I lifted my hand and made a gesture that was extremely unladylike.
Blue eyes widened and Anaïs-as-me shrugged. “Just saying. Tristan, you can turn around now.”
He turned and looked from one of us to the other. “It will do.” He took my hand and squeezed it in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring. But it wasn’t. All this costuming and deception was just a step in the process of us being torn apart. “Please don’t make me do this, Tristan,” I whispered. “I don’t want to go.”
He shook his head. “I have to know, Cécile.” He bent to kiss me, but I turned away, not fond of the idea that he’d be kissing Anaïs’s face, not mine.
“This is all very touching,” Anaïs said, interrupting. “But my magic tends to grow bored and wander if unattended. You’ve got maybe half an hour with my face and then it will fade.”
Tristan nodded. “Where will you be?”
“In the glass gardens, wandering around and looking forlorn.”
“Are you certain you want to do this, Anaïs?” Tristan and Anaïs stared at each other for several long moments. I flinched at their familiarity. It was something he and I had never had. “He won’t let you off easily for helping me.”
“I’ve never said ‘no’ to you, Tristan. Never denied you anything.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “And I never will.” They exchanged more long looks, and then Anaïs turned and walked out, comfortable in my flat shoes.
Tristan waited a few moments and then took me by the arm, leading me back into the city and down the valley towards the River Road. I walked blindly, not seeing anything or anyone. It took every ounce of control to keep my face serene, my steps even on Anaïs’s impossibly high shoes. “Don’t say anything,” Tristan muttered. “They’ll recognize your voice.”
My nerves reached a fevered pitch as we approached the heavily armed and very imposing trolls standing to either side of the gate. They bowed low and one of them lifted the heavy bar holding the gate shut. It swung open silently on greased hinges.
“Haven’t noticed any fallen rock, my lord,” one of the trolls said.
“There’s never a problem until there is,” Tristan said, his arm drawing me forward.
The incline of the road was steep, the rock smooth, and everything was slick with water. We hadn’t gone far when I was forced to take off my shoes and walk barefoot. The road was perhaps ten feet wide, and the river, white with rapids, flowed only a few feet below.
Tristan didn’t look at me as we walked, but he did let go of my arm to take my hand instead. I held on as tight as I could, trying to memorize the way his skin felt beneath mine, the way his thumb rubbed the tops of my knuckles. Every step I took was one closer to the moment he’d make me leave him. When I saw the glow of sunlight appear ahead, fear lanced through me. It was the end of the tunnel. It was the end of us.
And the fear wasn’t just mine. Tristan’s dread had grown into something close to terror as we neared the light at the end of the tunnel.
“Will it do anything if you get too close?” I asked, suddenly uneasy.
Tristan jumped at my voice. “No,” he said. “No, it isn’t that.” Suddenly, he stopped and held up his hand, knuckles rapping against something that sounded like glass but which I suspected was infinitely stronger. “No. It isn’t that,” he repeated. Then he staggered back away from the barrier with a groan, and slumped against the wall.
“Tristan!” I dropped to my knees in front of him, terrified the curse had hurt him somehow. He grabbed hold of me and pulled me close. Tugging off the black wig, he buried his face in my hair, his whole body shaking. “I can’t lose you,” he whispered, and I felt him brush away Anaïs’s magic so that I was myself again.
“Then why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because I can’t live this way, Cécile. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I live every moment on edge, thinking that I’ll turn around and you’ll be gone. I never know whether you’re telling me what you feel or what you think I want to hear. I need to know that you’re here by choice, not because you were never given one.” He pulled away so that he could look at me, and I saw his eyes and cheeks were streaked with tears.
I brushed one of them away, staring at the gleaming droplet sitting on my fingertip. “I didn’t think trolls could cry.”
He blinked. “Another myth?”
I shook my head. “No, I… When I first came, I thought trolls didn’t feel sorrow like we do. Pain like we do. Loss like we do.” I pressed the tear to my lips, tasting its sweet saltiness and thinking of all the many times the trolls had proven that notion false. “I was wrong.”
We sat on the road for a time, my head resting against his chest, both of us watching waves crash against the shore, pushing the river in and then drawing the flow out. A warm breeze blew into the tunnel, smelling of salt and seaweed, carrying with it the sound of gulls. This was the closest Tristan would ever get to the world outside of Trollus. This one small and unchanging view of the ocean.
“Tristan?”
“Yes?” He was voice was raspy, thick with emotion.
“Are you really giving me a choice? You won’t argue with what I decide?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I won’t stop you.”
“And if I want to stay, you’ll let me? You won’t make me leave?”
His eyelids twitched against his cheeks, but he didn’t open them. “It is your choice to make.”
I kissed him hard, drinking in the taste of him. I felt punch-drunk and reckless, willing to say whatever it took to keep him from making me leave. “Then I’m staying. I want to be with you – forever.” In the back of my mind, I knew I wasn’t considering the full extent of my words, but I had faith Tristan would succeed in everything he set out to accomplish. That perhaps it would take a year or two, but my isolation from the world would not be a permanent thing. It couldn’t be.
He held me against him, hand stroking my back, but I didn’t feel the sense of relief from him that I had hoped for. “You are impetuous, love,” he said softly. “You think with your heart, not with your mind.”
“So?” My voice was muffled against his chest.
“You can’t make the decision here. Troll magic is too thick. Half of what you feel is what I feel. You don’t know what you want.”
“Yes, I do!” I shouted against him, my voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “I want you.” I dug my nails into his shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of him. “I want you.”
With me clinging to his shoulders, Tristan got to his feet. Then he took hold of my wrists, gently tugging them free, and pushed me through the barrier. I stepped through the sticky thickness, and the roar of emotion in my mind subsided into a faint murmur. I gasped aloud, hating the loss, and I tried to go forward again, back to him. But Tristan held up one hand. “Go out into the sun and remember all the things you would give up for a life with me. If you decide not to come back, then…” He swallowed hard and tossed me a heavy purse that clinked when I caught it. “This should keep you for a time.”
“And if I decide to come back?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I turned and looked out towards the ocean. The river poured into a small cove that had once been the harbor of Trollus before time and breaking mountains changed the coastline. Where I stood was still partially in shadow from the overhanging rocks. The trolls were cursed to darkness even here.
I started walking to the beach, picking my way carefully over the rocky cove until the summer sun hit me like a wall of heat. I turned my face to the sky and stared at the yellow orb, my eyes burning from the pain of so much light. Then, I started to run. Faster and faster, my feet sinking into the wet sand until I reached the water’s edge. Catching my skirts up high, I waded in, relishing the feel of wide open space as the salty water slammed against my shins. I spun in a circle, my burning eyes taking everything in. The seagulls flying high above me. The mountains a virulent green, with the exception of the broken one, its veins of quartz and gold glittering. I ran down the beach to the edge of the rock fall and up a path until I reached grass. I flopped down, gasping for breath. Everything was lush with the peak of summer and I basked in the warmth, letting it soak into my bones. Everything around me was bright and alive, and I realized Tristan was right: I had missed it.