Meredy grips the bow on her lap, but her expression doesn’t change. “Yes. Of course. Just because you haven’t been around me long enough to see me hurt or mad doesn’t mean I don’t feel everything as deeply as anyone else. Maybe I just have a different way of showing it. Not everyone needs to punch things when they’re upset.”
Her gaze is so intense, I want to look away, but I force myself to keep meeting her eyes. “I don’t believe you. I think you care more about appearance than how you feel.”
Meredy breaks our stare, glancing over her shoulder at the valley below. Every slight movement, from her restless shifting to wiping her palms on her skirt, sounds too loud in the otherwise silent night. The archery target looms over her, masking her face in shadow.
I can’t sit here another moment. I steal the bow off Meredy’s lap and pick up the quiver near her feet, selecting an arrow. Meredy turns back to me, a question in her gaze, but I let the thick silence wrap itself tighter around my throat.
“Do you even know how to shoot?” Meredy calls, heat rippling through her voice.
I don’t so much as glance at her as I stride over to the line that marks where the archers should stand.
Hurrying over, Meredy snatches the bow out of my hand and grabs an arrow. I’ve never seen her glower at anyone quite like this before, and I have to squash a sudden urge to laugh. Best not to tempt her into aiming at me.
Meredy’s lips remain pressed into a thin line as she takes aim and releases the bowstring.
“I’m angry that my brother’s dead and I never really got to know him!” Her words ring through the still night as the arrow sails straight to the center circle of the painted target, but I’m too distracted to be properly impressed. My head spins at her sudden confession.
Meredy studies the target with a satisfied smirk, and as the proud archer’s words echo in my mind, I realize there are a lot of things I want to shout into the night, too.
Clearing her throat, Meredy thrusts the bow at me. “Your turn. But don’t you dare snap the string or try anything stupid. This is the only one I have.”
I nod and take aim, resisting the urge to taunt her with a comment about my poor archery skills. I’ve only practiced with a bow a few times, years ago, with Simeon and Master Nicanor. I’d forgotten how much strength is needed to pull the string back and hold it, how much concentration is required to line up the arrow tip with the target.
The arrow flies wide. As I watch it, willing a breeze to correct its path, heated words tumble from my lips. “I hate that your mother tried to keep me from Evander!”
“Don’t get me started on her.” Meredy grabs the bow back, pressing her lips together like she’s trying to keep from grinning at the sight of my arrow lying in the dirt.
She takes another perfect shot. “I was never what my mother wanted me to be, and I never will be.” Her second arrow sticks beside the first.
Her face is as calm and proud as ever, while my heart’s picking up speed and my blood is running hot.
I think of Evander as I aim my next shot and release the bowstring. Of King Wylding and the other missing Dead. I imagine my arrow gaining speed, catching fire, and plummeting straight into the heart of the rogue necromancer.
I think, I’m sick of not being able to protect anyone I care about, no matter how hard I try. But something stops me from saying it aloud.
The arrow hits the very bottom of the target, and a flicker of pride curves my lips.
“Not bad, Sparrow.” Meredy’s eyes seem to shine brighter than usual as she takes the bow back and assumes the archer’s stance. “With some practice, you might be as good as Fir . . .” She falters, blinking hard. “Firiel.” As though saying the name took her by surprise, she sinks slowly to her knees and sets her bow aside.
Her shoulders quake. She bites down on her trembling lower lip. And a sob escapes her, a desperate sound like an animal caught in a trap.
I half sit, half fall down beside her. I don’t know what I expected to be hidden under Meredy’s stiff smile and porcelain skin. Certainly not pain deep enough to destroy her from the inside, though perhaps I should have seen it all along. She’s lost even more than I have.
Meredy’s crying gets louder, drowning out the small night noises of birds and deer and the wind in the trees. It’s the kind of cry that shakes her from head to toe, making her fingers curl and her whole body seem to shrink inward like she wants to disappear.
But I don’t want her to. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me and holding her until her angry cries become soft, hiccupping sobs.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Before I met you, it wasn’t hard to be heartless.”
I stroke her wine-red hair. It’s not quite as silky as I’d imagined, but it’s thick and smells faintly of vanilla and cedar chips and something I can’t name, something that might just be Meredy, and I love the way it tangles around my fingers like it doesn’t want to let me go.
“Odessa?” Meredy draws back, gazing blearily at me. Her face is splotchy and damp, her lower lip raw where she must have bitten it.
And yet, somehow, she looks more beautiful than ever.
“Odessa . . .” She puts a hand on my arm, and I realize I’m still holding her.
We break apart. I hastily turn my head, hoping the night air will cool my burning face.
I don’t even turn back when Meredy says, “You didn’t have to do that. I just—” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “I want to tell you what happened. I want to be strong like you and live with the memory instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. We share Evander, and now I want to share Firiel with someone, too.”
“All right,” I whisper, tucking my hands in my lap.
“Firiel loved to explore the wilds, maybe more than Lysander and I did. She never trained as a mage, but she had greener eyes than mine. I used to tell her she’d make an excellent beast master.” Fresh tears splash down Meredy’s cheeks as she talks. “A few weeks ago, we went to visit her family’s manor in southern Lorness. She asked me to wake up early with her one morning. Said she had something special to show me.”
