Emmy was sorrier for Cyrus, but maybe that was because she wouldn’t mind punching Breckin in the face at the moment either.
“And the two of us talked,” Jade said, breaking Emmy out of that dangerous trail of thought. She hit Persephone in the arm. “About no secrets from each other.”
The mirth seeped out of the room. Persephone’s smile fell. “I don’t blame you,” she said, looking down. “If you two never want to speak to me again.”
“I already told you,” Emmy said. “I don’t care what Cyrus’s last name is, and I don’t care about yours.”
“It took me a few hours to get it out of her,” Jade said. “But apparently she lived with Rathbone a kid, before her mother took her away.”
Persephone didn’t look up; she was picking at the hem of her sleeve. “I still see him once in a while,” she said. “He’ll send a letter, and Mom’ll make me go meet him, just to not make him angry. We usually meet up in Delvynmore.”
Emmy was glad Persephone’s head was lowered so she wouldn’t see her’s and Jade’s shock. Persy was clearly very ashamed of this part of her, and Emmy could understand why. Considering how Cyrus was treated after he was outed as Rhoan’s son, she could understand why Persephone would rather have a guard follow her than tell the truth. And still Emmy trusted her with all her heart.
“Did Cyrus know?” she couldn’t help but wonder. “Who you were?”
At this Persephone did raise her head. The expression was mingled with worry and amusement. “Yeah, he knew. We played together as children. With swords, of course. I thought if I ignored him he’d leave me alone, and he did. I couldn’t believe he didn’t tell anyone.”
Although Emmy was hurt Cyrus hadn’t told her, she understood. Cyrus was strangely loyal in his own way, and if he thought it wasn’t his secret to tell, especially for an old friend, he would keep his mouth shut.
Emmy gripped Persephone’s hand. “We won’t tell anyone either,” she promised. “Your secret’s safe with us.”
Jade imitated the gesture. “Nothing has changed. Just please, don’t ever keep anything like this from us ever again.”
Jade and Emmy smiled at her, but Persephone’s shock still hadn’t dissipated. She didn’t fully believe them, Emmy realized.
An unsure smile crawled up Persephone’s face, mostly for their sake. “Okay, I promise.” Her eyes concentrated on Emmy. “That goes for all of us.”
Emmy chuckled, and the three of them took a vow. Even though this was for Persephone’s sake, Emmy felt better as well, knowing these two girls would be there for her, would love her, always. They had proven that last night. She didn’t need Breckin at all.
Breckin. She had to speak with him.
“Can you two do me a favour and get Breckin for me?”
The two of them were off the bed and promptly carrying out the request before Emmy had time to blink.
She was alone in the room again with nothing but her thoughts. Now that nobody was watching, she took out the incantation from the bodice of her dress. The yellowed vellum paper was weighty in her hands, but light as a feather compared to the words on the page. The directions were right in front of her. It would be so easy.
“Lana!”
Her head jerked up, and there he was, her sweet, perfect Breckin with dirt on his face. He stood in the doorway, still in his dress clothes from the previous night. He hadn’t gone home.
In a couple of long strides he fell into Emmy’s open arms. She dug her face into his chest, feeling his radiating warmth, the heartbeat underneath his shirt. She had nearly lost him, she reminded herself. That heartbeat she was hearing was her lifeline.
“Lana you’re so stupid!” he bellowed, slipping out of her grip. “You could have died! Do you have any idea what you did to me? You idiot!”
His eyes were wild with worry, and it only made her smile.
“I’m okay. We’re okay.”
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
“If I die you won’t be able to worry, remember?”
Trying to joke with him clearly didn’t help the situation. The pulse in his neck was back, and he had that look people got right before they got a brain haemorrhage.
“You’re crazy. You’re insane, and reckless, and you don’t think things through – yes, I’m aware of how hypocritical this sounds – but you’re also very, very brave.”
Emmy shrugged. “Some people say there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity.”
“Then you’re one of the stupidest people I know.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” she chirped, feeling a lot better now he was here.
I can handle this, she thought to herself. That dull ache was still there, but maybe she could get used to it and learn to ignore it. Surely that would be a better alternative than to not have him in her life at all. She sighed, knowing it was time to ask. If she wanted him in her life, and wanted them to be friends, she needed some distance. Emmy pulled out the incantation from her bodice for Breckin to see.
“Hey, while you’re here, there’s something I need to ask you ...”
Chapter 28
Deal
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jade asked.
Jade, Emmy and Persephone stood on the edge of the forest, all giving each other apprehensive looks. Emmy was standing in the center of a complicated assortment of signs dug into the grass that resembled a crop circle. The girls had spent several hours creating it to perfection, Jade and Persephone now a few feet away. Jade had the phonetic translation of the spell in her hand, holding it with the tips of her fingers like it was laced with poison.
“Yes,” Emmy said for the sixth time.
It had been several days since the kidnapping, and as Circlet had promised, Emmy was signed up to take her exam. She was to be in Ministrial the next day, and she wanted Breckin out of her head forever before she left.
