“Yeah,” I whispered softly. “Sometimes it feels as if nothing ever is.” I took a breath, stalling for a moment before I continued. “I haven’t been completely truthful with you about my past.”
“You mentioned that.”
I lowered the ice pack to my side, searching for the right words, but Bowen reached forward and replaced it against my cheek. The rough pads of his fingers cupped the back of my neck.
“You don’t need to explain why you didn’t tell me. We all keep secrets.” An emotion flickered across his features, but it faded before I could place it. “Just tell me why you’re still here.”
Straight to the point. He wasn’t interested in dancing around motives, and his directness put me at ease.
“The truth is, my brother Hendrik is missing. Presumed dead, actually. It’s been six years since I last saw him, but a few days ago, he was in the tavern with us. I heard his voice, the song he used to whistle to calm me down. No one else knows that tune.”
Bowen’s brow creased. “So that’s why you ran out of the pub as if a ghost were chasing you?”
I nodded. The ice pack had lost its effectiveness, so I placed it on the desk and then leaned back, mimicking Bowen’s stance. Our shoulders were side by side, arms pressed together.
“What happened to him?” Bowen asked.
I ground my toe into the floor and swallowed around the lump in my throat. “It’s a long story.”
His shoulder bumped mine. “Aren’t they all? Tell me.”
Tell me a story.
My mind flashed back to my stepbrother and stepsister demanding I finish their bedtime story. Except the unhappy ending was my life and not a made-up fairy tale.
“Well, it all started with a witch. Hendrik was sixteen when he was taken, and I was fifteen.” I glanced up to catch Bowen’s reaction, but his features were cast in shadow. “I don’t remember my mother, but my father was a wonderful man. He’d tuck us in at night when we were kids and sing a tune he’d made just for us. But over the years, we fell on hard times, and when he left to find work in the mines, he never came home.
“Without any money, Hendrik and I were forced onto the streets. For a while, things were okay. Hendrik found work, and he took care of me. But it was short-lived when he injured his leg in an accident.”
“What happened next? How did you meet the witch?”
“It was my fault. I used to sell merchandise in the market, and one day, an old woman approached my stall. She seemed to know so much about us. She asked bizarre questions and even knew about the strange birthmark on my arm. Every day, she’d come back, and then she took pity on us when Hendrik lost his job. She offered us work and a place to stay. She didn’t care about his injury so long as he could stack wood and feed the animals, and I could clean and do some cooking.
“I thought we were saved, and with few choices, we followed her into the woods.”
“The woods?”
“Yes. She kept saying her house was just a little farther until we’d walked miles. But there it was: a cabin in the woods. She invited us in, clucked over the dirt on our faces and empty bellies. She was so gentle, her voice so soothing, that Hendrik and I both fell under her spell. After dinner, she smiled an odd sort of smile and placed a piece of hard candy into each of our empty bowls. The taste of mint is the last thing I remember.”
Bowen frowned. “She drugged you?”
“Hendrik and I woke up in separate cells. Days passed, weeks maybe? The candy kept us groggy and sluggish. It was so dark…and hot. I remember the heat baking my skin.”
“What did she want?”
“We didn’t know. At least, not right away. It wasn’t until after I developed a plan of escape that I found out what she was truly after. I waited until she delivered our food and then took her by surprise. I’d almost made it out of the cell when she grabbed me. The second she touched my arm, I felt intense pain. I had absorbed some of her magic.
“She locked me back inside, but unknowingly, I transferred her power into a wooden spoon, creating a key. We tried to get out of the house, but she caught us. Hendrik pushed me out of the way and told me to run. That was the last time I saw him.”
“And the Archers—they’re not your true parents?”
“No. They found me in the woods and took me back to their village. They adopted me, gave me a new home and a new family. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay their kindness.”
Bowen pushed away from the desk and turned to face me. “That’s not true. You took Thomas’s punishment without hesitation. You could have refused my deal and left him in prison. Most young women wouldn’t have bargained with their life. You’ve shown incredible bravery.”
I sent him a half-smile. “And yet most young women aren’t afraid of the dark.”
He framed my face with his hands. “You’re not afraid of it. You just know what can lurk there. Not everyone sees the kind of evil you saw.”
