Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(79)

I gazed into his glittering eyes, and ever so slowly I nodded. “I promise, Joseph. But only because you have a line—and that is what makes you worth following. It’s what has earned you the unflinching love of Daniel and Jie. And it is what makes us believe in you. To the end. If I had such a limit, then . . .” I shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps I would not be so lost without my demon. Or so scared—” My voice cracked. “Or so scared of what the future brings.”

Joseph’s lips twisted into a smile. “But you do have a limit, Eleanor. Every man has one. Let us simply hope you are never faced with crossing it.”

Joseph and I sat in silence until dawn, with no company but the stars and coarse wind. By the time the sun began to rise, its misty pink light bathing our left cheeks, I felt better. Though I kept reaching for things with my right hand: an itch, an errant curl. At least the stab in my gut had lessened. The choking in my lungs had tapered off.

Oliver was gone; I had let him go; I would move onward as I always did. Joseph was right: the loss would fade with enough time.

“Has the falcon moved?” Joseph asked, his voice a mere breath.

I closed my eyes, tested the leash. . . . “Not yet.”

And we descended back into silence until the sun was fully risen and burning with heat. Until Daniel appeared with breakfast—and saw my missing hand. Until Jie followed behind him and asked about Oliver.

Until I could not handle the chatter or accusatory gazes a moment longer.

Then I claimed the need for sleep and stumbled down the north side of the pyramid.

But Daniel hurried after. “Empress,” he called once my feet had dug into the warming sand.

I slowed, biting back a sigh. Ahead, the balloon shifted against its tethers, a graveyard of dogs now resting beneath its shade.

Daniel stopped beside me. The sun lit his face, his skin as golden as the pyramid now. His hair the same color as the tawny sand. His fresh white shirt billowed around his frame, and sunburn sprayed lightly over his nose and brow.

My frustration instantly dried up. And in an unexpected tide, grief buckled through me. Oliver was gone, we would soon face Marcus, and it all felt much, much too real.

So I turned and fell into Daniel’s arms, and I wept.

For my brother. My mother. My old life. For Jie. Allison. Oliver.

And finally for me.

I cried and cried until Daniel’s clean shirt was soaked through. And my wonderful inventor never said a word. He simply waited.

When at last I wiped my eyes and pulled away, he flicked my chin with his knuckle. “Cheer up, Empress. We’ll be home soon.”

“Home?” I croaked. “But . . . but we don’t have a home.”

“And that’s just it. It’s time to make one.” He pulled me back into an embrace, and my cheek rested against tear-soaked cotton. “We’re all family now, you know. None of us has anyone but one another. So I reckon it’s time for me, you, Joseph, and Jie to make a home. Though, of course”—he smiled into my hair—“you and I will have our own little place. Just the two of us.”

“Ah.” My eyelids fluttered shut. It was such a blissful image. A home. With Daniel.

For a long moment I sank into the warmth of his body so near to mine. And I reveled in how his heart thumped against my cheek. How his ribs vibrated as he breathed. “I would like a home,” I admitted.

“So let’s go then.”

I snapped my eyelids up. “You mean after all this.”

“Let’s leave Marcus behind, and just . . . go.”

“Marcus will never let us leave,” I said quietly. “You know that. He will chase us until he has gotten to Joseph. Until he has gotten to me, to you, and to Jie.”

“I know.” Daniel shrugged one shoulder. “But you can’t blame a man for tryin’.”

“What happened to unflinching and unafraid?”

He drew back slightly and peered into my face. “I ain’t flinching, Empress. And I ain’t afraid. Not while this”—he took my hand and curled my fingers inward—“can make a fist. And not while breath still burns here.” He laid his other hand over my chest. “I will fight until the end, no matter where it takes us. But sometimes a man needs a few good dreams to warm his wicked nights.”

“Then let us dream right now.” My lips quirked up, and without thinking, I moved my arms back around his waist. “Let’s dream about what we’ll do when this is all over.”

A soft laugh ruffled my hair. His arms slid around my shoulders and tugged me even tighter. “We should start by getting your hand attached. The surgeon I designed it with is in Munich.”

My hand. Daniel’s perfect, mechanical prosthesis. I had forgotten it.

“And then what?” I asked.

“Then let’s go back to Paris so I can finally see the Louvre, and then . . . how do you feel about London?”

“I feel good about London.” I grinned. “But we mustn’t forget Vienna. Oh, and there’s always Rome.” I tipped my head back and rested my chin on his chest.

He smiled down at me, the breeze sweeping his hair in all directions. “And how about after we see the world with all that money we don’t have?”

“Oh, we’ll have money,” I declared. “After we patent all your inventions and become disgustingly wealthy, we’ll have heaps of it.”