Nell watched me, as if she knew that something was amiss. “What is this mission?”
“I have to deliver a precious item to a safe location. Don’t worry. It will not take long. The most difficult part will be exiting the city undetected, and even then, we are on the outskirts as it is, very near to the wall. You don’t need to worry about anything.” I smiled at her and felt weightless, freed from an anxiety which had haunted me from the moment Lethe had stolen her at that portal on the rock island off the coast of Maine. “Everything is going to be fine.”
As we soared through the Everwinter night, Penelope clinging to my neck, I did not let myself think of the coming days, weeks, months. I was resolute, and my hand was steady. My wings beat the wind and carried us toward the portal, though Nell had no hope of recognizing the path. Too much time had passed since she last traveled through it, and as traumatized as she’d doubtlessly been, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had blocked out huge portions of the venture. In any case, the countryside was as monotonous as the surface of a pearlescent ocean now.
With the exception of the portal, which remained a smoky and iridescent triangle, even in this bleak weather. It was not blanketed in snow. It ate the snow.
As we descended toward the gate, Nell hunkered down into my ear and hollered, “Are we taking something to Earth for safekeeping?”
I pretended not to hear her. It would be easier this way.
“Theon, what—what are we taking?” she asked, louder now, and I heard the edge of panic in her voice. But I still did not respond. I didn’t want her to start fighting while we were still in the air, and hoped she would chalk my silence up to wind resistance pulling her voice away from my ear. “What are we taking?” she cried again.
But I dove through the portal without answering her, and she had no choice but to cling to my neck or plummet to the ground below.
She still held out hope for the unlikely—that it was some item in the satchel which needed safeguarding, coincidentally, on her home planet—as we flew over the dark Atlantic Ocean and landed on the beach where her father’s home was located.
But when she dumped herself from my shoulders and whirled to face me in the bitter January winds, it was with a horror in her eyes. “Theon!”
There was so much I wanted to say to her… but I thought it best if we waited to get some space from this moment. I could write her later. She would see me later. I would not allow myself to die without coming to her side again. But until our emotions subsided, I thought it best that I remain in dragon form. I did not want to be approachable. I did not want to be human. I couldn’t bear the thought of her hands grabbing my arm, of her desperate fingers finding their way to my cheeks. I couldn’t do it.
It would be better like this.
And even without transforming, it was too much.
Tears budded and spilled in her eyes, and I turned from her, unable to keep looking.
“You said a man who would not believe in his wife was weak!” she bellowed after me.
I glanced over my shoulder at her; she was advancing on me with violent intent prickling in her aura. Her pain had mutated into rage.
“You said you could not fight without me!”
I was right. It was better this way. It was better if I did not resemble a man just now. I would be tempted to stay and explain to her that she was right. I had become weak… and I couldn’t take another loss. I was breaking down even at the thought of being separated from her by this portal, so what would become of me if we were separated by the veil between worlds? She was right; I was weak. I was selfish. I was faithless. Cowardly. Manipulative. Opportunistic. All those things.
“And I said that if you did this to me, I would hate you! Forever!”
Still, the words reached my ears, and with them came a thousand arrows of ice. I grimaced and hung my head; she was right. She was right. I had lost the war before I’d even begun to fight. Flapping my wings, I took to the sky and ignored her shrieks falling away in the distance.
I had to.
I had to.
I did not look back.
Nell
It took me several minutes of trembling to accept the fact that Theon was not turning around. He had not made a mistake. He’d abandoned me in Beggar’s Hole. And I had no idea when, or even if, I would ever see him again.
I shuffled up the beach to Dad’s stupid beach house, loathing its singular light—the bedroom—as if it was his fault that I was back here. I supposed hating my dad was familiar, and hating Theon was so foreign and uncomfortable. But how could he? How could he?
I ascended the wooden staircase to the front porch, then took a deep breath and knocked on the door. If I wasn’t freezing cold and without my wallet, I probably wouldn’t have, but there was nowhere else to go.