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The earliest incident known where Lucy used her talent is The Murton Colliery Horror when she was five. It was not a horror to her, not then. It was a grey, whispering afternoon, the sky bruised with the promise of rain, and the air thick with a chill that had nothing to do with the Northumberland weather. She had been kneeling on the worn floral sofa, her small nose pressed against the cold windowpane, watching the world outside her council house grow dim and strange.
Then, they came. Not as solid forms, but as shifts in the twilight, as patches of deeper cold that made her breath puff in tiny, startled clouds. They drifted past her window, these shimmering, sorrowful shapes, trailing whispers that were not sounds but feelings, a profound sense of loss, a sharp pang of fear, a weary, endless exhaustion. Lucy didn't scream. She didn't cry. She watched, mesmerised, her head cocked as if listening to a distant, sad song. This was her first encounter with Visitors.
And in the echoing silence they left behind, as the psychic pressure in the room swelled and then abruptly vanished, she heard it. A voice. Clear as a bell, bright and sharp and entirely other.
“Well, that was elegant.”
The voice was a boy’s, young, maybe her own age, but laced with a precocious, dry wit she couldn’t possibly comprehend. It wasn't spoken aloud; it resonated within the very confines of her skull, a thought that was not her own. It was an observation, crisp and clean, cutting through the lingering murk of the ghosts’ passage.
Lucy blinked. She looked around the empty room. "Hello?" she whispered aloud, her own voice small and timid in comparison.
There was no answer. The foreign voice didn't speak again. But a new, permanent fixture had taken root in her mind: a silent, elegant boy who commented on hauntings.
Her mother, when Lucy tentatively mentioned "the shiny people" and the "boy in my head," had cuffed her round the ear and told her to stop telling stories. So, Lucy learned to keep the voices to herself. Her own thoughts, which tended to be practical and tinged with a northern bluntness, now shared space with this internal commentator. He was sporadic, unpredictable. He would pipe up at the most peculiar times. It wasn't until she met Norrie that she understood the voice in her head was her soulmate's. She explained that when they were apart, she would hear what he would have thought, and when they were together, she could hear what he was thinking.
When she was seven, and her sister’s cat died, she stood over the small, still body in the garden, feeling a confusing mix of sadness and curiosity. The voice, a little older now, a little more refined, mused, “I wonder if it’ll come back. Ghost mice would be a sight.”
When she was ten, and a boy at school pulled her pigtails, her own internal reaction was a surge of hot, indignant anger. The voice, however, was coolly analytical. “Poor tactical move. Exposes the flank. A swift kick to the shin would be most effective.”
She never responded to him. How could she? It was like trying to talk to her own heartbeat. But she listened. She learned his cadence, his dry humour, his strange bravery. He was never afraid. Where her mind would conjure fear, his conjured strategy. Where she saw a problem, he saw a puzzle. He was her constant, secret companion, a splash of brilliant colour in the grey palette of her life in the North.
She called him "the Elegant Boy" in her head, after that first, defining comment. As they grew older, his voice matured, losing its childish pitch, settling into a tone that was warm, confident, and often infuriatingly self-assured. He was her shield. During her brutal apprenticeship with Jacobs, when the terror of the raw, screaming ghosts threatened to shatter her, the Elegant Boy’s voice would cut through the panic.
“Focus. Left corridor. Listen for the Source, not the scream. It’s just a thing. A problem to be solved.”
It was his voice that gave her the courage to keep listening, to push her Talent further than was safe, further than was wise. Norrie and the others had their own ways of coping, jokes, bravado, a stubborn refusal to look too closely into the dark. But Lucy’s gift was one of immersion; she had to open herself to the chill, to the despair, to the raw, screaming edges of unresolved death. In the wake of a particularly vicious encounter, when the psychic echo of a Visitor’s rage would cling to her like a shroud, her own mind would recoil, screaming at her to shut it out, to build walls, to become deaf.
But then, cutting through the internal static of her fear, would come his voice. It was never comforting in a soft, placating way. It was analytical, a steady hand on the tiller in a storm.
“Fascinating,” he’d muse, after a Spectre had shown her the moment of its betrayal in a flash of cold steel and colder intent. “The emotion isn’t in the scream, it’s in the silence just before. That’s the Source. Look for the silence, Lucy.”
Or, when a Cold Maiden’s sorrow threatened to freeze the very marrow in her bones, leaving her trembling and tearful: “It’s a feedback loop. Her sadness amplifies yours. Don’t empathize, analyse. What is she wearing? Is there a ring on her finger? A locket? The Source is an object, not a feeling. Separate the two.”
