Chapter 15

Rosabel La Rouge

My whole life flashed before my eyes, but it was different than when it did while I was in the Iris Roe. It was different because I’d had no hope then—none. It was different because it was just me who could end up dead, not Taland.

No way in hell.

Out of all the times my life had been threatened, I had never been certain that I wasn’t going to die—except now. There was simply no way I’d allow these guards to kill me tonight—fuck that. I’d survived Madeline all these years, and betraying Taland, and him being in prison; I survived the Iris Roe, the game and the players, and I survived the Council, too.

These guards did not get to kill me after everything.

“What do we have here?” the one on the right asked, his wide eyes moving from me to Taland slowly.

Then he smiled. The corner of his lips turned up just a bit.

“Agent La Rouge,” said the other in the middle, older, bigger, a guy I’d seen before around the building but had no idea what his name was. “What’s the meaning of this?”

I swallowed hard. “I?—”

“I suppose the IDD does only hire for muscle, not brains,” Taland cut me off. “It’s quite obvious what the agent is doing—she captured me trying to steal from you lot. Too bad for me, right?”

He was grinning ear to ear, but the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, it didn’t fool me.

Taland was nervous and I could tell that just as clearly as I knew that these guards were seconds away from calling for backup, if they hadn’t already.

My stomach fell.

The guard in the middle said, “Please step aside, agent,” and he took a small step forward, one hand holding a gun, the other wrapped around the bones of his necklace—he was Whitefire, while his friends were both Bluefires.

I turned to Taland, and I could have sworn that everything was moving in slow motion—when he met my eyes, the way he blinked fast, too fast, and that’s how I knew that he was trying to signal me. When my thoughts, chaotic and messy, became silent all at once. When my fear, the reason why my life had flashed by me just now, resurfaced again and took on the shape of my grandmother’s face. The woman who’d raised me, who was supposed to take care of me. The woman I’d done all of this for, in a way—had taken Hill’s offer because I wanted to escape her, had agreed to work for the IDD and had spent most of my time at the training academy and at work just to be away from her, had kept my mouth shut and had won an impossible game because of her.

And my fear whispered in my ear that she would find out about this and she would be furious and she would take her revenge, would hurt me, would make sure I suffered.

Funny thing, though—I suffered so much more when I chose to act based on my fear of her.

Even funnier was the fact that I’d had to endure putting Taland in the Tomb and waking up every day knowing he was in there, thinking I was never going to see him again. I hadn’t once gone to visit because I’d been afraid of what she’d do when she found out. Even now, my very first instinct was that —move away from Taland, pretend I had caught him stealing, just like he said, and Madeline wouldn’t have to be pissed off. She wouldn’t have to punish me or hurt me or kill me—she would be pleased with me instead.

Do what Taland said and pretend, a part of me said.

And the guards said so, too—again, they told me to step aside, and again, Taland kept blinking his eyes like that, his smile faltering because I was refusing to move away. I was refusing to betray him a second time. I was refusing to sit back and do nothing, watch them take him away again, just so I’d be out here and safe from my grandmother’s wrath.

No.

In a split second I had the epiphany of my life, something that had been so painfully obvious to me every second of every day, but I’d been too afraid to even acknowledge it.

No. I was not going to sit by and watch them take Taland away because I would rather be on the run with him, living underground or on a mountain or in the ocean than be here living this life. This life that was no life at all. I didn’t care about being an agent or the good guy or a fugitive wanted by the IDD. Fuck them and fuck Madeline and fuck everything .

I winked at Taland.

He swallowed hard. I could see his Adam’s apple clearly before I turned to the guards.

“Of course,” I said, fingers on my temples. “He just hit me with a confusion spell back there, fellas. Sorry if I’m a little slow just now, but no need to panic. I’ve got everything under control. I’ll take it from here.”

The guards looked at me. At each other. At Taland, then back again.

“We’ll have backup ready to pick him up on the other side,” said the one in the middle, except he wasn’t moving, like his body didn’t quite believe what I just said, even if his mind did. Or wanted to.

I knew the feeling well.

“No need,” I said. “I have his feather—he can’t use magic, and he has no weapons on him.”

Will they believe me?

