Page 100 of Sonnets and Serpents
She wanted to, really, but her heart was all tangled up in the weeks without him, and the dreams she’d created crashed around her like thunder on the deck. Not just the romantic dreams—Eliza had convinced herself that whatever was broken inside from the curse would be fixed when she found Henry. But she wasn’t fixed.
Did that mean she never would be?
She was lost in uncertainty, and while it wasn’t his fault, she couldn’t help blaming him anyway.
“I lefthomefor you,” she snapped.
He never asked you to, said a voice inside.
But that only made the storm worse, because she felt foolish.Because she saw her father’s looming shadow in the clouds, and she heard his mocking voice.Romantic whims.
Had she imagined everything from the start? Had she taken a few flowers and turned them into an entire future?
Yes, said the voice inside.
Eliza willed it to drown.
“You left home for the old me,” Henry whispered. “The knight.”
Eliza threw her hands in the air. “So that’s what this is about. Well, I don’tcarethat you’re an Affiliate. It doesn’t change anything for me.”
He looked away. “You don’t even know what I am.”
“Your animal link, you mean? I don’t care! You could be a hog or a skunk or even a ravenous wolf, andI’d still love you!”
She let the words hang like a sunbeam through the storm. It was her first time confessing to him, and she’d always imagined a romantic whisper rather than a hurled accusation, but she was who she was. Maybe she needed to accept that the storm was a part of her now. It changed how she had to navigate, but it didn’t change her heart or the things she wanted.
And if he could just feel the same, she could navigate any storm or shipwreck. If he could just say—
Henry winced.
Eliza felt it like a slap.
“You say that like it doesn’t matter,” he said, oblivious to the way her mast had cracked in a lightning strike, the way it was plunging into the water. He swallowed. “But what does it say about a person if they share a magical link to a wolf? Does it mean they’re aggressive? And did the magic activate because they were innately like a wolf, or is the magic going tomake themlike a wolf?”
“I said I love you!” she shouted. “Did you even hear? No, you’re too caught up in self-pity. Some chivalrous knight.”
She meant it as a return slap, and the blow succeeded, obvious in his sharp flinch. She simultaneously hated herself for it and wished to throw another. She was just trying to hold her ship together.
For a moment, Henry met her eyes, his a tortured swirl of brown and green.
Then he walked away.
“Come back here!” Eliza shouted desperately, catching his arm. But she had a tether and he didn’t. He pulled away, disappearing down a campus footpath that wound between the trees, and no matter how she strained, she couldn’t pull Silas from his bench.
Glaring over her shoulder, she found the snake’s black eyes resting directly on her.
“Let me go!” she shouted.
Without a word, he gestured at his leg, stretched out before him. She wanted to yell at him for a convenient injury, for holding her back on purpose, but her eyes followed Henry’s empty path, and she suddenly thought of how long she’d searched,prayingto see him again.
Only to chase him away.
Eliza hit her knees, scraping her fingernails in the dirt. This was everything she’d feared. The worst side of her, exposed to the boy she loved. She pounded her fists twice, a scream held silent behind her tight throat.
“He’ll come back,” Silas said. “Give him time.”
She cast a hateful glance over her shoulder at the snake. “I don’t want to hear your opinion when you’ve made all of this so much worse!”
