Page 33 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“It was… different,” she said quietly, remembering the feel of Callum’s lips against hers.

Magda perked up at that. She arched a penciled eyebrow, waiting for Jory to continue. Jory sighed.

“He used to be so… warm. Sometimes almost too warm. And now he’s…” she trailed off.

“Dead?” Magda supplied helpfully.

Esther elbowed Magda. “Magda,” she hissed.

“What?” the older woman said, elbowing Esther back, just as hard.

“He’s not dead,” Esther insisted.

“My mistake.Undead,” Magda corrected tartly, her gaze returning to Jory.

If Jory didn’t know Magda as well as she did, she might have mistaken that sharp look for judgment. But she did know Magda, and so she knew that Magda was simply stating the facts.

“Technically,” Jory answered. Because undead did seem the most accurate way to describe Callum, who had proven himself to be very much alive. All except that empty, silent chest beneath her ear.

The two women looked at her expectantly while Walter slurped loudly on the counter between them.

“It was good. I wanted—” She’d wanted everything. All at once. She’d wanted to pull him so close to her that their cells melded at the same time she wanted to push him so far away that he’d never find her again. “He said he wanted to leave me alone. That he couldn’t handle me hating him.”

“Do you hate him?” Esther asked quietly before taking a long sip from the Styrofoam cup with her name written on the side in sloppy permanent marker.

“I don’t know,” Jory whispered immediately. “But it doesn’t matter. He left.”

“No, he didn’t,” Magda said, stuffing her own coat beneath the counter next to Esther’s.

“He didn’t?”

“By the time he got back to the cabin and stomped around, it was too late for him to travel. Too risky. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he left tonight.”

Tonight.

“What are you going to do?” Esther asked excitedly, leaning her elbows on the counter.

Jory had known Esther for all of thirty seconds before it had become clear that Esther was a romantic. She’d been a begrudging one, too tired and knocked around by her life to have the clarity to admit it, but one didn’t fall head over heels for a man in less than two weeks without having a romantic streak buried somewhere.

Jory had recognized it because, once upon a time, she’d been desperately romantic herself. Why else would she have given up immortality for a mere mortal man?

Her throat ached.

“She’s going to go talk to him,” Magda said with a nod.

“I am?” Jory asked, it now being her turn to raise her brows.

“Yes, you are,” Magda said, pointing a painted red fingernail at Jory. “Because you have to tell him the truth. You’ll never be able to live with yourself if you don’t. And while I don’t have experience with it, I imagine that eternity is a hell of a long time to live with that kind of baggage.”

Jory set her teeth and glared petulantly at Magda. She didn’t want to dig up the past—his or hers—and examine it under the microscope of hindsight. But Magda reached across the counter and laid her small hand on top of Jory’s, letting it rest there. She looked deep into Jory’s eyes, the way she so often did, like she was actually looking inside of her.

“Jory, my love,” Magda said, “you have been so brave and so strong and have accomplished and survived so much. Alone for the most part. Aren’t you at all curious? Aren’t you at all interested in knowing how, after a hundred lifetimes, he found his way to you?”

“I don’t owe him anything,” Jory said, tears burning suddenly in her eyes.

Esther sniffed wetly. Without looking at her, Jory whisked a tissue out of the box and handed it over.

Magda squeezed her hand. “You owe it to yourself to find some peace.”