Chapter 52: Born

Born, MitiS

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“Don’t move,” Troi said, sticking his arm with a needle.

Ezio winced, but he didn’t tense up or anything. They were doing bloodwork to make sure the levels of his everything were normal, along with the regular checkup he was a little late for because life exploded and he no longer remembered what month it was. (Seriously, what month was it?)

“I’ll get these sent to the lab, don’t run off,” Troi said, gathering the blood draws she’d just gotten and taking them out to the desk outside the door.

Ezio looked amused, but he stayed put, pulling his turtleneck back on. He didn’t like his scars showing, so he did everything in his power to cover them all up. Usually, that meant he wore enough fabric to look like he was overheating. Most of the time, he was actually quite comfortable, though he did often get asked if he was hot.

Yep. Ezio just, sat around overheating because he hated himself. Then again, people jumped into freezing water and drank laundry detergent, so he supposed that shouldn’t be surprising in the least.

Ezio smiled a little when Troi came back. “Alright, so I think we can actually lower one of your medication dosages,” she said.

“Really?” Ezio asked. “That’s good news.”

“If anything changes,” Troi said, “anything at all, you call me and tell me. Even if it seems really stupid. Even if you have to call me on my cellphone at 2 in the morning. Okay?”

Ezio made a face. He did have a habit of not telling her when things went wrong, but could one really blame him? And two in the morning? He wasn’t calling her at two in the morning.

“Don’t look at me with that tone of voice mister,” Troi said. “I’m serious. I’d rather have a little less sleep than be figuring out what to wear for your funeral.”

Ezio smiled. “I know,” he said. “But you know how I am about bothering people.”

“I don’t think it counts as bothering when I ask you to do it,” Troi said. “Now, what’s wrong?”

“What?” Ezio asked. “Nothing’s wrong?”

“You’re quieter than usual, and keep getting lost in your own head,” Troi said. “That usually means you’re thinking too hard about something.”

Yeah, Ezio was thinking a little too hard about pretty much everything going on in his life right now. He had something to fix, and didn’t even understand it, and by the way, it’s a threat to Morgyn, and also you were chosen for this specifically because you’re going to die. Isn’t that nice? At least you have something useful to do before you go out. And from the sounds of it, Ezio didn’t think he was going to go particularly easily, either. All things considered, especially if Aine was involved, he had a very high chance of ending up going out terribly.

Screw the fucking bang, he was going out with a nuclear explosion.

Never mind that he still had to figure out what to do with Morgyn, and Caleb, and Morgyn and Caleb.

Ezio loosed a groan. “I have a lot on my mind,” he said.

“Like?” Troi asked.

Ezio gave her a look.

“We are still friends,” Troi said. “And I’m here if you need someone to talk to. And, I think maybe you need someone to talk to.”

Actually, he really needed to find a couple ghosts and punch them, but that was beside the point. Ezio shrugged slightly. “Morgyn and I got into a fight.”

Troi’s eyebrows shot up. “Your twin?” she asked.

“The one everyone thought was my girlfriend for five years,” Ezio said, smiling.

Troi laughed. “Oh yeah,” she said.

Ezio had made it through living on the streets by telling stories, and the stories he told often involved Morgyn. For a good long time, all of his street friends, Troi included, had thought this mysterious Morgyn person either didn’t exist, or was Ezio’s lover. Those stories were all that kept him going, sometimes. Because they reminded him that he had reasons to keep moving, even when it felt like he didn’t.

“What about?” Troi asked, sitting down.

Ezio shrugged. “Morgyn had a teacher, of a sort, it’s more complicated than that but also occulty,” Ezio said. “I didn’t like her. She was constantly misgendering Morgyn, like purposely, she doesn’t really believe in transgenders, and it felt like every other day she’d say something to upset Morgyn. But Morgyn loved her, and I know that, and I know why. Morgyn was trying to find a mother figure again, and Aine seemed perfect for it. She just didn’t want it. Anyway, anytime Aine upset Morgyn, we’d get into a fight over it, and Morgyn always defended her.”

Troi slowly nodded, her lips flattening into a line. “I see,” she said. “So you’re upset about that, and Morgyn doesn’t seem to understand why?”

Ezio shrugged. “I think the dingbat gets it now,” he said. “It just hurt so much, back then, when Morgyn did it again recently, and I don’t know how to let it go again.”

