Ever Complicated

Titus’s truth was powerful, but I knew him. His focus on me was something he’d done entirely on purpose. If I were to ask about what he wanted he’d most likely evade the question, and yet the temptation to ask, to hear him try to find some way of avoiding answering me, was stronger than before. With how honest he’d been I stood a chance of at least getting something from him.

“What about you, Titus?” He flinched, something he couldn’t hide when his forehead was still against mine, and I reached for his other hand, lacing our fingers on that one too. “The vow…” I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “You’ve said I can’t release you from it even now, the magics we created in that moment too strong, but the words you said…”

“I know.” His voice was quiet. “Mama and Papa were gone. You were devastated, and I… even now I don’t think I can truly put how I felt into words, Anne. To me, in that moment, you were more important than anything else, because it was just the two of us, after magic changed Marren Vale.”

“Had you Seen it?”

Silence, his eyes closed, I waited. “Both Papa and I had. The fire was an inevitability. William was the first to understand it, because of his soul magic. Although their bodies adapted in a way others hadn’t their souls were capable of doing the same. Piece by piece they were losing themselves.” He looked at me again. “With their sanity lost, due to the breaking of their souls, they didn’t know what they might be capable of, so they made a choice, to protect their children. I’m not certain it was the best decision, we all struggled, but I understand why they felt it was their only option.”

Underneath the wholeness of the truth was something more. Titus had never admitted before to Seeing the fire, but then it wasn’t a conversation we’d had. Going back to that time wasn’t easy, for either of us, more due to what it ended up leading to. Every death was a person. We both felt them all, whether he was willing to admit to it or not. In later lives he’d become more capable of disconnecting, for his own sanity, while I… with every ritual I’d slowly become someone else. After Elias… if I hadn’t believed there was something more to Titus’s choice I might have lost myself entirely. I closed my eyes, back in his arms, as I had been both then and in our first life.

All the choices Titus made meant something. I knew that better now than I had. When Thaddeus and Francesca died I was a child, Titus barely an adult, both of us broken, but I’d started to believe the vow wasn’t just due to emotion. Admitting he knew about the fire before… Thaddeus Saw it, while also being the same generation, going through the same experience, knowing his sanity was fading. Even I’d noticed. One afternoon I’d found him staring into space, so stayed with him until he returned to himself, neither of us saying anything about it afterward, easier to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Only it had. The same way Titus’s relationship with Thaddeus and Francesca changed after his thirteenth birthday, which I knew had something to do with Silas. Magic changed Marren Vale, Silas dying with so many others than night, in what was later called the first wave, undoing at least some of the damage. As I watched them, the first signs of my empathy appearing the same time, Titus’s grief was more than I expected. Yes, he was close to Grandpa, but it was tightly entwined with guilt, something I felt even more when he looked at me. It still existed. He simply got better at hiding it.

“You’re not going to answer this question, but… Titus, were you the one to originally bring magic to Marren Vale?” It was enough to break his iron control, guilt swirling round us for a moment, before he regained it, eyes not leaving mine. “There were theories.”

“Some even came to believe the Riordans.” I tightened my grip on both his hands. “Anne, it was inevitable, and I’m not even going to say I blame Sybil, because her anger was entirely understandable. Phoebe’s reaction didn’t help.”

Phoebe was another complicated subject, for multiple reasons. I looked down, emotions more conflicted than I expected, because I hadn’t thought about her in so long I believed I’d got over my dislike. Apparently I was wrong. Whatever my doubts about his parentage Titus chose to be my brother. Those feelings… I closed my eyes, more grateful than I imagined he wasn’t also an empath. Yet he still freed his hands, curling his arms back around me, showing me he’d seen even if he couldn’t be certain of my emotions in that moment.

“Talk to me, Anne.”

I shook my head. There were things I wish I could have told him then, holding them back because it seemed like the right decision to make. Yet, head on his shoulder, the weight of them was heavier than before, almost tempted to explain exactly why I couldn’t have ever been friends with Phoebe. Seeing the way she looked at Titus… it wasn’t as though she was the only one, but with her it was different. With the others I’d never worried. Phoebe, however… Sybil was Titus’s daughter. Clearly there’d been something between them, and it wasn’t even as though… no, I couldn’t think like that.

“Do you ever wish you’d chosen her?”

Laughter wasn’t the response I expected. “No, sweetheart, I don’t.” With a hand he tilted my chin, our eyes meeting again. “I didn’t love Phoebe. She wanted me to, even asked me to marry her, but I said no, because she wasn’t my future.”

Words I wanted to say I held back. Causing an argument was the last thing I wanted right then. Only the way he looked at me… I ran my tongue over suddenly dry lips, remembering the time I thought he was about to kiss me, and then he walked away. After so many lifetimes we were different people, yet I couldn’t forget the first man I’d been foolish enough to fall in love with. If I was being honest with myself it hadn’t truly faded, there were still flickers of it when I looked at my brother, but we were blood siblings. That was a future I could never have.

