Page 68 of The Second Death of Locke
“Clearly not,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall. “You know what I am. What that means. What that makes me.” She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for three more days, possibly forever. Kier’s hand stilled, as if he could feel the self-hatred leaking through every pore. Yes, they lived—but forwhat?
“Grey.”
She opened her eyes. He sat very still in that way she could never manage—she always had to be moving. Even now, her fingers were caught in the blanket she wore, tangling in the edge. He swallowed hard, and she watched the movement of his throat. He was half the boy she knew, the boy she grew up with, modified with at least a quarter scar tissue and a new broken nose and beard, and yet… and yet he was the same. The same but different, and she could only feelan aching sadness inside of her when she thought about him growing older. She wanted to know the changes in him by heart.
“You nearly died,” he said.
“Yes.” There was no point in denying it. Even now, with every movement, she felt like she was one slip-up from the grave.
“And I…”
Grey swallowed back the lump in her throat. This was where it would come: this was where he would tell her that she had corrupted herself with that power. “Yes?”
“I can’t imagine… not having you.”
She smirked, the corner of her lip tugging up. A seed of bitterness sprouted in her stomach—she wondered if he couldn’t imagine not having her, or not having her power. “Retirement is coming soon, Captain,” she said. “You’re not sick of me yet?”
“That is absolutely not what I mean.”
She laughed, the sound aching inside of her. “I’m your power. Toomuchpower. If you lose me, you’ll never do magic again.” She didn’t know why she was saying this, why it hurt so much. She wanted to curl up here and for them to leave her alone, for her shame to consume her whole.
“You say it like that’s all it is,” he said.
She stared up at the ceiling, thick thatch and mud. “Isn’t it? No matter what we are—you’re my mage. I’m your Hand. Perhaps we were fools, all those years ago. It’s a piteous thing, to only draw from one person forever and ever, to expect that.”
He paused. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Do you really think that? Do you really thinkIthink that?”
She couldn’t be certain where all this bitterness was coming from—maybe it was from death being such a close thing, the grip of it still cold on her neck; perhaps it was the memory of Locke behind her eyes, the press of Severin’s hands in the moments before everything went dark. He’d only been fifteen when he died, still just a boy. He never grew up into anything because he tried so hard to save her, and what had she done? Killed him, just like she’d killed everyone else who ever loved her. All the power of Locke, and she’d squandered it—and for what?
Maybe it was because she knew in her heart that they could not retire to the countryside. There was no peaceful happiness in their future. She had never felt more certain of that fact, and she mourned the loss of it with a raw desperation she barely understood.
She was the heir to Locke, and she was bound to Kier, and she would drag him right down with her.
“Go away, Kier,” she said.
“Do you think,” Kier said, furious but level, “that I regret binding to you? That I regret taking you as my Hand? That I regret all of the lives we’ve taken, so that we could survive? Do you think I don’t know what it means to be yours?”
She opened her eyes, met his gaze. There was that anger again, so rare, so beautiful in vitality. She felt so lost and he was so goddam alive.
“No,” she said. She clawed for something, feeling desperately the weight of all those heartbeats silenced. She could not analyze the last part of his speech—it would be her undoing. “You have seen the worst of me. You cannot…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Kier looked at her, and she felt something open up inside of her, something that made a flood of warmth bloom in her chest, that killed that sprout of bitterness. It took her a moment to realize that the emotion was coming from him, emanating from the tether. It was that earlier feeling, that warmth, but so much stronger. So muchmore.
She remembered the press of his mouth against hers, the desperation in his kiss when she was certain they were going to die.
“Kier?”
“Grey, beloved, you absolute fool—if that was the worst of you, then you remain a saint among us.” He shook his head wonderingly. “And I have been trying to make you see me as more than your mage for six years now.”
She could not believe this. She could not understand the high color in his cheeks, the light in his eyes. He was so far away from her, the entire distance of her body, and it felt like miles. Even if she wanted to cross them, she wasn’t sure her bones would agree, so she kept her cautious distance. She needed to know that she understood, that shewasn’t scaring him into a confession he didn’t mean now that he knew what she was capable of.
“I adore you,” he said, all in a rush. “No—no. Listen. I… I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe forever. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and I can’t breathe because it’s so heavy on my chest that I… I might be holding it alone, the only thing about you I can’t be certain of. It’s agony, Grey, the not knowing.”
She could only stare at him blankly as the words clicked uselessly against her brain. She could not imagine it, him saying this to her, him thinking that she could not immediately feel the same.
Kier let out a breath. “Okay. It’s over. It’s done. I will… go.”
He stood awkwardly, that knee giving him trouble, and despite the wrongness in her spine, Grey lunged forward and caught him around the waist.
