Page 27 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

I inhale deeply. Oddly, not relieved by her answer. Perhaps because I didn’t need to be. “I’ve had a few … close calls. Training accidents. But no, I haven’t inadvertently maimed anyone else.”

“It takes a lot of power to blind an essence-wielder so badly that a healer can’t restore at least some of their sight.”

I don’t answer that. It’s not a question, and Mirth already knows that she’s correct.

I rather desperately want to ask her what triggered her.

But if she wanted me to know, she would have already told me.

It’s an easy guess, though, that it was the kidnapping attempt itself, the need to protect Armin, that caused her primary talent to manifest.

Mirth redirects the subject with another tap to the books on the side table.

“So … that confirms what this book tells you. I’m as dangerous as an awry can be.

” She’s watching me closely. “I believe there’s an entire chapter in this book on how the awry were hunted, are still hunted, and condemned for their twisted, uncontrollable essence.

I’m the sort of awry that fueled the fever for those hunts. ”

I try to match her dispassionate tone, though I know I fail even before I open my mouth. “And yet it would have been those with purple eyes but none of the power who were beheaded or stoned or burned.”

“Or those who willingly walked to their deaths, fearing what they were capable of destroying.”

I’m barely breathing now. The twist in the conversation — from playful banter about Mirth reading me to sleep, to the weariness that comes from holding, holding tightly, to immense power— is challenging what little equilibrium I have around Mirth.

Mirth, who normally holds her power so tightly that she seems without any at all.

“Are you scared of me, Lord Hereford?”

Not realizing that my gaze has settled on her hand atop the books, I lock my gaze to Mirth’s, holding her blazing purple eyes steadily.

This question — playfully and lightly posed — is perhaps the most important thing she’s asked of me.

I cannot equivocate. I cannot wait for the proper moment to address this.

“I’m not scared of you, Mirth. I belong to you. I was put on this earth to balance you. To help you hold the intersection point.”

She holds my gaze, all her power once again tightly tucked away. But she doesn’t otherwise respond.

I lean forward, deliberate intent threading through every one of my words.

“I think … I’ve been researching this as well, and I’ve questioned the others, as much as they’re willing to articulate themselves.

” I can’t stop from twisting my lips at recalling just how stubborn Bolan is, specifically.

And Sully isn’t much better. “And I believe that whether or not we were all formally bonded, or even acknowledged the possibility of a bond between us, that Armin’s death created …

a fissure. A chasm that, in order to continue forward, to continue to …

live, we needed to come together to try to heal. ”

Mirth blinks back a flush of emotion.

“I … I’m so sorry that it took Armin’s death for us to rally, to find each other. To find you.”

“You believe, then. In soul-bound mates. That the universe has … nudged us together because we lost Armin?”

Some emotion all but aches at the heart of Mirth’s question. It isn’t grief, though. And with that unknown still hanging between us — even as I sense it’s the same thing, or at least part of the thing, that drove her away from us at Lake Thun — I don’t know how to fix it. Not head-on, at least.

I’m still a little overcome, overwhelmed about it all myself. Burying myself in paperwork has been my only relief for days.

“My parents were soul bound,” I say. “Just the two of them. They … never needed anyone else to complete their bond group. Or maybe there weren’t any more bonds for them.”

“Same with my father,” Mirth says. “Before his soul-bound mate and their child died. Years before he had Armin and me, before he took chosen mates, because …”

“The intersection point,” I say, tipping my chin toward the pile of books.

“Mostly, yes. I think.”

“You’ll explain that to me more? Yes?”

“Not now, but yes.”

I nod agreeably, but only because I think the topic of the nascent connection between us and the others is more important. I suspect it’s also the cause of the distance Mirth has placed between us.

This is why I wanted to do this all properly, perfectly timed. Then Sully and Bolan went running after Mirth, and —

I clear my throat. “My mother lasted two years after my father’s death. It’s not that they didn’t both love me. Want me. But … I think … I think she held him here, on this plane, for longer … longer than she should have. The pain he —”

I take a breath. I haven’t really acknowledged that truth out loud before, not allowed myself to truly articulate it in my own head.

