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She talks about his brother, and says he's a good person to tease and talk to. She liked dueling and fencing with him. Julius smiles at her musing. He agrees his brother is pretty cool. And he understands this feeling--he talked to Edaline sometimes, and they would remark on each other's homework. They had divination and healing together. It was fun.

Then Alys tells him it's a crush. She tells him she had a crush on his brother. Julius feels like his organs have decided to flush from his body and his blood suddenly feels pounds heavier. Of course it was Jaren. Alys laughs when she talks about Jaren, and her eyes sparkle that lovely deep blue. He reaches out for her, but stops--what is he doing?

It was always Jaren. Everyone wanted to be friends with Jaren. Everyone wanted to be more than friends with Jaren. And now even Alys--his only friend Alys--wanted Jaren. Had liked him, all these years, since they started school. Julius was searching for something he had over Jaren-he’d known her longer--that wasn’t really true. They’d been friends earlier--that wasn’t even remotely true. He and Alys had only started hanging out when studying for OWLs. Because she was terrible at Potions, he remembered, but she was determined to be a cursebreaker. He could help with Potions. She offered to help him with Charms or Cursebreaking or something. He wasn’t in Cursebreaking, but he was in Ancient Runes. He didn’t really need help with it, but he didn’t say that. Her eyes had lit up. “I can help with Runes!” That was how they’d started talking. Started hanging out.

“Stop hanging out with me. Talk to her.” Alysanne shrugged, “Listen, we don’t get to choose who we fall in love with, only who we stay with. Papa told me that if we’re lucky, those are the same people.”

“I want to stay with you.” He wonders if she remembers the conversation in March--was it really almost a month ago?--when she asked if he liked anyone. “I like you.”

“But you love her. So be with her. See if it works and if she feels the same way.” Alys sighed a little, her shoulders softening. He's confused by her words now, and what the difference between real like and real love and all that is. He just wants to continue to hang out and talk about anything. “Listen, you don’t owe me anything just because we had sex once. It doesn’t work like that. Treat it just like a good night, and we had a connection. What, unless you want to do it again?”

She said he didn’t owe her anything, but why did it feel like she was saying she didn’t owe him? Julius studied her face, trying to tell what she was thinking. We had a connection, she said. Didn’t they still? Did they? What were the last few months if not something more? He had thought--But what he thinks doesn't matter. It never has. She asks if he wants to sleep together again like it’s a joke. If he had been a pool of icy loneliness before, he was now a shard of ice, shattered against the ground and worthy only of melting in her sunlight.

“There, you see? Talk to Edaline, okay? Maybe you guys can work.”

Alys wasn’t writing back. He hadn’t expected much while he was travelling, but she hadn’t said anything all July. He knew she was leaving soon, out at sea for the next four months. Julius adored Edaline and owed her so much for holding him together these past few months, but he had thought he had at least one other friend. He wanted to hear Alys quip and wanted to see her sketches and play songs for her like they used to. He couldn't just believe she’d just ignore him-- she was the one who said to stay in contact, hadn’t she? He gritted his teeth and found the address Jaren had given him “for when you decide to tell me why you’re so peevish. Or just in case. Because you’re my little brother.”

He received a reply in record time-- Alys had replied to his letter. So obviously her home wasn’t forwarding letters to her. He attached his next letter to Jaren, asking him to post it to her company for him. “I’m sorry for getting peevish at you.” He didn’t explain why, but Jaren replied anyways: “Posted. I’ll send you her reply. Apology accepted. Don’t be a stranger okay?”

His daughter. His daughter. His daughter with Alys. He knew immediately what had caused this--that night--there was only one night.

Julius had run her name though his head a thousand times already. Duanaire Liane Evera. After the Irish books of poetry. Alys always had a soft spot for beautiful prose. Liane for her mentor. Cursebreaking really was her one true love. Evera. His name. Despite her secrets, she’d still given her daughter his name. That had to mean something right? He stopped his train of thought. But she had also kept this a secret from him the entire year. All those months— Alys had said he and Edaline had been a couple by the time she knew—but that didn’t make sense. Edaline and his relationship had never been something formal, not until last week when she proposed out of the blue and he went with it.