Troi sighed, and then smiled slightly. “You know,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “I knew how much you love Morgyn even back then. It was obvious in your eyes, the way they lit up and the light started to dance in them when you told stories about Morgyn and the things you two had gotten up to. It cheered us all up and kept us all going, because it was so strong that even we could feel it. You need Morgyn, Ezio. And Morgyn needs you.”

Ezio breathed out. He knew that. There was never any question of that, nor was there any question of whether or not Morgyn would always have him.

“Acknowledge the hurt,” Troi said. “And then let it go. It doesn’t serve a purpose anymore. And staying angry with Morgyn, it only hurts you both, and Morgyn does love you, very much. I think maybe it’s just that Morgyn doesn’t always know how to show that.”

Ezio sighed again, standing up. Troi took one of his hands in hers.

“Tell Morgyn how you feel,” she said. “And then let go.”

* * *

Not far from the hospital Troi worked in was Magnolia Promenade. And the neat thing about Magnolia Promenade was it was full of stores and shops, and cafes. Ezio had a very specific shopping trip in mind, something in particular that he was after. He had no idea if he had enough for both today, but he had a decent amount of savings. It was supposed to be for emergencies, and those happened from time to time, but he could try and fit a part-time job in around the end of university if he needed to.

It took a bit of wandering around before he found it, but he did indeed find the jewellery store he was after. It looked way out of his price range, but he pulled his jacket a little tighter and wandered in. He was looking for the lower price end, so he looked at the price tags and followed them to the less expensive side of the store.

Cassandra would probably like something purple. She wasn’t really big on diamonds or gold, for that matter. Most of the jewellery he’d seen her wear was purple and dark metal, occasionally silver. Ezio looked over the options in the glass cases, his eyes immediately going towards anything that didn’t have a diamond centre stone. Dark blue might suit her fine, too, red, even. He’d seen her wear red a few times before, and he vaguely remembered her having a pair of dark blue earrings.

As he looked, one of the employees wandered over. “Having trouble deciding?” she asked.

Ezio glanced up at her, and then tapped the glass, over an silver-set amethyst solitaire. “Could I have a look at this one?” he asked.

“Certainly, just a second,” she said, reaching over and unlocking the back of the case. She reached in and plucked the ring he was looking at from its perch, and held it out for him.

Ezio turned it around in his fingers, watching the light dance in the stone. It alighted with violet fire. He smiled. He thought she’d love it.

“We have a couple other amethyst pieces,” the woman said. “A few more solitaires, and there are a couple with cubic zirconia flanking, if you’d like something that looks a little more variant.”

Ezio frowned slightly. “Do you have anything with the cubic zirconia and maybe a darker coloured silver metal?” he asked. “Like a gunmetal.”

The woman thought for a moment, and then took the ring in his hand back, returning it to its place, before shuffling down the case a ways. “I think maybe this will work better,” she said, opening a different case and pulling something else out.

Ezio shuffled over to see it. In her hand was a beautiful princess cut amethyst, with trillion cut amethysts on either side and more around the band, set in a dark metal. “Oh, my gosh,” he said.

“I thought so,” she answered, smiling. “This is tungsten carbide. It’s usually a bit of a darker colour compared to silver and platinum, it’s fairly well resistant to scratching.”

Ezio raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve never figured out why, don’t ask,” she said.

“How much is this one?” Ezio asked.

“This one’s forty,” she answered.

“Oh that’s way in my range,” Ezio said. “I’d like this one, please.”

“This is a size seven,” she said. “Is that going to work?”

“Um, actually a five would be better,” Ezio answered.

The woman nodded, putting that one back and then pulling a box out from underneath the case, and setting it on the glass.

Ezio started looking at some more of the options, following the case to find the less feminine-looking designs. Not that he figured Drake would terribly mind a more feminine-looking design, it was just… to be honest, Ezio had no idea what he’d like. Apparently, one of the first things he should ask when starting to date someone is ‘what kind of jewellery do you like?’ because this guessing shit was nerve-wracking.

“Looking for something else?” she asked.

Ezio groaned and tapped his head against the glass.

“This one’s going to be harder, huh?” she asked. “Well, what kind of jewellery does this one like?”

Ezio shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “He doesn’t ever wear any. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him wear necklaces.” That was just weird, come to think of it.

