Page 104 of Demon's Bane

“Joan.”

Rhett stands just inside the chamber, paused in the arched doorway, indecision and hesitation written all over him.

The glow of the crystals throws all the lines of his face into sharp relief. Weariness and regret are etched deep, and the longer he stands there, the more uncertain of himself he seems to become.

I hate it.

Even though I’m still mad at him, even though a big part of me still wants some space, it doesn’t mean I want him—wantus—to be like this.

“I’ll go,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to… I wanted to make sure you were…”

He gives his head a hard shake and starts to turn away.

“Sit with me?”

The question stops him in his tracks. He hesitates for a few long, weighted seconds before he nods and crosses the cave to where I’m sitting. Just like I did, he takes off his shoes, rolls up his pants, and sits a couple of feet away from me.

Which… good. I think.

It’s probably good he’s keeping his distance. Even if I have to make a conscious effort not to sway toward him, to keep my back straight and my hands to myself.

We sit in silence for a minute, then two. It stretches between us, curls around us like the steam off the pool, until Rhett breaks it in a low, quiet voice.

“I want to apologize. For what I said. For how I acted.”

I swallow hard. “You don’t get to say shit like that to me just because you’re angry and frustrated. It’s not fair, Rhett.”

“I know,” he says solemnly. “And I’m sorry for it. I never should have said it.”

Tears clog the back of my throat as I nod, but I don’t want to let it go. I need him to understand.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because there was no place for me there. With the Crescent Coven. And I didn’t mean to imply that our lives have been exactly the same or that I understand everything you’re going through. I… I just…”

“I know,” he says again, reaching over to rest his hand on mine where it’s lying against the stone.

“Can you help me understand it better? What you said about your dad?”

“My father…” Rhett says hesitantly, and I glance over to find him staring into empty air, brow furrowed and eyes far away in memory. “My father was not happy with me for leaving home.”

I nod, silently encouraging him to continue.

“He grew up here. His father spent his whole life here, and his father before him, for generations. It wasn’t just my home I was leaving, but a legacy, an expectation to follow in their footsteps.” He meets my eye, then, ruby gaze lit with soft aquamarine. “He never forgave me for it. He went to his grave disappointed in me and my choices.”

He lets out a harsh breath and shakes his head, running a hand over one horn as he dredges up the words he wants to say.

“It’s why I need to be here. To make amends. To be there for my family and my village because he cannot be. I owe that much to him.”

My throat tightens even further.

There’s so much I want to ask him.

I want to ask what good it does to make amends to a ghost. I want to ask if maybe, no matter how he might have acted in life, if his dad would have still wanted Rhett to be happy, to choose the life that would make that possible for him rather than trying to fit somewhere he’s so obviously not. I want to know how long Rhett thinks it might take, how many years of discontent until he’s free to live for himself again.

But I don’t ask him any of those things.

Not now, when he’s been so vulnerable. Not now, when I know the words won’t matter in the face of all that grief and guilt and pain, and when I worry those questions would sound more like accusations.

So I do the only other thing I can.