He was quiet for a long moment. “Me either,” he said.
They sat in silence for a while. Aurora’s feet dangled in the cold air, the wind nipping at her ankles. While she had slept, the world had shifted and lit up like the stars. Tristan was right. This place was brutal and cold, but there was something beautiful, something wild, in the brick and stone. She looked behind her, wanting to follow the glow all around the city, to see all of this place that had swallowed her whole. A few specks of light peeked out of the darkness. The city walls stood watch, and beyond them, only shadow.
“What’s over that way?”
He turned too, following her gaze. “It’s just the forest.”
“The forest?” Of course. Not everything was gone. She twisted until she was flat on her stomach, head propped on her elbows, her whole body pointing toward the darkness. “Have you ever been there?”
Tristan twisted with her, and then they were lying side by side, staring at the trees they could not see. “Of course I have,” he said. “I wasn’t born here, was I?”
“Oh,” she said. “But since then? Since then, have you been?”
“Not in years,” he said. “It’s not the most inviting of places.”
There was a taste of the world she knew, just beyond the walls. “Let’s go,” she said. “Now.”
He laughed. “Are you crazy? Even I don’t have that much of a death wish.”
“Why?” she asked, the word rushing out of her. “Why is it crazy?”
“Because we have no way to get out, and no way to get back. Not without being seen. Not without breaking our necks. And of course,” he added, when she didn’t reply, “there are the ghosts to think about.”
“Ghosts?”
“Ghosts,” he said. “And monsters. Werewolves. Trees that come alive and grab at you as you try to sneak past.”
“Liar,” she said. “There aren’t any monsters.”
“Oh really?”
“There are only bears. And wolves. And the occasional lion. But no monsters. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of them?”
“You’re mad, Mouse. Completely, utterly mad. And yes, to answer your question. I don’t fancy becoming supper for some ravenous beast.”
She pressed her chin down into the palms of her hands and closed her eyes. “I’m not mad,” she said. “It’s just . . . it’s somewhere I’d like to go. It reminds me of home.”
“Do you miss it?”
“All the time. But . . .” She opened her eyes. Even in the darkness, she could see the outline of his face, the slight frown that curved his mouth. She shrugged. “There’s no going back now.”
“My parents are dead.” He spoke so bluntly, so matter-of-factly, that it took Aurora a moment to realize what he had said. “That’s why I had to move here. Why I live in an inn. I’m guessing that you’re not particularly surrounded by family either.”
She shook her head, unable to form the words. My parents are dead. It was too horrible, too undeniable, to say out loud. She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to blow away the tightness in her chest. They sat, silent except for their breathing and the occasional sound of life below.
“Does it get any easier?” she asked, after so much time had passed that she was sure he had forgotten their conversation.
“No.” The word fell heavy in the air, but it wasn’t sad. Painfully, bluntly honest, but not sad. Aurora let the word roll in her mind, relishing its plainness. “It doesn’t. But—I don’t know. You find other reasons to live.”
The lights flickered below them. With her eyes fixed on the forest, she reached out and grabbed Tristan’s hand. For a heartbeat, he paused, and then he squeezed tight, his thumb tracing shivers across her skin.