Chapter 198: Tomorrow
MARGAUX
The garden had fallen quiet around us.
Not an empty silence. The kind that settled after something important had been said, when the air itself seemed reluctant to disturb whatever had just changed.
I lay against his chest and watched the moon and listened to his breathing slow from ragged back to steady, his hand moving through my hair in the absent, thoughtful way it had been moving since we came down from wherever we had been.
"I am worried about you," he said.
"I know," I said.
His hand paused for the briefest moment before resuming its lazy path through my hair.
He was quiet for a moment, which was his way of giving me time to understand the full weight of what he meant before he said more of it.
"I see why witches were feared," he said finally. "Historically. Why they could not simply exist alongside everyone else without it becoming a problem." He looked at the sky. "A person who can bind others to them against their will, who can use those bindings as armor, who can disappear the moment a situation turns against them." He exhaled slowly. "It is not a solvable problem through conventional means."
"You are still looking," I said.
"I am not stopping." His arm tightened slightly around me. "There has to be something. Some other witch out there who can help us establish protections that she cannot simply dissolve or teleport around. I refuse to believe the estate is simply vulnerable indefinitely."
"Prim seems to genuinely frighten her," I said. "That is something."
"Maybe Prim can be said to be the reason you are safe, but that is fucking temporary, until Séverine finds a way around her." He turned his head toward me slightly. "Part of the reason Prim came to you for help in the first place is because she cannot finish this alone. I do not want you putting more faith in her capabilities than the situation warrants."
"The reason she cannot take Séverine out directly," I said, "is because Séverine tied her life to several of the Omegas in this estate. Every time Prim hurts her, she draws from them to recover. Prim refuses to be the reason more innocent people die." I paused. "Which I actually respect more than almost anything I have seen from anyone in the last several days."
He considered that.
"Laurent retrieved Prim’s family’s bodies," I said. "I want us to give them a proper burial. Something real, not just disposal. What happened to them was horrific, and the very least we can do is offer them that."
"I agree," he said, without hesitation.
I felt the quality of his attention shift, the specific change that happened when he was watching my face rather than the sky.
"There is something else," he said. "What is it?"
I turned my face upward to look at him properly.
"There is something happening with me," I said. "That has nothing to do with being a wolf or not being a wolf in the right way. The sight. The threads. The ability to interact with spirits in the way that I apparently can." I paused. "I talked to the head healer today. He has a sister. I do not know if you know her. She left the pack some time ago, and she apparently has exactly the same symptoms I have been experiencing. Exactly."
Étienne was quiet for a moment.
"I heard she left because she was eccentric, which for me was a code word for crazy," he said. "That was always how people described it."
"If what has been happening to me had gone differently," I said, "I have no doubt that eccentric would be the kindest word anyone used." I looked at him. "She has lived with this her whole life. She will know things I do not know. How to control it. What it can and cannot do. The limits of it and how to work within them rather than stumbling around hoping things happen in the right direction."
He nodded slowly.
"Prim believes I can help the Omegas," I said. "Break the marks. If she is right about that, it has to mean I can do something useful against Séverine as well. Maybe even protect myself."
"I do not want you in danger." He said it simply, without the condescension that statement could sometimes carry when it came from people who did not actually believe you were capable. "Not because I think you cannot handle things. Because I have watched you nearly die twice in the last several days and I have no interest in a third time."
"Neither do I," I said. "That is why I want to go see her. The healer’s sister. If I understand what I am, I can use it safely. Right now I am operating completely blind."
"When?" he said.
"Tomorrow," I said. "Early. Before the day has time to become something else."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I am coming with you," he said.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because... Alpha Dorian wanted to talk to you. I believe you should talk to him," I said. "And I know the reason you are being this way is because you are worried. But I have Prim, and I will also take Laurent. Trust that I will not want to leave the estate without proper protection."
He thought about it, turning it over the way he turned things over when he was genuinely considering rather than simply waiting to agree.
"Alright," he said finally. "Laurent comes with. I will focus on speaking to my adoptive father."
"Good."
The garden held us for a few minutes longer.
The moon climbed higher above the trees. Around us, the forget-me-nots swayed gently in the night breeze, small and indifferent to the lives unfolding among them.
"We should go back inside," Étienne said.
"We absolutely should."
Neither of us made any attempt to move.
Eventually, he pushed himself upright with a quiet groan. I reached for him without thinking, and he caught my hand, steadying me as I stood. We ended up laughing under our breath at the awkwardness of it, the sort of laughter born from shared inconvenience rather than anything either of us had said.
I looked back at the garden one last time.
It already felt different, and I was sure I had dirt and pollen in my hair.
"Shower?" he said.
"Shower," I agreed.
We started back toward the estate.
Somewhere along the way, our hands found each other.