After I made him stop the experiment, Jamey lay in my arms, weeping, for almost an hour. I felt terrible. I hadn’t expected the plan to succeed, but hope is a funny thing. I was still dreaming of Ari. Nevertheless, I couldn’t let Atlas be put at risk. We were grasping at straws. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this desperate, Ash.
Jamey’s so thin, looks so fragile, but he’s probably the strongest of all of you. When he grew calmer, I kissed the base of his neck, the declivity where the collarbone juts out so prominently under his pale skin. His fine hair fell to his shoulders, golden-red, the illusion of an Irishman. He stroked my face. His hands are rough from hours of work in the garden, unerringly knowing what to cut back in order that new growth might sprout, but his lips are soft and his eyes are always shining. I’m never sure if the light within them comes from joy or sorrow, or if there’s even a difference to him. Beautiful Jamey. It’s so easy to wrap my legs around his thin hips.
Sometimes, I find myself thinking that of all the emanations, if ever I had a child, I would want it to be with Jamey. In his arms there is such peace. To touch him is to touch the most basic and miraculous of things at the same time, the soil, the seeds, the beginning of life. He makes the flowers bloom beneath his fingers.
I think about the saplings that took root from Atlas’ seeds. One, tall and beautiful, from Patrick, the other jutting defiantly off the cliff, from Cillian. Neither Patrick nor Cillian seem interested, but Jamey tends them like a mother. Maybe I would choose Jamey because I know if I ever did have a child, he would give it all the love I couldn’t.
I grow poisons. Every toxic blossom is a trick, a hell contained in every petal. Or a heaven, too. Once you’ve been hooked on Gyre, it’s hard to tell if heaven or hell is worse.
I poisoned my babies, four of them, to be precise. And then I poisoned myself with Gyre. I did it because what a Volparnian man calls “arranged marriage,” a Skarsian woman calls “rape.” My abortifacients were a mercy. I would’ve strangled the babe in its bed before I’d give life to a child of that human swine Tenzain Merkht. Maybe I’m too much warrior, and not enough woman to give my love that unconditionally.
I tell myself that it’s the wrong time to have a child, or that I’m too old (even though I know that science or alchemy could assist), but the truth is that it’s a bad idea for Medea to become a mother.
Beautiful Jamey is crying in my arms. From the moment that the first leaf extended from his scraggly branch, he has given love and received suffering in return. A poisoner planted a seed; Lorcan grew. That’s logical. But how did my garden grow Jamey?