The entire year. And she’d been working at sea for the last four months! He hadn't had a clue. Nothing in her correspondence, when they finally got in contact. He wished he could have done something—anything. Be there for her. Support her. Even if Liane hadn’t been his daughter too. Even if she’d been Jaren’s daughter. It probably would have hurt, but Julius was sure he could have done something. Maybe. He had obviously overestimated his own significance to her. Alys hadn’t even deemed him worthy of knowing until a month after their daughter was born.

But he wouldn’t do anything about that now. Alys had been pretty clear she didn’t want a relationship with him, and very clear that Aire was staying with her. He understood. He just wish he’d known.

“Did you know?” He could feel tension rolling off his shoulders, and a fever in his head the moment they got back to his studio. It wasn’t the kind of bloodcurling rage he felt for Alexei or his father's murderer. It wasn’t the irritation he felt when he didn’t understand why people did the things they did. It was...anger, but cold. He was bleeding, from a wound he hadn’t known was there until just now. In that metaphor Edaline would have been the one who stabbed him. He turned around and could almost see his supposed fiancee holding a knife. “You knew. The Scorpio thing. That was Aire.”

“She didn’t want to tell you.”

“Edaline, Aire’s my daughter too!”

“No. She was Alysanne’s. From the beginning, to carry and to keep.” Edaline was biting her lip between words but her hands were small fists, trying to stand her ground.

Julius felt water p***k his eyes and realized he was crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He wasn’t sure what he was crying about. About not knowing Aire existed until now? About Alys keeping it from him? About Alys lying when she said she had never felt anything for him? About Edaline keeping something from him? About Edaline arguing that Aire wasn’t his? About Edaline being right—as usual?

“Julius. You can cry.”

So he did. He let the tears flow, and he let the emotions he couldn’t understand or name leave him in tiny waterdrops, like little rivers leaving the mountains and washing out to sea.

At some point in the night Edaline draped a blanket over him and sat at his feet. “Why aren't you chasing her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Break up with me. Call off the engagement. She’s fifteen minutes away. You can run there. You’ll be sweaty, but you’ll have the girl you love in your arms.” Edaline stood up suddenly and ran up to his room. She came back and thrust something small and shiny into his vision. Round, small, a teardrop diamond and small little gems set next to it. A ring—the ring Edaline’s father had given him to propose to her with, when the time came. “Go to her, Julius.”

Julius wiped the water from his eyes and saw Edaline for what felt like the first time. She was trembling, her eyes were streaked with red like she had been crying herself, except there were no tears. He reviewed her words carefully, and studied the ring she offered him. He hadn’t told her that he’d gotten it, much less where he’d hidden it. He made her meet his eyes. “I’m not going to. You...you know I’m not going to. Why are you telling me this?”

“Exactly because I’ve seen what happens. And I want you to challenge it. I just want you to be happy, Julius. Because I love you. But I can’t tell if you ever love me back.”

“I want to stay with you, Edaline. Even if we’re not getting married now, I think I’d like that someday.” He folded the ring back into her palm.

“You go to her, nightime on the full moon. You’re running. Aire hugs you. Alys is smiling, and you hug her and smile too. There’s a wedding at sea. Alys is beautiful in white, and Aire is the flower girl.”

He studied her, listened again to the prediction she had told him. She wasn’t lying. Edaline really was like Alys in some ways. Why did neither of them believe him when he said he wanted to stay with them? Finally, he pointed out the obvious: “Tonight is a half moon.”

“If you’re going to leave me, don’t put it off!”

“I’m not going to leave you,” he said, and as he did he knew it was true. It was an assurance, a statement, and a promise, all in one. He reached out and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her hair. It felt right to do. Finally, the trembling evened out, and Edaline looked up, meeting his eyes so he could tell she wasn’t lying:

“I meant what I said, about watching Aire. I want to know her. I want to See her. And I know you do too.”

“Do we get to?”

Edaline let a small smile touch her tear-streaked face. “Yes.”