“Yes, for now,” she agrees. “Until you’re forced to leave us and go fight your shadow war.” There’s no bitterness in her tone anymore. She speaks as though she’s resigned herself to the inevitability of it. “You promised you’d come back, though.”
“I will come back,” I tell her. “For Isla.”
That does it. Finally, a blow lands. Finally, I get what I’ve been trying to achieve since the moment I turned around and realized that she had been listening in on my conversation with Petro.
Hurt floods across her features, drowning out every other emotion for a moment. I feel a tiny, satisfied spark of achievement, before it shrivels up and sinks to that dark, deep place inside me where everything goes to die.
“At least you have something to fight for,” she bites out, her voice cracking. “At least