“Okay, well,” the woman said, “how about, what’s his favourite colour?”

Ezio snorted. “Grey,” he answered. Being fair, that was a decent place to start.

The woman stared at him for a moment, and then took a breath in. “Oh!” she said. “Like your eyes! That’s really cute.”

Ezio blinked, and looked up at her. And then a pinkish flush spread across his nose and up to his ears. He’d never once thought of that before. Now he had to wonder if Drake’s favourite colour was grey specifically because his eyes were that colour. That sounded like something Drake would decide.

The sales lady giggled. “Ahh, young love,” she said.

Yeah, not so young love, but he decided to leave that be.

“Well, we do have a number of simplistic bands made of grey with cubic zirconia accents if you think he’d like a stone,” she said. “Oh, there’s this one band you may think he’ll like, it’s duotone but it’s two different tones of grey. There’s another one over here that’s tungsten carbide with an inlay of crushed moonstone and diamonds, it’s a nice deep grey tone with a shimmer to it.”

Ezio perked up slightly. “Show me that second one,” he said.

“That one’s over a hundred dollars,” she answered. “Are you sure?”

Ezio thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “I’m very sure.”

* * *

As always he did, Ezio set the teapot to making a nice green tea first thing in the morning. The sun was long up, but he’d been waiting for Morgyn to wake up, so that he could catch the blond before Morgyn ran off to wherever it was Morgyn went anymore. Not that Ezio minded. Morgyn didn’t seem too upset about anything, and it was a good thing in his opinion. Maybe Morgyn was just keeping busy with something. Not like the blond didn’t have a lot of homework and brushing up on science to do.

But, Ezio had started the coffee pot for Morgyn, too. The blond peeked into the kitchen, noticed Ezio was in it, and wandered off again. Probably, Morgyn would wait until Ezio wasn’t in there anymore and then go make coffee. Ezio just intended to beat the blond to it this time.

A few minutes later, and Ezio wandered out into the living room, where Morgyn was reading the newspaper, and set the coffee cup down on the coffee table, then sat on the couch next to Morgyn. Morgyn looked up, seemingly very confused.

“Uh…” Morgyn started. “Hi?”

Ezio smiled. “Hi,” he answered.

“… are you not mad at me anymore?” Morgyn asked.

“No, still kind of mad,” Ezio said. “I just also realise there’s no sense in staying angry, that’s all. It was all a long time ago, and letting Aine come between us even now, it seems stupid.”

“Your feelings aren’t stupid,” Morgyn said. “Huh, that sounds like something my friend would say. Anyway, I understand now. I had to have someone else explain it, but, you know I never meant it that way, right? I believe in you as much as you believe in me. It just… hurt and I didn’t make good choices, and it’s no excuse I’m just explaining I guess.”

Ezio breathed out, then took a drink of his tea, and set it down next to Morgyn’s coffee. “I know that,” Ezio said. “I think that’s why I let it go before. Because I knew you didn’t mean it that way.”

“Still, I’m sorry,” Morgyn said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Ezio smiled again, reaching over and taking Morgyn’s hand in his. And for a moment, they just sat there, holding hands and watching the sunlight refract off the steel and glass buildings of Uptown. It was still so weird living here. But Ezio wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“I think things are going to start changing,” Ezio said quietly.

Morgyn looked over at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Things already are changing,” Ezio said. “We’re changing. And it feels like everything’s leading up to something, something big. The spirit world’s all messed up. The vampires are restless. The air even feels thicker.”

Morgyn glanced down at their joined hands, and frowned. “What do you think it means?”

Ezio drew in a breath. “I think it means we’re about to face something bigger than anything we’ve ever faced before,” he said. “And I don’t want to lose you along the way.”

“Oh, Ezio,” Morgyn said. “You know I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s just it though,” Ezio answered. “You’re not really careful, Morgyn. And sure, you’re not as delicate as I am. But you’re not as indestructible as you like to think you are, either.”

“What are you saying?” Morgyn asked.

“I’m saying, please, think a little more before you do things,” Ezio said. “And if you’re not sure about it, ask someone else first before you do anything. Because I don’t want to be dealing with your funeral any more than you want to be dealing with mine.”

