“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
He’s got a huge navy blue parka on with yellow insulation and a dark gray skull hat. Even his fingers are sheathed in puffy men’s skiing-type gloves. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles just the tiniest of smiles as he looks at me. “You aren’t under his influence anymore.”
“What do you mean by that?” I turn back to the lake, stare at the ice slowly moving on the surface of the water. Pieces of the solid fall into the liquid, but it’s all just water no matter what its form.
“I mean his pixie power over you is gone.” He squats and pulls at a broken branch that’s been sticking up out of the snow. It reminds me once again of how Astley’s and my branches were entwined. Nick holds it in his hand for a second, almost like he’s balancing the weight of it, and then he chucks it toward the lake. The branch lands on an ice chunk and then skitters across it.
“He’s still my friend, Nick.”
“But that doesn’t—It’s not the same as him being your king.”
That’s true. Astley won’t feel it when I need him anymore. I won’t feel it when he needs me. We won’t be able to read each other’s emotions so easily. The world as a human is much thinner than as a pixie. It’s like watching a movie on your phone versus seeing real-life events.
I miss being less vulnerable to cold and super-strong, stuff that went with being pixie. I miss it a lot.
It is nice to be able to touch iron, though. It is nice to not worry about randomly turning blue or feeling your emotions race so close to the surface all the time, ready to explode.
Ice cracks into ice. A bird squeals overhead.
We stand there for a minute, just watching the water slosh in tiny waves up onto the shore. It comes in and out, predictable because it always moves in those two directions, but unpredictable because you never know exactly how far into the beach the water will go. It crashes against some blackened algae-type stuff and slides back out to the lake.
Nick grabs my hand in his giant one. It’s hard to feel his fingers through the glove, but I know the shape of them, their warmth and roughness. It’s a good memory.
“You don’t love me anymore, do you?” he asks. His voice breaks with emotion.
I close my eyes but don’t let go of his hand. “When I needed you most, you weren’t there for me, Nick.”
Just saying it aloud makes it so much more real, and each word solids my heart just a bit more, making it seem less like something that beats and breathes and more like ice on the lake. He wasn’t there when I needed him.
He moves closer, facing me. His free hand goes to my hair, brushes it away from my face. “What do you mean when you needed me the most? When was that? When you were shot? When Mrs. Nix died? I was in Valhalla, Zara. I couldn’t be there and I am so sorry for that, baby.”
My eyes meet his. His eyes are deep brown and beautiful, earnest and fierce. How can he have eyes like that and not understand?
“That’s not what I mean.” My lips dry out suddenly. They are hard to move. “I mean when you learned I was pixie. I needed you to love me then. But you didn’t. You were too busy with your hate.”
His hand goes to my shoulder. “I did still love you then, Zara.”
“No. You walked away. You left.” My words break into crying things. “You told me I was soulless.”
The waves keep breaking small against the shore. A car drives down the road toward the hotel, the radio is on so loudly that the bass beat thuds through closed windows.
“I left because I was jealous,” he says. “Not because you were a pixie.”
I think he’s lying, but I’m not sure. If he is lying, he’s probably lying to himself too.
“Whatever.” I twist away from him, walk two steps, and realize I don’t have the will to walk anymore, to move anywhere. I crouch down instead and this time I’m the one who grabs a piece of twisted driftwood. The water has stripped it of its bark, and insects or lake creatures or something have bored holes through it. I wonder what’s happened to my branch now that I’m not a pixie. Did it separate? Is it all alone like this poor piece of broken tree? I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. Nothing matters. My fingers trace the joint where a nub of a branch once was. That’s not true. Things matter. Keeping people safe matters.
“We have more important things to do right now,” I say. “And when that’s done we can fix everything else.”
“If we survive, Amnesty.” He uses his old nickname for me. A splinter of driftwood sticks in my glove. “And what if we don’t? We can’t leave this unfinished.”
“Yes, we can. Life isn’t a television show, Nick. There aren’t neat little bows to tie things up in the end. There isn’t a soundtrack to cue the laughs and the murmurs of agreement. There’s no way of always knowing what the right thing is. No clear endings.” I stand up and yank out the splinter.
Refusal to believe me is written on his face. Then a slow smile moves across his features. His head moves slowly, and he kisses me on the cheek.
“You think so strangely,” he says.
I think strangely? I ponder that for a second and then I step to the side, place my hand on his shoulder. “Everything inside me hurts.”
“I know,” he says. “I hurt too.”
We go back to the hut where everyone else waits for us. Amelie’s face is drawn and strained, which makes me wonder if Astley has chewed her out about the ambush or if it’s because I’ve been alone with Nick. She’s so protective of Astley. Either way, it’s hard to look at her. Issie rushes across the room and hugs me, acting all happy rah-rah cheerleader, but the moment our bodies touch she whispers in my ear, “You okay? If you are not okay, I will kill these macho alpha boys for you. Got it?”
It makes me laugh the tiniest of bits to imagine her trying to kill either of them.
And Astley just looks at me, eyes full of sorrow and loss. I wonder if that’s what my eyes look like too.
“We have the skis,” he says, slugging on a backpack and handing one to Nick and one to me, “and provisions. It should take a couple hours depending on our pace.”
I’m the one who will slow us down.
“And we’re sure this is the way to Hel?” Nick asks.