She pauses and sniffs, dabbing her nose with her shirtsleeve. I meet her eyes to show I’m listening, and she continues in a hoarse voice, “It was so foggy that morning, I could barely see the ground right in front of me. I told her we could go see whatever it was some other time, that it wasn’t worth either of us tripping and breaking our necks, but she insisted.”
Meredy lays a hand on her bow, her tears still falling steadily. “It was a fox’s den full of newborn kits. I only saw them for a moment, because we heard men and horses and tried to run, but Firiel . . .”
I nod, eyeing the bow in her hands as gooseflesh spreads over my arms, dreading the words to come.
“There were hunters,” Meredy says, swallowing a sob. “They must’ve seen us take off and thought we were deer. I don’t know. Firiel was standing beside me one moment, cooing at the foxes, and the next, she was on the ground with an arrow through her.” Meredy swallows hard again. “The men were really sorry, not that it mattered. I should’ve killed them on the spot, but I was too much of a coward to even do that. I watched her family prepare her for burial, dyed my hair, and then fled Lorness. I didn’t want to be the person she loved anymore. The person who failed to save her.”
“What could you possibly have done? No one is as quick as an arrow!” I wipe the tears from Meredy’s cheeks with my thumbs as fast as I can. They’re rough as bark against her dewy skin. “If there was a chance you could’ve saved her, you would have. Besides, there’s no point being angry with yourself for something you can’t change.”
“Have you forgiven yourself for what happened to Evander?” Meredy dabs her eyes on her already-damp sleeve. “Or did you just get addicted to a potion so you would
n’t have to carry the guilt around?”
I open my mouth, but it takes a moment to find words. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure it is.” Meredy frowns at me, and her tears finally stop. “You seem to think it’s easy for me to forgive myself for not taking that arrow instead of Firiel, but you can’t forgive yourself for not letting Evander go into that ravine first?”
I gasp. “How did you know—?”
“You talked a lot in your sleep during those first few days of potion withdrawal.” Meredy scoots closer, extending a hand. “If you want me to even try to forgive myself, you have to do the same. Deal?”
I take her hand, but the simple shake turns into something more. I’m not sure who twines their fingers through the other’s first, or how much time passes before both her hands are joined with mine, only that every slight movement makes my heart jump.
“Do you ever get the feeling,” she whispers, her hands suddenly trembling in mine, “that if you make one wrong move, one stupid choice, the whole world will come crashing down around you?”
“All the time.” I shiver in a strong gust of wind, which frees a scrap of old parchment from Meredy’s cloak. I watch it flutter to the ground. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly, untangling our fingers to grab it.
I reach for it, too, so fast we almost bump heads. She catches one edge of the parchment while I grab another, stretching it into a flat sheet. If either of us pulls any harder, it’ll tear. Naturally, I tug the parchment toward me, forcing Meredy to release it.
I turn it over, blinking at an ink likeness of myself in a familiar style, and my stomach does a flip. “Valoria gave you this.”
“She did.” Meredy leans over the parchment, raising her gaze from the drawing to me. “She has a way of seeing how things are meant to fit together.”
“Must be those brown eyes of hers,” I whisper.
Without thinking, I drop the parchment and reach for Meredy.
She stiffens, then shivers as I press my palm to her cheek.
“We shouldn’t. We can’t,” she whispers, more to herself than to me, as she touches my waist with both hands. Her fingers are feather-light, as though they’ll vanish if I startle her the slightest bit. Her lips are red and inviting. She blinks a question at me, lowering the shield that always covers her face. I beckon her closer with a look.
I don’t know what’s gotten into me.
My lips burn at the betrayal of sharing breaths with her. But the small clouds of heat against my mouth make me shiver and set me on fire all at once.
As I close the remaining distance between us, pulled forward against my will by the invisible strings lashing us together, something moves at the corner of my sight. Startled to my senses, I jerk back before our lips can touch, gazing up in time to see a winged shadow crossing the moon, and whatever spell was cast here is broken.
“A messenger raven,” Meredy murmurs, low and urgent, as if she’s already putting what almost happened out of her mind. The bird’s shape becomes clearer as it descends toward the castle. “It’s frightened and in a hurry. We should—”
“Have a peek at its message. Just in case it’s from Grenwyr,” I finish, leaping to my feet. She tosses me a strange, unreadable look, and my head spins with the realization of what we almost did.
“I’m sorry, Evander,” I mutter under my breath as we start to run. Because all I can think of are his sister’s vivid green eyes, and the way she makes my blood run hot every time she opens her mouth. And when I try to remember what it was like to kiss Evander, I imagine kissing Meredy instead.
We race to the front of the castle, where the raven appears to be heading, with Meredy in the lead. I hold up my arm and let it fly to me, only wincing slightly as its claws graze my bare skin. Meredy breaks the ties around the letter strapped to the raven’s leg with her fingernail, then leans in as she unfurls the parchment.
I draw back, careful not to get too close to her again.