Morgyn was quiet for a moment, and then shifted around to hug his arm. “Okay,” the blond answered quietly. “But promise me you’ll do the same thing. You’re not very careful, either, and you keep taking on way too much Ezio. You don’t have to do everything on your own.”

No, he didn’t suppose he did. Sometimes, it just felt that way. “Okay,” Ezio said. “I’ll try. I promise.”

“I promise too,” Morgyn answered, and then rested against Ezio’s shoulder.

The two were quiet for a long moment again. Ezio probably could’ve fallen asleep right there. It was nice to be near Morgyn again, even as it was a little strange.

Then, Morgyn’s head tilted slightly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Ezio answered.

“Why do you hate Aine so much?” Morgyn asked. “I got that you do, just not really the whys.”

Ezio went quiet, thinking. Mulling over how to word it, before he released a puff of air. “She was doing something called gaslighting,” Ezio said.

“What’s that?” Morgyn asked.

“It’s when someone consistently questions or contradicts what you say and believe,” Ezio explained. “You were very young, and very confused. The freedom was a strange thing to you, something you had to get used to, and then you started trying to figure out who you even were. And every time you thought you had it, Aine would tell you otherwise. When someone challenges your perception of reality like that, your memory, your sense of self, it makes you start distrusting yourself and your instincts. It causes a disconnect between yourself, your feelings, your ability to know what you want and don’t, and makes you dependent on others to define what reality is, and who you are. You lose all sense of what is right and true. The ability to pick out lies and tell when someone is honest or not. And when you finally would’ve figured out what she was doing, you wouldn’t have ever fully trusted anyone ever again. Maybe, not even me.”

Morgyn was quiet for a long moment, resting against his arm. And then the blond snorted. “You know,” Morgyn said, “I actually question myself a lot even now.”

Ezio sighed. He wasn’t surprised, really. “I figured,” he said. “That was why, though. Why I’d make it a point to try and build you up after every time Aine tried to tear you down. In the hopes that, maybe, my words would start overriding hers.”

* * *

They still had some work that needed to be done between the two of them. He and Morgyn had to learn to be more honest with each other, because they’d both spent a long time hiding too many things from the other. There were reasons for that, of course, but Ezio was learning that in the end, it was only hurting them both. Ezio knew and understood that much, of course. He knew it all along and never thought to change things, primarily because there were reasons why he wasn’t being fully honest with Morgyn.

But they both felt that the lack of honesty between them was impacting the foundation of their bond. It wasn’t like they didn’t trust each other; of course they did. They just also both loved one another more than was logical, to the point that they’d keep secrets for fear of each other’s reactions.

Ezio sat at the chess table, playing a game with one of the spirits that was currently hanging around Spire. There were still quite a number of them in and out, and more every day. Cassandra had started to notice several of them, not just the older ones either. Ezio was doing a bit of an experiment.

She sat on the couch, watching them. He was trying to teach her how to sense them, and have a basic idea of what the feelings that they gave off mean, rather than risk her someday falling into the trap of relying on seeing them. Spirits were tricky, and many of them concealed their intentions and feelings in order to get what they wanted. Particularly angry ones might do so maliciously, and it was important that she learnt to sense them rather than merely see them, because that would give her a notable advantage against dangerous ones. They wouldn’t so easily be able to lie to her.

Ezio moved one of the pieces, the ectoplasmic kind. The ghost he was playing with moved, too. Cassandra squinted.

“B4?” she said. Ezio had her starting with sensing ectoplasm. It would give her a solid foundation, because ghosts, of course, were ectoplasm.

“Yep,” Ezio said, smiling.

“I’m getting better at this I think,” Cassandra said. “Is it really going to help?”

Ezio nodded. “It will,” he said. “I don’t want you to rely on what they let you see too much. And besides, sometimes a ghost doesn’t want to be seen just yet, and will remain in the in-between.”

“They can affect this dimension from the in-between?” Cassandra asked.

“Yes,” Ezio said. “Usually only strong ones, either very angry ones, or very old ones.”

“What do you do with angry ones?” Cassandra asked.

Ezio glanced over at her, moving another chess piece. Faintly, his eyes started to give off a green glow. “At the moment,” he said, “if you run into an angry spirit, you come and find me. But angry spirits aren’t always malevolent. Many of them simply had very traumatic and usually quite sudden deaths, and their confusion and trauma kind of expresses as anger. They often don’t make any sense, and puzzling out what they need is notably tricky.”

