Page 168 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
But Adeline had survived the death of two parents, had become one herself overnight, had broken a curse, and she was not to be told what was impossible.
I’ll find you, I’ll find you, I have to!
She’d hitch a ride all the way to St Bartholomew’s if she had to. She wouldn’t let this be the end of it.
And yet the carriage was nowhere insight, and she could barely breathe.
“Dimitri!” she screamed fruitlessly across the hills. “Dimitri!”
Her voice echoed back, and nothing else.
She kept running, running until she was breathless, until her sides hurt, until she couldn’t run anymore, and collapsed in a pile by the roadside.
She’d torn her coat somehow. Her braid was loose. There was a dull pain in her ankle from tripping over a stile.
I could have run faster, left sooner—
I could have told him the truth from the start.
A sharp, dense pain spread through her chest, nothing to do with the exercise.
You deserve this,she told herself.Everything you feel, every drop of pain… you deserve it.
She waited until her breathing had stilled, then climbed to her feet, and began the slow trudge home.
She wouldn’t let this be the end of it, but she couldn’t just run off. She’d need to check they had the funds. Somehow, eventually, she’d find a way.
A pair of horses snorted somewhere in the fog, but she couldn’t see them. She hardly cared, as she walked up the path to her house.
And found Dimitri standing outside the front door, cradling Edie in his arms.
“She won’t remember me, will she?” he said. “If I am away for long?”
Adeline didn’t answer. She blinked at him, as if expecting him to vanish, and then peered down at the road where the carriage was waiting.
Not a dream.
“I’ll be a stranger to her when we meet again, but you…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t care if you don’t feel the same. I had to see you one last time.”
Adeline marched forward, tugged Edie free from his grip, and deposited her inside. She turned back to Dimitri in seconds, and promptly burst into tears.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wept, not daring to look him in the eyes. “I tried to… I didn’t want…” She steadied herself against him, taking several deep, shuddering breaths. No more waiting. No more concealing. “I love you,” she told him, as he stiffened underneath her. “Really, truly. I lied. I lied about everything but the fact that I love you and I—”
She couldn’t quite find the words, so she dragged her mouth to his, thought and sensation surrendering themselves to the press of her lips on his.
She didn’t want to stop. She couldn’t stop. Stopping would be the end of everything. So she kissed him instead, until she felt he understood, understood everything she couldn’t speak and ached to say.
Dimitri, Dimitri. Mine, mine. My soul, my friend, my dearest partner. You take all of me with you.
They kissed until their lips felt numb, until she’d pressed fragments of herself into him, until she was certain he knew, that he took a part of her with him.
“He made you promise something, didn’t he?” Dimitri asked, inching back. “To stay away from me?”
“He said… he said he wouldn’t make you go, if I could make you believe that I didn’t love you, said that I could stay too. I couldn’t… I couldn’t leave. That would have broken me. Not seeing you every day…” She shook her head. “And now you’re going anyway.”
His jaw tensed. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
A tear slid silently down Adeline’s cheek.
