“Mary?” Julian says. “Yes. She did.”
I become hyperaware of my breath, the inhale and exhale that is supposed to be automatic now requiring an intention it didn’t before. Outside, the wind rustles through naked trees, and the old bones of the house shift and groan.
I’m so glad that he found you, Rose had said. I hear the rest of her words now, the ones left unspoken because of the man who drove a knife into her back.
Someone worth dying for.
Twenty-Nine
I am back in the Ulrich Art Corridor again, except this time I’m alone. I stand in front of Rose’s egg, and every crack against the shell rings like a gunshot. When it finally shatters and the imp hobbles out, its eyes are intelligent. They fix on me, wet and wide with what seems like hope. I understand, implicitly, that what it desires is acceptance. It holds out a gnarled hand for me to take.
I reach for it back.
The instant we touch, I’m struck by a feeling like an electric shock: hot, piercing, then painful beyond measure. I reach for my side; my fingers come away sticky.
Eric stands behind me. He looks the same as he did when we first met years ago, but he’s somehow less handsome than I remember. I wonder, deliriously, if his nose has always been slightly off-center, if the hazel eyes I’d once found enchanting had always been so lacking in light and dimension. He drives the knife deeper, and I gasp against the spike of pain. When I look back up again, he’s gone, and Leila stands in his place. When she smiles, her teeth are stained with blood.
“Found you,” she sings.
A hand encloses mine, then and yanks me backward, and I fallinto a firm chest. Instantly the howling in my ears quiets, and the pain eases. The air shifts, no longer clinical and cold but warm and laden with lavender.
“Shhh,” Julian whispers, squeezing me close. “You’re okay. I got you, okay? No one will ever hurt you again as long as I’m here.”
I wake up sobbing and alone. Outside the wind is howling: a blizzard blowing through. I push aside my tear-stained pillow, and my hand jumps to my side, but there is no wound and no pain.
It was only a dream, although I’m not sure if this was one of my own making or a warning projected to me. What I do know, without a doubt, is that Julian pulled me out of it.
I don’t think. I tear off my bonnet, whip the sheets off, and step out into the cool air. Ritika is sleeping in the room upstairs, but Julian took the master, and I plod across the cottage, through the living room, and knock on his door.
As expected, he’s awake.
“Sean?” he calls out.
I shove open his bedroom door as he rolls to turn on his bedside lamp. I know I must be a sight, tear tracks staining my cheeks, one strap of my nightgown hanging off my shoulder.
Julian, on the other hand, is a marvel. He always has been, even now, with exhaustion weighing his features. I’ve seen the signs of what he wants with me. The grays that have begun to speckle his temples again, the subtle chiseling of his already sculptural features. They’d disappeared after our first night together, but in just a few short months, they’re back. They make him so much more beautiful, and I’m tired of pretending not to notice.
I walk purposefully to him and sit down on his bed close to him. His hands curl into fists around his blankets, and I wonder if he’s resisting the urge to hold me as he did in my dream.
“I have more questions,” I tell him. “And I want the truth, Jules. Will you give that to me? Please?”
It’s the first time I’ve called him that since he left me, and he leans toward me, giving me his undivided attention.
“Yes, of course,” he whispers. “Always.”
I take a deep breath, willing myself not to falter.
“I dreamt of you, the day you left.” I hold his gaze, not wanting to miss even the smallest tell. “Were you really there? Or did I just make you up?”
In the dim bedroom light, his eyes shine.
“I was there,” he says.
His confirmation makes my chest tight.
“Everything you said,” I manage, fighting for air. “Did you mean it?”
I’m trembling. Julian swallows, and then he’s cradling my face with a hand. Aside from when he hauled me out of the Corridor, it’s the first time we’ve touched in weeks, and I almost startle at his warmth.