When Her "Death" Couldn't Break Him (Cecilia and Nathaniel)

Cecilia could no longer remember how to cry. She simply called for her mother again and again, voice cracking like ice.

At the shout, the nurses and doctor rushed in, stethoscopes already searching. Nathaniel barreled past them, gathering Cecilia into his arms before her knees buckled.

She stared at the motionless figure on the bed, her entire body trembling.

"Quick-someone wake my mom up!"

The doctor pressed his stethoscope to Queenie's silent chest one final time. A long breath deflated his lungs, and the gray in his face deepened. Turning to the family, he spoke in a hush that seemed afraid to break the air. "She's gone."

The words were boulders dropped from the ceiling. Cecilia felt every vein flash- freeze, as if her blood had turned to winter glass. She could not breathe, could not blink-could only stand inside the shattering silence.

Blindly, she seized Nathaniel's hand. Her fingers locked so hard his knuckles blanched, yet her eyes stared past the walls, emptied of focus or light.

"Got it," Nathaniel murmured, voice low but unarguable. He motioned to the staff. "Please give us the room."

The door closed behind the nurses. Only the two of them remained, the scent of antiseptic now thick with something larger-grief, raw and echoing.

Nathaniel folded Cecilia into his arms. One hand kept a slow rhythm on her shoulder, as though rocking sorrow itself. "If you need to cry," he whispered near her ear, "let it come-loud as it has to be. It will help you breathe again."

The gentleness in his tone pried open the dam. Tears slipped, then streamed, then rained, each sob tearing loose from the cage of her chest.

All my life I've craved a mother's arms-thought the luxury was meant for someone else. Then fate led me to my own mother at last, and I believed we still had time-ordinary, sun-lit time to be a family. But her body dwindled day by day, and Cassandra's poison only sped the clock. Now the clock has stopped...

"Nathaniel, it hurts-my heart feels like it's tearing apart..."

He held her tighter, as if his embrace might stitch the wound. "I know," he breathed. "I know."

couldn't help shed

its measure. At last, Cecilia wiped her eyes, steadied her breath, and stepped from the room-face swollen, purpose firming beneath the

tell every friend and relative that Queenie

no tears came. His gaze anchored on Queenie's face, as if

Queenie..." The single title trembled

the formal address-always her loyal

loyalty bent his knees. A broad-shouldered man sank to the tile floor beside the

hollowed by helplessness. No other language would form, so

loved her in silence for years, content to orbit her world, guarding from the shadows. He would have traded every

go home. Come with us to Drocver. Help me

lifted his head, eyes blazing with fresh tears, and gave a

had already called her aunt, Brooklyn, with the

body was failing; still, the confirmation cracked her composure, and she wept

she promised to

were handed to her deputies. She squeezed Charlotte's hands. "Lottie, I'm counting on you in

dabbed at

dabbed

down her

to steady

cilia

at the edges

of such things: I give you my word.

as though it