He reframed terror into a puzzle. He turned her deepest vulnerability—her profound and painful empathy, into a tactical tool. Where Jacobs saw a blunt instrument to be used until it broke, the Elegant Boy saw a finely-tuned seismograph, and he taught her, thought by thought, how to read its tremors. He was her unseen, unlicensed tutor, and his lessons were etched into her psyche more deeply than any Fittes manual. He was the lifeline she clung to in the dark, a whisper of a world that wasn't all death and decay and cheap, greedy men like Jacobs, who saw children as expendable assets. The Elegant Boy’s mind was a place of sharp intellect and strange, dry humour, a sanctuary of thought that was entirely her own.
The day she decided to leave for London, it was his voice that sealed her decision. It was in the grim, grey aftermath of the mill case. The smell of blood and ectoplasm was still a phantom scent in her nostrils, a cold weight in her stomach. She stood in her tiny, cold room, the one that had always felt like a prison but now felt like a tomb. She was shoving a spare jumper and her few precious sketches into a worn duffel bag, her hands shaking so badly she could barely manage the zip.
Her own thoughts were a panicked, whirling chorus of doubt.
This is madness. You’re being hysterical. You have no money. What, sixty pounds? That’s nothing. You know no one in London. You’ll be sleeping on the streets. You’ll be back here within a week, tail between your legs, and Mum will never let you hear the end of it. This isn’t bravery, it’s stupidity. This is how girls disappear.
The duffel bag seemed to mock her, a pathetic symbol of a hopeless dream. She sank onto the edge of her bed, her head in her hands, the fight draining out of her. It was too big. The world was too big, and she was just a girl from the North with a Talent that hurt more than it helped.
And then, clear as day, cutting through the cacophony of her fear with the sharp, clean precision of a rapier’s tip, his thought arrived. It wasn’t a whisper of encouragement or a gentle reassurance. It was a statement of fact, crisp and decisive, brooking no argument. It was the voice of a born strategist who had just found the key move.
“London.”
The single word landed in her mind with the weight of an absolute truth. It was followed by a wave of certainty, a sense of rightness that was so potent it felt like a physical warmth spreading through her chest.
“That’s where things happen. The great agencies. The real mysteries. The past isn’t just in forgotten mills here; it’s in the very stones of the city. That’s where we need to be.”
We.
The word echoed, a seismic shift in her internal universe. It was no longer just her, Lucy Carlyle, alone against the world. It was a partnership. He had always been a companion, a commentator, but this was different. This was a shared destiny. He wasn’t just suggesting a location; he was confirming a path they were meant to walk together.
The panic didn't vanish, but it was suddenly relegated to background noise. The doubts were still there, but they were now problems to be solved, not insurmountable walls. He had reframed it, just as he always did. London wasn't a terrifying unknown; it was the next logical step. The place where things happened. The place where they belonged.
A fresh, steely resolve straightened her spine. She stood up, zipped the duffel bag with a final, decisive tug, and slung it over her shoulder. She looked around the room one last time, not with nostalgia, but with the clear-eyed assessment of someone closing a chapter.
"Alright then," she whispered aloud, her own voice steady for the first time. "London it is."
She walked out of the room, out of the house, and into the damp northern air, the Elegant Boy’s silent, unwavering certainty a compass in her pocket and a flame in her heart, guiding her south.
---
London was a cacophony that drowned out everything, even him. The noise of the city, the sheer psychic pressure of millions of lives and thousands of unresolved deaths, made it hard to hear his subtle commentary. She missed him. It was like being deaf in one ear, or seeing the world with one eye closed. Her balance was off and she considered tucking her tail between her legs and running back to Jacob's.
And then, his voice, not elegant or dry, but fierce and protective, a sword being drawn from its scabbard.
“The hell with them. We don’t need them. We’ll do it ourselves. Better.”
The "we" was there again, solid and undeniable. It gave her the last ounce of strength she needed to turn away from the shining Fittes tower and stumble towards the only other place she knew: the small, slightly shabby townhouse at 35 Portland Row.
During her interview, as Lockwood grilled her about her Talents, George leaned forward, his eyes alight with interest. “So, you’re a Listener. That’s rare. That’s powerful.” And inside her head, the Elegant Boy echoed, with a proprietary pride, “Of course she is. Told you she was special.”