“Are you any good at it?” Cassandra asked.

Ezio snickered. “No one ever gets good at it,” he said. “I’m passable. I get by, usually by ending up possessed by the damned things, but it helps understand them better.”

“Is possession common?” Cassandra asked, raising an eyebrow.

“For me?” Ezio said. “Yes. Ethren didn’t seem to have this issue as much as I always have, though. Maybe ghosts just can’t figure out if they want me, or want to be me.”

Cassandra almost spat her tea out with laughter.

Ezio smiled. That was poor timing, but he did like making her smile. “So,” he started, “I wanted to have more answers for you than I do right now, but I lied to you. I can unbind your magic, and judging by the fact you can sense spirits around the binding, someone will likely have to and maybe soon.”

Cassandra tilted her head. “Why’d you lie about that?” she asked. She didn’t sound upset, just interested in why.

Ezio released a breath. “And this is why I wanted more answers before I said this,” he said. “The spirit world is restless. The worlds seem to be leaking into one another, something’s wrong in magic realm, the vampires are riled up. There’s something going on, and it’s probably something fairly big, too. You’re unfortunately a very powerful spellcaster. And I don’t want you to dive into unbinding your magic with no caution, because doing so could get you in more trouble than you know what to do with. More trouble than I can necessarily save you from.”

He wanted to say that he was wrong, and he could, but he knew better than to say that. Because the simple fact of the matter was, he probably couldn’t, especially not while trying to keep himself stable and also prevent Morgyn from doing anything really stupid. Embers, they had a weird penchant for being complete idiots. (At least they knew it?)

And unfortunately, as he’d already thought, he may not have the ability to teach her anything beyond the very basics. Her abilities may be so far beyond his he didn’t even know where to really start past those. That was perhaps for Bella to figure out, but he supposed Cassandra was more than capable of navigating that one with her own mother. Ezio wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to try and handle it for her.

Cassandra took a deep breath in, and released it. “I’ll wait then,” she said. “Before unbinding my magic, that is. I’ll wait. I don’t want to make things harder on you.”

Ezio smiled, standing up and shuffling over to kneel behind the couch. Then, he shifted up a little and kissed her nose.

Cassandra wrinkled it in response. Ezio couldn’t help laughing.

“Thank you,” he said. “Someday, we’ll unbind it, I promise, just maybe not anytime soon.”

“I know,” Cassandra said. “I was just kind of excited to start learning.”

“Yeah, we all are at first,” Ezio said. “Keep working on sensing ghosts, though. They insist on being around anyway, and the practise will serve you well.”

* * *

The problem with everything Ezio had said was, he was right, and the frustrating part was that Caleb knew it, even as he’d turned and walked away from him. Caleb couldn’t honestly say why he’d turned and walked away like that, but something about the mixture of Ezio trying to help him after Caleb had done god knows what to him and the look in his eyes while they were talking, it just set his nerves on edge, and made it hard to breathe and think.

Most of the time, Ezio was a little terrifying to him. He’d been places and seen some shit, and maybe done some shit, and you could see it in his eyes. Morgyn was the seemingly explosive one, but it was Ezio’s eyes that looked like the eyes of a killer. Caleb seemed to have some weird fascination with danger, so to him it just made Ezio attractive, even as he was terrifying.

He wasn’t the most open guy, either. Most of the time, Caleb thought he was quite the opposite. Sometimes, he was even a little bit of an asshole, and Caleb had his fair share of assholes. He didn’t need any more of those.

But then, he did that thing that he’d done with Caleb. Where he seemed to turn into a completely different, painfully kind person. There was kindness in him, and there was a lot of it, and when it showed, Caleb couldn’t help but be drawn to it. Ezio had called him an empath. Sometimes, Caleb thought that Ezio was also an empath, just one that had been hurt so much, he’d started blocking most of the world out.

And the part of Caleb that was afraid of ending up just like him, that part of him wanted to squirrel Ezio away somewhere safe where no one and nothing else would hurt him again. Partially because, if Ezio broke, then what did that mean for him? And partially because, Ezio deserved so much better than that. To fight all this way, only to break in the end.

