I got halfway to my room before I turned to look back at the barn. Every step away from South felt like there was a bigger chasm opening up between us, and I couldn’t bear it. South was . . . South . . .
I couldn’t leave things the way they were. I retraced my steps, and when I reached the barn, South was waiting for me with open arms.
“South, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . ,” I said as I ran into them. It was too hard to say the rest out loud, but I knew he could feel everything I was thinking. Have you ever wanted something so much that you ignore everything that is wrong in hopes that enough time can make it right? Bari was right. You don’t throw out a wand because you think you can get a better one. And you don’t throw out one that was broken. I’m not ready to throw out my sisters—I just have to find a way to make them better. But you aren’t wrong either. There is a chance that our sisters are very, very broken.
“I know . . . I can’t be mad at you either.” South put his arms around me. I looked up at him. At his eyes, his lips.
I wondered what it would be like to kiss him again. Our first kiss had been a diversion for the guards. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him with intention. I wondered if I could forget about all the bad things in all the Queendoms for a few seconds. All the bad things in our own Entente. I pulled back, realizing what might make me feel better wasn’t fair to South or his heart.
He leaned in and kissed me. His kiss was soft and sweet and something else. It was magical. When his lips met mine, I could feel what he felt for me. A heady rush of passion and understanding. He knew me because of our entwined histories, because of all the moments we’d shared. He knew my secrets and pain, my heart and soul, my flaws and strengths, and he loved me for all of it. He loved the selfish Entente who gave him wings, the vengeful magicless Couterie, and now the tortured half-magical girl who stood before him. Before we parted, I felt love all around us from hundreds of Presents—young love and old, chaste and passionate, and everything in between, from first blush to last, all at once. It was a kiss like no other. Intimate and part of everything all at once.
“Is that what you feel all the time?” I asked. The rush of emotion and Presents receded like water after a tide breaks and I was left on the shore, exhausted but tempted to run back in. I stopped myself. I put my hand against his chest. I could feel his heart beating faster, stronger, just for me.
“It’s how I feel when I’m with you . . .”
Regret washed over me. I felt as if I had taken advantage of his feelings for my comfort.
“Don’t . . . ,” he said with a slow, sad smile. “I know your heart and I know it isn’t in the same place as mine.”
“Then why?” I asked.
“Because when I kissed you, there were only happy Presents. Because maybe I needed to forget everything for a minute too . . .”
But wasn’t I one of the things that he wanted to forget? I wondered in my head.
“Don’t you know, Farrow? You are the one thing in all the Queendoms that I want to remember,” he said firmly before he walked away.
My fingers went to my lips where he’d kissed them. He had not erased the prince or the trouble we were in. But South had made his mark on me. I would never forget that kiss.