“We don’t have a bed. So, I’m improvising.” I pick her up and set her amongst the fabric.
My heart still races, but there’s a deep sense of satisfaction—of contentment—infusing through me that has everything to do with Ever.
I fucking love her. She deserves so much more than what she’s endured the last few months, and I want to be the one to grant her anything she wants.
She snuggles next to me, looking up at me as I prop my head on my arm.
And for the first time since she woke up, I feel like I’ve got her back.
“Does it hurt?” I ask as my eyes drop to her throat.
“What?”
“This?” I run my finger over the edge of the burn at her throat, careful not to touch the angry red mark that dares to mar her skin.
“No.” I watch as she spins the ring on her forefinger. She catches me watching and offers a quick smile. “This was my mother’s. It was right there, staring at me for years. I used to keep this, together with a few other items I always deemed precious, on the window ledge in my room, even bringing them to Kirrasia with me. So far, one has turned out to be my mother’s stone. One is the Naturals’ Shepherd brooch that Kalan gave to me, and the Maker has an identical cup to the other item I have. The only thing that’s mine, truly mine, is the piece of quartz I found the day I wandered too far as a child.” She huffs at that. “My reward. And turns out, it’s the only thing that is mine, and truly mine alone. If anyone tells me that it was magically put injust the right place for me to find, I might crack.” A bitterness stalks her words at the admission.
“What got you so spooked earlier?” I venture. “And don’t think you can avoid this for long. I know you, Little Siren. Magic or not, I can read you. I’ve seen that look on your face too often to be able to forget it.”
She takes a deep breath and snuggles closer.
“Don’t hide from me. We’re in this together. Or at least I thought we were.”
“Hey, we are. How can we not be?”
“Then stop keeping me in the dark. There was so much of that in Nehandun, and I hate that it lingers. You’ve shielded me. I blocked you. We couldn’t talk, so you couldn’t tell me what was happening, but you can now.”
“I… don’t think my power is completely gone.”
“What do you mean?” I pick up her hand as if to prove my point, raising her palm to my lips, and planting a kiss in the centre. There’s no heat or rush at our connection, just touch.
“Earlier. As I looked into the flames, I had a vision. It started just like the others. One minute I was here, the next, I wasn’t. And I saw that same scattering of images before my eyes.”
I don’t answer right away, taking in what this might mean.
“I saw Fenix. Coming here. Killing… everyone.”
“Hey, okay.” I tilt her head to look at me. “We don’t believe in your visions, do we?”
She raises her eyes, lifting them to look at me. They’re filled with tears, ready to fall, and I smile in defiance of them. “I have said this before, but I don’t believe that your visions show you the firm future. We can’t have seen your death. I refuse to believe that is what’s to come. And just like that, this is just a possibility, okay?”
She sits up, as if not ready to hear this from me. My eyes trace every rise and fall of her spine, running down the centre of her back, the beauty of her clear in every part of her.
“I mean it, Ever. Don’t believe it.”
“You were dead, Ten. Lying broken on the floor. Kyra, Lyle, Calix. All of you. You got in his way, and he tore through you all. He’s coming for me.”
“We don’t even know if he’s alive.”
“Kalan does.”
“And you believe him? Trust him?”
“I do. For the first time since I woke up on the floor in the front room, the world around me broken, I trust him and what he’s told me. There is no reason for his lie, not after what he’s already hidden from me or endured to see us safe.”
“I’ve seen the vision we shared, of you on the ground, in the ice and snow, bleeding out. I remember how tangible they can feel.” I’ve spent a long time trying to forget that very thing. “But that doesn’t mean we believe it, you hear me?” I turn her and grab her face, holding her gaze so she has no room to hide. Not from this. “We do not give in. We are in this together, and I refuse to believe that is your fate. So, we go back, you can speak to the Maker, and we warn The Court and my father. But we do it because it’s the right thing to do. Not because you’re afraid that Fenix will rise from the dead and come after you here. Deal?”
thirty-three
