For the next few weeks, I don’t see Ari Banner anywhere. I’m beside myself with worry, endlessly going over what happened, what I should have done. Maybe I should have pushed harder, made sure he was all right – even though he clearly wasn’t. He had put on an almost faultless display of normality; perhaps I would have been fooled, if only I hadn’t seen his trembling hands, the way he stood as straight as a board and twice as stiff.

No, Ari was definitely not all right. And the same thought is slamming over and over and over and over against the insides of my head: I should not have left him. I should never have left him. No decent man would ever leave someone in pain.

But you did.

The voice is tormenting me, mocking me.

He’s avoiding you, fool. You just met him, and you left him to his pain. What kind of monster is like that?

*

After another week and still no sign, I’m on the verge of panic. I can’t stand it, the not knowing, the fear; it’s driving me mad. I know, rationally, that before we met in the garden (I shouldn’t have been there, really – strictly speaking, the Earl’s grounds are private land and forbidden), I’d never seen him anywhere. Somehow, even in a tiny village, I hadn’t come across him. So, it shouldn’t be unusual not to see him around and about. 

My sleep-deprived, overworked brain clings desperately to this, telling myself it as I mechanically go about my day, blindly completing my tasks in the bakery I apprentice at. I’m still repeating the words like an incantation as I trudge through the muggy evening towards the well, to get water at my mother’s request. It’s not unusual. Everything’s fine. He’s fine. Just a coincidence. It’s not unusual. It’s not unusual. It’s not unusual.

I’m so caught up in my thoughts, I don’t notice the dark-haired figure by the well until he turns, haloed against the sunset, and I stop dead. The bucket clatters by my feet.

It’s Ari.