He still had classes, and it was probably the only thing keeping him remotely on a schedule. He was even mostly sober at the moment, mostly because it was hard to concentrate when he was high, and one thing he wasn’t doing, he wasn’t wasting his university tuition. Caleb wouldn’t call he and Lilith poor, but neither were they necessarily rich, and it was enough to at least kind of make him feel bad about not taking his studies seriously. Lilith had to get through university, too, if nothing else.

Caleb made his way across campus, headed to the place he liked to spend time when he wasn’t in class. He had a break between them at the moment, long enough to wander around, short enough he didn’t want to run home. As he turned a corner though, he almost ran into someone else. She stopped just as he did, and then he realised that was Liberty.

“Oh wow,” Liberty said, and then started laughing. Her laugh was oddly melodic and enchanting. “Sorry, I almost ran into you again! Wow. The chances of that, hey, nice to see you though.”

“Yeah, nice to see you too,” Caleb answered. And for the first time in a long time, he smiled a little. Hers was infectious, wide and unafraid of anything.

He could see himself wanting to squirrel her away someday, too.

“How’ve you been?” Liberty asked.

“Just…” fine, he was going to say, but something about the way she was looking at him made him change his mind. “Going day by day,” he said instead. “Not doing so great, actually.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and the way she said it, it didn’t sound like she was just saying that to say it. She meant it. “Can I help?”

Caleb shook his head. “Probably not,” he answered. “But thank you. How have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been just fine,” Liberty said, her eyes glancing up at the sky.

She looked away when she was lying.

“Are you off to class?” she asked.

“Not at the moment,” he answered.

“Well, want to come with me and get a coffee or something?” she asked. “The cart’s right over there, and I could use some caffeine. You also look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

Caleb glanced over, and then shrugged. “Okay,” he said, and turned towards it.

Liberty scurried along beside him, and they walked in vague silence. Caleb smelled something familiar, though, on her. Familiar in such a way as to make his heart hurt, and when he recognised the scent, he wondered when he’d forgotten it.

She smelled like Morgyn.

“You kind of smell like someone I know,” Caleb said. “You smell like Morgyn.”

Liberty looked over at him. “Yeah, I bet I do,” she said. “We’ve been reading and nerding out over books and stuff for the last week or so. Ezio’s been upset, so Morgyn didn’t want to stay at home. We’re pretty good friends now I think.”

Morgyn had friends now. Caleb was glad to hear that, and yet also felt a little sad about it, because it meant that Morgyn didn’t really need him anymore.

“You should hate me, then,” Caleb said.

One of her eyebrows raised up. “And why’s that?” she asked.

Caleb breathed out. “Because I hurt Morgyn,” Caleb said, looking down at the walkway. “Probably more than anyone ever has before.”

Liberty was quiet for a moment, as they walked up to the coffee cart. “A coffee please,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Just a coffee too,” Caleb answered.

“Make that two, if you could,” Liberty told the cart operator. Only a few moments later, and Liberty carefully handed Caleb one of the cups, and gestured at a nearby bench. They shuffled that way, and sat down.

“Clearly,” Liberty said, “you feel guilty about whatever you did to hurt Morgyn.”

“So?” Caleb asked.

“It means you still care about Morgyn, silly,” Liberty said, smiling. “Hating you wouldn’t solve anything. I don’t want to hate you anyway, I want to help you and see you happy someday. Hating you generally isn’t compatible with that. Plus, it’s a lot of effort to hate someone.” She paused, taking a drink of coffee, careful not to spill it, and then looked up at the sky. “Morgyn still loves you, you know.”

Caleb looked away. He supposed she might know, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“I want Morgyn to be happy, too,” Liberty said. “You made Morgyn happy once.”

Caleb looked back over at her. “You want us back together?” he asked. “Are you nuts?”

Liberty released a sigh. “Love is blind, Caleb,” she said.

“I don’t even deserve Morgyn,” Caleb said.

“There is no deserves or not deserves in love,” Liberty said. “Everyone deserves someone that loves them, for who they are. People like you, maybe especially so.”

“People like me?” Caleb asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I can see it,” she said, smiling. “You love with your whole heart. You and Morgyn seem well suited to each other. You can at least match Morgyn’s fire when you want to, and Morgyn can handle yours. What a nice pair you make.”

“I don’t want to hurt Morgyn again,” Caleb said.

“Then stop,” Liberty answered, and she made it seem so simple and easy, that for a long moment, he wondered if maybe it really was.

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