“She burned through her own essence, her life force, to do so. My father sent her away on a spa vacation with her sisters the weekend he summoned me out to the estate. Summoned me to make me Lord Hereford. But he … needed help at that point. Needed help to transition to the next plane of existence. And my mother wouldn’t help him. ”

Mirth gasps, quietly pained. Then she leans closer, offering her hand.

I take it. I take the comfort, though I know it should be the other way around. That my grief is old and tired while hers is still fresh. But the chance to be skin-to-skin …

“Maybe she couldn’t do it,” Mirth says, her eyes shining.

“Maybe the bond between a brother and sister could never compare … but I don’t think I could ever have helped Armin leave me.

I don’t think I could have been strong enough to let him go.

Not even if he was in pain …” Renewed tears roll down her creamy cheeks.

“I think maybe … maybe he was already in pain, and I wasn’t enough —”

She shakes her head, still gripping my hand as she dashes the tears off her face with her free hand. “We’re talking about you.”

“We’re talking about us,” I say, my chest once again aching with our combined grief. Mirth must be an empath. Or it’s the fundamental nature of the bond we share, as tentative as it currently is.

“Yes. Okay.” She takes a shuddery breath and pulls one of those perfect-princess smiles out to shine on me. “Your mother?”

I should hate that she feels the need to smile at me like that.

But selfishly, I adore her for keeping us on point.

“My mother never forgave me. Not even with her dying breath. Not that I was allowed to witness it. I was banned from the estate. I never bother visiting even now. The aunts have the running of it.”

“You’re Lord Hereford,” Mirth says with a bit of an edge. “No one tells you that you can’t set foot on any of your properties.”

I chuckle at her unfettered belief … in me. When she really doesn’t know me at all. And I suddenly want …

I want to be that person for her.

She squeezes my hand, then her gaze drops to my mouth. She tilts her head becomingly. “Shall I make you feel better? Maybe in the same way you eased …”

Then she trails off and glances toward the closed door. “Oh, too late. Shall I apologize ahead of time for not warning you, Lord Hereford? Or will you make me grovel later?”

I raise both eyebrows, somewhat confused— and also somewhat disturbed at the idea of making Mirth do anything as degrading as groveling.

Then I hear the raised voices beyond the door.

The almost-fevered clamor of excitement.

It’s more contained and muted than it was the last time he made an entrance, but I would have sworn there weren’t that many people in the offices.

Plus the guards and admins who are working while the council isn’t in session really should be more circumspect.

“I’m not traveling alone today,” Mirth says, completely unnecessarily. And definitely belatedly.

The door to the outer office is yanked open.

I catch a glimpse of Roz and Mirth’s other guard, Greg, looking extremely peeved.

Then Bolan is all but tumbling into the room.

Black hair falls across his brow, and a massive smirk stretches across his face.

He’s clad in his regular worn-black aesthetic.

It’s Greg’s presence that prepares me for who follows the normally belligerent rock star.

Lord Savoy. Salvatore. Sully.

He’s kept his hair blue since Lake Thun. His suit is only a few shades darker, paired with a pinstriped white dress shirt that looks practically mundane for him. One too many buttons are undone at the collar.

I knew that Sully had returned to London and spent the evening with Bolan and Mirth, though his responses to my text messages haven’t been at all forthcoming since he met with Rian and his mother.

But I had no idea that Sully and Bolan had accompanied Mirth to Zurich — hence my verging-on-obsessive need to check my text messages all morning.

Though I do hope their presence means they’ve actually filed the remaining paperwork formalizing Sully’s claim to the Savoy title.

Sully’s light-gray eyes lock to Mirth, as if he’s been looking in her direction before he even cleared the doorway.

But his presence still hits me like a wallop to the chest. Not as hard as when Mirth is near, though.

And the tenor is different. Tense and tight, while Mirth is more like coming home.

Maybe it’s all intensified by the tenor of my conversation with her.

Or maybe it’s the perpetually overwhelming situation.

But whatever is between the fabricator mage and me, it’s not about comforting kisses and creating a support system.

I’m honestly not certain that Sully has eyes for anyone but Mirth. I’m not certain I should even be contemplating looking his way either. Not yet. Not until everything else is settled.

Conversations need to be had. Many conversations.

Mirth huffs playfully. “What have you done!?”