Protestations flitted across Jade’s face, but all that came out was an ineloquent “You can’t do this!”
Emmy dug her hands into the light jacket she wore; it was a nice day, as far as nice days went in Methelwood. Her mood was another matter. “Actually, I can. It’s my body, and I’ll do what I want with it. I already asked Breckin, and he gave his consent.”
That was all she was going to say on that matter. She wasn’t going to mention the devastated expression on Breckin’s face when she proposed it, or the pain that emanated from him when he realized what she wanted was to get away from him. But of course he smiled through it and said yes because that was what Breckin did.
“This bond saved your life!” Jade said.
And ruined it. “I won’t ever need it again,” Emmy said in a harsh tone that sounded like Cyrus’s whenever he got defensive. “Ministrialians are interviewing every single family in Methelwood to make sure there aren’t any more of Thoreoux’s spies, so he’ll never be able to make another orb here. He’ll never get to me again.”
Jade threw up her hands in exasperation. “You can’t know that! There’s a reason Thoreoux and Stockwell tried so hard to break your bond – you two could be the greatest weapon we’ve ever had! If you break this bond you’ll never be able to get it back.”
“I don’t want it back. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s a curse, and Breckin is a parasite.”
Persephone, who had been silent throughout the bickering, narrowed her eyes and spoke up, “Emmy, I know why you’re doing this, and it isn’t going to work. Breaking the bond isn’t going to make you stop loving him.”
A shiver so cold passed through Emmy she was surprised her bones didn’t shatter. “You don’t know what it’s like.” She hated how fragile her voice sounded. “This bond tries to pull me towards him all the time. It’s been doing it since the day we met. Before, even.” She began to blink rapidly. “It’s like he has some gravitational pull I can’t get out of. I know what he’s doing, all the time, and whenever he feels something strongly, I feel it.” Her voice came out more offensiv
e than she had intended, “So tell me, how am I supposed to let him go if I’ve got a physical reminder constantly exhausting me? I hate it. I want to be able to leave him if I want to. I want to have a choice.”
“You won’t leave him,” Jade said with a certainty that infuriated Emmy. “And he won’t leave you either! He needs you too –”
“No, he doesn’t! Don’t you understand?” The bewildered stares indicated they didn’t. Emmy ran her fingers through her hair, not wanting to explain her epiphany in the hospital, but knowing she had to. “He’s a bit like Jesse.”
“Jesse? Your human friend?” Persephone asked.
“Yes. I didn’t ... notice it at first, but I finally realized Breckin fell for Rozelyn right after the Keeper’s Curse was performed on us. I remember right after the curse was put on me I felt this need to ... attach to somebody, and I started clinging to Jesse like my life depended on it. The difference was I was normal. I had my family and my friends so I balanced it out with this new obsession, but Breckin didn’t.”
“You’re saying he wanted Rozelyn because of the curse?”
“It happened to me, why wouldn’t it happen to him? But I didn’t need someone the way Breckin did, so my friendship with Jesse wasn’t as extreme. I didn’t even think of him romantically. Breckin on the other hand was completely alone. His sister had died and his parents had deserted him. He had no one. You don’t know Jesse, but he’s a lot like Breckin, and Breckin flat at told me once I remind him of Rozelyn. Do you get it? He bonded with Rozelyn the way he was supposed to bond with me because I wasn’t there when he needed me.”
Jade gaped at her desperately while Persephone just crossed her arms, looking disappointed. Neither of them, however, objected. Emmy continued her firm stance until finally, Jade sighed in defeat.
“I won’t do it,” she said, handing the paper to Persephone.
Persephone begrudgingly took hold of the paper, and as if everyone word was being ripped out of her, she read the incantation.
***
It was strange to lose her bond with Breckin. It wasn’t like a radio flipping through programs and suddenly finding static, but rather having the radio unplugged altogether. Nothing dramatic happened like when the soul had been put into her. She didn’t writhe on the floor or see visions. It was there, and then it wasn’t.
When it was over, Emmy asked her friends to leave, which they did obligingly. They were barely out of earshot before her back was to an oak tree and she was sobbing. It was bizarre; she had never been much of a crier, but her short stay in Methelwood had garnered more tears out of her than all the tears she had cried in the real world combined.
She slid down into the grass, crying until her eyes hurt, until her face was sticky, until she was exhausted. Like she did every once in a while, she craved the arms of her dad, and Jesse’s voice. Her mother had never been the one Emmy went to when she was miserable; it was her dad who was sensitive to her tears, who would hold her until she stopped crying because he was in as much pain as she was when she was unhappy.
Jesse’s approach would be different: he would tell her to toughen up, to stop being a girl. And because she had always put him on a pedestal, wanting to be like him, she would do it, and she would feel better.
But she would never see her father or her best friend again, so she cried some more. Where could she find a reprieve from this? She racked her brain. The equivalent to her father would probably be Jade, but all this crying would make her worry.
However, there was one person she could think of that would tell her to toughen up and stop being a girl. Someone who held the perfect balance of caring about her but knowing she could handle much more than anyone gave her credit for.
