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Feeling a gentle hand on his cheek, Corvus looked up into fierce eyes. “I’m sorry that life has been unkind to you, Corvus. I know I tease you about your wealth and your privilege, but I know we all have our own burdens to bear. I know there’s only so much confidence that can be put in words, but I want to be around you, Corvus. Not because you’re a Winterbourne, but because you make me laugh. You make me think. Sometimes you drive me crazy, but you certainly make life more interesting. You make me happy, Corvus - not because you’re wealthy, but because you’ll sit with me in a bookstore for hours and don't make me feel like I’m wasting your time.”

Corvus really did laugh then, and he hoped like he never had before that he could believe her.

Chapter thirteen

Present - April

After their trip to Paris, there was an ease that settled over Pearl and Corvus’ interactions that hadn’t been there before. Neither of them talked about it, as though speaking about it might break the spell. And Pearl was loving her work. The Winterbourne Library was her version of an oasis. It had always been a beautiful space, and making the books actually usable was such a gift to the world. Pearl said as much to Corvus one day when he came to assist her with a few books but quickly realized her error. “I’m sorry that was presumptuous. I know this is a private library.”

Corvus sat down rather heavily in the wingback chair and seemed a bit out of breath as though he’d run here. He took a moment to catch his breath before replying to her. Pearl wondered if he’d been escaping his mother. She could only imagine how difficult it must be to live with that harpy no matter how big this house was. “I hope it won’t be a private library for much longer.”

Looking up in surprise, Pearl saw that Corvus was serious. “Truly?”

“Oh, yes. The old families have hoarded knowledge long enough. I intend to make this a reference library that anyone can access by appointment. That’s one of the reasons I hired you. It seems impolite to invite people to your library that might kill them if they touch it.”

Beaming, Pearl responded with enthusiasm. “I have to admit I’m tickled pink at this development. Do you realize what a help that’s going to be to so many magic users? To share this knowledge is…” Pearl stopped when Mercuitio approached her. He had a book in his teeth, which was very unlike him. He knew better than to potentially damage a book, so the fact he was drawing this one to her attention must be significant. It seemed fairly non-descript. It was a rather modern fiction novel - she’d actually read it several years ago at the height of its popularity. Pearl had largely ignored the more modern books as the older the book the more likely to be magically dangerous. She saw Corvus begin to walk over out of the corner of her eye to see what had interrupted her train of thought. Mercutio dropped it at her feet, and nudged it towards her with his nose. As he’d touched it without consequence and was encouraging her to pick it up, there was no danger in her doing the same. But as she wrapped her hands around it, she saw Corvus throw out his hand. “Wait, no! Not that one!” But it was too late. Pearl was sucked away before she could pull on her magic to stop it.

When Pearl came back to herself, she was in the library still, but it was dark and ominous. A flash of lightning lit up the space for a moment, and she saw Corvus sitting in one of the armchairs looking out at the storm. Pearl began walking towards him, but stopped when she realized this wasn’t the Corvus she had just seen moments before, nor was it the Corvus she had first known - he was even younger. Probably late teens if she had to guess. Realizing she’d been pulled into a memory, Pearl settled in to wait until the memory ran its course. There must have been blood on the book. Blood spilled by a magical person held memories, and concern bloomed within Pearl at the realization. This young Corvus was sitting here peacefully. What was going to make him bleed? A papercut wouldn’t be enough to create a full blown memory like this - it was going to be something ugly. It was going to be something that hurt.

The whipping wind outside was making groaning noises against the windows that made the library seem more spooky and haunted than she had ever seen it. But Corvus seemed unafraid. He simply continued looking at the storm as though if he looked at it long enough, it would reveal its secrets to him. The doors to the library banged open, and they both jumped in surprise. Corvus’ father, Rupert, strode into the room with anger radiating off of him. It shocked her every time she saw Rupert how much Corvus favored his father, but the disgusted sneer that twisted his father’s face was not something she’d ever seen on Corvus.

“Oswald told me you were hiding in here.”

Where Corvus’ face had been peaceful before, it was now filled with unadulterated terror, and Pearl wanted to throw herself in front of him. But she knew it was just a memory - she couldn’t change the past any more than she could move a mountain. Corvus spoke, and Pearl was surprised not to hear any tremor in his voice. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Father. I promise I’ll do better in the future. I promise I won’t make any more mistakes.”

“What useless words from a useless boy.” And without warning he backhanded Corvus in the mouth. It split his lip, and blood dripped onto the book he was holding.

“Please, Father. I promise I won’t talk to him again. I thought you were friends with his father, so I thought it would be ok. But I know better now. I won’t let you down again.” Corvus’ voice was filled with emotion now, and Pearl couldn’t help but try to take his hand, but her hand passed right through him.

“You think you can presume to make decisions? Of course I’m not friends with his father. He serves a purpose to me now and again, but do not mistake that for friendship. His son is entirely ill suited to be friends with a Winterbourne, and it will give him ideas and airs above his station.”

