We fall silent, the shadows lengthening into swathes of pitch-dark velvet. Questions leap in my mind like small fish in a stream—there and then gone, innumerable, flashing in the light for a moment before disappearing back into the depths.
“Do you have any questions? It is a lot, I know,” Nyatrix says softly.
I look over to find her crouched at my side. I swallow hard and squeeze my eyes shut. “A thousand of them,” I admit in a hoarse voice. “And little ability to find the right words, I fear.”
“Well, then,” Agrippina says with a grunt as she gets to her feet, the legs of her chair scraping against the slate floor. “Let’s do something useful with our bodies, shall we? Let our minds lie fallow for a moment. Ophelia, have you eaten anything recently?”
I shake my head a few beats too late, my thoughts sticky. In my peripheral vision, Agrippina rummages in her satchel,producing handfuls of bright, jewel-like vegetables. I watch in awe as she arranges them on the countertop—autumn squash and blood-red peppers, leafy carrots and tiny garlic cloves. Nyatrix stands and strides across the kitchen, preparing cookware for what I desperately hope is soup. I get to my feet and ask how I can help, glad for the distraction.
A few moments later, I’m mincing garlic on a flat piece of heavy stone. Beside me at the counter, Nyatrix dices the squash with sharp precision. It takes far too much concentration to stop myself from watching the movements of her long, lithe fingers instead of completing my own task.
“You said much of Liminalia’s land is Sundered,” I say over the crackle of the fire. “How do you grow such things?”
“Greenhouses,” Agrippina says, wiping her knife on a square of linen before reaching for the peppers. “The land can’t sustain much livestock beyond the equui, so we’ve put a lot of our time and energy into finding other solutions.”
“But,” Nyatrix says, glancing over at me without halting her knifework, “the greenhouses are failing.”
Agrippina grunts but doesn’t disagree. In the hearth’s glow, I examine their clothing—the worn, patched linen suddenly makes much more sense. Certainly a greenhouse cannot host an entire field of flax. My mind slips to the truth of Lumendei’s blighted gardens and I tighten my jaw, trying to ground myself in the space around me and not the past.
Seasoned stock bubbles in the cauldron hung over the fire, its warm, comforting scent relaxing me. Agrippina grabs a wooden tray piled with the diced squash and dumps it in with a soft splash. I hand her the stoneware bowl of garlic when she turns back around, and into the brew it goes. I’ve seen little of Liminalia, but if the coarse, dry brushland near the stables is the acreage they choose for pasture, I can only imagine how blighted the rest of its city-state must be.
Nyatrix reaches over me into the cupboard, pulling down a tiny jar of what looks to be black salt. Her hip brushes mine, sending my blood pounding. “Makes everything taste better, I promise,” she tells me with a smile, gesturing to the jar. She looks at me for a moment longer, and then asks, “Would you prefer I pull a chair over here for you? Or are you all right to keep standing?”
I blush and look down at my hands, the flaky skin of the garlic bulbs still clinging to my fingers. In Lumendei, most people seemed to think it polite to just ignore that my body is different from theirs. Nyatrix, however, seems to have no issue with the realities of my flesh; there’s never any judgment in her eyes when she asks such questions, and I am terribly well-versed with judgment. She simply seeks to accommodate, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. My heart beats rapidly, thumping against the hollow of my throat.
“I’m all right for now,” I tell her, feeling heat spread across my chest. “Thanks for asking.”
“Of course,” she murmurs with a bow of her head, reaching for the peppers.
“These Avatars,” I say, surprised by my own boldness. “If they returned . . . would that help Liminalia?”
“Maybe,” Nyatrix replies at the same moment Agrippina announces, “Without a doubt.” They exchange glances before Agrippina looks away, stirring the soup with a large spoon.
I wipe my hands on a clean cut of cloth, the dream of my mother speaking about the Avatars slipping into my waking mind. A horrible thought hits me suddenly and I draw away from Nyatrix with a startled cry.
“Did you know?” I demand, meeting her gaze as she turns to examine me with those dark, fathomless eyes. “Did you know who I was? Isthatwhy you saved me? So you could use me?”
My blood gallops through my body with wild abandon. Agrippina lets the spoon slip into the soup, twisting slowly to look at me with wide eyes, her gaze darting to the knight. Nyatrix stands stock-still and lets out a long breath, shaking her head.
“No,” she says, holding up her hands. “I promise you, Ophelia.”
Curling my fingers into my skirts, I try to replay everything I’ve ever told this creature—this achingly beautiful creature who seems perfectly constructed to disarm me, to tear down all my defenses until I’m left ready for the reaping.
“I told you my mother was a heretic,” I accuse, backing away until I bump into the table on the other side of the room.
Nyatrix nods in agreement. “You did,” she says, her tone even. “I thought perhaps, given how much you resemble Celia, that you could be her lost daughter. But I had no surety, and in truth, Ophelia, at the time I was much more focused on getting out of Lumendei alive than anything else.”
My heart rams against my sternum, clamminess prickling my spine. Again, I want to run, to hide, but there is nowhere to go—nowhereis safe. That much I should know, pulled from my mother’s hidden panel like a kit from its burrow. I grip the handle of my cane tighter despite my damp palms, nausea rising like a tide in my belly.
“Ophelia,” Nyatrix murmurs, taking the smallest of steps closer. “Whether you are Celia’s daughter or not, the Avatar or not, you are safe here. I care for you regardless of these things. Beyond these things.”
The Godwinds race down the chimney, buffeting the steady flame in the hearth. Even without her armor, without that infamous wolf-head helm, the Lupa Nox is still a predator—only steps from me, surely just as deadly with a common kitchen knife as a Cursed blade.
And yet, as she moves closer, her hands outstretched, I am unafraid. Strange, it is; Renault often calls me flighty as a church mouse, and yet even when the closest thing to Death in these lands approaches me, I do not cower.
When Nyatrix reaches me, her fingertips brush my chin, then my jawline. It’s only a whisper-like touch, but I shiver all the same. The room, the hearth, Agrippina and the stew, the Godwinds outside—it all disappears.
“I do not know,” I begin, tilting my head back to meet the Lupa Nox’s gaze, “who or what I’ll become if I am lied to again.”
