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Jill sat on the edge of the infirmary’s bed and squeezed Joshua’s thin and fine hands in her own. There were white scars on his knuckles, and his palms were dry and chafed from illness and fire. But they were warm and held her own back, thumb stroking the side of a nail. How for so many years all she’d had was the vibrant feather Clive and her passed back and forth between them like an ill-kept pet. “It still feels like a dream,” she says. “I mourned you, and Clive, and Elwin, and Rosalith when she fell — and now I have most of you back.”
“It’s not a dream, I promise you. The dead do not return from their graves.”
“No, but they do return from Phoenix Gate.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead. Joshua’s laugh was a sad exhale. He turned on his side, knees bumping against her back, face warping in a grimace before smoothing out to a river-washed stone. He was and wasn’t the same boy she remembered. He was handsome now, and proud of his strength and his will, and commanded the room with a kind charisma not unlike that of Elwin’s. Even beaten down by Bahamut into a sorry state he looked at Dion with concern, and her with a great deal of longing and understanding and immutable sadness. It was like looking in a mirror, and Jill knew without asking that their thoughts were running in parallel directions.
“For all the wish making you’ve done since we were children, I think it’s only fair that Metia grant you a few, would though that you could have every single one.”
“Heh. Mayhap it won’t be Metia that grants them then, but all of us, here, together now.”
“I would like that very much,” Joshua confessed. He squeezed her hands so hard then that his body shook. “I am so, so glad you’re okay. I’ve missed your reassurances. You have always been indefatigably kind and I regret that I can only say all that now.”
“You know Clive’s not the only one relieved to have their brother home.”
Joshua swallowed hard. It was impossible to tell if his face was wet from the fever ravaging his body or the painful candidness of their reunion. The concoction was all agony. He was sweating and shivering, and he still smelled of ash when his hair dragged across the pillow. “I know. I do, I promise. It’s — our reunion has been long, long overdue. I had reasons. If I had seen either of you but for a moment — all of my resolve and efforts would have perished on the spot.”
“I know.” Her head dipped low and Jill hid her gaze, just for a moment, weighing the full implications of his words in her heart. This boy lit up Phoenix Gate with a mantle of red and orange he didn’t ask for under a burden too great for his body to bear and now lay half dead in this bed, dying still. Greagor did not love her dominants a bit. “We would do anything for family.”
“Even become monsters,” he said softly.
Jill gazed at him. His cool eyes were steady but shiny and looked exactly like the shape of his brother’s. “You’ve heard from Clive then. About Ironholm.”
“Very little,” he whispered. “That you were taken there. It’s a horrible, twisted place that should rot. How did you even endure?”
“The years after Phoenix Gate changed us all,” she said matter of fact. “I grew hard. I had to. I never thought or wanted to feel joy in running my sword through a man’s heart — but Imreann. I would do it a thousand times over.” Jill traced over the scars on his hands. “And you’ve seen your own horrors as well,” she murmured. “I’ve never forgotten the night of your death. Your wings lit up the sky.”
Joshua’s voice cracked. “And I’m afraid the stakes will only continue to get worse. I’m finally here with you both, closer to what he wants —” Joshua drew a hand free to tap his chest before scrubbing his face. Jill could feel that creeping sadness up the length of her arm. “—and he will stop at nothing. When I rest, there is always a worse push back to come. There is always a longer recovery that will await me. And I — ” He coughed wetly. “I’m not well,” he gasped out. Jill could almost taste the iron herself.
“Don’t let those thoughts consume you. Clive and I, we will keep you safe this time,” she whispered. “No more death, no more ambiguity. For this to happen though, you must heal.”
Jill folded his hands over his chest and patted his cheek. His eyes were glassy and she leaned down to his level, stroking his hair away from the wetness on his face. “I came here with the intention of telling you how glad I am you’re here with us, but instead I’ve made you cry.”
Joshua laughed and sighed, head falling across his pillow. His teeth were red. “These last twenty years have been brutal. But it’s all been for this moment. These are mostly happy tears. I promise.”
“That you can say that tells me all I need to know.” Finally, she stood, the dip in the bed disappearing. She helped him drink from the tankard by his bedside, and then Joshua raised his arms in surrender and she pulled the sheets up to his chin, covering the awful resident in his chest and gently soothing the swollen ache with a quiet crackle of ice from a finger. He watched, mesmerized, at the sparkle of magic.
“You’re making me feel like a child,” he whispered.
Jill simply smiled. “No, I just care. Like always.” Jill turned to gaze behind her at the dark form of the Sanbreque prince. He breathed, but never shifted, and he hadn’t woken at all when Tarja pulled at his plates and washed the blood from his face. His sheets were as crisp and untouched like a shroud for the dead.
“…I’ll return later. I have a few tasks I must get to before dark, unfortunately. But I want to talk more, when your body has had time to heal. I want to hear about your adventures. And if Tarja is pleased with you, perhaps a midnight raid to the kitchen is in order in a few nights.”
Joshua smiled and smiled. “Please,” he said. “I haven’t been an accomplice in a raid in years.”
Jill stepped away and collected her sword, sheathing it, smoothing out the folds in her skirts, damning herself for the bit of fear that told her if she left, Joshua would disappear like a fine mist over the water. Jill rounded the edge of the bed with a final smile and stood beside the partition, heart in her throat. He was still looking at her, waiting, wondering — perhaps the same as her. That if he slept, he would wake up alone, and all of their tears and hopes would be nothing but ash in their mouths, Twinside just another Phoenix Gate.
That tickling fear that his path was already set in stone was like an open sore she could do nothing but itch. He could lie to Clive, but not to her.
They stared at each other for a long time. When Jill finally turned the corner, steps quiet and sure down the hall and the winding stairs, she whistled softly for Torgal.
When she passed by again for the final hour before midnight, Clive moving silently beside her to deliver a whispered goodnight, Torgal was shamelessly stretched out beside Joshua on the small bed, both barely on any surface at all. If Joshua’s face hadn’t been buried in his fur, an arm slung over his great fur coat and disappearing within it, Jill would have called him away. Torgal’s tail flipped in his dreams, and Joshua’s breathing was unlabored and deep. When they were children, both bodies had fit, and Jill could hear the scoldings the maids had given Joshua as a youth, stripping the animal hair from his clothes with a fine toothed comb and a warning to stop letting the beast sleep in his bed.
“He’s really here,” Clive breathed. “After all these years…” His voice broke. Jill gripped his hand.
“May Metia let us keep him forever,” she said.