Pearl heard a gasp at the door, and saw Cecilia’s eyes widen as she took in the scene before her. “Darling, I think that you’ve expressed your wishes to Corvus clearly. He’ll know how to proceed in future.”

The sneer on Rupert’s face was deep and ugly. “You always coddle him, Cecilia. He’ll never amount to anything if you keep him so soft.”

Rage filled Cecilia’s eyes, but it was pushed down quickly. “Why don’t you come back to the drawing room with me. We can all talk about this in the morning when our emotions have had time to calm and we can think about this more rationally.” Pearl saw the gentlest blue glow coming from Cecelia’s wrist and realized she was using her magic to try to settle the emotions in the room. It was a dangerous game. Emotion-based magic was incredibly tricky, and it backfired often. Humans had an inherent retaliation against anything attempting to influence their emotions, but she must have kept it a soft brush - just enough to convince her husband to leave their son alone. So Pearl was the only one who saw him weep, and she was merely a wraith who could only watch but provide no comfort.

Everything went dark. Then there were strong hands around her and a familiar voice whispering her name. When she opened her eyes, his deep brown eyes were filled with concern.

“Corvus.” Pearl’s hand went to her mouth in an attempt to hold back her emotions. But she was apparently too late. Long fingers brushed tears from her cheeks. She realized the tears had begun leaking out of her eyes while she was still in the memory. “Corvus, I didn’t know. I mean, I can’t pretend I thought your father was a good person, but I didn’t know this.”

The sigh that rattled out of Corvus felt like it came straight from his soul. He looked tired and drawn. She could only imagine how difficult it was to know someone had seen something so painful from your past. “I didn’t want you to know. And I’m still sorry you saw it. It’s one of my ugliest memories, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” Turning reproving eyes on Mercutio, he chided her familiar, “You didn’t do right by your mistress pointing her to that book.” When Pearl looked over at her fox, he didn’t look repentant at all - he merely yawned and curled up on her jacket for a nap. Corvus rolled his eyes. “I can see he takes instructions as well as ever. Are you feeling up to sitting? I know jumping out of a memory is jarring even if it’s not quite as ugly as that one.” Pearl nodded, and he helped her up and onto a nearby couch. They didn’t say anything for a while, but Corvus finally broke the silence. “When you’re young, you think if you don’t think about it, it will go away. That talking about it makes you weak. But it doesn’t go away until you deal with it - it just festers and grows into an ugly thing inside you. It took me a long time to get there, but I finally went to therapy and worked through it. I wish I had done it years before, but I can only be glad I didn’t wait any longer. I don’t know if you know this, but my father passed several years ago.”

Pearl did know, but she decided to keep it to herself. She’d found out when Pru slapped a newspaper down in front of her and said “The wanker’s dead, and I’m just sorry I wasn’t the one to kill him.” So she simply said, “I read about it in the paper. I…I almost sent you a condolence letter, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Corvus laughed humorlessly. “I don’t blame you for not sending it, but I wish you would have just because he would have turned in his grave to know his death caused us to reconnect in any way. He was a horrible, prejudiced, old bastard, and do you know the first emotion I felt when I heard he died? Relief.” Corvus dropped his head into his hands, and Pearl reached her hand out to comfort him before pulling back, which was foolish. He’d just been holding her in his arms and wiping tears from her face. What was a hand on his arm?

“That’s a very normal emotion, Corvus. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you share your blood with someone doesn’t mean they deserve your love. It doesn’t mean they deserve you.”

When Corvus turned his head and looked into her eyes, his own eyes were burning with determination. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive my father, Pearl, for all the ways he twisted my belief system to match his own and how much I’ve broken and how many people I’ve hurt in my journey to crawl my way out of the mire of classism and backward thinking my family has been wallowing in for centuries.” At this he turned and gently took her hands. “But I’m a grown man now, and I was a grown man when I hurt you. I was a grown man when I told you…when I told you terrible things. Things I can’t even bear to repeat, but words that I’ll never forget. I want to tell you how sorry I am that I hurt you. I know we were just discussing my reasons for asking you to curse break this library. I was telling the truth when I said I wanted to open it up as a reference library, but that wasn’t the whole truth. I also wanted an opportunity to apologize to you.”

Pearl could feel tears springing to her eyes once again. “Corvus, we were both really young. And you should let your parents shoulder a lot of blame for the way that they treated you and the ways that they tried to warp and shape your perspective. You should be proud that you’re working to grow past their belief system.”

Corvus looked out the window, and when Pearl followed his line of sight, she was surprised to see sunlight. She expected a storm still to be raging outside.

“You’re being entirely too generous, Pearl. Maybe when I was a child, I could have hidden behind the skirt of my parents' mistakes, but their actions are not an excuse for the choices I made as an adult.”

Placing a gentle hand on Corvus’ arm to regain his eye contact, Pearl responded. “No, but it is a reason.”