Page 66 of Flirting with Darkness

Vale had pieces of the truth. Incomplete evidence. But not enough to draw a final conclusion.

He lifted one shoulder in an almost-shrug. “I didn’t know, Lilith. I felt.”

So few words, and yet they encapsulated something I had struggled to name in those final moments. Something I understood, against all reason and logic.

“I knew that—that I would be making a mistake, in leaving you,” he said softly. “I knew it, even if I couldn’t name precisely why. So I came for you.”

And he had saved me.

My throat thickened. I swallowed, though it was difficult through the dryness of my throat.

“And what about Adcova?”

“Ah, the best part.” He smoothed my hair from my face. He’d been doing that this whole time—touching me in all these little mundane, fussing ways. Smoothing hair, adjusting my sleeve, wiping beads of sweat. It was… kind. “It seems,” he said, “that Adcova has escaped its god’s ire at last.”

I let out a rough exhale. I almost didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to hope it could be true.

“I asked my errand boy to send updates,” he went on. “There have been no new cases reported in town, or anywhere else in the area. And it seems a peculiar new drug has cured the cases that already existed.”

The pride shone in his voice. My chest hurt fiercely, a strange burning sensation. I couldn’t speak. He held my hand tight.

“It’s over, Lilith,” he said. “You saved them.”

Years. Years of my life. Countless hours in my study, countless hours of sleep stolen. Thousands of books, thousands of notes. Years-worth of pen-grip callouses on my fingers.

For this.

For…

“Mina,” I choked out.

I’d meant for it to be a real question, but I couldn’t get it out, not without breaking down.

Vale was silent for too long, making worry tighten in my stomach. He let go of my hand—somewhat reluctantly—and went to the door.

And when she appeared in the doorway, my heart cracked open.

She was bright and vivacious and full of life like I hadn’t seen her in years, as if all those layers of death she had shed in the form of dusty skin on our floors had left her a whole new person. New, and yet, the version of her I had always known.

She smiled at me through tears, a huge, sun-bright grin, and I opened my mouth to speak and let out a garbled sob.

She crossed the room in several clumsy rushed steps and threw herself against me in an embrace.

“I know,” she said, when I couldn’t speak, and neither of us said anything else.

Because for so long, I had struggled to connect with my sister. Struggled to show her the warmth beneath my cold. Struggled to let her see the love my face and words couldn’t convey to her.

I’d thought I’d die with her thinking I did not love her.

I did die, and that fear died with me.

Because here, in this moment, with me on the right side of death and her on the right side of living, lost in tearful embrace hello instead of goodbye, we met each other on level ground.

Here, we understood each other so completely, words were useless, anyway.

* * *

We did, eventually, let each other go and compose ourselves, and I did, eventually, manage to get my grip on words again.

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