There was a spindly chair in the corner. I felt an urgent need to sit down. I pulled it over and sank into it.
“I think—” I met his sunken eyes. “I think that is the only honest love speech you’ve ever made.”
He coughed again, and I closed my eyes against the way his wasted body shook with it.
“What other honest love speech is there?” he asked when it had subsided. “You want the truth, Bee? You already know it. I was willing to watch you suffer and perhaps lose your mind if it could save my life. I hated to do it. It caused me more pain than anything else in the world could, except my own death.” He coughed again, and when he stopped his death hung in the air between us, feeling very near.
“I love you, Bee. I truly do, but love has a limit. Men say they’d die for their beloved, but that’s nonsense.” Will’s eyes were wide and deep. Looking at them was like staring into an endless void. “Easy to say when you don’t have to do it. I know death now, Bee. I’ve had to face it, truly face it. And I choose not to go, if I can help it. I’m only human.”
“I’m human, too.” I looked at my hands, balled in my lap. “But I was willing to face something worse than death for you.”
“There’s nothing worse than death,” said Will.
“You are wrong about that,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said Will. “But you expected a cure. And in the end you got one.”
But Dominic didn’t.
I rose and went to the window. It had started to rain. I tried to count the ships in the port, and the ones in the harbor. I could probably rule out the proud, many-sailed British warships. He would have made some deal with one of the humbler merchant vessels. But even so, there were too many.
“You won’t find it without me, Bee,” said Will, reading my thoughts. “You still need me, for a little while longer at least. Then you can have everything you want, except revenge.” He made a ghastly wheeze of a laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t let you have that.”
“I’m not looking for revenge,” I said.
“No?” He frowned, then coughed. “I don’t like that at all, Bee. What kind of lover would forgive me for what I’ve done without making me pay first?”
I looked at him in surprise and realized he was being quite sincere.
“Forgive you?” I asked. “You expect me to forgive you?”
“Not at first,” he said. “First you’ll need to punish me. I understand that. I deserve it. But then you’ll see what I see, Bee. We’re meant for each other. No one will ever understand you as I do. No one else could ever make you happy.”
“Perhaps not.” That much, at least, I believed. No person could fill the hole his betrayal had left behind. But the Stone would. I knew it would.
“Bee—” Another cough took him. I watched his body convulse with it. When it had finished with him, he looked up at me, alarm all over his face. “Why are you so calm, Bee? You should be angrier with me.”
“What would be the point of that?” I asked. But he was right. It was strange, the blank feeling that came over me when I looked at him, when he coughed like a man not long for this world. “I’ll keep you alive through the night, and in the morning we’ll sail together. You will give me the Stone. I will heal you. And we will go our separate ways.”
“No.” Will pushed himself onto his elbow. “I won’t lose you. You love me, Bee, I know you do underneath—”
This time, somehow, the cough was worse. Deeper and fuller than the others. Will clutched the bloody handkerchief to his mouth, but brought up too much blood for it to contain. It spilled down his arm. I looked away until it was over.
“You have to tell me where it is,” I said when it finally stopped. “You do not have time for this, Will. Do you want to go on suffering this way? Tell me where it is, and I will come back. I’ll heal you tonight.”
He looked up at me, his eyes dark pits of terror. He knew it was the only way. He would agree.
“Swear,” he whispered, blood dripping down his chin.
“I swear it,” I said at once. “I swear, I will bring it here first. I don’t want you to die like this, Will, whatever you’ve done. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.”
“You have a worse enemy … than me?” he whispered, then coughed again.
“I never wanted you as an enemy,” I said. “You know I loved you.”
He stared at me, struggling for breath. Then he closed his eyes. “I love you still,” he whispered.
“Then trust me,” I said. “You know you can.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I need proof.”
“What proof?” I asked.
“Proof that you love me.” He opened his eyes again, and now I could see something else in them, something dark behind the fear. “Marry me.”
I almost laughed, though nothing could be less amusing.
“Be serious, Will,” I said. “You are dying. Now is not the time—”
“Now is the only time I will ever have.” He reached for my hand. It was a desperate movement that seemed to require his whole body. I wanted to cringe away, but I held myself still. His hand clamped on mine, slick with blood. “There is a minister at the church down the street. I told him to come in the morning, but he will come tonight if you ask him. Tell him I’m dying, and this is my last wish.”
He was coughing again, but instead of pulling his hand away his grip tightened. He seemed stronger, suddenly. It dawned on me, slowly and horribly, that he meant this. He had planned it all along. He was going to insist.
“You don’t even believe