The answer was no. No, they would not, and could you blame them? We’d walked out of there, Taland and I, side by side, and maybe they even saw our hands were linked before we let go.

I couldn’t blame them, but I could start calling for a spell to ruin anything electronic they had on their person, so that I would be done by the time they turned their weapons toward me, and thought to speak in their small microphones.

That’s exactly what I did.

“ Move!” said the guard in the middle, eyes wide and skin pale because he knew it was too late. Even before he pressed on the microphone attached to his uniform right there on his chest, he knew it would be useless.

Redfire magic shot from my hand to his face as he screamed, “ Code Red, Code Red, the Vault has been breached!”

I was tempted to spell it out for him— don’t bother, it won’t work . His tasers wouldn’t work. His phone wouldn’t work, either—only his magic.

Everything turned chaotic so fast, but half my mind was on the pain that third-degree spell had left me with, like someone had poured hot lava all over my arm, and I was still burning from the inside. My bones were fucking melting, if this pain was to be trusted.

And that’s why I was still holding my arm instinctively while the guards shouted and guns fired and magic—Blackfire, wild and powerful—slammed against them like it was a concrete fist to their faces.

Two fell down, while the one on the right remained on his feet, and he was shooting his gun, but his bullets couldn’t reach us—Taland had already called up a shield. There was no time to even be glad that he hadn’t died, that I’d seen his magic with my own eyes, and it worked. There was only time to run, while the Bluefire guard chanted his spell and waved his wand at me.

I slammed onto him with a scream and took him to the ground while the other two were already trying to get to their feet. Taland was on them, black flames on his hands, teeth gritted as his magic came out of him.

The guard underneath me knew how to fight just fine. He was trained by the IDD, but I’d spent a lot more time fighting than he had, so when I slammed my forehead to his nose, he couldn’t move away in time. And when he moved his body to the side to get me off, I was already rolling on the ground while I whispered a spell to knock him out—the most powerful one I knew because I wasn’t taking any chances, even though it was going to hurt.

My back hit the wall just as the spell finished. Another scream left me, this one extra painful, while the magic tore itself from me and shot forward, slamming onto the guard just as he made it to his knees. He fell to the ground again with his eyes closed, breathing slowly.

He was not going to wake up anytime soon.

Spells like this one were supposed to be used against animals or very dangerous people who were trying to kill you because you never really knew how the magic would affect the brain once it took hold of it. But this guy would have definitely killed me if given the chance, and I simply couldn’t afford to call a less powerful spell and have him waking up thirty seconds later. It was better than putting a bullet between his eyes, anyway.

“You shouldn’t have done that, sweetness.”

I held onto the wall behind me to make it to my feet, blinking fast to clear out that cloud of guilt in my mind, to push the feeling down with all my strength. And Taland was just a few feet away, hands on his knees as he breathed in deeply, while the other two guards were on the floor—both unconscious, too. Not dead, but the first one was bleeding on his chest. The wound looked deep.

Meanwhile the guard Taland had bribed was still out of it, right there by the wall. Who knew what they’d hit him with?

Taland looked okay.

“You really, really?—”

I didn’t give him the chance to finish speaking. I ran and basically jumped him, hugged him like I used to before, with my whole being. Hugged him like I wanted him inside my skin. Hugged him like I never wanted to let go.

His arms wrapped around me, too. He lowered his chin onto my shoulder, and he sighed, then whispered, “They saw you, Rosabel. They will testify. I have to kill them.”

This guy.

“No, you won’t.” We were not going to kill anybody because we didn’t have to.

“They saw you,” Taland insisted, not smiling for a change when he pulled back to look at me. “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have let them take me. You should?—”

“Is it just me or are you in a talking mood tonight?” I said.

He was legit shocked.

“That’s better. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to put on one of the guards’ hats on your head, and a pair of cuffs around your wrists, and you’re going keep your head down and not look anyone in the eye. I have a car in the garage—you’re going to get in the trunk, and we’re going to drive out of here. Understood?”

My grandmother’s car—oh, how I was thankful that I hadn’t yet taken it back to the mansion since that first day I came back to work. How I was thankful that I’d been too lazy to bother.

“Oh, I understand plenty,” Taland said, grabbing my chin in his hand. “But do you ?”