Suddenly she wanted to see Cyrus more than anything in the world.
With everything left in her she rose to her feet and surprised herself with how much strength she had. She sprinted over to a small pond to look at her reflection, which turned out to be ghastly. She yanked the hair tie out of her hair, letting her curls fall, then proceeded to wash her face in the water to get rid of the tears.
Now that she looked marginally better, she headed over to the horse she had ridden into the forest on and mounted him. Which way was the Crow mansion? A sudden urgency to see him overpowered her in a tight clutch. She spurred the horse on, pushing him into a gallop, the fastest gait, the one her teacher had not allowed her to try out yet.
The feel of the horse was exhilarating. The speed and wind on her face just made her even more excited to see Cyrus, who hadn’t visited her in the hospital. Maybe he didn’t want to see her anymore, but she had to try. The upcoming exam would keep her in Ministrial for weeks, which would give him time to wonder why he had ever cared about her in the first place, and possibly move on.
She moved so fast through the woods all she saw were blurs; she felt like the only living being in the world. At long last the trail finally ended, and there it was.
It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky, directly behind the Crow mansion, the rays framing it. Forgetting to tie up her horse, she slipped off, ran to the front entrance, and hammered her fist against the door.
She was disappointed when the door opened and revealed Brynn.
“May I help you?” he asked, sounding far too polite for a little boy.
“Is Cyrus home?”
He nodded, opening the door for her and gestured her in. “Yes, please come inside.”
She obliged, inviting herself in, looking around for her friend.
“He’s in his room,” Brynn said. “It’s on the third floor in the east wing, second door on the left.”
Emmy repeated this in her head, thanked him, and made a dash for the stairs.
“Oh, Emmy?” Brynn added. “Thank you.”
Emmy smiled at him, knowing what he meant. “Always.”
She continued her way up the staircase, keeping track of the storeys carefully, and getting more excited with each step. She made a mad rush to the east wing once she had reached the third floor. She didn’t stop to admire the intricate murals on the walls, or the cream marble statues huddled in the corners like something out of a museum. She counted the rooms, careened to the right, and finally stopped to take a breath.
When her breathing finally slowed to a somewhat normal pace, she looked around for what she wanted. His bedroom here was nothing like the one at Thoreoux’s mansion, even though the construct was similar. There was a four poster bed draped in velvet, and a matching mahogany set that consisted of a bureau, nightstand and escritoire.
The difference was the light. There were little windows, big windows, hexagonal windows, embrasured windows, and a pair of French crystal doors that led out to a small balcony. And on the ledge of that balcony, lying on his back, was Cyrus.
Emmy, with hesitant steps, made her way over to the threshold that led to the balcony. His eyes were closed, but her breathing must have done it. His eyes flew open when she reached the entryway.
She had no idea if he was happy to see her or not by the purely shocked look on his face.
Now she felt stupid, having no idea what to say to him, after running all this way. Hopefully she at least looked better; would a few minutes have given her enough time for the blotchiness to dissolve?
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?” was all she said.
“I’ve got a pretty good sense of balance. Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing here?”
“Why didn’t you come visit me in the hospital?”
“Ah, answering a question with a question. Clever.”
Being away from him a week had made Emmy forget how annoying he was. “I’ll answer yours if you answer mine.”
He didn’t move, and made no indication he would. It was amazing how comfortable he looked on the edge of the balcony, his head leaning to the right to look at her.
“I wasn’t sure you would want to see me. Technically we don’t ever have to speak again,” he said
.
“What? That’s stupid, why wouldn’t I want to see you? I thought we were friends now.”
“Friends, are we? Lovely. Look, I know I make your other friends very uncomfortable and I didn’t want to cause a stir while you were healing. Plus, I was slightly worried that if I went back the Eldoir would return the favour and punch me in the face.”
“He would never do that.” Why did defending him come as a reflex to her? “Anyway, to answer your question, he’s sort of the reason I’m here.”
“Needed some intellectual stimulation?”
“I broke the bond between us. His soul is still in me, but everything else is gone.”
The playfulness left his face. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. She knew he wasn’t sorry at all, but he was unhappy because she was unhappy, which was enough.
She began to pull on her ringlets as she did when she got nervous. “I guess I just wanted to see you. You’re kind of a jackass, but for some reason you make me feel better.” She lowered her head. “I miss you.”
She gave him a moment before raising her head again. He sighed, looking up at the sky while trying to keep his face expressionless.
“I know why you’re doing this,” he said. “And you have no idea how much I want to help you, but I can’t. For my own sanity I can’t.”
Emmy took a step closer to him. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, bugger off, you know what I mean! I can’t just be here for you because Crawford’s not around, and I don’t want to be your friend, either.”
“I can be more than your friend if you want,” she said. She was scaring herself; was she ready for this? Did she really want it? “I want you in my life, Cyrus. You’re the only one that makes it better. I can tell you things, things I can’t even tell Jade or Persy, and you listen. And I love listening to you, too. You understand me in a way no one else does. I think if we gave this a shot, you’d be the best friend I ever had.”
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