When she moved into the attic room, her own thoughts were a chaotic jumble of hope and anxiety. Will I fit in? Can I do this? Lockwood’s voice, from the hallway as he descended the stairs, floated up to her, a murmured thought he must have believed was silent: “Perfect. She’s perfect.” And a heartbeat later, her internal voice—his voice—confirmed it. “Absolutely perfect.”
The realisation didn't dawn; it crashed over her in a single, terrifying, glorious wave during a slow afternoon. She was sketching in the library, and Lockwood was practicing with his rapier, his movements a fluid dance. He misstepped, overbalanced, and stumbled against a bookcase. A faint, internal grumble, laced with a very specific, self-deprecating humour, filled her mind: “Graceful, Anthony. Very graceful. She’s definitely impressed by that.”
And then, he looked directly at her, a slight blush on his cheeks, and said aloud, "Just, uh, testing the floorboards. All part of the training regimen."
It was the same voice. The same inflections. The same unique turn of phrase. The elegant, internal commentator who had guided her, teased her, and protected her since she was five years old was Anthony Lockwood.
Her pencil stilled on the paper. The world narrowed to the boy standing amidst the scattered books, his expression a mixture of embarrassment and charm. Her soulmate. He was her soulmate. And he had no idea.
The knowledge was a secret almost too big to hold. It explained everything. His immediate trust in her, his instinctive understanding of her abilities, the easy, seamless way they worked together. They were two halves of the same whole, their minds already intertwined before they had even met.
But it also presented a terrible problem. The convention, the unspoken rule everyone knew, was that you never, ever revealed what you heard. Your internal voice was your soulmate’s, and to admit you could hear their private, unguarded thoughts was the ultimate violation of privacy. It was a sacred trust you couldn't help but break every second of every day. To tell him would be to shatter the beautiful, fragile thing growing between them. He would feel exposed, betrayed, spied upon.
So, Lucy built a wall. It wasn't a wall of brick and mortar, but one of psychic necessity, constructed with the same fierce, focused will she used to shield herself from a screaming spirit. She learned, with painful precision, to separate the Lockwood she saw from the Lockwood she heard. It became her most vital survival skill, more important than handling a rapier or sensing a Type Two.
The Lockwood she saw was the public facade, a performance of effortless brilliance. He was the boy who could charm a skeptical client with a flash of his smile and a confident handshake. He was the reckless leader who would vault over a banister without a second thought if it meant gaining a tactical advantage, his coat flaring behind him like the wings of a dark bird. He was the endlessly brave figure standing between his team and the creeping dark, a silver blade in his hand and a fearless light in his eyes. This was the Lockwood of 35 Portland Row, the Lockwood & Co. brand. He was magnificent, and it was easy to be swept along in his current.
But the Lockwood she heard… he was a different boy entirely. This was the private citizen of his own mind, and Lucy was an unwilling, yet privileged, spy in his most intimate territory.
This Lockwood had doubts. After a client meeting where he’d been all smooth-talking confidence, his internal voice would fret, “Did that sound convincing? The bit about the spectral resonance? Hope George’s research on that is solid. Bluffing only gets you so far.”
This Lockwood was a fierce, almost feral protector. When a careless agent from another company got too close to her during a joint operation, his external self had been politely professional. But the voice in her head was a low, possessive growl. “Get your hand off her arm. Now. Or I’ll introduce you to my rapier.”
This Lockwood saw beauty in her creations. She’d be sketching in the sitting room, thinking her drawings were clumsy, mere impressions of the horrors they faced. He’d walk past, maybe comment on the weather, but his mind would be a burst of unvarnished admiration. “Look at the line work there. The way she’s captured the light in its eyes… it’s chilling. She’s brilliant.” And she’d have to fight the blush rising to her cheeks, forcing her expression to remain neutral, as if she hadn't just received the most genuine compliment of her life.
This Lockwood cherished her laugh. On the rare, golden evenings when George told a terrible joke, or when they were all giddy with post-case relief, her laughter would ring out. Externally, Lockwood would smile, a warm, genuine expression. But internally, it was as if the sun had broken through the clouds. “God, I love that sound. I’d trade every relic in the basement to hear that every day.” And Lucy’s own joy would become tangled with a sharp, sweet agony, because the sound was hers, but the sentiment was a secret she had to pretend she didn't know.