I gave him a peck on the lips. “Move . ”

He did. I grabbed the hat that was more like a ski mask from the guard I’d knocked out and put it on Taland. It did a great job hiding his messy hair and his jaws and his neck. Next, he grabbed the cuffs of that same guard from his holster, put the key in his pocket, and the cuffs around his wrists. If he kept his head down like that, nobody was going to know it was him. Goddess, please don’t let anybody recognize him…

“Do you…you know, look like you ?” I asked and he smiled.

“I do.”

“But what about that illusion you wore in the Iris Roe?” He’d looked like a completely different person in the game, and even the cameras had fallen prey to his magic.

“That doesn’t work in here, I’m afraid. Only outside,” Taland said, and I flinched. Of course, his illusion magic wouldn’t work in Headquarters. The wards stripped everyone of any spell that wasn’t cleared when entering here.

“And you’re sure nobody saw you?” I asked because now that we were almost to the doors that led out of the maze of corridors, I was starting to get nervous. Spells kept popping in my head—my mind trying to prepare itself for when they caught us.

They won’t, I thought, trying to calm myself down. Nobody will catch us.

“I am,” he said. “Is somebody going to search you?”

“No,” I said, and I sounded very sure. More sure than I felt. “Just keep your head down.”

“If they see us, you will say I forced you to take me out.”

Again, “No.” No way in any hell— no . I would not betray Taland again, not for anything.

Because that first time, I couldn’t fight alongside him. Neither of us could, not with our bodies or with weapons or with magic.

Now, it was different. Now, I was ready to kill for him without hesitation, goddess help me. Whatever that made me, I was ready for it. I could fight. I could do magic. I wasn’t going to spare any expense.

“Sweetness, think about this. Your reputation, your freedom, your whole life?—”

Is you, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. So I said, “Let me worry about it, Taland. We’re getting out of here one way or another.”

“Then just tell me you’ll say I made you.” We stopped in front of the doors and I looked back at the corridor, half expecting the guards to be running after us, though they wouldn’t. Because we’d done another spell on them, Taland and I, one that put them into a coma-like sleep. One they wouldn’t wake up from for at least an hour, or until somebody shocked them awake with magic. To do that, they had to find them, and I wanted to believe that nobody would until we were out of here.

“I won’t.” I grabbed the handle.

Taland grabbed my wrist and didn’t let me push it down. “Why not?”

Because I did it once and it almost killed me. Because I’d rather die for real instead. Because I don’t want to be a coward anymore, I thought. “Because I don’t want to,” I said.

Taland knew, though. He could always read my thoughts in my eyes just fine, and this time, when I pushed the handle down, he let me.

When we opened the door, he followed me, and nobody was waiting for us on the other side.

I could have been dreaming and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Everything was moving in slow motion again, except some seconds passed in fast-forward mode, too. My vision was blurry around the edges, and the people who passed me by in the hallway looked like cartoons rather than real, and I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that Taland Tivoux was right behind me, with cuffs around his hands and a guard’s hat on his head.

Guards don’t hang out in the main area, I told myself, and they didn’t.

Guards don’t wear handcuffs, either.

Too late now.

A couple people smiled and nodded at me, some even said hi because I was famous now—the winner of the Iris Roe. I thought I smiled and said hi back, which would have surprised them, but I couldn’t be too sure. My voice didn’t really reach my ears as it should, but what mattered was that they didn’t stop me. I kept on walking, turning corner after corner, and I didn’t even turn to look behind me once. I felt Taland’s energy—that was enough. He was still there, and we were almost to the garage.

Then we walked into the elevator that would take us straight inside the garage.

The doors slid closed. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Taland asked.

That we just might die, together, before we make it out of this place, and that I would much rather choose that fate than go back to that mansion and sleep and live without you another day?

Too many words—my vocal cords could never handle them right now.

“This mirror and this handle”—he touched the handle that went along the back of the car meant to help people keep steady—“make this elevator the perfect place for fucking.”

My cheeks burned. The elevator doors slid open again.

A miracle my heart was still inside my ribcage. A miracle I even knew how to find the key locker, how to find the key to Madeline’s Mercedes, and how to find the Mercedes in the spot where I’d parked it some two weeks ago.

