“You are coming back.” Her voice was cracked and too loud. Mary swallowed and spoke again. “You are not a mindless killer.”
“But I want to be.” The confession was soft. Talent ran his thumb along the claws that had formed on his hand. “If I’m mindless, then I won’t remember.”
They sat quiet for a long moment. Then he stirred, a small movement that brought their shoulders into contact. The hard muscles along his arm flexed, then eased.
Leaning against her, Talent rested his back against the railing and stared ahead. He took a long breath. “I hate that it was you who found me.” His whisper was so raw that it scraped against her skin. “Hate that you saw me that way.”
“I know,” she whispered back. She hated it too, though not for his reasons.
Blinking rapidly, Mary leaned into him just a bit more, giving him her heat, shoring him up. Talent eased into the touch on a breath. “I see you and…” He pressed his lips together for one sharp moment. “I remember.”
“Jack.” Heartbroken, she let her head fall to his strong shoulder. Talent went stone-still then, and on a sigh, rested his head against hers.
For a long moment, they simply sat in the cold peace of the church.
“You came for me,” he said on a sudden breath. “I thought I’d hang there forever. But you came. Even though…” His chest hitched. “I’d done nothing to deserve your rescue. I’d always been an utter ass to you.” The hopeless bafflement in his voice pained her anew, as if he could not fathom the idea that she would help him.
Mary plucked at a fold on her skirt. “When I realized they had you”—she squeezed her eyes tight to fight the prickling heat of tears—“it was my fault.”
“What?” He turned his head, but she refused to lift hers.
She couldn’t look at him. “A demon took my blood, disguised himself as me to get to you. I ought to have been more vigilant. I ought to have suspected.”
His chest lifted and fell with a sigh. “Hell. I didn’t realize you thought that way.”
“How could I not?” Even now guilt crushed her chest.
“Because it’s stupid.”
Mary’s head shot up, but his big hand gently eased it back down. “You might as well blame the inspector and Mrs. Lane for bringing us into that situation, if that’s your thinking. We both understood the danger when we sailed with them.”
She couldn’t argue when he spoke so sensibly. Even if her soul still protested.
“Let it go, Merrily.”
“Don’t call me that.” She said it more out of habit than annoyance, for his tone was not derogatory but affectionate.
A pregnant pause swelled between them, and then his soft voice closed the distance. “But that is how I think of you. Gliding over cool, still waters. A life of dreams and sweet merrymaking.”
His words pierced her, breaking into her clockwork heart and setting it off rhythm. Beside her he tensed and awkwardly cleared his throat. “So,” he said after a moment, “you helped me due to misguided guilt.”
“No.” Mary turned her head a fraction, just enough that her cheek touched the rough wool of his coat sleeve. Talent’s scent surrounded her, what was once an irritant now grounding her in ways she didn’t want to examine. “We might have been enemies, but you are not a bad man. I could never leave you to such a fate.”
“Are we enemies still?” The quiet query held a mix of caution and hope.
A nerve twitched at the base of her throat. Were they enemies? They’d been at odds for so long. For reasons she didn’t fully understand. Yet she could not keep away from him. Here they sat, curled into each other, and it felt… good. Her lids grew heavy, as if she could sink into sleep, sink into him. She wanted to be here with him more than anywhere else. “No.”
He let go of a long breath, as if he’d been holding it. “You saved me, Mary. You.”
With dreamlike slowness she eased away and turned toward him. His head was bent, his expression a mixture of confusion and wariness, as if he thought she might leave. Their gazes met.
A visible ripple went through him. “Merrily.”
Then she saw what he’d only given her a glimpse of before. Need. So stark and pure that the hard marble beneath her seemed to dip and sway. A surge of something fierce went through her body. The strong column of his throat worked on a swallow, and his words came out raw. “I didn’t want to feel this.”
That she knew precisely what “this” was made her want to cry and to laugh at the same moment. “Neither did I.”