Page 124 of The Thirteenth Child
He winced, rubbing at his head. “I’m sorry for that. It’s…it’s easy to get caught in that pattern of talk when I’m around the other officers.”
“That talk didn’t surprise me,” I pointed out. “But this…talking about cake and sweetened mints. I never would have thought you would notice—”
“Of course I notice,” he cut in, quicker, perhaps, than he’d meant to. “Didn’t you…did you get my letter?”
His tone had grown softer, hushed, as if he was holding back some feeling he wasn’t yet ready to give away.
Just because you made him change does not mean he changed foryou.
“I did.”
“You never wrote me.”
Did he sound…hurt?
“I didn’t know I could,” I admitted. “I didn’t know you’d want to hear from me.”
Leopold dared to look my way, meeting my eyes with a stare so blue my heart began to rekindle some of those ridiculous daydreams.
“For a girl who’s so terribly smart and skilled, there’s a surprising amount you don’t know.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“I thought about you quite often, there, at the front,” Leopold mentioned.
“Why?” I asked, my eyes narrowed with distrust.
He paused, choosing his words with care. “I’d never been close to death before. The nearest I’d ever come was when Mother…but even then, I hadn’t seen the process of it, the moment it happened.She just went out for a ride and never came back. And then…servants took care of the body. The embalmers took care of it after that. I’d never had to deal with the aftermath…the after.”
I nodded, understanding. Since the Shivers had passed, I’d noticed how unpleasant an intruder death was here, a distant relation you couldn’t bear to spend time with. People didn’t know what to do with it. They did not sit with their dead. They did not prepare the bodies of their departed themselves, the way people would in smaller towns and villages. They sent their loved ones to a place where someone else would clean them and dress them and makethem appear as though they were every bit alive as the living, who would mourn them too quickly, eager to return to their own lives.
“But on the front,” Leopold went on, “there was only us to deal with it. There were no servants, no gravediggers.” He let out a small laugh that held no trace of humor. “There weren’t even enough men to take away the bodies. They were just left there, with us. So there was no choice but to deal with the after. There they were, taking up space and reminding us of everything that would come for us, no matter how hard we fought, no matter how brave we pretended to be. And I found myself thinking of all the afters you must have seen. I know…I know you’re good at your job, that you’re very, very good at it…but even very good healers must eventually deal with afters.”
“Yes.” It came out softly, less than a whisper, as my mind dredged up every after, every terrible moment before the after.
“It helped me, in a way, thinking of you.” He smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled, giving him a gravitas I had not seen in him before. “Sometimes I’d even talk to you, in my head.”
“You’d talk to me?”
Leopold blew out a breath, as if hardly believing he was admitting such thoughts. “You became this kind of daydream to help me through everything. I’d imagine what you’d do, how you’d treat the boys dying all around me. Elevate the wounds, apply pressure to staunch the blood flow and all that, but also…more, you know?” His smile deepened. “So now you know my little secret and I can die of shame in these box hedges here.”
I studied him, trying to see if it was a trick, trying to see where the punch line might lie. He returned my stare with an open guilelessness that undid me. “You don’t need to be embarrassed.”
“I just told the pretty girl who I’ve been thinking of for months that I’ve been thinking of her for months. I truly think I should, Hazel.”
Pretty?My heart glowed, but I pushed the word away, certain he didn’t truly mean it. No matter how introspective he might become, Leopold would forever be a flirt. “You never need to feel ashamed of striving to become a better you.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I think the changes suit you.”
“Not everyone does. I can feel people expecting me to go back to my old ways now that the war is over. And being home…it feels far easier to watch the world through gilded glasses, but…it’s also tiring tonotcare about things, you know?”
I raised an eyebrow. “So now you care about…cake?”
I was happy to hear him laugh.
“I am trying to care,” he began, deliberately emphasizing each syllable, “about those around me. Which includes you now too, healer—in case you don’t know. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I feel as though I’m trying to please so many people, to be everything to everyone. But I find that costume no longer fits so well.” He pressed his lips together. “You’d be surprised at how it now chafes.”
I wanted to respond with some airy remark—a talent I’d found came so easily in conversation with Bellatrice—but those words would not come.
“My mother used to make my brothers and sisters a spiced nut cake for their birthdays,” I finally said, feeling as though I’d handed him something precious.
