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I didn't hear her approach.
I didn't need to. I felt her as she stepped out of the house, down the path, towards the edge of the beach. Felt her like—like the moon rising. Like the tide's pull. Like—
"You're staring, love."
I flushed, and turned my gaze back to the swell of the sea. I could deny it, and I didn't think she'd laugh at me. I didn't.
"How's Bea?" I asked instead. The silver glow strengthened at my back as she stepped closer, as she sat down in the sand beside me.
"She's—she'll be okay." Emmeline said finally. Her voice soft, perhaps softer than I'd ever heard.
"Will the baby?" I asked, a gnawing worry I'd had for days. Since she first mentioned it, but we'd been too wrapped up in each crisis to ask.
"It will." There was something warm in her voice. "I—I checked."
"You checked?" I repeated, eyebrows raised. I looked at her. Something in my face must have given me away, because Emmeline let loose a laugh, head back, throat bared.
Like the first time I'd heard her laugh. Like the first party, when I'd been sure she's bewitched me. I'd been right of course, but for all the wrong reasons. A laugh I hadn't seen in—God, was it really only days?
"Yes, Annie. I checked. I told you—my aunt was a midwife. Before—everything. She taught me what she could. She was a lot like Isabelle, in a way. She taught me to—to feel. The life, how different new life is from old. The baby's fine."
"A small miracle, given everything it's been through." I mutter, returning my gaze to the ocean.
"A bloody miracle indeed." Emmeline echoed. "Annie, I—you shouldn't have—"
"Don't." I said, the word hot on my tongue. It was out before I knew I'd spoken; I knew what Emmeline was going to say. "Don't tell me it was a mistake."
"Wasn't it?" I expected her to sound furious when we had this conversation, all of that same fire she'd thrown at me whenever I'd mentioned the Vinculum before. She just sounded…tired.
"No." I repeat. "It wasn't. If you're going to sit there, and tell me you regret it—if you're going to lie to my face—" I didn't know how to finish that sentence. Didn't know if there was an end to it. "I knew what I was doing."
"You didn't." Emmeline said, an edge to her words—the edge I had expected. "You don't know what you did. I barely know what we did—"
"Well, I know what it meant." I retort. "You can't tell me I didn't. And I know that it saved you, saved Bea, banished Arthur."
"And tied you to a life you never asked for. Maybe never wanted."
I freeze. Turn my head slowly to look at her. Something burns in me, and when I meet Emmeline's eyes I see it there too. "You can't possibly believe that's true." I mean to sound angry, tap into some of the same fire that had impressed her before the ritual, before everything else had happened in that room. Instead the words rush out of me weak, breathy, afraid. "Don't you sit there and tell me you think I don't want this. You. Not after everything. Not when I know you feel it."
Because she must be able to. It had been a little easier when she was in the house but now, sat beside her, I can feel every beat of her heart, perfectly in sync with mine. Not caused by the new bond, never caused by the vinculum at all, though I'd spent weeks blaming it.
She wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
"You—Annie, love, you shouldn't—"
I cut her off. That word, that abominable word cut like a knife. How many years had I spent in shoulds?
I should stay and run my mother's shop.
I should protect Bea from the boys and the booze.
I should marry Sam.
And now Emmeline too. The woman who strutted about in men's clothes, who wielded magic like wildfire, who broke law after law because it was all she knew. She thought I should—the anger flared, and I did nothing to keep it hidden from her.
"Did Bea ever tell you about Sam?" I asked, because anger made me brave, and because I needed bravery for the words burning a hole through my tongue.
"She—mentioned him, rarely. Usually when she was drunk."
I huffed a laugh that lacked amusement. "She would." I muttered. "Sam was—perfect. Soft, and pretty, and brave. He tied the two of us together for years—he made me braver, and he tempered Bea. And he loved me." The last sentence fell out of me a whisper, choked at the end. Emmeline's hand, tentative, reached out to take mine. I let our fingers intertwine, softened since our binding—no longer a bolt of lightning down my spine, but a hand pressed against my sternum. She didn't speak.
"He loved me." I went on. "And Bea loved him. And I—I couldn't. Not like I was supposed to. He was my brother. This perfect, handsome boy with a heart of gold—if there was any man I could have loved like I should it would have been him."
"It–still shouldn't be me." Emmeline replied finally. "There are—other women like us. This island's full of the queerest sort. I'm not—Annie, I'm not good for you." But I felt her conviction waver. Maybe she should have wanted me to go, but she didn't any more than I.
"I don't think there's a person alive who could be good for me." I retorted, squeezing her hand in mine and her energy in my heart all at once. She exhaled sharply. "There was a man who would have been good for me, and I couldn't love him, and then he died, Em. He died, and I came here, and found something so much greater."
"Annie—don't—" Emmeline sounded strangled. I ignored her.
"I found myself." I sat up on my knees to look at her properly, her eyes wide and her lips parted. "I found you. I found magic. And I found love."
"Annie—"
"I do, Em. I love you. You know I do; how could I not?"
"Because I'm—I'm no good, Annie." She sounded angry; she looked wretched."The things I've done, the things I am. You've bound yourself to a—a monster."
"You're no more monster than I am." I replied, thrum of something like anger, like fear, like need in my veins. I didn't know what was me and what was her anymore. I wasn't sure it mattered. "We both bound in blood. Both murderers. Both—criminals, in the eyes of the law. Both—" I couldn't say it, but the words hung in the air between us. In love. I knew it to be true, even if she wouldn't say it. It had to be true. "So if you're a monster, Emmeline, then I'm right there with you."
"That is exactly what I wanted to prevent."
"And why don't I get a say? You're always trying to protect me, trying to push me away like—like you don't actually want me at all."
The look Emmeline gave me made me feel sick. Equal parts heart broken and longing. It might have even been dark and wicked yesterday, before her debt was lifted. Now it just felt like I was looking at a fracture in her heart.
"I don't—"
"Don't lie to me, Em. Don't you dare lie to me, after everything."
Emmeline held up a hand, and I bit my tongue to keep from going off again. My mouth filled with the taste of salt spray and iron. My veins hummed. Emmeline winced.
"You really need to be more careful about that." She murmured, but her lips quirked in a smile I hadn't seen before. Soft. Warm—warm in a way I'd never seen her smile before. "I don't want you to get hurt." She finished her earlier sentence.
"You think staying will hurt me more than forcing me away?"
Emmeline was silent for a long time. I used the silence to move towards her, until my knees touched hers.
"No." She said finally. "Not anymore. Not since—" She didn't finish her sentence, and I couldn't imagine which part of the last few days she was referring to. I didn't ask.
"I don't need your promises." I said. Something in my voice caught her, held her gaze to mine. "I'd be a fool to try. All I want is you, Emmeline. Just you."
Slowly, she let her knees drop to one side of me, let herself draw closer. I held my breath—I couldn't move. This had to be her; I'd put everything I had, all that I am, on the sand before her.
Her hand cupped my cheek. Her head tilted. "Just me?" She repeated. "I'm rather a lot, love."
My eyes fall, traitorously, to her lips, before flicking back up to her eyes, far brighter than I'd ever seen them. "Don't worry." I said, letting her press ever closer. "I've got strong hands."
"Then hold on, love." Her words were a ghost of breath over my parted lips. And then she kissed me, and it was almost nothing compared to the first two. And yet, it was everything.