Chapter 7

Julian said nothing.

I'd gone through every article. The girl was nine — born the year after I died.

She lived at the Harrington estate now.

Julian seemed to want to be anywhere but here, answering this. The car was moving fast, and when we got back he locked himself in his bedroom.

He didn't like staff in the house, so they left once the dinner was made.

I sat alone at the table, staring at his closed door, with no appetite.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

He was brilliant and proud and had been pushed to his knees by something I still didn't fully understand. Not just losing me. Something else. Something that had been done to him against his will.

Elaine had given me a bottle and told me to use it on her own son.

I thought about that for a long time.

Then I knocked.

"Julian. Are you hungry?"

Silence.

"Julian?"

Still nothing.

The apartment had gone very quiet. The dark outside was pressing against the windows. I thought I heard something — like water. Like something dripping.

The sound filled up the silence until I couldn't think.

"Please." My voice gave way. "Open the door. I'm scared."

Just when I was about to find something heavy enough to break it down — the door opened a crack.

I slipped through it.

Julian stood there in nothing but a towel, hair wet from the shower, looking at me with baffled confusion.

At eighteen, he had been lean. At twenty-eight, he was something else entirely — broad-shouldered, unhurried, built like someone who'd spent ten years with no one to answer to.

I didn't know where to look.

"Not a fan?" Julian said.

I shook my head fast. "You're exactly the same as I remember."

High and unreachable. Not a speck of dust.

"Wasn't it you who said I was old?"

"That's not what I meant! You're — you're distinguished. Mature." I scrambled for words. "Aged well."

Julian started to laugh in spite of himself.

He pressed two fingers to his temple. "Aged well. Good God, Ivy, read more books."

I didn't know how to comfort him.

So I reached out and took his hand — the injured one. The bandage was a thin strip of clear medical tape now, protecting the wound.

I lowered my head and blew, very gently, over the bandage.

"Please don't do anything like that again."

Julian went still.

Then he lifted my chin, bent down, and kissed me.

When he pulled back, his voice was low: "Marry me."

The air had left the room.

"...What?"

Julian let me go. His eyes went red at the rims.

"So you don't want to. I knew it. I should have known." He pulled back from me, voice tight. "You were never like this before. Now that nobody's making you, you just want to get as far away as possible. Fine. Move back into the dorms. Forget we ever met."

I watched him hold himself together with that fierce, wounded pride.

My chest ached.

I stepped forward, reached up, and kissed him first.

"Yes," I said against his lips.