Calder must know it, too, because there’s sense of finality in his voice when he says, “Truth.”
There are a hundred things I might ask him, but only one whose answer matters right now.
“Why did you bring me here?”
We’ve come to the end of the passage, and Calder pushes open a door in the wall. It leads out onto a narrow hallway. Late afternoon light spills in through a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows, but otherwise—save a gilded mirror hanging some ways down the wall—the corridor is bare.
“I thought I was fine, leaving this place behind,” he says. “But not now. Not after I heard what they plan to do.” He reaches out and touches the ornate wallpaper, the last remnant of the luxury that once dwelled here. “Now… Now I’d rather see this place torn down than turned into a spectacle.”
He moves down the hallway, coming to a stop in front of the mirror. I wonder what he sees in his reflection.
Then, before I even realize what’s happening, he grabs the mirror off the wall and hurls it.
The sound is ear-splitting. The mirror explodes into a thousand pieces of glass when it hits the floor, but Calder doesn’t flinch. He watches the destruction, and after everything has settled, he reaches down and grabs a piece of the mirror.
“Calder?”
He glances up from the shard in his hand and turns back to me. His eyes burn with some emotion I cannot name.
He moves away from me, down the hallway, and I run after him. My shoes crunch over the bits of mirror.
“Where are you going?” I say.any bit of skin he can reach. I But he ignores me.
He strides through the house with a silent determination that scares me. More than once he reaches out and slashes at the wall with his piece of mirror, leaving deep, jagged scars in the paint or wallpaper.
Most of the furniture has long since moved out of this place, but there are still random pieces of décor hanging in some of the rooms. Calder destroys each one. If he can’t pull it down, he tears into it with his shard of mirror.
“What are you doing?” I say. “Calder, please!”
But no matter what I say, he doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s bent on destroying this place piece by piece, and I don’t know how to stop him.
This is it—this is what I feared. He’s come undone, cracked under the stress and the emotions he’s tried so long to hide.
Eventually we come to the dining room. There’s nothing on the walls in here, only the elaborate pastoral fresco painted high above our heads. But that doesn’t stop Calder. He storms across the room, toward the long-paned windows on the far wall.
I catch his arm just as he’s about to put his fist through the glass.
“Please,” I say. “Calder, listen to me. Please, you’re scaring me.”
He freezes, but I can feel the tension in his muscles. He’s just barely holding himself back.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
His cheek twitches. “Yes, I do.”
I step in front of Calder, placing myself between him and the window. I grab his face and force him to look down at me.
“This isn’t you,” I whisper. “Let it go. Please, let it go.”
I watch the struggle in his eyes. His gaze flicks between my face and the window behind me, and for a breathless minute I worry that he’ll push me aside and continue his rampage.
But slowly, ever so slowly, I feel his muscles relax beneath my hands. When his eyes drift back to mine again, the anguish is still there, but the rage has seeped away. His shoulders sag slightly.
He reaches out and touches me tentatively on the waist. He’s lost the piece of mirror somewhere, but his hands are stiff as they move up my sides.
“Lily…” he says, shaking his head.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
And he doesn’t. He continues to touch me—delicately, as if he’s afraid that his fingers might yet rebel and smash me just like the mirror.
I know better. Calder would never hurt me, not like that. I take one of his hands and clasp it in mine, bringing it to my lips to show him how much I love his touch.
That’s when I notice the gashes across his palm.
There are half a dozen cuts, and two or three are deeper than the rest. He must have cut himself on the edges of his makeshift knife. My stomach clenches at the sight of the blood, his blood, spilling across his beautiful hand.
I grab the edge of my shirt and dab at the wounds. The slices don’t appear to be too bad, at least, but they still make my heart ache. Calder, on the other hand, doesn’t even flinch as I wipe away the blood.
“You’re hurt,” I say.
His eyes drop to his hand, and he wiggles his fingers as if he’s just noticing the injury for the first time. Still, he gives no indication that he even feels any pain.
I reach up and touch his cheek. He’s still drifting, still hovering on the edge of madness.
“Calder,” I say. “Look at me. Please.”
It takes a moment for his eyes to focus on mine. When they do, the emotion there just about breaks my heart.
Suddenly his arms loop around me, pulling me against him, and he buries his face in my shoulder. He’s shaking, and his fingers dig into the s an amazing time tonightgshoft skin of my back. His breathing is shallow and ragged. I wrap my own arms around him and hold him tightly.
“I’m here,” I murmur. “I won’t let you go.”
I don’t know how long we stand there, clutching each other. I’m too focused on the rapid beating of his heart, on the trembling I feel beneath my hands. At some point, though, one or the other of us must move because the next thing I know, we’re on the ground, still holding each other.
“You’re not alone,” I tell him. “You’re not alone.” I whisper the words over and over again, hoping that somehow, they get through to him.
He takes a shuddering breath. His hands move against my back, and I feel the sticky warmth of his blood through my shirt. I grab his arm and pull it back around me so his wounded hand is between us. I take his hand in mine and bring it to my lips, and then I proceed to kiss a path along each of his cuts, brushing my mouth delicately along the torn skin. His blood is salty, metallic on my tongue, but I don’t mind the taste.
Calder stays perfectly still while I address the gashes on his hand. My eyes are closed, but I feel him watching me, feel the intensity of his gaze on my face. By the time I’ve finished my ministrations, he’s stopped shaking and his breathing is deep and even.