This constant, dizzying duality was exhausting. It was like watching a play and simultaneously reading the actor’s private diary. She had to consciously school her reactions, to ensure her responses were to his spoken words, not his silent thoughts. When his internal voice was sharp with a fear he would never show on his face, she had to pretend she didn't see the slight tension around his eyes. When his mind was soft with affection, she had to act as if his casual, external kindness was all there was.
The worst was the recklessness. The external Lockwood would propose a daring, dangerous plan with a thrilling grin. The internal Lockwood would be calculating the odds, the voice a grim, determined hum. “It’s a sixty-forty chance. At best. But it’s the only way to keep them safe. Have to be faster. Have to be better.” She’d want to scream, to grab his lapels and shout, “I know you’re scared! I know you think this might get you killed! Let me in! Let me help you carry it!”
But she couldn't. The wall stood firm. To acknowledge the internal voice was to betray the most fundamental rule of their reality. It would shatter the easy, trusting camaraderie they had built. He would look at her and see not a colleague, but a trespasser in his own soul. So, she buried the knowledge deep, letting the two Anthony Lockwoods exist in parallel universes within her, a secret that was both a profound intimacy and a profound loneliness. She lived in the space between the performance and the truth, loving both versions of him desperately, and unable to fully acknowledge either.
For weeks, this was her reality. A constant, draining performance of her own. She became an actress on the stage of Portland Row, her every reaction a carefully calibrated response to Lockwood’s external script, while the real, uncensored version played out silently in her mind. The strain began to show in subtle ways, a hesitation before she laughed at his jokes, a too-quick glance away when he looked at her, a certain wariness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.
The secret, once a precious and private comfort, began to curdle into a source of guilt. Every time he trusted her with a vulnerable look, every time he clapped her on the shoulder after a successful case, she felt like a fraud. He was offering her his trust, piece by piece, and she was holding onto the entire, completed puzzle without his knowledge. It felt less like a connection and more like a deception.
The breaking point was the quiet moments after the Bickerstaff case. The horror of the bone glass and the near-loss of Lockwood had shaken them all to their core. In the aftermath, his external bravado was more fragile, the cracks more visible. And his internal voice was louder, more raw. The wall she had built felt thin, brittle. She could feel the pressure of his unspoken fears and feelings pressing against it, threatening to collapse the entire structure.
In that cataclysmic instant, as he turned from her with that look of peaceful resignation, something inside her broke, not with fear, but with a final, absolute refusal. The wall didn't just crack; it vaporised in the white-hot forge of her terror and her love. She didn't just hear his voice; she became it. Their minds didn't just touch; they merged, their Talents igniting into something new, something powerful enough to command the dead. In that fusion, there was no "his" or "hers." There was only "us." The duality was annihilated in a blast of pure, synergistic will.
In the stunned silence that followed, clinging to him on the rain-swept roof, the secret was no longer a protective shield; it was a absurd, pathetic barrier. How could she possibly maintain this fiction after that? After she had felt the very architecture of his soul braid with hers? The guilt vanished, replaced by a clear, cold certainty. The duality was a lie she could no longer live. She couldn't stand it anymore, not when she had felt their minds merge so completely. The truth wasn't a bomb that would destroy them; it was the final, missing cornerstone of what they had already built together on that roof. It was time to stop listening in secret and start speaking the truth aloud.
She found him one evening in the library. He was standing by the fireplace, staring at the photograph of his parents, his profile etched in the soft lamplight. His internal voice was a quiet, reflective hum.
“They’d have liked her. Mum would have loved her spirit. Dad would have appreciated her practicality. They’d be glad I’m not alone.”
---
Lucy’s heart ached, a sharp, sweet pang that had become as familiar as her own breath in this house. She stepped into the room, the old floorboards creaking a soft announcement of her presence. He turned from the photograph, and the transformation was instantaneous. The pensive shadow in his eyes vanished, replaced by a warm, genuine smile that still, even now, after everything, had the power to steal her breath and short-circuit her thoughts. It was a smile meant to reassure, to charm, to deflect. It was the smile he showed the world.
"Hey," he said, his voice a low, comfortable sound in the quiet room.
"Hey," she replied, her own voice barely a whisper, trapped in the tight cage of her throat. It felt like a betrayal to speak so softly to him when she knew the roaring, brilliant, vulnerable truth of him.
She forced her feet to carry her forward, stopping a few feet away, a safe, professional distance that felt like a chasm. Her hands, treacherous things, twisted together in front of her, wringing an invisible cloth. "Lockwood… Anthony." Using his first name felt both dangerous and necessary, a key turning in a long-locked door.