Pulling free, I couldn’t stay where I was, I stepped over to the window, looking out into the garden. Over the years it became mine, and I’d taken cuttings from the plants that grew within to the Gardens. There was no possibility the house wasn’t directly over the birthplace of magic, because it was the origin of too many of them not to be, which also had an effect on the two of us. We’d spent lifetimes living about it, but, even before, we were the first to be born here, Silas’s house something he built himself after he moved to Marren Vale with Thaddeus and Emory.

Arms slipped around my waist. “Don’t shut down. Please.” He kissed the top of my head. “I know everything to do with our first life is a complicated subject, but Phoebe… I never wanted to hurt you.”

Of course he hurt me. Titus slept with another woman, because I didn’t have the courage to tell him how I felt. He had a child with her, choosing never to be honest with me about Sybil, and I’d done my best to forget it, even been friends with Riordans at times, always knowing there were in some way related to us. Yet in every life he’d urged me to wait for the right time to build a family, which he was right about, but I still hated him sometimes. More often than I really wanted to admit. In that moment, his arms annoyingly comforting, it would have been so easy to try to make him feel the same pain I did.

“I’m sorry.”

Exactly what was he sorry for? I breathed deeply, doing my best to let go. What he’d done couldn’t be undone. Through the lifetimes we’d both hurt each other, in so many different ways. Slowly, I turned in his arms, the weight of every decision I’d ever made heavy on my shoulders, because there was such a deep worry in his eyes. Although I’d been the one to say we needed to let the past go I was the one unable to do that, if my mind turned to Phoebe.

“She might have made you happy.”

“Like so many others, Anne, Phoebe was in love with the idea of me. She saw the scars, and convinced herself you’d been the one to push me into the ritual. It was Sybil who understood it best, when she saw both of us, so we did have one conversation.”

“You actually talked to Sybil?”

Titus nodded. “She thought it best, for everyone, I didn’t marry her mother. When I suggested Wolfgang I hoped Phoebe would see the reality of the situation, because I wasn’t who she wanted me to be.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Wolfgang actually loved her, but he… in the end he became expendable.”

“Phoebe only ever had one child… who wasn’t Wolfgang’s.”

“Anne…”

“Sybil had your eyes, Titus.”

Eyes closed, teeth buried in his bottom lip, Titus looked down, his back tense. “You’ve always known?”

“Until now I only suspected, because it’s not as though we’ve had this kind of conversation before, is it?”

“For good reasons.”

“Debatable.”

“Hurting you…”

“You didn’t love Phoebe?”

“It was a moment of foolishness. Nothing more.”

Normally I’d have pointed out the lie. It was more. Only I could understand why he wasn’t being truthful in that moment. Whatever the reason for it happening there was no changing the reality. Titus had a daughter with Phoebe, who’d hated him for killing the man she viewed as her father. Knowing Sybil she’d been smart enough to put the pieces together too, so she stepped in when she thought Titus might marry her mother, their relationship even more complicated than Celeste and Leonora’s.

“Wolfgang knew?”

“Only that Sybil wasn’t his. Phoebe was already pregnant when she want to talk to him. For a time she held out hope I’d change my mind, and when I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, I didn’t want to be either her husband or the father of her child, she made the logical choice. She married out of necessity, because she did want her child to have a father.”

“Leonora is related to us.”

“Exceedingly distantly, and that’s not going to change her mind about the ritual. If anything I think it would make her hate me more.” Titus sighed, opening his eyes. “Asking you to wait was always about you, not me, because losing people you care about already hurts enough, Anne.” He kissed my forehead. “Going through that same pain with your children… in the end I’d have supported whatever decision you made.”

“That’s never made it any easier, and you could have been Sybil’s father. I wish I’d said something at the time, but I… it was after the ritual, our relationship was fragile enough, so I was selfish.”

Seeing Sybil, knowing exactly who her father was, only complicated my decision to be honest with Titus more. Even after the ritual, when I’d worked through the emotions, I loved him, but telling him… he’d made a different choice. To him I was his sister. So he could have been part of her life, maybe kept the Riordans from hating us, if only I’d been honest, and maybe gently urged him to be the father I knew he could be.

“Honestly, I didn’t want to be Sybil’s father.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You’re going to hate me, because I know how much you want to have children, but what happened… it’s one of my biggest regrets.”

“Why, Titus?”

“I planned on waiting, until the right time. Like you had to.” A truth, but, again, not the whole truth. “Sybil… the most complicated part of all of this, even now, is how proud I was of her.”

Eyebrow raised, I studied him. “Proud?”

“Yes, proud, of a woman who hated me, because she had the courage of her convictions.” He shook his head, smile just touching his lips. “I feel the same way about Leonora. Anne, I think she might be Sybil’s reincarnation, and that… I give you my word I won’t do anything foolish when it comes to the Riordans. They just make me more emotional than I should be.”

