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It may take minutes or hours to reach the van Zieks manor, Evie cannot tell. Her mind drifts, snippets of the conversation in Barok’s office spliced with their banter from years ago. A peaceful dance, accompanied not by music but by Barok’s broken admittance of guilt. Her fingers dance along piano keys that produce not notes, but floundering offers of support.
The carriage rolls to a stop, abruptly snapping Evie from her trance. She turns from the window, her gaze finally landing back on Barok. She watches him climb from the carriage, almost in slow motion. Years could be seconds as he steps aside and extends a hand to her.
Perhaps it was only seconds. Were it not for the smattering of gray hairs, the scar, the permanent scowl etched across his face, then perhaps Barok is still that hopeful 20 year old. Perhaps Evie is still a debutante, skirts bustled behind her as partner after partner spins her around a ballroom.
Except they are not. Evie is a wife and mother, who will be parted from her husband for who knows how many years. Barok is the Reaper of the Bailey, feared by many across London. Both of them fraught from a decade long conspiracy that took all they had.
“Mrs. Vigil?” he says, and the years flood in like a raging river.
‘You called me Evie, once,’ she thinks, but cannot say. “Yes, of course,” she responds instead, putting her hand in his with the delicacy reserved for that which will break at the slightest touch.
Barok does not smile, does not speak. His expression tightens around the eyes at the gentleness of her touch, but he does not tighten his grip.
Evie steps out of the carriage, holding eye contact all the while. A dangerous decision, yes, but he would never let her fall. Times may have changed, but they will never change that much.
She carefully takes back her hand when she hits the ground, brushing out her skirts. “Shall we go, then?” she asks, well aware he will not speak first.
Barok agrees lowly and escorts her to the door, slowly dragging it open without so much as a glance at her.
Evie can’t help staring, as she walks through the foyer of the van Zieks manor. So many years since she was here last, but it’s hardly changed.
It’s certainly dustier, though.
“Did you let everyone go?” Evie intends for her lilt to sound teasing but by the look on his face, it has cut him like one of his brother’s swords. She can’t help but wince.
He does not reply. “The parlor is through here,” he says instead, his voice forcefully even, and walks ahead without looking back.
She follows wordlessly, her skirts rustling the only noise in the house. She finds him sitting rigidly on the sofa, staring blankly ahead. Evie sits in the chair across him, lips pressing together in barely contained concern.
The air in the room is thick and Evie’s voice trembles when she breaks the silence, “Are you certain you’re alright to discuss this? I do not wish to stress you,” she pauses, considering, then adds, “any more than you are already, of course.”
His gaze hardens when he looks at her. “What could you burden me with that I have not returned to you tenfold?” he asks, the cold seriousness of his tone a sharp contrast to the timid boy she once knew.
“You do not deserve-” she begins to reassure him, when the meaning of his words sinks in. “You knew you were hurting me?”
She may as well have stricken him for the way his face contorts. “Nothing I could have done would have spared you.”
“I did not need to be spared,” Evie lurches forward in her seat as she speaks, “and it was not your right to decide what I needed.”
He sits silently, with the expression of a man who knows he has been beat, but his features twitch and betray the tempest of his mind.
“I needed you,” Evie’s voice breaks, the words almost a cry.
“You had your husband, what would I have done but torn you apart?”
Evie breathes heavily, her eyes glimmering with the telltale shine of tears. A realization tears her heart in two, “You see only pain where I see comfort.”
Barok makes a choked noise and she thinks he begins to speak, but she cuts him off.
“No!” she cries in earnest now, standing in a flurry. “How long will you let the dead drag you down, Barok?” Evie demands, even as tears begin to fall from her eyes. “Ten years! How many times did I reach out to you, to receive only silence in return? I needed you, do you understand? Years of mourning and not a glimpse of your face. You even avoided me at their funeral. We were honoring their lives and you couldn’t look me in the eyes.”
“How could I, carrying the weight of what I could not tell you?”
“You chose to carry it! Six years we knew each other, you sat in the front row at my wedding! What could have possessed you? And do not say you were protecting me. You were protecting yourself.”
“I wanted only your happiness,” Barok says, but his tone betrays that he knows well how ineffective his defense is.
“You know nothing of my happiness, if you believe I desire your absence,” Evie replies, the fierce coldness of her words making him visibly recoil.
It is then that he, for the first time, breaks eye contact. He looks down at his feet and his voice is broken when he speaks, “What can I say, Evie?”
Evie sighs and crouches down to meet his gaze. “Look at me.”
He does, slowly raising his eyes to hers, but the look he gives her is empty.
“Good,” she says softly, a smile gracing her lips at last. “Now, listen to me. I will never—have never—wanted to be isolated from you. We may not be family by blood or law but I have thought of you as such for many years, even before Klint and Flora were married.”
“Mine is no family to aspire to,” he mourns lowly, minutely shaking his head.
Evie stands. “How can you say that?” she scoffs. “I will not discount the hurt you feel, the betrayal these past days have revealed to you, but do not disparage to me the family of my dearest friend. The actions of your brother reflect nothing on you, on Flora. Others may think so but I will not allow you to drown in your own regret. Look. At. Me.”
Barok raises his head slowly, a glaze over his eyes.
“If you would, for once, look past your own grief, you could find hope again. You could be happy, Barok. The weight of tragedy is not yours to bear alone. I accept your support readily, why will you not accept mine?”
Barok tries a half hearted excuse of his unworthiness and Evie huffs.
“Stand up.”
He complies with an uneasy look, but Evie pays it no mind and pulls him into a hug near immediately. It’s a bit awkward, given his height advantage, but Evie can’t bring herself to care.
“You deserve it,” she says, the sternness of her tone a bit undermined by the slight muffling of her voice. “I will not argue that with you. You cannot convince me otherwise. I say you are deserving, and so you are. That is my decision.”
Barok does not reply but he does—albeit hesitantly— wrap his arms around her.
Evie smiles, sighing contentedly. She tightens her grip for a few moments, then pulls back. “You understand?”
He doesn’t quite smile, but Barok’s expression softens. “I understand.”
Evie isn’t exactly sure she believes him, but it’s certainly a start.