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It wasn’t her memory but that didn’t matter to her body, which took the new information and settled, muscles easing. She wanted to scream and rage, or maybe cry, none of which she could do out loud.
This isn’t helping, she snapped at the Song. I don’t care if some other girl had a happy fucking life where a Ferrian’s cursed table didn’t send her into a panic, she isn’t me.
Layering the girl’s memories over Clare’s wasn’t going to change her. And yet she had a feeling that was exactly what the Song was trying to do. It gave her these bits and slices, things that helped her in the moment, but she couldn’t shake the feeling it was trying to erase her. To mold her, to soften her, because it was her resolve that kept it caged.
Only since she’d left Renault County, since doing so had sent a jagged crack through that cage, had it been able to crowd her mind with other people’s lives. As if it was looking for the right one, the perfect one, the one Clare would want so much that she would let it overtake her own. And once she was someone else, someone happier, someone more pliable, she wouldn’t have the resolve that kept the Song at bay.
And if that happened, she—both the Clare that she was now, and whatever happier identity the Song convinced her to give herself over to—would cease to exist. Because the Song would break free and obliterate her, until all that was left of her was a body for it to control. A vessel.
“Are you all right?” Verol leaned toward her, concern on his face.
Clare snapped out of her internal thoughts and pasted on a smile. “Perfectly fine.” As if to prove it to herself, she made selections from the array of food carefully, delicately, as if she were not hungry at all.
Control. Control had to be the master of her life, of her thoughts.
So she selected a single roll, buttering it with the delicate little silver knife in the pretty butter tray, took two slices of bacon, and a small portion of eggs and browned potatoes. She wanted more. She wanted everything here and could have eaten it all too. But then she’d find herself hurling her guts up as soon as she was done.
That was the funny thing about the body—once it had been starved long enough, it had a tendency to reject the very thing that could keep it alive.
The three of them ate in the companionable silence they’d shared at mealtimes on the road. Clare ate half of what was on her plate and then reached for the clear glass coffee carafe, knowing what memory it would evoke and needing to prove to herself that she could handle it.
The smooth glass handle fit the cradle of her palm, and she poured a cup of the deep brown liquid with graceful movements, careful not to let the carafe clatter as she set it down. She had almost lost her hand once, letting a different carafe clatter, and the scar on her right wrist gleamed up at her. He had been so angry for marking her there, where the scar would be visible. Angry at her, for driving him to it.
She let the memory wash over her in a detached way, as if it had happened to someone else, and her hand didn’t shake as she lifted the coffee cup and took a careful sip. She’d never actually tasted it before, and it lived up to the promise of its scent. Rich and warm, silken smooth even with the slight bite of bitterness at its core. She’d never minded bitter things.
It slid down her throat in a hot line, warming her from the inside as it settled. She decided she liked it. She also decided this wouldn’t be the last time she had it. It wouldn’t be the last time she had more food than she could eat. It wouldn’t be the last time she sat in a nice house without shaking in fear.
Whatever it took, whatever she had to sacrifice or pretend to be, she would mold herself into the person she wanted. Even if she had no idea who that person was. Even if the only thing that kept her going was a half-cooked dream of vengeance she had no idea how to achieve.
She placed the coffee cup on its saucer. She slipped the small box containing her earring from the pocket of her dress and placed it on the table, lid open, black diamond nestled on silver cloth.
“It’s black,” she said, pointing out the obvious. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“It’s going to cause interest,” Marquin said. “There hasn’t been a black diamond mage in over two-hundred years. If you were anything but a Songweaver, it might be a problem. But Songweavers, though rare, are…”
“Not considered serious magical talents?” Clare guessed.
“It is a blessing, in this case. But given your performance last night, once news of your ranking spreads, you are going to be of interest to everyone.” He waited a beat and added, “But that is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“One doesn’t put on a performance to go unseen. The question is, what do you want of me?”
“You understand about Verol’s magic.”
“And I’m to understand that all you want is to help me? For nothing in return?”
“Is that so difficult to believe?” Verol asked.
It wasn’t difficult to believe. It was impossible. No one did anything for free.
“We do like you, Clare,” Marquin said. “We would keep you from harm when it is easy enough for us to do.”
She sensed truth in the words, just as she sensed that it wasn’t a complete truth. The way Verol’s Kinthing magic was a truth, and yet not a complete one. There was something they weren’t telling her and yet…and yet she had survived Renault County by trusting her instincts. And if logic was telling her not to trust them, her instincts were telling her the opposite.
She’d spent two weeks on the road with them, no one else around, and they had done nothing to her. They had let her go when they reached Veralna City, had let her go after coming to her aid at the Hawk and Scepter. And she knew that if she walked out of this house right now, they wouldn’t try to stop her with anything more than words.
She was tired. Of running, of hiding. Hadn’t she come here to stop doing both?
“This apprenticeship. How long is it?”