His smile didn't just fade; it was carefully, deliberately put away. His entire posture shifted into one of alert concern. He gestured to the sofa, a graceful, inviting motion. "Of course. Is everything alright? Are you still having the headaches?" His gaze was sharp, scanning her face for signs of psychic fatigue, the ever-protective leader.
"It's not about the headaches." The words came out firmer than she expected. She sat, perching on the edge of the worn velvet cushion, her spine rigid. He took the spot beside her, not leaning back, but turning fully to face her, his knees almost brushing hers. He gave her his full, undivided attention, his dark eyes fixed on hers. It was terrifying. This was the part where she was supposed to lie, to deflect, to build the wall higher. Instead, she was about to take a sledgehammer to its foundations.
She took a deep, shuddering breath, breaking his gaze to stare down at her own hands, clenched white-knuckled in her lap. This was it. No going back. "Do you remember… when you were little… the first time you became aware of the voice? The one in your head that wasn't yours?"
He stilled. It was a subtle shift, but to Lucy, who knew every micro-expression of his face, it was as dramatic as a slamming door. A shutter fell behind his eyes. His expressive features, usually so open to her, locked down into a perfect, neutral mask. "Everyone has that," he said carefully, his voice even, devoid of all emotion. A diplomat's tone. "It's… not something we talk about."
"I know," she said, the ache in her heart intensifying. She was scaring him, and the knowledge was a physical pain. "But I need to talk about it." She forced herself to look up, to meet that shuttered gaze. "My whole life, since I was five years old, there's been this… boy. In my head."
She saw the faintest tremor in the hand resting on his knee.
"He's charismatic," she continued, her voice gaining a little strength from the truth of the words. "And clever. And infuriatingly brave. He commented on my first haunting. He told me to come to London. He… he gives me advice on how to fight ghosts and how to deal with annoying boys."
She risked a sustained glance at him. His face was a masterpiece of composure, but it was a mask, and she knew what lay beneath. His internal voice was a roaring static of panic, a frantic, desperate denial. “No. No, no, no. It can’t be. She can’t be… She’s describing… No.”
The confirmation, the sheer, unvarnished terror in his mind, gave her a morbid sort of courage. "He told me to kick a boy in the shins once," she continued, a tear finally escaping its confines and tracing a hot, salty path down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away. Let him see it. "He thinks my laugh is the best sound in the world." Her voice broke on the last word, and she pressed on, the final, damning truth tumbling out. "And on the roof… when you were thinking that you were sorry you never told me… I heard you. I've always heard you."
The silence that fell was absolute. It was the loudest, most suffocating silence Lucy had ever experienced. It was the silence of a universe holding its breath. Lockwood stared at her, his eyes wide, the carefully constructed mask completely gone, shattered and swept away, replaced by raw, unvarnished shock. She could feel the tumult in his mind, a vortex of embarrassment, of violation, the dawning, horrifying comprehension of a lifetime of unguarded thoughts laid bare. It was a storm of memory, every private moment, every vanity, every fear, every secret hope, now re-contextualised as a public performance for an audience of one.
He stood up abruptly, turning his back to her, his hand raking through his dark hair until it was gloriously, terribly messy. His internal voice was a chaotic, agonised storm.
“All of it? Every stupid, vain, fearful, arrogant thought? She heard me preening in the mirror? She heard me crying for my parents in the middle of the night? She heard every single time I thought about how much I…” He cut the thought off, a brutal, internal self-censorship, his shoulders tensing into a rigid line.
"Lockwood, please," Lucy whispered, her voice shattered into a thousand pieces. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to… it's not something I can control. It's just… you. You've always been there. You're my…" She couldn't say it. The word soulmate felt too heavy, too presumptuous, too grand for this moment of shattered privacy.
He turned around slowly. The initial shock was receding from his features, replaced by something else. Something complex and unreadable, a dawning understanding that was wrestling with a lifetime of conditioning. "Since you were five?" he asked, his voice hoarse, as if he'd been screaming.
She nodded, finally swiping at the dampness on her cheeks. "The Murton Colliery Horror. You said… 'Well, that was elegant.'"
A strange, choked sound escaped him. It was half a laugh, half a sob, a release of unbearable tension. He remembered. She saw the memory click into place in his eyes. He remembered that day, the first faint, curious whisper of a girl's thought in his mind, a feeling of awe and no fear that was so foreign to his own analytical nature. He’d dismissed it as his own imagination, a fleeting oddity.
