Page 53 of The Doctor and the Devil
“No.” Genuine shock stuttered through me.
“Good,” I said. “Because you shouldn’t. You said it yourself. He is honorable. Perhaps he had a difficult past, but who hasn’t?”
“I do not hold anyone’s past against them, Mina.” The chill in her tone reminded me that she, too, had been through enough trials to last the rest of her immortal life, and yet here she was, barreling into more.
“Are you aiming to drive a wedge between us because you don’t approve?”
“Certainly not. That would be absurd,” she laughed.
Irritation climbed up my spine. “Then why?”
Another sigh—softer this time. “I was simply trying to feel you out. And him.”
“It is no affair of yours,” I said tartly.
“You’re right,” she agreed. Then, more gently, “Mina, I will be honest with you. Before Étienne and I realized how powerful our love for each other was, it took an act of near Herculean willpower for either of us to entertain the idea of a future together. We loved each other by then, of course, but neither of us wanted to acknowledge it and accept what it would mean. It was no small thing for me to declare myself to him and to likewise accept him. Beyond the vast differences in our worlds—our lives—we faced more than simply prejudice. And I paid the highest price for my love of Étienne—my mortality. But I have never looked back or wished for a different choice.”
I fidgeted, uncomfortable with the emotions Daphne laid bare before me.
“Love is sacrifice, Mina, or it is nothing. It is not always easy. But when your soul calls so strongly to another, the alternative is worse than death. If you hadn’t come to us and made us realize that a future together was possible, we would have carried on living dull half-lives, lonely and pining for each other. It was your intervention that helped us find our way in the dark.”
I nodded.
“And so you think to do that same for me?” I asked, understanding dawning. “You try to—what is the expression—set a cat among the pigeons? Stir things up so we can get over our past and be together.”
“I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do,” she said. “But I will give you the intelligence I have collected.”
I waited.
“Rafael loves you, Mina. He loves you so fiercely, I fear what he would do if something were to happen to you. End the world, I think,” she continued. The gravity of her tone told me she wasn’t exaggerating.
“He has told me as much,” I admitted. I didn’t tell her that his words frightened me—not because I feared him, but because I feared I couldn’t match his passion.Me. Cold, calculating, logical Mina.Of course I loved him. I never stopped loving him, even when I hated him. It wasn’t enough.
“You don’t doubt his devotion to you,” Daphne said, face illuminating ghostly white in a shaft of moonlight as the carriage turned down the cobblestone street blocks away from the cemetery. “Is it that you doubt your devotion to him?”
I didn’t answer. She couldn’t know what it had been like the last twenty years—the loneliness, the grief, the rage. The cold kept those fires of misery at bay. I found comfort in the cold because I couldn’t feel anything else that would cause too much pain.
“You love each other,” Daphne insisted, gentle but firm.
“It has been a long time,” I said, “since I have allowed myself the luxury of that thought.”
“The fact that it holds true means something. If you still love him after all these years, after the awful things he did, that is a powerful kind of love.”
More likely, it meant that I was warped. I’d clung to the memory of our love even when Rafael abandoned me for his family and his kingdom. Clung to the hope like a beaten dog returning to its abusive master. And then, miraculously, when the pain and hurt from that betrayal had become too much, I’d found the cold within me. It had been so easy—too easy—to shut everything else out. I didn’t want to tell Daphne that, or Charlotte or Rafael, for that matter. I couldn’t admit that I was afraid of what love looked like after spending so long being comfortable in the cold.
I struggled against the lump in my throat. Humiliating tears pooled in my eyes, and I dashed them away before they could fall.
“It is not enough.” Even with more time, could I forgive him? Even with all the apologies and declarations and penance, if he somehow surpassed my unforgiving nature and we could move on, he was still immortal and I was human. With everything between us—our past and the reality of time itself—love wouldn’t be enough.I wouldn’t be enough.
Daphne cocked her head as the carriage slowed.
“Perhaps not now. But it’s a start.”
The inside of the carriage suddenly seemed too small—too warm. The pressure of expectation weighed on me, boxing me in. Why did everyone expect me to simply move on? To simplybe fine? To forgive and forget and throw myself headfirst into a relationship with a man I loved and hated in equal measure. To give up everything I’d worked for and start anew. It was bad enough Rafael was here, waiting and hoping andexpecting, and now Daphne and Charlotte had thrown their lot in with him. It left me no room to breathe, no space to think.
I lunged for the door, worried I would heave my guts up all over her fine upholstery. As soon as I threw open the door and gulped the steadying, cool breaths, I heard her final statement on the matter.
“Mina,” she said, low and stern, as if she’d plucked the very thought from my mind. “Youare enough. It is why he has come for you after all these years. It is why we fight tonight. It is why we will all die to protect you.”
