Page 191 of Alchemised
A shiver ran down her spine.
“I guess you’re all right,” she said, her fingers brushing against his skin.
He inhaled unsteadily, and she felt the shudder under her palm. His hand was still over hers, but he wasn’t holding it in place any longer.
She looked up and realised she found him handsome.
Before, he’d been too young and vicious, like a newly hatched viper striking at anything that moved. Then gaunt and dying and perpetually furious looking.
Now there was something still about him. His features had filled out. The threads of silver-white in his dark hair made him look even older than she was.
The coldness she associated with him had become a distant memory; his skin was warm, and his breath where it touched her cheek was warm. Drunk and feeling his heartbeat beneath her fingers, she couldn’t remember when she’d stopped being afraid of him.
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
“I—never thought about it.”
He nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me.” He reached out and captured the loose curl behind her ear. “I remember your hair. Is it still the same?”
She flushed. He would remember that, of all things.
“Unfortunately,” she said.
“Like you, then,” he said, twisting the curl so it wrapped around his fingertip, “trapped in place, but still the same somewhere underneath.”
She stared at him, startled by the remark, and then tears welled up and streamed down her cheeks. His eyes widened.
“Gods, Marino, don’t cry,” he said hastily.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand free and scrubbing her face. “I’m just—really drunk.”
The moment vanished like mist in sunlight. She wiped her eyes several times, suddenly feeling so raw.
When she glanced up, he’d looked away, eyebrows knitting together.
She’d never seen him so casually expressive before. As they sat there, she felt as if she were finally seeing the real him. He looked so sad at first; but as she watched, an empty look of bitterness filled his eyes, darkness spreading across his face.
She reached towards him, not sure what she was doing but wanting to pull him back from wherever his thoughts were taking him. She caught his left hand in hers, and when he didn’t resist, she pressed her thumbs up across the palm until his fingers flexed and began massaging it from the wrist to the fingertips.
“Why do you do that?” he asked after a minute.
“My father used to do this for me,” she said without looking up. “He said alchemists were like surgeons, so we have to take care of our hands.”
“But why are you doing it for me?”
Her fingers stilled briefly; she stared at the lines of his palm. “My mother died when I was seven. She’d been sick for a long time. All my life actually. One day I went to wake her, and she was—cold. She’d slipped away in the night, no warning, no goodbyes. After that, I was afraid to go to sleep. I wasn’t scared of being dead, but I was worried my father or I might slip away like that and leave the other all alone. So he’d hold my hand until I fell asleep, so I’d know he was there. You looked lonely just now, so I thought …” She shook her head and let go. “I don’t know. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
She sat awkwardly fidgeting with her fingers. If she stayed much longer, the checkpoint would close and she’d be trapped outside the city overnight. As she opened her mouth to excuse herself, he spoke.
“Would you do something for me?” The question was quiet.
She looked up. His expression had relaxed again, and his hair had fallen across his forehead, softening his features.
She scanned him quickly. “What do you want?”
