“When are you opening?”
“Whenever the first customer arrives.”
“How will you know that a customer has arrived if you are not open?” I made a soft, non-committal sound, which irritated him enough to narrow his scarred brow. “Well,” he said impatiently, “I am a customer.”
I smiled and flipped the sign on the door. “Then we are open.”
“The owner is not here?”
“She will be down shortly, I presume.”
“Then I shall return at a later time. Thank you for your efforts, madam.”
I watched him scurry like a dog up the street toward the castle hill. When I told her later of the encounter, Zora only laughed.
“Ah, that’s just Malek,” she said. “He’s always been like this.”
“She is asleep,” said Adrik when I arrived at the burrow that morning.
He was stacking firewood beneath the dead willow. I knew this meant he’d tried to wake her and found that he could not. That he’d checked her pulse and her breathing and dribbled five spoons of cabbage soup into her mouth to strengthen her.
I stood shivering amid shrivelled roses, a withered thing amid withered things. There was nothing left within me. Not a kernel of hope. Not a shred of warmth. I’d stood bleeding in the snow and bleeding in the river. I’d felt through the earth into the darkness and I’d allowed it to devour me, again and again. I’d walked the depths of the darkest times and vilest memories. I had braved them alone, andnothing.
“It smells like blood inside,” Adrik murmured. He’d come close, not close enough to touch. As if scared I might crumble if he breathed too harshly at me. “Like yours.”
“It needs to be done.”
“Perhaps it is time to attempt something new.”
Rage welled sharply within me, plucking the words from my tongue. I hissed brokenly and then I wailed, unshackled at last from the mask of numbness I’d been wearing. From the chains I’d used to leash this terror threatening to drown me.
“I have tried it all. I have tried and tried and tried, Adrik. Do you not think I have given it all that I have? All that I am? You do not get to come here and tell me that I am not good enough.”
“That is not what I said,” he murmured. The shadows and the ice melted from his face. He took a step and another, and then he held me as one might cradle a cracked glass just to keep it from shattering fully. His breaths brushed slowly and sweetly over my neck. In his embrace, the blade of sorrow dulled. “You have been alone to bear this burden, have you not?” he whispered into my hair. “Forgive me, Ana. Forgive me.”
I shuddered in his arms, undone by his warmth. “It is not your fault.”
“I should have asked more. I should have known, when you refused to talk about your lessons, that something was amiss. Does Almira guide you? Does she walk you through wielding your powers? Or have you been watering her floors with your blood in silence?”
Face pressed into his shirt, I mumbled, “I prefer the silence over the snarling.”
“Shesnarlsat you?” Adrik slid a finger under my jaw to raise my chin. There was a certain tilt to his brow that told me he was quietly furious.
“She is weak. It wears on her mind.”
“She is strong enough tosnarlat you.”
I made a pathetic sound, something between a sob and a scream. “I do not know what to do, Adrik. I do not know.”
He drew his thumb tenderly over my cheek. “You are coming with me. No more spilling blood amid the roses.” I shook my head, frenzied. I could not afford to lose a minute, not a second. Adrik hummed, a twinkle in his eyes—tired and a little clouded, but a twinkle still. “You are coming with me. The king orders it.”
“Tell the king I do not care for his orders.” The words came sharply, but I could not conceal a sliver of amusement. Ice trickled slowly from my veins, thawed by the flutter of my heart as his breath swept over me. I’d missed his mischief.
“The king might exile you for such treasonous words.”
“I do not think he would dare,” I whispered sweetly. “I think he enjoys my presence too much.”
“Too much for his own good,” Adrik agreed, lips tilting into that teasing smile I’d not seen in too long. “He seems, in fact, to have a ratherexcruciatingweakness for you. I think it would delight him immensely if you agreed to come.” The smilesharpened, and his voice lowered. “If you refuse, he might just whisk you off. He is half of a wicked faerie, after all.”