All the while, my attention was on the guards in the cabin at the exit of the garage, the ones who were going to open the doors for me to leave.

Can they see me? No, they can’t. Do they have cameras in here? No, please, no. Will they recognize Taland or will they think it’s a guard? No, no, please, no…

“Get in.”

I blinked and suddenly my ears were working again. They hadn’t, not as they should, I realized, until this very moment. Until I spoke and heard my own voice and I was pulled out of this strange trance.

“Yes, ma’am,”said Taland, grinning like always, as he sat in the small trunk of the fancy car, then lay down inside, pulling his knees to his chest. “I’ll be thinking about being inside you.”

My cheeks flushed again.

Why aren’t you worried? I screamed at him in my mind.

Why wasn’t he worried, damn it? He could go back to prison. He could die —how could he be so calm and playful about it? I honestly envied him.

When I made to close the trunk, he already had the handcuffs off, and he was touching his chest, the sides of his waist like he was searching for something—and his smile fell then.

“What? What is it?” Was it a tracking device or something? Was it a wound?

Taland shook his head. “Nothing. I seem to have dropped what I took in the Vault while fighting.”

Butterflies in my stomach. That piece of white marble—the script I’d seen him steal. “We’re not going back in there,” I warned him, just in case he got ideas in his head.

Taland grinned. “Don’t worry, sweetness. We’ll just come back another time.”

Like hell.

I pushed the trunk closed and shook my hands to try to get some feeling back into them—didn’t work. The engine came to life with a press of a button, and I drove it all the way to the cabin near the exit, numb all over.

The guards looked at me. Smiled at me. Said something I laughed at but didn’t really understand.

I kept the stupid smile on until I reached the back gate I always used to come in and out now.

“Taking the car tonight, are we,” said a guard—this one I knew. It was the same guy who’d been dragging Taylor by the arm that day.

“My grandmother needs it,” I said, without thinking or planning or checking that I had voice to speak with. I just said the words and the guard smiled, barely glanced at my badge that I kept in front of him—instinctively, of course. I was operating on pure instinct here.

“With a grandmother like yours, who needs more?” He eyed the car, and he was feeling envious, too.

I just continued to smile.

Then the bar pulled up and the gates opened. I thought I said goodnight, but I’m not sure. The dark sky was over me, the road ahead clear. Reporters, fewer than before, on the sidewalk, and people, fewer than before, holding signs that demanded my execution and/or imprisonment.

Meanwhile Taland was singing in the trunk, and I heard his voice, though it came out muffled. I drove away from the IDD Headquarters, the place where I’d escaped to since I could remember. The place I was now escaping from , and nobody was chasing us. Nobody was shooting at us, magic or bullets. Nobody was in our way as I drove, opened the window and threw out my phone to make sure nobody could track me through it, then made the first turn onto the nearest highway.

Smiling for real now.

Feeling better about myself than I ever had before—me, Rora La Rouge, an agent gone rogue, and not an ounce of regret was in me.

Goddess, I should have done this before. I should have fought that night at the school alongside Taland. I should have rescued him from prison, should have helped him escape the Tomb myself. Should have put him in my trunk and drove away a long time ago.

I hadn’t known any better then, and I’d been so fucking afraid. Always afraid and always pretending. Always hesitant to just be who I wanted to be for once.

I had tears in my eyes and wet cheeks by the time I was far enough away that I felt confident to stop by the side of the highway, get out of the car, and pull the trunk open.

“…yeah, I ought to leave young thing alone, but ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” Taland finished singing, moving his hand to the rhythm in his head—and mine. And I stayed there, hands up on the trunk lid, looking down at him and smiling and crying while he hummed the melody to the very end of the song.

Until this very moment I had had no idea just how much I’d wanted to do this. How much I’d needed to do this, to say fuck you to the whole world and just be with Taland—as a free woman or a fugitive, it really didn’t matter. Until this very moment, I never quite believed that this was what I was made for.

Then Taland pulled himself up and jumped out of the trunk, and he grabbed me in his arm and spun me around in the middle of the highway, screaming, “ Yeeeehaawwww!”

No concern, no questions, no nothing here, just us as we truly were, bare, separate from the things the world saw in us, and the things we wanted the world to see.

