Page 22 of The Light Between Worlds

At the moment he stands nearby, planting berry canes and keeping a watchful eye on Jamie and me as we pull weeds. I’ve come to a patch of small green thistles at the clearing’s edge and Dorien shakes his head.

“Mark those well, Evelyn. They’re priest’s thistles, and they have a nasty sting. You’ll need thick gloves to pull those. There should be some in the barrow.”

The sun shines high overhead and woodland insects sound theirbrassy song. I know it’s nearly time for our noon break, when we’ll sit companionably in the shade of the trees, propped against their trunks while we eat spiced beans and salt fish and goat cheese, washed down with cold well water.

But today things are different. Today, Vaya comes into the clearing with a sound of bells.

“You’re wanted,” she whispers in my ear. “They need you up the hill.”

She hovers beside Dorien, who listens intently and then glances over one shoulder, as if he expects to see strangers at the clearing’s edge.

“Come now,” he says seriously. “Hector’s back from the southern border. He has news of the Empire we’re all meant to hear.”

Philippa waits for us at the castle gate, and I hardly recognize the girl she was in England. We none of us look like we did there. After half a year, I’m already beginning to forget that world—the food, the clothes, the manners. And I want to forget. I throw myself willingly into learning Woodlands customs, in hopes they’ll erase the memories of a home that was never home, where I was shuffled between strange houses and school like a piece of unwanted baggage. I don’t ever think of our last night there anymore—I’ve grown a hedge around that memory.

Philippa is, as always, far tidier than Jamie and me, in a clean blue kirtle. While we’ve been taken in hand by Dorien and are being taught to work the Woodlands earth, she stays behind each day with Alfreya. Philippa works in the kitchen or the palace infirmary, but more often manages an ongoing correspondence with Venndarien Tarsin, and with the Emperor’s numerous scribes and ambassadors.

When the three of us were asked to decide who would stay at thecastle to deal with letters from the Empire, Philippa laughed.

“Give me the job where I don’t have to get my hands dirty,” she said.

But there’s a sadness in her eyes when Jamie and I leave her behind each morning.

“Phil, aren’t you happy here?” I asked her one morning as we left. “I know it’s been awhile since we arrived—”

“Five months and nine days.”

“—and that you worry about Mum and Dad, but Cervus promised they wouldn’t even know we’d gone. Don’t you think he’s good for his word?”

“Of course I do.” Philippa smiled so brightly she dazzled me, like sun on waves. “And I’m not unhappy, you goose. I’m far too busy for that. Now hurry along—you’ve got your work to do and I’ve got mine.”

Now Philippa waits only until Jamie, Dorien, and I have reached her before turning toward the castle and catching all of us up in her wake.

We gather in the great hall, where Hector and his band of Woodlanders are tearing into the first hot meal they’ve had in weeks. They tell tales of the southern border—of trees felled, villages burned, and people dragged away never to be seen again. The Empire refuses to claim the raids, but we know who’s behind them. We know that Tarsa is testing this country’s strength.

I curl up on the floor beside Cervus, one arm around his shoulders for comfort and courage. Philippa sits alone, perched on the edge of a chair, with her face blank and her hands folded on her lap.

“Perhaps we’d better begin this war in earnest,” Dorien says, running a hand across his weathered face. “With the Empire alreadyfighting the Illyrians in the west, they’d at least be stretched thin. Are you ready, Hector?”

A muscle works in Hector’s jaw. “No. We never will be, truly, but I’d hoped for more time.”

“Give me a month,” Philippa cuts in, looking down at her hands. “A month, and no more. If Tarsa still claws at the border after that, do what you will. But let me write to Venndarien. Time is what you hoped my brother and sister and I could get you. Let me try for it once more.”

Hector looks at her, as if peering into her very soul. “And what will you attempt to win it with?”

“Flattery.” Philippa smiles. “Flattery and half promises, and fables about our world. They’ll go further than you think.”

“Give her the month,” Cervus says, and it’s decided.

Later, when the hearth fires have burned low and it’s well past midnight, we all go our separate ways. Jamie, Philippa, and I walk up to our bedrooms on the fourth floor, my brother and sister carrying lit lamps while I follow along in the glow they give off.

For a moment on the landing, Jamie pauses and stares out the window to the lights shining from the courtyard below. Hector’s Woodlanders are camped there, the ones who’ve learned the sword and the bow and the determination necessary to take a life. My brother shifts restlessly. I know he’s longing to join a different sort of campaign than the one Philippa runs with diplomacy and words.

When we wake in the morning, Hector and his Woodlanders are gone and Jamie’s gone with them. He’s left a note for Phil, which she reads with a scowl that doesn’t quite hide her worry.

“Ridiculous boy,” she snaps. “He’ll get himself killed.”

Night after night for a month, light shines out from Philippa’s study, where she sits at her desk writing furiously. She never tells me what it is she says to Venndarien in her bid to hold off a war—when pressed, Philippa only smiles brilliantly and pats my hand.