Everything blurred before me. I ached to say yes to him, but how could I? The world was so much against me—and it would turn against him, too, if he stood with me. Loving him as I did, how could I possibly let him in for that? Especially when I was half-afraid he was making the offer out of pity.
Biting my lip, I pulled away. “Nat, you can’t afford to be paired off with someone the whole world thinks is a monster.”
“It’s just one broadside,” he said gently. “It’s awful, I know, but it’s not the whole world.”
“It’s not just the broadside, Nat.” The foolscap crinkled in my hands. “People are screaming when they see me. They’re holding up crosses. They hate me.”
“It’s because of this flood,” he said. “It’s made everyone lose their heads.”
“It’s not just because of the flood. People mutter things and gossip behind my back even when everything’s fine. At best, they say I’m different, but most don’t stop there. I’m not human, they say. I’m a witch, a harpy, a she-monster. And if they see us together, you can be sure they’ll smear you right along with me.”
“I can live with that,” he said steadily.
“That’s easy to say, when they haven’t done it to you yet.” He started to protest, but I stopped him. “You’ve worked so hard to get where you are. I won’t let you throw that away.” I thought of Sybil and how unhappy she was. I couldn’t bear to do that to Nat.
There was a stubborn set to his jaw now. “I’ll do what I please.”
But I was stubborn too—stubborn and exhausted and worried half out of my mind about how to save us all. I had to work hard not to sound sharp. “And what about me? Do you think I want to live with a man who’s sacrificed everything for me? Because reputation is the least of it, Nat. Think of all you stand to lose. As long as we’re together, your life will never be comfortable, never be normal. I’ll always be traveling for the King, for one—”
“He makes you travel too much,” Nat said.
This was exactly the kind of argument that would make life together a misery. “I need to travel, Nat, and anyone who marries me is going to have to accept that.”
“I can accept a lot,” Nat said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that the King is becoming too dependent on you, and that’s not good for anyone. It would be better for us all if your magic were used more sparingly.”
I’d secretly wondered as much myself, but somehow hearing Nat say it didn’t help. My grip tightened on the broadside. “Look, if you want a normal life—”
“It’s not a normal life I’m after.” The amber light of the lamp caught him full in the face, and his gravity took me aback. “I thought I’d made myself plain, Lucy. What I want is you.”
There was a directness in what he said, and an honesty, that made my throat ache. But it didn’t change how things were.
“Maybe you think that’s what you want now,” I said quietly. “But sooner or later, you’re going to wish you’d chosen someone else—someone who’s easier to live with, someone you haven’t given up so much for. You’ll want your independence back. You’ll want to leave.” The way my father left my mother.
“I won’t.”
I looked straight at him. “You left me before.”
That silenced him.
“I can’t live through that again.” I was still raw from the first time. “I tell you it won’t work.”
His face grew fierce. “So you’re saying we’re done? That I should go find someone else?”
My head pounded. I felt as if I were teetering on the top of a precipice, and everything hung on what I said next. But I couldn’t take the words back, any more than I could change who we were, or how the world worked.
No man wants a wife who works magic.
“Yes,” I said. “I think you should find someone else.”
He turned away from me and went to stand by the dying fire. “If that’s really how you feel, maybe I will.”
There was nothing more to say. Feeling sick, I picked up the lantern and walked out. Down in the courtyard, the dark sky was still weeping with rain. I trudged on shaky legs across the flooded cobblestones.
I’d saved the person I loved from a life he would hate. I’d saved us both from a painful