And I thought, I never want to be anything else ever again.

“Rosabel?”

I moved my head just slightly on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

Taland said nothing.

We still hadn’t driven away because we’d just needed a moment to breathe. So, we decided to sit on the ground, back against the back wheel of my grandmother’s car, looking out at the empty land and the dark sky dotted with stars, the moon somewhere at our back.

Cars passed by, not too many. No sirens or anything close to us yet.

We had time, we thought. We had all the time in the world now.

“What, Taland?” I asked because I was sitting on his lap, my head on his shoulder, and we had our arms wrapped around one another, and it was perfect. I was going to fall asleep, even knowing what we just did less than an hour ago. It was too comfortable here.

“Nothing,” he muttered against my head, kissed my hair. “Just making sure you’re really here.”

“I am,” I said slowly as my heart broke a little bit, and a smile tugged at my lips. “My goddess, Taland, I am. ” With him, on the side of the highway somewhere in Maryland—I was here .

Taland chuckled. “You turned against them, sweetness. You helped a wanted criminal escape from the IDD Headquarters. Tell me, how does that feel?”

“Feels like…like… finally ,” I whispered. “That’s what if feels like— finally .”

He pulled me tighter against his chest and whispered in my ear, “Finally.”

A tear or two slid down my cheeks. I turned my head just slightly so I could hear his breath against my ear. “I don’t suppose you’re going to kill me now? Or hand me to your brothers?”

He paused, didn’t breathe or move for a good second. “Why would I do that?”

Those damn tears. “Because I still betrayed you. I still put you in prison.” Why were those words so hard to say? And thank goddess for the night and the dark and the stars, because I wouldn’t have been able to spit them out on my own without their help.

Taland was silent for a long time. Simply held onto me and kissed my head every now and again.

“How did it happen?” he finally said. “Why did you do it?”

Every organ inside me squeezed and quivered. Run, run, run, said my instincts, because I didn’t want to be talking about this or thinking about this at all.

I stayed put.

“I was…I was sent to that school to spy on you. Follow you. Find out who you work for and what you want to steal. When you want to steal it.” A miracle my tongue didn’t tie. “We met before I even knew it was you, but I don’t think it would have made a difference.” It wouldn’t have—no matter in what scenario I met him, whether I knew his face or not, I would have fallen for him— within an hour and a minute, just like Poppy always said.

“And?” Taland said when I struggled to pick my next words and took too long.

He hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped holding me, kissing me. He gave me life.

“And I did. I spied on you. I reported back every month. I told them that you weren’t the guy they were looking for because I believed it. I never once suspected anything. I really thought it wasn’t you.” I looked at the stars and they winked at me as if to say, go on. You’re doing great. I chose to believe them. “Until that night. Until the Feast of Hope. I-I-I followed you…” Goddess, why is this so damn hard?

“I followed you to the Strongroom and agents were following me. I tried to tell you we were there, but they had some sort of a ward about them that extended to me, too, so you couldn’t hear me. And…and I knew what would happen if you went in. So, I didn’t let you. I…I just closed that door and I grabbed that candleholder and I hit you. There was no time to explain—I just hit you.” And no matter how many times I wished I could have done it differently, how many times I thought about what I could have done instead, nothing would have worked. We couldn’t have run away even if I had warned Taland. We couldn’t fight, we couldn’t do anything at all—the agents had been right there.

“You never told me that,” said Taland, and I could have sworn he wasn’t even surprised. I expected him to at least have questions or tell me I was lying—or anything else except this. “Why, sweetness? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shook my head. “Would it have mattered?” Because it wouldn’t have changed anything at all.

“Of course, it would’ve mattered. It still does. It always will,” he whispered, and I died a little inside.

“You wouldn’t have believed me. I don’t even blame you, but you wouldn’t have believed me—why would you? I lied about my name, about where I came from, and I-I-I remember your face when that agent called me by my name. I remember.” And now I was shaking, too, but Taland held me so tightly against his chest that I almost couldn’t tell.

“You should have told me, baby. You should have told me,” he kept whispering and I was such a mess.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“B-b-because! When could I have told you, Taland? When I came to the Blue House, you…you…” He already hated me with his whole being then. He already despised me, and maybe I had secretly hoped that he didn’t when I went there, but then I woke up and I was chained to that chair and his brothers were torturing me and he was smiling.

