Page 28

"Someone with a grandiose sense of self-importance, lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment."

"I've met many people like that, but you are not one of them. You are just different. One of a kind."

Shira might be a little egotistical and socially unaware, but she wasn't the other things in that description.

"Different." Shira snorted. "One of a kind. That's a nice way to put it."

"Hey." Fenella stopped walking, forcing Shira to stop too. "Look at me."

Shira met her eyes reluctantly.

"There's nothing wrong with knowing what you want, or what you don't want. The only problem is when other people don't respect that."

"Like Mr. Mama's boy tonight."

"Yeah, like him."

They resumed walking, and by the time they reached the house, Shira seemed to have sobered up. The fast immortal metabolism was both a blessing and a curse—great for recovering from injuries or illnesses, less great when you actually wanted to maintain a buzz.

"Thanks for walking home with me," Shira said as she opened the door. "Though I wasn't really that drunk."

"I know. But Atzil wanted to close early, and it gave me an excuse to leave too, and thanks to Din, I could."

Shira studied her for a moment. "He's a good guy."

"Yeah, he is."

"Don't screw it up."

Fenella rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Shira dropped her purse on the console next to the front door and kicked off her heels. "I watch you with him, and sometimes I see this look on your face, like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like you're just counting down until something goes wrong."

Was she?

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are, and I get it. Trust me, I understand self-sabotage better than most." She sighed. "Forget what I said. I get philosophical when drunk." She yawned. "Fates, I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed."

"Sleep well."

"Yeah, you too, but shower first. You smell like a distillery."

"Noted."

Fenella waited until she heard Shira's bedroom door close before heading to her own room.

She stripped off her work clothes, which did indeed reek of alcohol, but not before removing the brooch and setting it carefully on the bathroom vanity.

The shower was blissfully hot, washing away the residue of the evening along with the tension in her muscles.

Shira's words kept echoing in her head. Was she really waiting for things to go wrong?

Maybe.

Probably.

It was hard to shake fifty years of survival instincts, during which she'd learned that something always went wrong. Life was chaotic, and happily-ever-afters belonged in fairy tales.

After toweling off and slipping into a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top, she sat cross-legged on her bed, the brooch cradled in her palms. The metal was cool against her skin, the amber stone reflecting the light from her bedside lamp.

She'd felt things from it earlier—fleeting impressions, whispers of memories. But there had been nothing concrete to latch on to.

What if she tried with more deliberation?

The two real readings she'd managed had been with Kyra and Jasmine's help, their combined abilities amplifying her own.

Alone, she probably couldn't access the deeper layers of memories trapped in objects.

But maybe she could sense something about Din from this piece that he had held close to his heart for so long.

Closing her eyes, Fenella let herself relax, let her mental walls down. She didn't force it, didn't grasp for visions. She just held the brooch and breathed, letting whatever wanted to come through find its way to her.

At first, there was nothing. Just the weight of the metal in her hands and her own heartbeat.

Then, like smoke curling at the edges of her consciousness, images began to form. Hazy, dreamlike, more impression than clear vision.

A shop window in Edinburgh, rain streaking the glass.

Din's face reflected in the glass, looking less weighted by years, as something caught his eye.

The brooch, displayed on faded velvet, seemed to glow in the gray Scottish morning.

It hadn't been tarnished as it was now. Someone had polished it so it shone.

A certainty flooded through him. Not a thought but a knowing: this belongs to her.

The memory shifted, blurred, re-formed.

Years later. An apartment somewhere—London?

The wallpaper suggested the 80s. Din packing boxes, preparing for another move.

Finding the brooch wrapped in tissue at the bottom of a drawer.

The way his hands stilled. The ache in his chest as he remembered dark hair and clever eyes and a laugh that made him feel alive.

Another shift.

The new millennium. Din at a desk surrounded by papers, grading by lamplight. The brooch sitting on the desk like a paperweight, a talisman, a reminder. His fingers brushing over it absently as he worked.

More moments, flowing faster now. The brooch traveling through decades in pockets, drawers, and safes. Always kept, never forgotten.

The visions faded, leaving Fenella gasping as if she'd been holding her breath. Her cheeks were wet.

When had she started crying?

But there was more. Deeper memories. Older.

The silver itself held memories, ancient and fragmentary. Images so faint she could barely grasp them—hands shaping metal with tools she didn't recognize. A woman's face, beautiful and strange, framed by starlight. Love and loss and time beyond measure.

Those visions slipped away like water through her fingers, too old and alien to hold. But Din's memories remained, warm and present and achingly real.

Fenella opened her eyes, still clutching the brooch. Her chest felt too full, like her ribs might crack from the pressure of emotion inside her.

Fifty years. He'd loved her without hope, without reason, without even knowing if she lived.

She thought of all the women who must have passed through his life in those years.

Beautiful, available, uncomplicated women, but he couldn't allow himself to love any of them because they were human, their lives fleeting in the span of his endless immortality.

So, he'd kept the brooch and kept loving a ghost who by all reason should have been dead.

The stirring in her chest was familiar now, no longer frightening but still overwhelming.

Love.

She loved Din.

But saying it, acknowledging it, and making it real was terrifying.

What was stopping her?

Fear, obviously. Fear that things would sour like they had before. Fear that love was just another trap, another cage, another thing that would eventually be used against her.

Maybe she needed to test him. Poke at him, push his buttons, see how much he was willing to take. See if his patience had limits, if his love came with conditions.

The thought made her uncomfortable. It felt manipulative, childish. But the scared part of her, the part that had kept her alive for fifty years, whispered that tests were necessary.

Better to know now than later.

Better to find the breaking point before she got in too deep.

Except she was already in too deep, wasn't she?

The way her heart lifted when she saw him, the way her body fit against his like coming home, the way even thinking about pushing him away made her chest ache—all of it pointed to a truth she'd been dancing around since he'd told her that he loved her.

Din loved her, and she loved him back, and it should be simple, but simple had never been her style.