Livvy to Julian
Dear Julian,
You can see ghosts but you cannot see me. Not when I come to sit by you while you sleep. Not when I am in the movements of the shadows across the lawn, or the twitch of a curtain. You cannot hear me, even though I am speaking to you because I have things I need to tell you.
I want to tell you about Ty.
He was there. We were there.
You don’t know we were there.
Kit knows.
Let me start over.
You like surprises, Ty says. Ty doesn’t like surprises, but you do.
He is learning Portals, how to open them, how to close them. You need a warlock. But Ty is learning and he is getting better. He wanted to come to see you and Ragnor said he would help.
We wanted to come to see you.
Ty warned Emma, but he told her not to tell you, so it would be a surprise.
So we came through together.
A ghost travels through a Portal just like a Shadowhunter. I didn’t know that. Isn’t that funny?
Well, I thought it was funny.
The Portal opened in the kitchen.
The kitchen looks nice. I am only a spirit caught between the world and the void but I think you chose an excellent shade for the walls. You have always been so good with color.
Other than the color, which was a surprise but not a bad one, there was another surprise in the kitchen. Kit.
Kit was in the kitchen. Wearing that jacket he likes, with the fuzzy collar. The sun came through the window and lit him up.
Everything in Ty froze. Even I almost froze. I’ve seen Kit, of course. I visit him sometimes. Still because I wasn’t expecting him, it hit me how different he looks from the way he did when he lived at the Institute with us. He looks older, and taller. More muscular. He moves like a Shadowhunter now. Graceful.
He’s beautiful.
I heard Ty take a breath like he never has before. Like he was gasping for air, like he’d been sucker-punched and he was trying to breathe and trying to breathe and he couldn’t.
He whispered, “That’s not how you clean a gun.”
Sorry, I should have said before. Kit was cleaning a gun. Why would there be a gun at your house? Blackthorn Hall is like a rock. You turn it over and so many things are underneath. This time a gun was underneath.
Kit went whiter than any ghost I’ve ever seen. He dropped the gun onto the counter. And he didn’t speak. I wonder if he was wondering what I was wondering. I was wondering how Ty knew how to clean a gun. Enough to tell someone they were doing it wrong.
Maybe he just didn’t know what to say, so he said that.
After that they looked at each other.
Time is not fast or slow where I am. And yet it was long enough for me to feel like the whole world was disappearing, like there was nothing else in it except Kit and Ty looking at each other.
Kit said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
He has never spoken to me like that. With such a cold voice. He had put his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were thrust forward, like he was being aggressive, but I could see his hands in his pockets, all knotted up. I wonder if Ty saw it too. Kit’s fingers, digging and digging into themselves.
But Ty wasn’t looking at Kit. He was looking past him at the window. I could hear birds, and quiet English sounds, and Ty breathing. He said, “How long do you think it will take you to forgive me?”
Kit looked at me. He looked a little betrayed, as if somehow I had known he would be here, had planned this. But I didn’t. “I don’t know,” he said.
“But not now,” Ty said in the smallest voice.
“No,” Kit said. “Not now.”
There was no more reason to stay then.
Maybe there was a reason. Maybe it was Kit’s hands crushing in on themselves, till I thought the bones would break like hearts.
But Ty couldn’t see that. Ty was in pain. I put myself next to him, wrapped myself around him, held him while we went back through the Portal. I was sad. I wanted to see you very much, Jules. But Ty needed me to be there with him.
If you dream this, maybe you will know we were there in your house. I am sorry we didn’t stay.
Julian, I don’t know what to do. Ty misses Kit more than he thought he could miss someone. He misses him as much now as he did the day he left. He loves him the same. I think he always will and it scares me.
Kit is used to not needing people, but Ty needs people. He is afraid to need people but that is only because he needs them so much. He is not going to stop needing Kit. I don’t know if Kit will always need Ty. But Ty will always need him.
Irene says hello. I am teaching her to play dead.
I love you.
Livvy
