Page 104 of Heart’s Rescue

The house is quiet, the fire’s burned low, and the door to my room is still closed. I try to act like that doesn’t bother me as I hold Phaedron’s arm in one hand and the wrapped chessboard in the other and help my brother navigate toward his room. He collapses onto his bed with a sigh and closes his eyes. He was a champion on the walk to the World’s End, and he does look much better, but he’s still recovering.

Something snags in my chest. Yes, he’s still recovering, but he’ll never be the same. There’s a sadness about him now, a strange hesitancy, and sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever be the brother I remember. If he’ll ever feel like a whole person again.

I shake my head to kill that thought. It doesn’t matter what recovery looks like for Phaedron. No matter what shape he’s in, we’re still here. We still take care of each other. I pat Phaedron’s hand, walk out of his bedroom, and turn toward the closed door of my room. There’s a pair of wet socks on the floor outside that door. My wet socks.

I make a face, place the chessboard down gently on the table, and pick up my stupid socks. I drape them over the drying rack and then run my fingers along the rough fabric wrapping the chess set Orryen sent me. It’s a gorgeous set, made of onyx and marble, leaps nicer than the beat-up wooden set at the World’s End pub. Maybe I should have started asking our dear king for expensive crap years earlier.

My chest tightens. I hope Arryn likes it.

With a sigh, I walk to the closed bedroom door and knock on it. Softly. There’s no lock, but still, I don’t want to go barging in. It’s not exactly my room anymore, or it’s not my room alone.

“Yes?” Arryn says from the other side.

“It’s me,” I say. “Can I come in?”

There’s a moment of hesitation, long enough for me to wonder if I should grab the chessboard and say something ridiculous like I brought you a present, and then I hear her sigh.

“Yes,” she says.

I glance back at Phaedron, who’s lying on his bed with his eyes closed, and then crack open the door. Arryn’s sitting on my bed—our bed—and staring out the window as she runs a wooden comb through her hair. Her eyes look red; the knot in my chest pulls tighter.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She glances up at me, then turns back to the window. I sit down beside her and run my fingers lightly along the back of her hand.

“I bet you do miss the Worlds Above,” I say. “If we were up there instead of down here, I know I’d feel awful. I’d miss so much.”

I’d miss Phaedron, I think but do not say.

Arryn laughs, a sharp little sound, and then turns to me with her red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, stars. I hated most of my life up there.”

“Having servants would be pretty nice, though,” I offer.

She laughs again. It’s softer this time.

“Well, okay,” she admits. “I’m glad Phaedron is teaching me how to cook, but I do miss the servants.”

“What else do you miss?” I ask, even though the question cuts at the inside of my throat.

She’s silent for a long and incredibly painful time. Somehow I manage not to say anything stupid, although my mind is screaming that if she says she misses that idiot Prince Folwynn I’m going to throw myself out the window and onto the stack of empty bottles buried under the snow out there.

“I miss the sun,” she finally says. “The gardens. The ocean, although I only saw it for a few weeks in the summer.” She takes a deep breath and then looks down at the floor. “I miss the stars.”

“I bet.” I run my fingers over her hand again. “I miss the stars, and I’ve never even seen them.”

She smiles at me. Some of the tightness in my chest dissipates.

“I think I miss having something to do,” she adds. “When the king told us they might need us for more magic, I thought they’d need us right away. I didn’t realize how long we’d just be waiting.”

I wrap my fingers around hers. “I think they’re all waiting to see if the Kingdom of the Summer will make the first move.”

Arryn straightens her back and tosses her hair over her shoulder. Voids, I love it when she does that.

“True,” she says. “I guess it’s only been, what, a week?”

“Six days,” I say. “But who’s counting?”

I lean forward and catch her lips with mine. She kisses me back, and my heart feels like magic is pouring through it once again, golden and thick as honey.