small. So fragile. So strong and determined. My fingers play with the delicate fabric, and I can’t ignore the thoughts whirling through my head. She stares back at me and she’s beautiful. She’s wearing the wedding dress I’d have picked if I’d been given the choice, and she looks like she’s ready. For everything she hoped and dreamed, now it’s finally here.

She isn’t a stranger, even if I don’t recognize myself like this. I’m not the person I was when I arrived here, but then, neither is Henry. We’ve changed each other and what was once the opposite of everything I wanted is now the thing I can’t breathe without.

Henry and I get this moment again—in a way that’s entirely different from how I’d dreamed it would be—and this ceremony is a chance to ease the pain of everything that passed before.

Nothing will undo it.

Nothing will erase it.

Not entirely.

It’s a part of our story and we can’t change, even though both of us wish things had been different. The choice we’re left with is clinging on to the pain and letting it rule us or accepting it and letting it go.

“I’m okay, Ryan.”

“I mean it, Ivy. I’ll never betray Henry, but if you don’t want this, I will stop it.” He steps forward and grabs my arm. “If this isn’t right for you, then it isn’t right at all.”

The girl staring back at me smiles and her eyes brighten, sharpening a little before she turns and I lose her. Ryan stares at me, looking for me to give him an answer. He needs certainty and he isn’t the only one.

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