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The rumble of a train reaching the station was a sound that was becoming increasingly familiar to James as his head perked up, filled with foolish hope. His eyes instinctively started to scan the passengers clambering out of the train, looking for a certain redhead and maybe, a blonde with a roguish smirk.
His head, along with his heart, dropped as the last of the passengers exited the train without a trace of people he was looking for. He took a shaky breath and let it out, trying to distract the broken, hollow feeling in his chest by focusing on the lines of the brick floor beneath the bench he was sitting on.
This was his third visit to the train station this week, and his efforts were fruitless as two out of the three people he needed to see very badly, were not here.
Picking up the book that was next to him, a tattered copy of Layla and Majnun, he stood up and sighed, looking at the crumpled letter that was pushed between the pages of the book, sticking out like a sore thumb. He had written about ten letters to Cordelia but couldn’t deliver any of them, due to the lack of a sending address.
Turning around, James felt a tap on his shoulder. His breath caught and he swiveled his head so fast that the person’s face in front of him blurred for a second. His heart stammered in his chest, in sync with his tied tongue, as he took in the image before him.
Two figures standing before him, both looking equally guilty and solemn. First, was Cordelia Carstairs who looked like she would like to perish on the spot at the look on James’s face. Her hand was holding a black satchel, presumably filled with her belongings and the other was fiddling with a strand of her long red hair that was falling around her round face like a snowflake, there could never be another that looked the same.
Behind her was Matthew Fairchild, who swore to James as a young boy that he would never leave him, his best friend and brother, mirroring the look of sorrow that was displayed on Cordelia’s face. The mischievous glint in his eyes were dimmed and the curve of his lips were flat, he looked like he wanted to cry.
He stepped back, his eyes never leaving James’s as Cordelia stepped forward. The words that slipped out of his mouth were unexpected and rushed.
“Are you back? You’ve both left me, and the entire Clave, in a panic when you left without telling anyone. Why are you two even here?”
James saw Matthew wince out of the corner of his eye, thinking of his mother, the Consul as Cordelia swallowed and looked down.
“I came back for Lucie, I heard that she was gone.” The question of how the word of Lucie’s disappearance had already reached wherever Cordelia and Matthew were flitted through his mind but disappeared as he stepped closer.
“Just for Lucie?”
Cordelia looked up, this time staring him in the eye and said, “We are to be parabatai.” And you ran off with mine.
James nodded, “Parabatai should always be together,” and he didn’t even feel bad when he saw Matthew’s head drop, it was nothing compared to the pain he had felt for the past week.
The golden eyed boy looked up to the sky, things were nowhere close to being okay, but they would work toward that, together as he passed Layla and Majnun to the girl beside him.