She nodded.
“What else? Out with it!”
Her eyes widened. “Out with it?”
“Yes. If it was about me, I want to know what was spoken about.”
“You think everything is about you? There’s no way Harper and I just talked and got to know each other better?”
“I know as a fact that every time Harper has something to say, it involves me,” he told her and then scowled when she rolled her eyes and giggled. “Mock me if you like but test me tomorrow. Strike up a conversation with Harper about anything other than me. See what happens.” He picked up his steps again, but not before tossing her a playfully benevolent smile. “Rest assured, I’ll forgive you for doubting me.”
He heard her blustering behind him and something down deep inside some long-forgotten chamber of his heart compelled him to throw back his head and leap toward heaven.
It will help you heal.
He almost staggered. It wasn’t an animal he heard in his head, but a memory. A memory of his grandmother’s voice. What would help him heal?
With his heart thrashing, he turned once more to look at her. Aria, like the music he loved, was helping him heal. And all at once the weight of choices he would have to make hit him squarely in the chest.
What would happen to his healing when she left? Was he going to make a choice between feeling something other than…nothing? Of walking in the light of her smiles and his own, or in the gloom of loneliness and controlled rage? Would he send her home to her family, whom she loved or selfishly keep her to himself? “She would hate me,” he whispered so low he didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until she reacted.
“Who would hate you?” she asked. “And why? What have you done?”
“I’ll get you home, Miss Darling,” he promised as they reached her bedroom door. “With or without the key.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” she pressed. “You know a way without the key? Why didn’t you tell me? Tell me the way.”
“Harper said that besides the ability to communicate with animals, I may possibly have other gifts. One of them is time-travel. But she warned me against trying.”
“Why?”
“Apparently the last Ashmore who could do it, did it wrong and was separated from his daughters for twenty years. I don’t know how to do it and I’m not sure Harper knows either. But I would find out. I would learn how to do it right, and I would send you home.”
She stared into his eyes, and he watched in wonder as something dawned on her, widening her eyes and parting her lips.
“It’s me. It’s me who you worry will hate you.”
He leaned over her and opened the door to her room. “I’m not worried, Miss Darling. I won’t keep you from your family because of some trickery of my grandmother’s. We’ll find your key tomorrow. Pleasant dreams.” He spared her a smile and hurried away before she could call him back.
He longed for the days when his heart was lost to dance, and dance alone. Now, thoughts of pirouettes, penché arabesques, and tours en l’air were replaced with images of Miss Aria Darling’s shining eyes when she blinked at him, memories of her graceful body moving across his dance hall, when she laughed and when she was busy reviling him. He thought of her and nothing else all his recent days as well as nights. Awake or asleep she plagued him.
When he reached his room and entered it, he wished someone was in the hall to lock him inside. He already missed her company. He didn’t want to be tempted to go to her.
He went to his bed, tearing off his bed coat and shirt underneath. He checked the room one more time for the key, then kicked off his boots and hose and went to stand by the glass window. He could see the moon outside, round and illuminated as a sunlit pearl.
“Grandmother, if you can somehow hear me, stop being a coward and come back. Of course,” he mumbled when he heard nothing back. “You never cared how I was. Not even on the days when I crumbled and wanted to give up was there even the slightest sign of you near me. You obviously came back to get the key to give to Miss Darling. Even then you didn’t come to see about me. So, don’t return. In the end, you were just another puppet master.”
From his window, he could see the castle turrets. Perched on the highest one, was a large black raven.
Toric.
Immediately the bird swooped down from the turret wall and flew closer, landing on another narrow perch.
Toric. Memories came flooding back of Toric, Gray’s clever protector always flying above him. When Gray found him as an abandoned fledgling, he took him home and cared for him until Toric could fly. He flew alright. Everywhere Gray went, Toric flew close by. For a long time, Toric thought Gray was his father, but even after the raven understood their friendship, he still called Gray “Father”.
Where had he been all these years while Gray chose to pretend he and the others didn’t exist?
Gray opened the window, then rushed to the other side of the bed to get his shirt against the cold.