He chuckled. “Well, it’s not every day the Chosen Two visit Nordmere. Word traveled fast. Although I was trying to figure out how to get you down here by yourself. I never assumed you’d show up on your own. I mean… isn’t it a little past your bedtime?”
“Asshole,” she said, sniffling.
“Guilty,” he said, grinning. One corner of his lips stayed downturned, as though pulled into a permanent scowl.
“But if you wanted to talk to me… I’ve been trying to contact you since you left the academy.”
“I know. Honestly, for the first week or so, I wasn’t up for talking to anyone. My parents paid every doctor and healer they knew a truly exorbitant amount of money to patch me up, and by the time I’d started to feel better, you were all over the news. A Chosen One. And I… I’d almost died. I didn’t want your pity.”
“I never pitied you,” Ellery protested. “I just wanted to know you were okay.”
“Well, I am. I swear. The scars are the only part they couldn’t fully heal.”
“I’m glad,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry.”
“What areyousorry for? You saved my life.”
Ellery expected her next words to be a struggle, like they’d been so many times before. Instead, they were simple. “For that fight we had. For shutting you out for years. And for being a pretty terrible girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend, huh?” Julian arched a brow. “As I recall, you refused to label it.”
“Hence thepretty terriblepart. You were my best friend. I should’ve treated you better after we crossed that line.”
“I get it. I was kind of a dick, too,” he said. Ellery laughed in surprise, and Julian’s own grin widened. “What, you think I can’t be self-aware? Back at the academy, I was so convinced I was destined for a powerful wand. And I kept telling myself I’d return to the Citadel as soon as possible. Keep trying before my window closes.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I heard rumors about a magician up North. They claimed to be a Winter magician. Like you.”
A Winter magician.Ellery had dared to hope she might not be the only one, but it was completely different to hear Julian confirm it with so much conviction. She felt the same way as when she’d watched the winterghasts’ hearts turn into seeds, when she’d marveled at an impossibly grand illusion amidst a forest and realized her magic could be beautiful, when she’d first heard destiny speak. Like she stood at the precipice of something tremendous, something extraordinary.
“Can you take me to them?” she breathed.
Julian smiled again, wider. “What do you think I came here to do? They’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”
He gestured for her to follow, but she hesitated.
“What about Dom? He should come, too.”
His smile wavered.
“No,” he said carefully. “Not Barrow. Just you. Do you trust me?”
Ellery’s hope shattered. If there really was another Winter magician out there, they’d kept themself a secret all this time. They’d only contacted her once she arrived in Nordmere, lured here by a vision from the Dire Three. And they wanted to see her, but not Domenic.
Maybe Ellerywouldfind Summer’s traitor on this mission after all.
“Of course I trust you,” Ellery lied, and followed her best friend into the night.
XXXIIELLERY
WINTER
Ellery and Julian walked down dark, half-remembered streets from her childhood until they found one where the trees pressed close like nosy neighbors. People milled in and out of pubs, their laughter mingling with faint music, the streetlamps haloed in flurried snow.
Julian led her into one such pub, called Altitude Sickness, shabby yet surprisingly cozy. Gas lanterns flickered on the tables and on the bar, and a record spun merrily in the corner, playing a song Ellery hadn’t heard in years. Ellery pushed through the crowd under the shroud of her cloaking spell, dodging elbows and shoulders.
But her spell was far from the only one. Everywhere, from people lounging in the booths to leaning against the walls, were magicians. Magicians dyeing their drinks different colors. Magicians conjuring tiny gusts of wind to cheat at darts. Magicians drawing designs into the frost on the windowpanes. And none of them wielded a Living Wand.
