Page 32 of The Iron Hex

“Hey,” he said after a long, long silence.

“You don’t need to protect me from the bathwater,” she croaked out, nose clogged from crying.

“I just wanted to sit with you,” he answered. “You don’t need to do anything.”

Silence washed over them again, this time less uncomfortable. Eventually, and to Hugo’s relief, Eira finally spoke.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I don’t think there’s a manual for having your memory taken from you,” Hugo answered softly. He turned his head slightly, the partition behind him. He couldn’t see Eira, but the setting sun shone through the window and illuminated the silhouette of her hair bundled in a pile of curls on her head in the bathtub. It was the closest he could get to looking her in the eyes right now.

“You have always been able to do anything,” he said. “Absolutely anything you put your mind to.”

Including lying about being a witch.

“I feel like I can’t, though,” she said as a new wave of tears came for her. “I keep wondering if what I’m doing is an echo of what’s behind this locked door in my mind, or if it’s truly me. I can’t figure out what is me, and whatwasme.” Hugo heard her take a deep hitched breath in between sobs, and then another, and a third.

“Hugo,” she whispered. “Who are you without the knowledge of who you were—of your own history?”

“Whoever you always wanted to be, but couldn’t,” he answered quickly. It was true. The Eira he’d met days ago in Cilirien... she was the Eira he’d protected and known, but she was something else too. Brighter, lighter, even more untouchable. As if the weight of her title being off her shoulders let her be freer, even though she was technically less safe. You didn’t often get to see a person who could become who they wanted to without the baggage of those around them, without the weight of the expectations of title and family. There was something extraordinary about this version of Eira, and Hugo was struggling to process his feelings about it—and her. Could he and this version of Eira have had a happily-ever-after, in some other lifetime? One where they were just civilians, townspeople, nobodies. But together. How different would their lives look?

“Whoever I always wanted to be... but couldn’t,” she echoed, sniffling.

He turned and slid his hand around the side of the partition. Hugo hoped Eira wouldn’t take it, but he didn’t know if he’d survive if she didn’t.

A wet hand, wrinkled and soft from the bathwater, grasped his.

He wanted to tell her that this was her routine. That crying in a bathtub had always been her routine when she was upset. But was it fair to Eira? To tell her stories she didn’t ask for? Heclenched his jaw to stop himself from speaking about their history without her asking for it. There was nothing he wanted more than to tell her about how close they’d been, how he’d wanted them to be even closer.

“Hugo?” she whispered, and he squeezed her hand to answer. “Tell me something... about me.”

Hugo laughed as relief flooded through him. Maybe itwaswrong for him to feel for her the way he did, but he could at least do this. He could tell her a story about her life before all of this, before everything he’d done to ruin it.

“One time, a nobleman told you that you had too much attitude, so you slapped him. When you went home, angry and righteous, your father told you that you couldn’t behave that way, that it was unbecoming for the future Viscountess Westcotte. He was too harsh, and probably right, but it made you upset so you ran off into the manor.”

“I slapped a nobleman?” she gasped.

“Not just one,” he chuckled. “But that’s another story for another time... I knew that when I couldn’t find you, you were one of two places.”

Eira quietly waited, her hand still in Hugo’s.

“You were either in your sitting room, reading some sort of book... or you were in the bath crying.”

“Oh goodness,” Eira sniffled. “I’ve always cried in the bath?”

“As long as I’ve known you,” Hugo answered, rubbing his thumb gently over her hand, his head leaning against the partition.

“Did you...?” She paused. “Did you always do this?”

Oh. How could he tell her that he’d always had feelings for her? How could he tell her that he had desperately wanted to get in the bath with her from the day he’d met her? That he couldn’t, because she was a viscountess, and it was a miracle he’d climbed high enough to become even a guard for her family? How could he tell her that he’d missed holding her hand as shecried in the bath every single day since she’d left the capital three years ago? How could he tell her that she had kept secrets from him... or that he was keeping things from her?

“I wasn’t supposed to,” was all he said.

“That’s not a no,” she whispered.

“You’re right, it’s not.” Hugo didn’t know how much longer they sat for, but what he did know was that he wasn’t going to let go of her hand for as long as she was willing to hold his. In a world where Eira had no anchor, Hugo resolved to do what he had always done for her: protect.

19