“They chase the grief away with laughter and merriment. Emond… He is still not the same. Miran and the miller, too.” Wesat close, but Adrik was rigid and careful not to touch me. As if he was afraid I might burn him. “They whisper only of beasts and strange things.”
“They are still frightened,” I said desperately. “It will pass with time.”
“That is not all. Their skin remains cold as ice to the touch.” He paused to draw a shaking breath. “Their eyes are still white as snow, Ana. I search for the people within, and I fear they are lost.”
We remained for a long while in thick silence. A clump of dread barred me from speaking until Adrik lowered his head and put his face in his hands. I could not bear to see him like this.
“It will be spring soon,” I said firmly. “I will learn. I swear it.”
He did not answer. He only glanced at me with a quiet ache I could not place. I gasped when his finger traveled softly over my cheek.
“I regret that I made it your burden. I regret that I asked you to stay. If I could go back to that night in the forest, when the road was still clear, I fear what choice I might make.” In his gaze flared a wildness. “You are where my will falters, Evana. The spirit knew it. It knew that I'd thought of it, in the dark of night. Of just us two making for the mountain pass. Of just us two escaping this fate. We could make it, you and I.”
I laughed sharply. “You would not make it a step beyond the castle walls.”
“I am half of a wicked faerie. I am selfish and bound to act on impulse. I am inclined to burn the world for—” He broke off with a sharp shake of the head, as if to banish whatever thought had almost spilled.
“You are also half of a human, and you would sacrifice yourself thrice over for these people. I know you too well, Adrik. You cannot make me think badly of you, try as you might.”
He stared at me, lips parted in awe, as if I had done him a favor, when I’d only spoken the truth. “I should have made them leave long ago. I should have put that crown on my head and made that difficult choice. Now, we all pay the price for my failure.”
I stared at the half-full moon and I could not say where the time had gone. I had lived these weeks like looking through a misted glass. A wraith, tethered to this world only by a final unfulfilled task. I almost heeded Zora as we cowered beneath that elm, Adrik and I. The whisper burned on the tip of my tongue:Touch me. Make me forget.
I craved him achingly. I wanted him to strip me of these clothes just as I wished to strip us of our burdens. I wanted to beg him to delve between my legs and make me forget for a night about death. For him, I’d burn brightly enough to banish the cold for a night.I bit my tongue harshly enough to spill my own blood, just to keep the words inside.
As I chased the warmth into the pocket of my coat, I came across the still-warm pebble.
“Come,” I said, soothed by an echo of brighter times. I urged Adrik firmly to his feet. “Let us live a little more tonight, if just to spite the darkness.”
He laughed brokenly as I pulled him back into the warmth of the cottage. This was a language we both understood. Had we not both lived for a long time just to spite death?
We laughed in its face that night.
This spite… It spurred us on as we danced our feet raw and sang until our voices cracked. Adrik kissed me once on the cheek as I passed him, drunk with rage-fueled mirth. I brushed his hand before I slid away with a mischievous smile, and I carried the heat of that kiss with me until dawn and beyond.
It was a doomed thing, this happiness.
Still, we lived well that night.
TWENTY-FIVE
You must make haste, girl.
“The water lilies have died, girl.”
I’d returned restlessly to the burrow at dawn after a fitful hour of sleep in a fireside chair. We had passed out in Adrik's parlor, all of us, tired from dance and song. Zora’s snores had stirred me awake.
I found Almira wading in her freezing pond, her rags bundled up at her thighs. The healing water had worked a small miracle on her. I’d not seen her this alive since she'd made the river dance, almost a moon ago.
“Come, girl,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Bring them back.”
I did not flinch at the sting of the blade, nor at the taste of copper on my tongue. A drop of blood bloomed like a crimson inkstain in the murky water.
The monster within—no, themagicwithin—pricked its ears.
A shiver danced over my spine, like the teasing touch of a warm, familiar hand. I drew breath and dipped my fingers into the freezing water. Its cold depths devoured sound and breath.It was dark down here, save for a tendril of light from above, tainting the water green. Pain swept sharply through me, from the heart of these lifeless depths into mine.
I clenched my jaw to contain a shriek, delving deeper into the water. Lifeless things drifted in the current. Darkness sprawled at the bottom, black claws climbing out to coil around me and drag me down, down, down.
