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“You hated him. It was mutual.”

“I’m not sad he’s finally gone. It was a long time overdue. But I know you must still miss him.”

“I do. Every damn day. But that’s grief, isn’t it? That’s the nature of loss. We don’t stop crying. We just cry less.”

“And for your grief, I am sorry. Not because he’s gone.” He huffed a laugh. “Trust me, I won’t miss him.”

“I think you will, just a little.” She grinned, reaching across the table to steal one of his French fries, even though she had plenty of her own. “But you don’t need to admit it. That’s fine.”

He smiled for real for the first time since they sat down. It lit up his face, but not his eyes. He was staring down at his fried fish like it was an open grave.

God, I hate seeing him like this. I hate that he’s in pain. I should be rolling around in it like Scrooge McDuck, but instead it breaks my heart.

“All right, fine.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you the third reason I can’t hate you. I wanted to revel in this a bit, but I just can’t. It’d be like kicking Mephisto.”

He furrowed his brow, puzzled, but said nothing and simply waited.

It was her turn to down the rest of her martini. “The third reason I can’t hate you, Dr. Gideon Raithe, is because I love you.”

* * *

“Excuse me?”

Gideon stared at her, unable to believe what he had heard. Certainly, she was only tormenting him. Turning the tables on him and toying with him for a change.

But instead, she shrugged and let out a breath. “Tried to deny it, tried to pretend I didn’t. Tried to pretend I hated you. None of it stuck. I needed time, and I’ve had that time. And I guess I’ve finally made up my mind. I miss you. It feels like…” She paused, thoughtfully picking at the mound of ridiculously hideous fried food in front of her. “It feels like how I miss Harry, but worse. Because I know you’re still here. It’s weird to be immortal and feel like you’re wasting time.”

“Marguerite, I—” He stopped. He honestly didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It wasn’t possible. “After all that I did?”

“That’s the thing that gets me. That’s the thing that really, really gets me, Gideon. If you could have just gotten out of your own goddamn way, and waited for a hot fucking second, everything would have been fine.” She took a gulp of her martini.

“I—I don’t—”

“If you had just seen me sketching at that fountain, and sat down beside me, and said hello? If you had just introduced yourself like a normal person, dated me like a normal person, and been a little less, well, you, I would’ve fallen in love with you. I would’ve married you.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I can. And I do. Because every time you and I have just been together? Every time you and I have just had a chance to ‘be’?” She shook her head, her smile beleaguered and tired, as if she were sick of climbing a mountain that she could never reach the peak of. He empathized. “When we were living together in that castle, or the quiet times we spent together, or most recently when you had me go on that stupid lie of a vision fetch-quest? Each time, each goddamn time, Gideon, I fell in love with you. And then you had to go and wreck it.”

He would not cry.

He would not cry.

He would not cry.

He wiped at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, glad for the rough fabric of his suitcoat. The pain of it was a stiff reminder that he was in public, and his injured dignity would not abide with weeping.

Maybe later.

If she could have hurt him more, he did not know how it could be accomplished. The simple fact of what she was saying—you never needed to fight for me—tore something loose inside his heart. Tore it straight out, like those priests had done, and plopped it on the table next to his overly breaded and oily fish.

The breath he pulled in was shaky, and the one he let out was equally so. “Is this goodbye?”

“No.” She reached for his hand again, and he numbly let her take it. She squeezed it. When she smiled at him, her expression was dazzling. “This is hello.”