Goddess, it killed me all over again, that memory. It ruined me.

“My brothers,” he whispered. “They’re too powerful. I couldn’t have stopped them—I had no reason. I didn’t know…I didn’t…” I could have sworn he was crying, too. His voice was shaking, but when I blinked the tears away and looked up at his face, none were in his eyes. He looked like he was being torn apart same as me, but no tears wet his cheeks. “I didn’t know that you saved me instead. If I did, if I did, if only I knew…”

Kisses all over my temple and cheek and head.

“I don’t blame you.” I said it more for my benefit than his. “But you smiled.” And that I still hadn’t gotten over. “I know I have no right to?—”

“You have every right,” he told me. “And you should blame me, sweetness. Simply because I should have known.”

“You couldn’t have.” There was no way he could know—I got that. I understood that.

“I knew you ,” he whispered, and my eyes closed and all those tears slid down, happy to be relieved of me. “And I smiled because my brothers needed to see me smiling. I smiled because then I couldn’t justify killing them to myself?—”

My heart jumped. “Goddess, Taland—don’t say that!”

He chuckled. Actually chuckled. “They tortured you, and you’re worried about them?”

“I’m not—I’m worried about you ! Maybe you don’t believe me but?—”

“ Stop.” That one word had so much power.

I clamped my mouth shut instantly.

“Sweetness, I would have believed you if you said the earth is flat. And the sky green. And the sea red. I would have believed you if you said we could fly,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t have believed the world, but I would have believed you .” His hand came up to my cheek and he turned my face toward his, but I could barely see him through the blur of tears. “Don’t you know that you’re the only thing that matters? The only .”

This he said in a broken whisper and it was the final blow to my shattered soul. It turned every little piece of me into dust, and the relief that came with it was everything. I stopped clinging to everything I knew, everything I believed about myself. About Taland. About this world. I gave it all up, and the power that came with it brought me back to life again.

“I’m sorry, Taland,” I said, and I said it with my whole heart. “I wish I’d had the chance to do all of it differently. I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.”

“The only thing you should be sorry about is that you didn’t tell me that night in the basement,” he said, pulling my head up again, catching my tears with his thumbs. “You should have told me then. You should have told me…”

He said it over and over again, but how could I when I was chained to that chair and never in a billion years would have thought that he’d care or that he’d believe me.

“I thought you hated me,” I said, shaking my head because there were too many words in my head, but my mouth, my voice, had no strength to say them out loud.

“Never,” he said—from the bottom of his heart, that word. “Not ever. Never. And not just because you saved my life.”

Then he laughed.

He laughed a good long while and held me and kissed me, and so it didn’t occur to me to even ask…until it did.

Until those words rang in my ears and my instincts insisted that there was more to them, that I needed to think about them more, and so I did. And I realized…

“How do you know I saved you?” I’d never told him that. As soon as I was done crying, and I could breathe properly again, I planned to tell him everything in detail—but I hadn’t yet.

“I heard it,” Taland said. “I heard the voice in the speaker, the order that agent received. I heard it.”

There went my brain, malfunctioning again. “Wait. Wait…” I leaned back a bit, as far as he let me, and though it was dark, I still saw his eyes. The stars shone in them just for me. “What do you mean, you heard the order?”

He nodded and he smiled, like he was in awe of my—probably swollen and red—face. “I heard it,” he simply said.

“But how ?” Because he’d been too far away that night, and he hadn’t heard when I dropped my purse, even though the metal part of it had made quite the noise when it landed on the floor.

“Through you ,” said Taland, confusing me even more. “Through your memories.”

I could have been making things up. “I don’t understand.”

“Me, neither!” Taland laughed again, and when I pushed myself off him just so I could turn and see his face better, he let me.

“Taland, what’s going on?” At least my tears had dried now. I was too confused to cry.

“I don’t know, sweetness, but I saw right into your mind— no . Wait, no, I don’t think that was it.” He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the car. “More like, your memories were uploaded into my head, you know? Like, a blink and I knew everything, saw into your head, had your thoughts and your emotions in my system. Does that make sense?”

