A Necklace of Water (25 page)

It was a beautiful fall day, which everyone had told me was very rare for New Orleans. It was chilly and clear, and the air was almost crisp. I’d decided to take a walk up on the levee, by the river, which was only three blocks from our street. A shell road topped the levee all the way up to Baton Rouge, and people rode bikes and horses along here all the time.

Now I walked along, watching the endless river with its traffic of barges and steamboats.

Clio seemed happy with Richard, and the two of them suited each other better than I would have guessed. I was happy for her, having seen glimpses of the old, fun Clio peeking out in the last couple of days.

As for me, I was alive, and I had a family and a home. I was fine.

Sighing, I left the shell road and went down the levee a bit to sit on the warm, soft grass there and watch the water. I’d sat on the levee another time, a lifetime ago, where the river ran next to the Quarter. Now I turned my face to the sky, closing my eyes, enjoying the sun on my skin.

I sat like that for minutes, not thinking, just letting myself be, aware of all the ways I was connected to the world, all the things I felt now, life and magick and beauty.

“Thais.”

I jumped—I’d come to rely on being able to sense people around me. Hearing a voice at my back without sensing someone coming was really startling.

Especially considering who it was.

Luc sat down next to me, a Greek god once again, the sunlight glinting off his perfect, chiseled profile.

“You look better,” he said, appraising me.

“So do you,” I replied.

He laughed dryly and touched his cheek with one hand, as if to make sure he hadn’t uglified again. He was wearing worn jeans and a soft button-down shirt under a leather jacket, and he looked … beautiful.

“Thais,” he said, taking a breath. “When you and Clio realized that I’d betrayed you, I thought I’d lost you forever.”

My face stiffened, and I looked away. He was only inches from me, and I felt the heat of his knee reaching mine.

“Then, when I did this to myself at the rite, I was really sure that I’d lost you forever.” He gestured at his face, and I glanced up, startled. He nodded. “At the rite I asked for the chance to make you love me again. That face was what the spell produced. It was meant to knock the wind out of my sails and figure out who I was inside. To help me understand what was important, what I really cared about, about myself and my life.”

I didn’t know what to say.

He let out a deep breath. “Then, three days ago, when we hauled you and Clio out of the Source, and I saw you …” He looked away, plucking at the grass with nervous fingers. When he spoke again, it was barely a whisper. “Then I knew what losing you would really feel like.” His dark blue eyes met mine, and somehow I understood that he was different—that he wasn’t trying to win me, wasn’t asking anything of me.

“And I wanted to say—everything seems all right since you’re alive.” He cleared his throat and looked out at the river. “I don’t care how I look or where I live. I don’t care if you learn magick or not or stay with Petra and Clio. It doesn’t matter if you don’t love me, it doesn’t matter if you love someone else—whatever makes you happy. As long as you’re alive in this world, then everything is all right. And I want to be alive too. As long as you are. That’s the only thing of real value to me.”

I couldn’t speak for a moment. “Melita said—I’m as dark she is. It’s in my line, inescapable. I stripped Daedalus of his powers. Only someone … awful could do something like that.” I looked down at my scuffed clogs, picked at a hole in my cords.

Luc didn’t say anything, and finally I looked up at him.

“Darkness is in everyone, Thais,” he said gently. He reached across and took one of my chilled hands in his. “In me, in you, in Petra and Ouida and everyone. And so is light. Darkness is a choice, a path. Every day we all have to make the choice to choose good, choose light. We make the choice against darkness, against evil, every day, a thousand times a day, our whole lives.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have choices,” I said, my words barely a whisper. This was my deepest fear, and it was devastating to say it out loud.

Luc leaned over and kissed my hair. I didn’t flinch away from him.

“I promise you, you do,” he said firmly. “Even Melita has choices. Everyone always does. I believe that from now on, you’ll make the best choices you can.” He laced his fingers with mine, and it felt so incredibly comforting, so incredibly perfect.

“Thais,” he said, sounding very unsure. “I would … be grateful… if you would choose … somehow …” He cleared his throat again. “To be my friend.”

I could hardly hear the last words. I looked down at our fingers, his long tan ones, my smaller, paler ones, and I knew that I wanted to hold his hand forever.

“Yes,” I said, and in that moment, the burden of my dark inheritance seemed to lighten a hundredfold. “Yes, Luc. I’ll be your … friend.”