She stepped out from behind the rock. “Wait.”
He was at her side in an instant. He studied her lips, her dusting of freckles, the widow’s peak in her hairline, her shoulders and fingertips, as if they’d been separated for months. He touched her cheek. She leaned into him for a moment—blissful instinct—then forced herself away.
“You shouldn’t be here,” both said at the same time.
How similar their preservation instincts were, their tendency for sadness. Eureka had never met anyone as intense as Ander—and even that was familiar. People in New Iberia often said Eureka was “intense,” meaning it as an insult. Eureka didn’t think it was.
“If my family finds you … if Atlas does,” Ander said.
Eureka looked around, her gaze hovering on the empty pine tree. “I have to know the truth.”
Ander faced the Glimmering. Rain glanced off the air around his skin. Now that she was up close, Eureka admired the ridges of Ander’s cordon.
“Me too,” he said.
“When Brooks was taken,” Eureka said, “he became so different. I see now that it was obvious.” Bitter rain struck her lips. She hated that she’d done nothing to help Brooks, that he struggled alone. Was she making the same mistake with Ander, afraid to confront a frightening change in him?
“You don’t know me well enough to know if I’m different,” Ander said.
Eureka watched a cloud drape his face in shadows. It was true. He had guarded his identity closely. Yet he knew so much about her.
“You know yourself,” she said.
Ander grew impatient. “If I’m possessed, I can’t be around you anymore. I won’t let him use me to kill you. I would go into the far distance and never see you again.”
Then Ander would be free from his feelings for her. He wouldn’t grow old like Solon had when he’d been in love with Byblis. Wasn’t that what she wanted? She tried to picture carrying on without him, toward Brooks and Atlas and the impossible dream of untangling them and redeeming herself. Would it be better for Ander if he left her now?
“Where would I go?” Ander moaned softly, closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I weren’t next to you. That’s who I am.”
“You can’t rely on someone else to define you. Especially not me.”
“You talk like we’re strangers,” he said. “But I know who you are.”
“Tell me.” He had touched her most vulnerable reflex. Eureka immediately regretted her words.
“You’re the girl who described falling in love more truly than anyone ever has. Remember? Love at first sight that shatters your world’s skin. Not fearing someone’s flaws and dreams and passions.” He took her in his arms and held her tightly. “The unbreakable bond of reciprocal love. I’ll never stop caring for you, Eureka. You think all you feel is sadness. You don’t know what your happiness could do.”
Ander believed there were more sides to Eureka than she would allow herself to see. She thought about the way Esme had tapped the thunderstone when she said there were exceptions to the Glimmering’s deadly rule. Eureka approached the pond, slipped her necklace over her head. She held the stone over the water.
“What are you doing?” Ander asked.
The Glimmering answered. Lacy bands of water formed from its depths and drew up around the surface, like a deck of liquid cards being shuffled. A mauve fog spread out above the Glimmering, then gathered into a cloud of concentrated purple in the center, inches from the softly gurgling spring. The cloud stretched into a spire of purple vapor, which imploded and vanished into the center of the pond.
The Glimmering had stilled into a shining mirror.
“I don’t think we should do this,” Ander said.
“You mean you don’t think I should do this.”
“You could die.”