He sank back onto the sofa, not beside her this time, but on the coffee table directly in front of her, his elbows on his knees, his head falling into his hands. "All this time," he murmured, his voice muffled by his palms. "All this time, and you never said a word."
"What was I supposed to say?" Lucy pleaded, leaning forward, her own hands clasped tightly. "'Hello, by the way, I'm your soulmate and I know you secretly think George's socks are a crime against fashion and that you practice your smile in the mirror sometimes?' It's the one rule, Lockwood. The only rule. You don't talk about it. You'd have hated me. You'd have felt… exposed." She finally named his fear, giving voice to the violation he was feeling.
He was quiet for a long time, his head still bowed. His internal voice was no longer a storm, but a low, thoughtful hum, a supercomputer processing terabytes of new, life-altering data. She could feel him sifting through memories, her uncanny insights in the field, her knowing smiles, her immediate understanding of his moods. She could feel him re-contextualising every glance, every tacit agreement, every time she’d known exactly what he needed before he'd even known himself. The puzzle of Lucy Carlyle was finally, breathtakingly, solving itself in his mind.
He lifted his head, and his eyes met hers. And in their depths was a wonder so pure and profound it made her breath catch. All the fear, the embarrassment, the shock, had been burned away in the crucible of this new understanding. "So," he said, and a slow, tentative, utterly real smile touched his lips. It was a smile she had never seen before, completely unguarded. "When I was fourteen and spent an entire afternoon trying to perfect the art of leaning against a doorframe… you heard all that?"
A watery, gasping laugh burst from Lucy, the sound thick with tears and relief. "Every single thought. 'Is this roguish? It feels roguish. Maybe a bit more slouch. No, that's too casual. Back to the roguish tilt.'"
Lockwood actually blushed, a deep, charming crimson that spread from his neck to the tips of his ears. "Oh, God." The embarrassment was there, but it was fond now, shared. Then he grew serious again, the blush fading but the intensity in his eyes burning brighter. "And when I… when I think about…" He gestured between them, a small, vulnerable motion that encompassed everything unsaid.
"All the time," she whispered, her own cheeks heating in a mirror of his. "I hear that all the time."
The air left his lungs in a soft, definitive whoosh, as if he'd been holding his breath for years. The last of his defences crumbled. The final wall fell. The embarrassment was still there, a faint, humiliated hum, but it was being drowned out by something else, something far more powerful that had been waiting in the wings all along. It was a feeling of rightness. Of completion. Of a search he hadn't even known he was on, finally being over.
“Of course,” his internal voice sighed, full of a profound, settling peace that washed over Lucy like a warm tide. “Of course it’s you. It was always you. Who else could it ever have been?”
He moved then, closing the minuscule distance between them. He didn't take her hand. He reached up, his fingers gentle as they cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking away the lingering tear tracks with a reverence that made her want to cry all over again.
"All those times I was trying to be so clever, so mysterious," he said softly, his external voice now a perfect, resonant match for the tender, awestruck warmth in his mind. "And you knew exactly what a fool I was."
"I never thought you were a fool," Lucy said, leaning into his touch, her eyes fluttering closed for a second to imprint the feeling to memory. "I thought you were brilliant. And brave. And… mine."
The word hung in the air between them, no longer heavy with presumption, but light as a feather, true as gravity.
"My internal voice," Lockwood said, his gaze so intense it felt like he was seeing into the very core of her. "What's it like?"
Lucy smiled, a real, genuine, sun-breaking-through-clouds smile for the first time since she'd started this conversation. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated love. "It's elegant."
He laughed then, a free, happy, unburdened sound she realised she hadn't heard in far too long. It was the laugh of the boy in her head, finally given breath. It echoed the pure, bubbling joy she could feel radiating from his mind.
"This is going to be terribly inconvenient, you know," he murmured, leaning in, his breath a warm caress on her skin. "I'll never be able to surprise you."
"Oh, I don't know," Lucy whispered, her own heart feeling so full, so light, she thought it might simply float away. "I think you'll always find a way."
And as he closed the final, inevitable inch between them and his lips met hers, Lucy Carlyle finally heard the last piece of the puzzle fall into place. For the first time in her life, the voice in her head, his voice, was silent. There were no words, no commentary, no elegant observations. There was only a feeling, a perfect, resonant harmony of joy, love, and belonging that was entirely, completely, and finally, their own.