He genuinely asked me that. He genuinely asked if that made sense to me.

“ No! ” I whispered, suddenly hyperaware that we were sitting at the edge of the road on a highway in the middle of nowhere, where cars passed and anybody could spot us. Anybody could find us. “No, it doesn’t make sense, Taland! It doesn’t make sense at all.”

I might have said it a couple of more times, just to make sure he got it.

And he did—his wide grin said so. “That night I carried you through the Drainage, something happened. I’m not sure what it was, but at some point, I gained these memories, just like that, within a second. I gained your memories, like I took a glimpse inside your mind. It was your most powerful memories, I think—memories of me. When you first saw me. When you kissed me. When you hugged me. When you lied to me and all that you felt.” His grin turned up and up and up… “When you followed me that night and when you hit me with the candleholder. When you heard the words coming out of that agent’s earpiece.”

Again, I shook my head. “I don’t understand.” What he was saying didn’t make sense—there was no way to access another person’s mind. That wasn’t possible—no spell like that existed. That I knew of, at least.

“Me, neither, but I don’t care about understanding. I saw you, sweetness,” he whispered, leaning in until his forehead touched mine. “You didn’t betray me.”

He said it like that was his salvation, his biggest revelation.

“I-I did.” I didn’t tell him the truth—I could have, should have.

“No, you didn’t, baby. You saved me,” he insisted, eyes squeezed shut, his hands on my face, and now I was crying again.

“I should have told you,” I said through gritted teeth, afraid that if I didn’t hold myself back I would start sobbing. “I should have…before the Feast of Hope, months before and in the very beginning. When we…when we first met on that rooftop, I should have told you.” And it killed me now that I didn’t. It would kill me for the rest of my life.

Goddess, if only I could turn back time. If I only I could undo this whole thing, just un hurt him in any way I could.

I wished it with all my being, except life doesn’t work that way and nothing can bring back the past, not even magic, and now I was sobbing. Great.

Taland was laughing, kissing my tears as they left my eyes, as if he couldn’t tell how the guilt ate me. He didn’t care that we’d ended up here just because I hadn’t told him the truth, and I both envied him and wanted to be like him, and I wanted to smack him in the head until he felt that part of me, too. The guilt, that raw guilt.

Except he didn’t need to because he had his own. “And I should have told you why I was in that school, and I shouldn’t have snuck around when you were asleep, and I shouldn’t have risked you like I did—I shouldn’t have.” He kissed me again, on the cheeks and the tip of my nose. “If I’d told you first, baby, you’d have told me, too. But we were kids, teenagers, and we didn’t know any better.” He stopped, leaned back, eyes wide and happy —goddess, he looked so happy. “We do now , don’t we? How about we focus on that .” It wasn’t a question. “Because I want to care but I simply can’t. I want to care about all of that, but I simply don’t.” Kiss, kiss. “You didn’t betray me, and I don’t want to change a single thing about our story. You didn’t betray me , and that is all.”

This time when he kissed me, I felt it all the way to the tips of my toes. I kissed him back, held onto his wrist and hung my life on that kiss, hung my soul to let it air out—Goddess, it was such a shriveled mess.

“I don’t understand anything.” Yet I was smiling. I said it before and I would probably say it a couple dozen more times, but I was smiling.

“We can figure it out if we want to. I don’t really care. But I think we need to get going now, sweetness. I know a place if you’ll come with me.”

I had never— never before seen Taland like this. I’d witnessed many of his moods and his faces, but never this. So… lightweight. Like he was flying. Like he wasn’t touching the ground at all.

I touched his lips with my fingertips. “I’m never leaving your side again.”

His eyes closed. He breathed deeply.

When he looked at me again, he was sad.

“Then follow me, baby.”

I did.

We got in the car again, and I sat in the passenger seat, and he drove us away.

It occurred to me that this, too—this simple, ordinary thing—was one of the fantasies I’d craved the most while we’d been apart. When I snuck out of the mansion and drove my bike for hours in the night and wondered what it would be like to be with him instead. Not alone, but with Taland, and now here I was. My hand in his. The radio on. The road clear and Taland driving with a smile on his face.

And I thought, dreams do come true.

And despite everything, that was the best ride of my life.