Ky and I join hands and hips, our legs brushing as we swirl amidst the other couples. He’s actually a good dancer, something I never would’ve surmised from our back-and-forth sway at Blake’s party. The music slows, and our bodies match its cadence. My skin electrifies beneath Jasyn’s gaze. I ignore it. He’s getting his show, but I’m getting something too.
A good-bye.
After today it will be over. My intact birthmark proves Joshua loves me. I will become the Void’s new prison.
Things will never be the same.
Ky pulls me close, his hand on the small of my back, his mouth at my ear. “Tell me why.” He tilts my chin so our lips are angled toward one another.
Butterflies emerge from the cocoon in the recesses of my stomach. Flit to my lungs. I exhale their wings.
I’ve been telling myself our kiss was a fluke. Some unexplainable phenomenon that stemmed from sheer desperation. But a part of me knows it’s not entirely true. Because a Kiss of Infinity is rare. Which means this thing between us is more than I’m allowing it to be.
I slip away, unable to handle the ache ushered in by the end. “I’m sorry, Ky. I can’t.”
“Don’t give me that, Em.” His wounded tone is almost enough to draw me back into his arms. “If you’re going to choose him, have the decency to say the words.”
Get it together. “It’s not about that. I’m not choosing him over you.” I stare at my feet. Can’t look at him. “I’m not choosing anybody.” Because I’m choosing everybody. Everybody but me.
He takes my hand. Tugs.
I look up.
His expression softens, churning my heart to butter along with it. “You think he really loves you. You expect to take on the Void.” Not questions. Realizations.
I withdraw farther, eye the floor again. Slam. I whirl.
Joshua. He’s here.
“Going somewhere?” His question is for me but his glare darts to Ky.
Say something. “No.” Twisting fingers. “Nowhere.”
Ky storms past, bumping Joshua’s shoulder as he goes. He’s misunderstood my reaction. Doesn’t matter. He’s better off without me.
Unfazed, Joshua takes me in his arms and leads me in our first dance ever. When we touch, relief washes my body. The music transitions again, this time into a Sleeping Beauty waltz. We move effortlessly despite my two left feet. I’ve seen him in dress clothes plenty of times, but somehow he’s managed to deprive my breath once again. He’s sporting a blue-and-white pinstriped shirt beneath a light gray vest and matching tie. The contrast brings out his eyes—eyes secured on me.
The world blurs, leaving us alone in the vast space. The music strips away too. “Happy birthday,” he says, towing me from my trance. He doesn’t smile.
“Now it is.” I steamroll a grin over the rubble inside. Wait for the moment. It will come. I spy the dais. Jasyn is in deep conversation with Haman. “Can we go someplace? Alone?”
He stops. Exhales. I almost think he’ll turn me down, but then he glances left. Right. Over my shoulder. He resumes our dance, ever so stealthily leading us away from the floor’s center. It takes the length of two waltzes to inch through the crowd without drawing attention to ourselves. Once at the wall, we creep along and back, seeking shelter in a cramped, shadowy alcove beneath the stairs.
Joshua bumps his head on the low, curved ceiling. “I think we’re alone now,” he sings, doing his best Tommy James impersonation.
The unexpected tune throws me off, and I emit a nervous laugh. The last thing I expected to find beneath these stairs is the easygoing, music-loving boy I fell in love with.
So much of me wants to respond in melody, but I can’t. “Joshua—”
“I care for you.” He angles away from me. Combs his fingers through his hair. “That I can’t deny.” His hands are trembling. “But, I’m sorry, I don’t love you.” He hangs his head. “Makai will take on the Void. I wanted to tell you before I do it. I needed you to hear it from me.”
I touch his shoulder, nudge him to face me. “No. You love me. Don’t you see?” I take his hand and bring it to my right cheek. “My birthmark—mirrormark—it didn’t vanish. It has to mean something. That your love for me goes deep beneath the surface.”
He lifts his head, eyes searching. “It didn’t vanish?”
My brows knit. “You didn’t notice?”
“Well, no.” He scratches the back of his head. A smile plays on his lips. “I could never see it.”
My breath hitches. He can’t see it? Could never see it? What does this mean?
Our gazes lock, as if we’re figuring out something we should’ve known all along. Me realizing how Joshua sees me. Him understanding I never knew what he saw—didn’t see.
As if in slow motion, he draws me in. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. You were supposed to have a way out. A chance to have a choice.”
“This is my choice. It has to be me. You. And me. The Verity and the Void.” I half laugh, half cry at that.
“I don’t think—” He clears his throat. “I don’t think I can do that to you.”
“I’m strong enough,” I promise, hoping the words sound true.
“Maybe,” he breathes. “But I am not. How can I make you the vessel of the Void? What kind of love would that be?”
“The greatest kind of all.” His heart beat, beat, beats against our hands. “The kind of love that will save this Reflection.” Don’t cry. I need to get this out. “The kind of love . . .” Keep going. Almost there. “. . . that happily ever after lives for.”
His nose brushes my cheek. Fingers intertwine with mine. He gives no answer, careful as ever not to kiss me.
“Love me, Joshua. Love me enough to let me go. Let me help you give the people the happy ending they’ve been waiting for.”
One, two, three breaths. And then . . .
His mouth pursues mine, and I’m melting, nearly forgetting myself. My chest constricts. Flutters. Despite what must come afterward, this is real. For a moment, I’m going to enjoy it.
In the beginning it’s soft and hesitant, the way a first kiss should be. We keep our mouths closed, our bodies stiff and distant.
But that doesn’t last.
Joshua slides his fingers from mine, finding my cheek with one hand and my waist with the other. He separates my lips with his, and I curve into him as he reaches around and cradles the back of my head with his palm.
I rise on demi-pointe, exploring the craters and contours of him. The line of his hair. The swell of his shoulder. The dip of his lower back. So strange to know a person one way for so long and still feel as if I’m meeting him for the first time. The newness of it sends little sparking thrills through every nerve ending. My right cheek burns as if ignited. He kisses me and kisses me and kisses me again, as if making up for all the times he’s wanted to and held back.
This has to end. I want more.
When Joshua’s mouth leaves mine, it’s too soon. His breaths release in heavy waves, hot on my face. “I love you,” he admits at last.
Then the shadows take me away.
THIRTY-SIX
My Heart
She believed Tiernan would kill you, so she fled, sought a man named Nathaniel Archer.” Jasyn’s words drift across my heart as I fly through the night.
I’m bouncing, my arms and legs wrapped in something soft. A blanket? An icy chill pings my ears, and I stir. The jarring movement ceases, and the blanket is tugged around my ears, over my forehead. I feel small. So small.