My blood runs cold as I recognize Simeon’s loopy scrawl. “More Dead are missing, including Her Majesty,” I read aloud. “It happened right after you left. And no one’s seen Hadrien for hours. There’s panic in the city. Don’t return to Grenwyr, dear sister. Go to the coast, or better yet, take a ship and set sail. Love, Simeon.”
Crumpling the parchment in my fist, I take a deep breath and fight a sudden urge to scream. I have to stop this, all the death and disappearances. And Vane is my one lead, whether he’s the one who stole the Dead from the palace or not.
“Get Lysander,” I say softly, trying to keep my voice from shaking with rage. “I’m going to wake Master Cymbre and show her this.” I hold up the wrinkled letter. “We’re going to the Deadlands now. All this fear and hurting has got to end, and there’s only one person I know of who might be able to tell us something useful.”
XXV
Master Cymbre’s room is empty. A hint of spice and leather hangs in the air, a sure sign that she was here not too long ago. Yet all her things are gone: her sword, her boots, and the tiny book of poems she carries everywhere. The bed is neatly made, as perfect as though she never slept in it.
Meredy peers at something dropped behind a chair, then checks inside the wardrobe, her brows knitting together in concern. “There’s no sign of a struggle.”
Lysander watches from the doorway, unable to squeeze his bulk across the threshold.
“Right. I doubt rogue necromancers forcing her into the Deadlands would have made sure she had time to pack her favorite book and her weapon,” I murmur, thinking aloud. Besides, when Master Nicanor was abducted, there was evidence of a fight at his house. The only other option here is that Cymbre went against the rules she taught me for most of my life—that she went into the Deadlands alone of her own free will.
A faint blue glow from the windows draws my attention. There’s a gate to the Deadlands a brisk walk from the castle. Master Cymbre must have entered it to find Vane after hearing about the massacre. After promising me she’d rest.
I know that’s what happened, because it’s exactly the sort of thing I would do. It’s what I did do, when I needed to prevent the Shade that killed Evander from taking any more lives. For better or worse, she brought me up to be just like her, risking everything to protect the people she loves.
“She’s gone,” I whisper. “She went to the Deadlands alone. To protect us. To protect all these people. But if Vane is there, she’ll need our help. Who knows how many Shades he’ll have with him?”
“We’re going after her. Lysander can track her scent if we let him sniff her pillow.” Meredy’s eyes glitter in the candlelight, hard and determined. Some part of me wishes there was time to kiss her firmly set mouth, to finish what we started and see if it’s something I’d want to do again. To see if she tastes like Evander, or if there’s something distinct about Meredy that’s making me crave her like this.
Sleeping in Jax’s bed never made me feel this guilty, but maybe that’s because with Jax, I didn’t really think about it. About him. My time with him was always an escape from thoughts of Evander, like my potion addiction. What’s happening with Meredy feels like a force all its own, as strong and perplexing as lightning.
I can’t think about her this way, not now or ever, but especially not when Master Cymbre’s in danger.
When someone’s life depends on it.
Shoving Meredy firmly to the back of my mind, I turn to the small writing desk in the far corner of the room and pick up a quill and parchment from a tray. “Before we go, I’ll tell Jax and Simeon where we’re headed. Just in case.”
A short while later, we breeze past several stunned guards and out the back gates of Abethell Castle, with Lysander bounding ahead.
“We have to go through a gate to the Deadlands,” I murmur, glancing at Meredy through the inky darkness that’s settled over the grounds. C
louds have rolled in since our earlier target practice, blotting out the stars.
I offer Meredy my hand, much as I’m afraid of what her touch might make me feel. “You’ll have to hold on to me, because you can’t—”
“See it,” she finishes for me, taking my hand. “Evander trusted you. That means I trust you, too.” As we jump into the gate, just a short leap off the ground, she mutters, “Besides, if you screw this up, I’ll tell Lysander he can snack on you.”
It takes Meredy a few moments to get her bearings inside the tunnel. Brushing dirt off her clothes, she keeps her head carefully turned to the lichen-covered wall, like she doesn’t want me to see her face. Somehow, she commanded Lysander to leap through the gate after us without uttering a word, and now she keeps him by her side in the tunnel without the use of a chain. It seems she can’t stop him from snarling and pacing around us, though.
I wonder if he’s remembering the last time we were here.
Meredy takes my hand again as we hurry down the tunnel. Her fingers burn where they clutch mine, and I wish I could let go, but I don’t want her getting lost. The Deadlands have ways of calling to anyone living, luring them into forgetting why they’d ever want to return to the other world. The world where they belong.
For Meredy, it’ll probably be Firiel who appears to lure her into staying.
But no matter what we encounter, I’m going to keep Meredy alive. I can’t lose her, not after how much trouble I went through to save her the first time. Not after we’ve finally started talking about Evander, sharing memories to keep him with us. Not after . . . well, everything she’s become to me.
“Lysander’s found something.” Meredy squeezes my elbow, jarring me back to the present.
“Which way?” I demand, putting a hand on my sword.
The bear gazes straight ahead, at one of the Deadlands’ many gardens. I take a step toward it, but Meredy holds me back, her hand turning cold in mine.
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