“Good.” I stood on my toes, and kissed his cheek. “What you did can’t be undone. However much I might wish otherwise I think I’ll always be jealous of Phoebe, because she had the child I still want.” Fortunately Titus also couldn’t tell if I was telling the whole truth. “Soon I’ll hopefully have that chance.” Just not with the man I thought I might all those lifetimes ago. “As long as nothing goes wrong.”

“Between us we’ll make certain it doesn’t.” He curled his arms around me again. “Try talking to Leonora. I don’t believe it will change anything, but it is worth a try. While you’re doing that I’ll work out other options. Someone else could take her place.”

Slowly, I nodded. “What happens if someone doesn’t?”

“Don’t worry yet. I know what I said, Leonora’s choice does have the potential to cause problems, but I’m sometimes more pessimistic than I probably should be.” He drew me back over to the chair. “Take some time. You don’t need to have the conversation right now. One way or another we’ll make this work, Anne.”

Rather than let him leave the way I should have I grabbed his hand. “Stay.”

Flickers of emotion, disappearing too fast for me to understand what any of them were, as his eyes met with mine. “Sweetheart…”

“This is the kind of conversation we haven’t had in far too long.” Rather than dealing with Titus I’d surrounded myself with family, something I hadn’t been able to do after Emory moved out. “I feel closer to you than I have in such a long time, and…” A tear rolled down my cheek, surprising me again. “Please. Just a little longer. We don’t even need to keep talking. Being together is enough.”

“I know, and I want to stay, but…” He shook his head. “No, this comes first. The ritual can wait.”

As he sat he pulled me back into his lap, and I pressed my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of a man I still loved. Who I wanted to be happy, but the vow made that far more complicated than it should be. For a time we sat in silence, not needing words to rebuild what we’d almost entirely destroyed, my mind turning once more to the ritual, because that was an inevitability.

“More than I’d like to admit I wish I knew what you were thinking.” Titus’s voice was filled with curiosity. “Especially at times like this. At least then I might make less mistakes.”

“We’ve both made mistakes.” Lifting my head, I looked at him. “Let’s not pretend I’m infallible, Titus, because I have hurt you as much as you’ve hurt me.”

“Sweetheart…”

“No, I need to say this, to really clear the air between us. I do love you.” Of course he’d think I meant as my brother, even though there was so much more to those words, which I felt every time he said them too. “The choices we’ve both made through the lifetimes have almost destroyed our relationship, and I… more than anything I am truly sorry for the pain I’ve caused. Even now I think there’s a chance we could still end up losing each other, but if we can have more conversations like this it will help. You can’t always tell me everything, I understand that, but when we can talk, when you’re as open with me as you can be, it helps to make me feel like you do want to, rather than it just seeming like words.”

Hand gentle, he stroked my hair back. “I love you. Always.” Truth even more powerful than before, he rested his forehead against mine again, closing his eyes. “We can talk whenever you need, but the day will come when I can be more open with you. Not this life, but either the next or the one after, when the final ritual is complete, I will share what I haven’t been able to.”

Magic swirled around us in a way it hadn’t before. “Titus…”

“You have my word.” He opened his eyes. “It might be the most foolish mistake I’ve ever made. We’ll find out when the time comes.”

“Why?”

“For us, Anne. For you. I need you.” I blinked at him, the strength of that truth unexpectedly heavy. “Like I said I have no regrets. Being by your side is what makes me happy, and, in time, you’ll be free to be happy too.”

Unfortunately being happy might mean finally telling Titus the truth. If he was my blood brother… I didn’t doubt I was right. When I looked into his eyes he wasn’t a Lockwood, the way he became after our first rebirth, so I had to accept him as my brother. That was what made our second life harder. Every time I looked at him I was reminded I’d lost my chance, but if he was honest with me, he told me everything, I’d do the same.

“In the morning I’ll talk to Leonora.” Sighing, I looked up at the ceiling. “The time has come for me to speak from the heart, in the hope a woman who doesn’t actually like me, and might be the reincarnation of another woman who didn’t like me, is willing to listen.”

“She doesn’t remember.”

“Yet we both know who they were does have an effect on who they are. We’ve seen it before.”

“An effect, yes, but Leonora also knows you, and if she does believe we’re the reincarnations of those who came before she heard stories about you from Reuben. The two of you were close, Anne. He loved you deeply, so use that to your advantage.”

What I’d never told Titus was Reuben asked Leonora to marry him, and she told him to stop being foolish. He couldn’t give up the Lockwood name to be a Riordan. I held him as he cried, working through the emotions, because he didn’t want to be the heir. Losing the woman he loved almost broke him, especially when she then married Samuel a few days later. Seeing them together… he understood, but I don’t think he ever forgave her decision, so when she told him about the scars that choice most likely coloured how he reacted to it.

Still, I nodded. “I’ll do what needs to be done, Titus.” Even though neither of us said it we both thought of times I’d been called on to do similar before. “For you.”