What Summer wanted to do was run from the room. Run and run and run until she was exhausted and couldn’t worry any more. But she drew herself up and offered a polite nod before linking her arm through Isaac’s and drawing him away.
They ended up in the practise yard, still and empty and smelling faintly of dust. She wrapped her fingers in his fine tunic and hid her face in his chest, on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
He fell silent, wanting to let her choose to talk on her own time, knowing she had a lot to process and he wanted to be patient with her, even though he was positively terrified.
“I don’t know what to do either,” he finally admitted after a long pause, cradling her against his chest as he pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. “Do…do you want to get to know them?”
She nodded miserably. “My twin, Isaac,” she whispered. “Imagine if your family, your mother, your brother, came back, came for you. How can I — turn them away?” She rocked back, looking at his face, tears sliding down her cheeks.