Lips Touch: Three Times(47)
Author: Laini Taylor

"You’re welcome," Mihai replied. He turned to go.

"Mihai?" Esme asked.

"Yes?"

"All the other Druj with their souls scattered," she said slowly. "Will you … help them … too?"

"Help them? I don’t know," he said. The thought overwhelmed him. Among all the citadels there were hundreds of Druj. As for "helping them," he didn’t see how he could. Mahzarin could, certainly, if she ever came to him and learned the ways of hathra. He couldn’t think beyond that hope. Weeks had passed and now the fear of what she might do to him had subsided entirely and been replaced by the fear that she would do nothing, that she would rebuild Tajbel and remain there, ignoring the humanity that he had given her. That Esme had given her. Esme was waiting for her too. Hathra was a strange thing; she might hate the Druj Queen who had done such terrible things to her mother, but she still felt her absence like a rift in her soul.

Mihai touched Esme lightly on the top of her head and walked out. He left Yazad’s and wandered through the city, smelling the density of humans all around him, feeling their jostling shoulders in the crowds. When he felt saturated with humanity, he scaled lizardlike the side of a church and perched on the spire so the sky lay open all around him.

And he went on with his waiting.

Mab and Esme returned to their flat and to their pretty little lives, though of course, things would never be the same for them. Mab watched her beloved daughter warily now, as if she didn’t really know her. The thought that all along, while she had believed them safe, Esme had carried Mab’s tormentor within herself… it was a shock that would not easily fade. It was all the horrors of her youth unveiled anew, compounded by betrayal. That betrayal and shock became the backdrop and stage dressing of her mind; any other thought she might have was as a transient actor treading past. Always, the betrayal was there behind it. Always, after any other thought, her mind reverted to it, and it had the power to leave her breathless and gasping in an instant, like a punch to the gut.

Yazad had explained that Esme and the Druj Queen were connected now by a bond Mab would never understand, a bond that would live on long after she herself was dead. Her daughter and her enemy shared a soul, and some day, Yazad warned her, Mahzarin would come. Mab leapt at every sound, scarcely slept for the crowd of nightmares, and watched the street through a slit in the curtains, dreading that day, but it didn’t come, and gradually they returned to some semblance of a normal life — more normal, indeed, than their life had been before.

Their saltshaker of diamonds had been lost on the ship in Marseilles, but Yazad gave them more. It had always been he who sent them. He also persuaded Esme to enroll in a small private school not far from her neighborhood, and she began spending her days with other girls. She was shy among them at first, but they were mostly shy and bookish girls themselves, and for the first time in her life, she made friends. She was discovered to be a gifted violinist, surpassing the music teacher’s skill, and so a private instructor was engaged for her. She went to tea with the other girls, and to a birthday party. She brought a wrapped gift, ate a slice of cake, and even danced with a boy — but only once. She didn’t enjoy the feeling of his hands heavy at her waist. She thought of another touch, a light, furtive one: the way the flower shop boy had held her braid in his hand when he stood behind her in line at the bakery. It seemed like such a long time ago. The memory of it curved Esme’s lips into a secret smile as she stepped abruptly away from her dance partner and retreated.

A few days later she stopped to buy her mother some flowers on the way home from school. The boy was behind the counter and when he saw her come in, he blushed. He was blond and his eyes were blue, but dark like the deep sea, not icy like Druj blue, and he was fair, with long pale lashes and rosy color in his cheeks as if they’d been pinched pink by aunts and grannies until they stayed that way. He stammered when he helped Esme gather together a bouquet from the buckets of flowers around the shop. "Cosmos?" he asked her.

She nodded, adding softly, "And maybe some lilies."

"A bit of lupine?" he said, holding up a blue spike of blossoms.

They could think of nothing to say but the names of flowers, and it seemed a sort of language of its own. Mums, zinnias, delphinium, a lacy frond of baby’s breath.

As she handed him her money, Esme blurted her name and then bit her lip.

"Em Tom," said the boy, blushing anew.

And that was all. Esme left with her flowers clutched to her chest and her braid swinging in her haste, but by the time she got to the corner, she was smiling. Perhaps, she thought, she would buy her mother flowers again next week.

And she did.

Time passed. Esme thought often of the ash of ancient souls blowing ever around the world, sifting and mixing with the ash of forest fires and wars and the dust of deserts and pollen and bones. The ache of absence within her eased some with time; she filled it with music and schoolwork and friends, trips to the ballet with her mother, and walks in St. James’s Park with Tom.

The first time, he stammered an invitation over a bouquet of orange roses and Esme’s voice was almost a whisper when she said, "All right," her eyes fixed on the flower petals. She met him the next morning with her coat buttoned to her chin and they made their way up Birdcage Walk with their hands shoved deep in their pockets, noses red from the cold. They paused a moment to watch the red-coated soldiers strut at Horse Guards Parade.

"I used to want to be one," admitted Tom. "I even practiced marching like them. I didn’t know they were real soldiers who go to war. I just liked the caps."

"They kill bears to make those," said Esme.

"I know," he replied, adding quickly, "I don’t want to be one anymore."

Turning from the soldiers, they made their way into the park. Tom produced some bread from his pocket and they fed the ducks and watched the famous pelicans cruise through the green waters of the lake like a fleet of small ships. They walked side by side and faced ahead, from time to time daring to dart quick glances at each other. Esme noticed the good line of Tom’s jaw, and Tom marveled at the sweet small perfection of Esme’s face, and their furtive glances kept meeting in the middle. They blushed over and over and shoved their fists deeper into their pockets.

"Thank you for coming," said Tom when they arrived back at Esme’s door, and Esme tilted her head back to look up at him — she was only as tall as his shoulder — and she gave him a smile, a tiny flash of joy, that promised more such walks were to come.