Page 96 of Till Death Do Us Part

And when we got back to the manor at the end of each outing, it felt like getting home. With a family.

With a wife who I was terrified that I was falling in love with.

We’d avoided the subject of serious feelings since that day she’d told me about Quayle, but even without words, it was clear she was just as scared of her feelings. We would spend hours in the night together just talking, small things about ourselves, about our lives, after everyone else had gone to bed, and we would sit in bed together by the moonlight.

And we would kiss, but it didn’t lead to sex. We didn’t have sex one time since then, and I would catch her sometimes looking at my body in that way that made it clear what she wanted, and I’d been learning to anticipate her needs, so I would try to subtly offer myself for her, but she closed off just as quickly when I did.

It made me feel pitiful, when I wanted her more than she wanted me, even though we’d signed the contract for her. I didn’t like what it said about me.

But on some level, I knew it wasn’t about not wanting me.

It was a cool and brisk Saturday afternoon when the others were out—Vera and Petra having gone for a small-scale excursion to investigate a lead downtown, finally cleared by Jenna to start easing themselves back into action—when Yulia found me thinking about it. I was sitting in the library with a book open in front of me, not really taking any of it in, and I didn’t even notice Clara batting me for attention until she knocked my half-full teacup off the table.

I lunged for it with a gasp, and I almost bumped into Yulia. She just about appeared out of nowhere, catching the cup and saucer both without a drop spilled, and carefully, she set them back on the table. “It doesn’t do to ignore a kitten,” she said. “They’re very persistent.”

“Th-thank you.” I helped Clara up onto my lap, stroking her behind the head. She wasn’t normally so clingy with me, normally reserving it for Vera.

“I’ve been watching you,” she said carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“You and the Wolf.” She turned to the window, tall glass where the rain started to plink down in between shafts of golden daylight from streaky clouds. “You’re in love with her.”

I looked down, my face hot. I couldn’t say anything.

“You’ve seen the worst of her. She’s threatened to kill you. She’s pulled you into this world. And yet even so, you love her?”

“I’ve seen the worst of her,” I whispered. “And I’ve seen the best of her. The things nobody else sees. She’s a rich, full, and beautiful person, Yulia. She’s just been waiting to be seen.”

She scoffed, turning back to the glass.

“The same is true of you, I know,” I whispered. “You try to stay closed off, distant, guarded… and anyone who would come close to you, you hurt them, so that they stay away. But I know that underneath that exterior, there’s a woman in there who’s… hurting. Terribly.”

She closed her eyes. “You would do well not to pry open dark places and look inside, Elaine.”

“Just because you’re in a dark place doesn’t say anything about you, Yulia. The brightest lights exist in the darkest places. There’s light in your heart, the same as mine, the same as Vera’s. It’s just waiting to come out.”

She smirked, but it was just a ghost, not looking at me. Looking at something else, off in the distance. “You can only exist in this world by being useful,” she whispered. “What use is light in your heart?”

“You can exist for so much more than just to be useful. You exist to love. To be loved. To make people happy. And to be happy.”

She closed her eyes. “It’s remarkable that the most critical person in this entire operation is such a hopeless idealist.”

“On the contrary,” I laughed. “I’m a very hopeful idealist.”

She laughed too, low and quiet, and she stopped, her attention sharpening. I stood up.

“Yulia? What’s wrong?”

“Something’s stirring. Not the others.”

My chest tightened. “Somebody’s here?”

She clenched her fist on the glass. “Blackbirds.”

“What? But… Vera’s not here. What do they want?”

“They want what they always want, Elaine,” she said, shooting me a look. “They want you. At all costs.”