“So I shut myself in her enchanted house, and felt every hour, every second of my life spinning away from me. By day, I was torn in two, my human self trapped in the worlds of the books, not remembering my true nature, while my wolf form raged, because I could not be free of her. Sometimes I couldn’t stand it any longer and went roaming, breaking through the wood she bound around me, searching for some spark of hope. And then I found you.”
My eyes jerk up of their own accord and I stare at Hal across the fire. “Did you ever remember? That we had done it all before?”
“My book self didn’t, until the end. But every night, when the magic grew thin and I shed my wolf form, I remembered everything I’d done to you—everything I was still doing to you—and everything you sacrificed to free me. Twice. And sometimes I looked at you and I knew you from before and it broke my heart. Because, in the end, no matter what happened—I would destroy you. I already had.” His voice catches. “I tricked you. Trapped you. I am as despicable as the Wolf Queen, more. Because I hurt the one I loved. I hurt you, and then I did it again.” He bows his head into his hands and his shoulders shake. He’s crying, and I can’t bear it.
I slip around to his side of the fire and settle next to him, wrapping my arm about his shoulders. He leans into me for a moment, then turns to look up at me, his face twisted into a tangle of emotions I can’t quite understand.
He wipes his eyes and I slip my hand into his and he doesn’t pull away.
“Can you forgive me, Echo? I haven’t dared to ask you since the Queen was destroyed because I knew I couldn’t bear it if you reviled me. But now—now I just need to know. Can you forgive me?”
My throat constricts. I hold tight to his fingers, the heat from the fire pulsing in my skin. “Yes. Oh, Hal, yes. But it hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know.” He lifts his free hand to cradle my chin in his palm, gently. “I betrayed you. I meant for you to be trapped with the Wolf Queen. I wished for it, because it meant I would be free. Every word she made me tell you was true and I did it to you twice. You didn’t have those scars. The first time—the first time you tried to save me, you didn’t have those scars. You didn’t—”
“Hal.”
He takes a sharp breath.
“It wasn’t you. It was her. She trapped you, manipulated you, made you into a wild creature. It wasn’t you. I know myself, like I never did before. I’m proud of who I am. Even proud of my scars. They’re part of me—I wouldn’t wish them away.”
“Not even for that other life you could have had?” He smooths the left side of my face with his thumb.
“That other life didn’t have you in it. Not as you should be. Free from her.”
He looks stricken, and drops his hand. “I can never atone for what I’ve done. I can never deserve you.”
“It isn’t about deserving, Hal. It never was.” I long to pull him close. I ache for him. “The old magic is stronger than guilt or betrayal. Stronger than everything she did to you, and to me. It’s stronger than time.”
“Is it … is it strong enough to mend us?” His eyes pierce through me.
I touch his face where the oil burned him, where a tiny half-moon scar shows white against his skin. “Yes.” My throat catches. “It is. It is.”
And then I’m wrapping my arms around him, hugging him close, breathing him in. He clings to me. His heart beats against mine, strong, steady. “I love you, Hal.”
His lips move against my hair. “I love you, Echo.”
I pull my face to his and kiss him as the lake laps quietly at the shore and the moon peeks silver over the horizon. His mouth is warm on mine, his fingers smooth against my jaw. He tastes like springtime, like promises. A seed of contentment curls sweet in my belly. I let it sprout.
I lay on his chest as we talk, long into the night. We stare up at the stars. Peace steals over us. Healing.
“Hal,” I say, just before the fragrant wind lulls us at last to sleep. “Who was your musical friend? The one who gave you that piece you played for me in the concert hall?”
He smiles, and pulls me closer. “Echo, it was you. The first you. You taught me how to play in the books.”
Laughter bubbles out. “It was me!”
He kisses my cheek. “It was always you.”
I sigh against him.
We fall asleep.
EPILOGUE
THE TREES ARE DRIPPING SCARLET AND orange and amber leaves onto the cobbled streets of the village; smoke curls up from the shops and the houses. It’s a brilliant day, if a little cold. I walk with Hal over the stones, my heart quick in my chest, my fingers tangled in his.
He squeezes my hand. “Don’t worry.”
I slip my other hand into the pocket of my deep blue woolen skirt, one of many things we bought with the money Ivan gave us for the journey home, and twist my fingers where Hal can’t see.
I am glad we stopped to visit Ivan. He lives in a neat wooden house now, with a pen for goats and a room for writing. He’s older and happier and a little more rotund. Isidor is smiling and stately as a queen at his elbow, Satu bouncing and lively and always laughing. It was good to see them—but my heart urged me on. Hal saw, and understood. We only stayed two nights.
Ten years spun away while Hal and I were on the Wolf Queen’s mountain, and it’s been nearly twelve now since I last saw my father. We stride up the last little ways to his bookshop. My stomach churns.
“Don’t worry,” says Hal again, and wraps his arm around my shoulders.
I’m glad to have him here, solid and warm beside me. His presence gives me strength.
And then we’ve reached the shop, and we’re stepping through the door, listening to the chime of the bell overhead that heralds our arrival. We stop just inside, standing together by the window. I drink in the scents of my childhood: ink and paper, leather and dust and oil.
My father is with a customer, standing behind the counter wrapping a bundle of books in brown paper as I’ve seen him do so many times before. He’s the same, and yet not the same: his hair has turned snow white, his face is creased with wrinkles. But he’s alive. He’s here. I haven’t lost him entirely to the passage of time.
“May I help you?” comes a bright voice.
I jerk my attention to a young girl who must have slipped out of the back room while I was staring at my father. She’s maybe eleven, and wears her hair in two brown braids draped over either shoulder, her blue and gold embroidered kerchief tied neatly behind her neck.
I stare at her, anything I’d prepared to say vanished entirely from my mind.
“We’re here to see Peter Alkaev,” supplies Hal.
“If you’re looking for a book, I know them all,” says the girl. “Well, almost.”
Tears prick behind my eyes. “Are you his daughter?”
She smiles, and sticks out her hand. “I’m Inna.”
The customer steps past us with his package of books, walking through the door and out into the street.
“He can see you now,” says Inna, evidently not minding that I’m too shocked to shake her hand. She trots toward the counter. “Papa! There’re visitors to see you!”
Hal squeezes my hand once more, and we follow Inna, my heart beating so hard I can barely breathe.
My father has ducked down behind the counter, securing the customer’s payment in our battered cash box. “With you in a moment!” he calls cheerily.
“They’re not after books, Papa,” Inna explains. “Just you.”
He pops up again, smiling at his second daughter, my … sister … and then his eyes pass to me and he sees me, really sees me. His face blanches white. “Echo?” he says, hesitant, as though he hardly dares to speak the word.
I nod, tears rushing to overwhelm me. “It’s me, Papa.”
“Echo!” he cries. I’m vaguely aware of Inna’s round-eyed shock as my father comes around the counter. In another moment I’m wrapped in his embrace and we’re crying on one another’s shoulders and I can taste my joy—sunlight and honey and sharp winter wind.
“Echo,” he says, over and over again. “Echo.” He weeps into my hair.
It’s only then, when my father lifts his tear-stained face, that he registers I’ve brought someone with me, though he’s forestalled from inquiring by Inna’s overflowing amazement. “Inna. This is …”