“No!” She shook her head, hair bouncing. “I’m still your friend!Just because things are changing, doesn’t mean they’reending. I want you to be happy, and so does Evaine.”
“If you want me to be happy, then let me make my own choices! Ever since Evaine got her fingers on you, she’s been after me too, trying to push me around, trying to trap me with her food and her clothes. But she’s just like every other adult we’ve ever known. They all just want to change us. Control us.Useus.” Rolan knew he should shut up before he said more. He was already regretting the words pouring out of his mouth. But they came anyway, hot and fast and reckless. “Look at what she’s already done toyou. She’s ruined you, is what she’s done!”
Anaya reared back, pain and anger darkening her eyes. Without a word, she turned and rushed to the door.
With a groan, Rolan went after her. “Wait! Anaya! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
She slammed the door, nearly clipping his hand as he reached for her. Angrily, he yanked it open again, only to walk right into Luc. The man’s face was thunderous, red with fury.
“Back inside, boy!” he roared.
Evaine was on his heels looking even angrier, which was a fearsome sight indeed. Cheeks flushed, she reached around Luc and tried to grab Rolan.
“You need to come with me, Rolan!” she said. “This is no place for a child!Heis not fit to look after anyone!”
“I told you to get off my property, woman!” Luc growled. He turned, blocking the door—and Rolan—with his wide body. His hands gripped both sides of the doorframe, the wood nearly cracking under his grip. “I won’t have anyone meddling in my business!You might make the finest truth salve this side of the capital, but that doesn’t give you any right to interfere in Arcanist affairs!”
“I’ll go exactly where I like,Arcanist, when I like!” Evaine snapped. “The boy is coming with me.”
“Theboyis doing as he likes!” retorted Rolan. “Which is staying right where I am.”
Stupid! This was his way out. He didn’t need to run away. If he let her, Evaine would take him back to the city. So what was hedoing?
But he couldn’t help himself. He wouldn’t be pushed around, not by her, not by anyone.
Evaine looked at him, breathing hard, the lines in her face softening. “Rolan. Please. You don’t understand this man’s life. His is dark, deadly work. It’s not just the Cryptics. It’s thesecrets. Has he told you about the secrets?”
Luc’s fingers dug into the doorway until the wood finally splintered.
“You don’t belong here, Rolan,” Evaine said.
“Yeah?” Rolan shot back. “Then wheredoI belong? With you?”
Evaine’s mouth opened and shut. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “We will find a place for you, Rolan. Something more suitable. I can help you—”
“You ain’t my ma,” said Rolan. “You don’t get to order me around like you do Anaya.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say, really. Of course she didn’t want him. She’d fed him and given him new clothes when his got too small, but she’d never asked him to stay, not like she had Anaya.
Evaine sighed, her eyes sliding shut for a moment. When she looked at him again, it was with resignation. “I’m not giving up on you, Rolan. Do you hear me?” But she glanced at Luc when she said it. “I’ll be back.”
“Try it,” growled Luc.
Giving him one last scalding glare, Evaine turned and took Anaya’s arm. “Come. This isn’t over.”
They left the way they’d come, and the sky seemed several shades darker in a way that had nothing to do with the setting sun.
Luc shut the door. He was tense, his arms as hard as stone. Rolan had seen him angry, but never like this. Never wound so tightly that he might break the next thing he touched.
“I’m going hunting,” he said abruptly.
Rolan stood by silently as the Arcanist equipped his weapons and cloak. He said nothing when the man pulled open the door and slammed it behind him.
He waited, unmoving, for ten long minutes, as Luc rode away in a gnarl of fury and shadows.
Then, pulling on the dark gray cloak Luc had sewn for him and digging out a dagger he’d stolen from the Arcanist’s belt, Rolan slipped out the door and went to the edge of the woods. It was the closest he’d come to the dark trees since Luc had brought him here.
Luc’s horse had left a clear trail in the damp earth.
