He jogs a look over his shoulder. “Of what?”
“Moments,” I supply. “None more than a few seconds long, but all that have given me pause to think…”
“Of what?”
His pressure is not necessary. It is a relief to free these admissions, especially to him.
“She has…lapses,” I say. “I cannot describe it any other way than that. She…goes away from me. Even from this time and place. She is lost, as if possessed—except the force inside her is not malevolent. Sometimes she will even start speaking there—and that is when I am most jarred. But not in an awful way…”
“In what way, then?” Max demands.
I pause, if only to allow myself a few seconds for the affirmation again. He is your brother. He cannot disown you. Just say it!
“There have been times when I swear…I am speaking to Magique.”
Encouraging news—he does not bolt out of here. Or openly scoff.
But troubling news—his dark contemplation does not change. I am hard-pressed to notice if the man even blinks, even after he turns around and walks back over. Though his body is clearly still capable of movement, I wonder about everything going on behind his face. In the far reaches of his bright brain.
“So now what are you intimating?” he charges. “That…what? They are the same person, centuries apart? That’s the reason Raegan’s going on about you trying this stunt in reverse?”
I set my feet apart, bracing them for the thrust of my full standing weight again. “I know it sounds crazy. But is it any more outrageous than how we got here to begin with?”
“All the more reason to leave the fuckery alone!” he retorts. “Bast. Brother. What is so awful about the idea of staying here? Would I suggest something that I cannot vouch for myself?”
“Says the salaud who recommended I take Bluebell out for a ride for my tenth birthday?”
“What?” he snaps. “The horse was always fine to me.”
“Just like the twenty-first century has been?”
He huffs. “You have simply had a skewed introduction.”
“Ah. Of course,” I bite back.
His expression remains even. “You have seen, and experienced, some of the more challenging aspects of the city. So I understand your initial reticence.”
“Initial?” I laugh but it is slathered with bitterness. “And you plan on changing my mind about that, I take it?”
His own spine stiffens. His countenance turns so dark, I wonder if he shall start breathing fire on me. “I merely hope to show you that not everyone in this place is rude and bloodthirsty.” Not the most dragon-like thing he could utter, but damn it, he believes it. “Christ, Bast. Fighting and warfare have been woven into your veins even before you knew what the words meant. So perhaps that is what you always look for in those around you.” He relaxes then, enough to clap a hearty hand to my shoulder. “Maybe you can find new ways of living that don’t involve killing and dismembering people.”
I let a brow jump up. “New ways of living. You mean right here, of course.”
“Selfishly speaking, yes,” he answers at once. “But also…concernedly speaking.”
I squirm but scramble for a note of levity. “Concernedly? Well, well, mon frere. Has your Alessandra been as good for shoring your left hook as your interesting vocabulary?”
One edge of his mouth twitches. “She is good for me in many ways—even though there was a time that she did not believe it for herself.”
At once, I discern his discomfort. The memory is clearly not easy for him to relay. I express my gratitude for his exposure with a sincere reply. “But you changed her mind? How?”
“’Twas not my doing at all—but her own bold proposition, the very night the wardrobe arrived from France. It was her Christmas present for me. A wonderful surprise, indeed—that she upended with all of her doubts about whether destiny had known what it was doing when delivering me here in the first place.”
I pucker my lips and emit a low groan, empathizing with his wounded expression. “So the evening concluded with the woman over your knee, counting out her spankings?”
“Only after I called her bluff by getting into the cabinet right away.”
I drop the pucker. It joins the rest of my amazed gape. “And what happened?”
“I went time traveling.”
“Mierde.”
“By five minutes.” He is more relaxed about the recall now, seeming to warm to the moment in his memory. “And only to the other room in our apartment, where my heart was truly longing to be the whole time.” He returns to reptilian inspiration for the look he casts now, his gaze as knowing as an old crocodile’s. “So you see, I have learned from personal experience. The wardrobe is not like a hired livery driver. It will not take you where you are not destined to go. I am not even certain it has a reverse mode.”
His pause is deliberate and watchful. I return the scrutiny with as much determination. Does he think his assertion will dissuade me that easily?
“But you were not focusing on the past,” I claim. “The cabinet gets its direction from our energy and desires, oui? Your heart already knew where it wanted to be. You merely needed to prove that to Alessandra.”
“And you are still certain that your heart is not here?” Max rebuts. “Just wait, Bast, and stop to consider that. If Kavia told you—”
“The same thing she told you,” I snap. Damn it, he knows that. We have already reviewed the many details of our experiences, noting the uncanny similarities of them—especially this part. “Which is exactly what I did.”
“So why did the wardrobe not cast you back instead of forward?” he charges. “Why did it not fling you back to a place where you could get to Magique and then flee France with her? If it was indeed possible, why were you propelled here instead of there? Would 1788 not have been an easier push than the twenty-first century?”
I fume. Not vociferously, but enough for him to feel my pique. Cheeky fucking churl.
“Perhaps I should just summon Kavia up to our little chat, hmm?” I drawl. “I am certain she would love to expound on the subject, as long as we toss a few soup dumplings at Carl and keep him amused.”
My cynicism does not dissuade the man. Secretly, I would be disappointed if it did. “I just think there is more magic at work here than we think,” Max asserts. “Obviously Kavia found a way to harness the divine—but she is not the cosmic author. The Almighty, in all its different and magnificent forms, is still in charge. In this case, perhaps it also exercised some mercy. If Magique was snuffed from this realm before her sacred time, perhaps parts of her have been secured and brought back as Raegan. Maybe those are the parts your own soul was drawn to and now has found once again.”
I sway where I stand. The bâtard seems to savor that, grinning like the few occasions when he bested me on the combat training field. But I cannot summon a shred of malice—because yet again, all his words sound so right. Feel so right.
Good God.
What if he truly is right?
That moment when Marq’s dagger sank into Magique’s chest…that terrible sweep of violence, with every moment that felt so wrong…