Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(73)

“Say something so I know you aren’t a ghost.”

“I’m not a ghost,” he says—because at least that much he’s fairly sure of.

She nods, a mixture of emotions chasing across her face. She rests her hand on the door of an empty stall.

“I miss her,” she says quietly.

It takes him a second. “Freckles?”

Isabelle nods again.

“Cobalt will be foaling soon,” he tells her, feeling sheepish all over again. Hasn’t he anything more impressive to say than that? After all this time?

But she smiles, suddenly lit up. “I hope she will have a mare,” she says, and he grins, happy that he has made her happy.

“I will let you know when the foal safely comes.” A promise that means more than what it says. I will be here. I will always be right here.

There’s a sudden ache in his arms and hands. He goes back to brushing Cobalt, muttering softly to her, in order to keep his hands occupied, in order to keep his mind from running his fingers through Isabelle’s hair, tracing her jaw, reminding himself of the way her lips taste. He has not allowed himself to hope for anything—he never has. Not even as he watched the prince’s vessel set sail for Aubin.

And he can’t start hoping now, or it will break him.

But still she draws closer—carefully, like she doesn’t want to startle him.

“Gil,” she says again. “I want to thank you.”

He turns again to face her. She is now only a few feet from him. Another step, and he could reach out to touch her. He would no longer be touching the wild girl she was, but the princess she has become.

He never dreamed, not really, that she’d be his. But he didn’t anticipate, either, the sting of the day she’d end up someone else’s. In his mind, she could never belong to any man, or anyone at all.

But what does he know? He’s just a stableboy.

“Thank me?” he asks.

She clears her throat, and he sees a brief storm of feeling there. “For saving William’s life.” She pauses. He nods, though she can’t see it. “And for rescuing Aurora. For . . . remembering.”

He swallows a small lump in his throat. Guilt strikes him hard at the thought that there was a time, however brief, that he’d truly forgotten.

She draws in a deep breath. “And for me. Thank you for saving me—again and again and again.” She steps toward him, reaching out, her hand seeking his face.

Unable to exhale, he leans in closer, so that she may run her fingers lightly across his cheeks and eyes and mouth. He tries to smile but another, far more humiliating urge possesses him, and it’s all he can do not to break into tears. Her touch feels like rain, washing away that urge but bringing more of it.

“I—” He ought to tell her that he loves her and always has. That would be the noble and right thing to do. To lay it bare, bravely and boldly, no matter the consequences, no matter the impossibility of it.

No matter whether she will ever say it back.

And yet the words are caught somewhere deep within, turning themselves over, like the unborn foal inside Cobalt, still finding their way into being.

But she must know already, because she puts her hand on his cheek, and then she stands on her tiptoes and briefly—like the heartbeat of a tiny creature—brushes her lips against his.

He feels as though she is the one who’s a ghost, as though his last breath has been stolen, and he doesn’t mind; he never wanted to breathe, never wanted to live except for this—except for her.

“There is much left to do,” she says now, already backing away from him, and he wants to reach after her, but he mustn’t, and he doesn’t.

He lets her go. He will always let her go. He will be content to know only his side of it, only his side of love.

“Isabelle,” he says suddenly, finding his breath again, just before she exits the stable. “What did you wish for?”

The story has traveled around and abroad, growing grander by the whisper. That Isabelle is part fae, that she possesses the power of wishing but has vowed only to use that power once. Her way of assuring the people that they can trust her.

She tilts her head, and then she does something that surprises him. She blushes. “It might seem silly if I told you,” she says.

He is flooded with happiness. It is just the glimpse of the old Isbe that he needed. “Just tell me,” he says, partly because he wants this moment to go on just a second longer, and partly because if he can possess one last secret of hers, it will sustain him, perhaps forever.

“Gil, do you believe in true love?” she asks.

“Yes.”

She pauses. “Good.”

And then she is gone.

Isabelle never answers his question; not now and not in the years to come. Not when all of Deluce goes into an uproar after Isabelle and Aurora grant the territories of LaMorte to a crazy old nun by the name of Hildegarde. Not after Gil marries the pretty widow, Editha, and becomes a good father to his niece and nephew. Not after Isbe’s daughter by William is born: a tiny, gangly, part-fae child with long limbs and a voice as loud as a rooster’s.

She doesn’t have to say. He has figured it out on his own. Because Gil knows her—knows her heart, and what it wants most in all the world.

The answer has always seemed plain to him: