Lilith's Arc

Chapter 30 of 40

The binding held whole, but Lilith felt it thin as wet paper. Tre stood in the circle beside her, jaw tight, arms folded. He had come for her, not for forever. The children glowed steady in their alcoves. Tre did not glow. His half of the thread hung slack, unwilling. A spell built on a reluctant heart would fray. She knew it. She could not sing him into wanting this. She had to give him a reason to want it himself. "Come outside," she said. He followed her without a word. She led him past the keep to the cottage, the one place he had chosen for himself when he would not stand with her. Its warm wood glowed in the low light. On the step, the enchanted seahorse hovered at her shoulder, its runes soft and blue. She let it drift into Tre's cupped hands. "I'm not going to seal anything," she said. "No song. Just listen." Tre looked at the little creature turning in his palms. "Then talk." "You think forever means watching me hollow out," she said. "You've only seen the cost. You never saw why I paid it." Her voice shook. "I can't show you the night you were sick. I gave that away. But I remember standing after. Watching you breathe. Deciding no." "No to what?" Tre asked. "No to the day I outlive you. No to Gabe going gray while I stay young. No to burying Novalee. No to holding Hadley's old hand and remembering when it was small." She knelt on the step below him, the same as before. "I didn't want this to hurt you. I wanted us to grow old like there's no old." Tre was quiet. The seahorse curled its tail around his thumb. Down the path, the dark shape of the wolf watched with dead eyes. He glanced at it, then back at her. "You keep saying you're done paying," he said. "I am." "Then this is the last thing I need." He set the seahorse gently on the step. "Not eternity. This. You, kneeling, telling me the truth without singing it." His voice cracked, honest and plain. "I didn't want forever because forever cost you. But you already paid. So it's not costing anymore. It's just us." "Just us," she said. Tre pulled her up by the hand. "Then I want it. Not for the children. Not for you. For me too." He met her eyes. "I want the old age we don't get to have. I want all of it." Lilith felt it happen. The slack thread in her chest drew tight and warm. Tre's half of the binding pulled even with the others. His wanting sealed it from the inside. The spell no longer leaned on her alone. But warm was not permanent. The binding held whole and willing now. It still had to be made to last forever.