Page 25 of Heart’s Rescue

Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day. What in the voids are we going to do with her? Say we just happen to have a sister that no one’s ever seen and we’ve never mentioned, and oh yeah, she’s always had that dark skin that looks so much like the monster who cut off my brother’s arm?

“What?” I say as I cross my arms over my chest. “She’s too pretty to hand over?”

“You think she’s pretty?” Phaedron asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, screw you,” I snap.

Because of course the lady’s pretty, she’s painfully pretty, and I am not about to argue with my brother regarding the attractiveness of the monster from the Worlds Above who’s passed out in my bed.

“Rowan,” Phaedron says. “She fell down here.”

“So?”

“So, she didn’t come to the World’s End with murder in her heart,” Phaedron continues. “She’s not like the other one, the monster who killed Kara and hurt me. This woman is here by accident. She’s scared, and she’s alone, and she’s—”

“Pretty?” I sneer, cutting him off.

“I was going to say vulnerable,” Phaedron finishes.

I sink down on the edge of Phaedron’s bed and run my hand across my face.

“So?” I ask again.

I’m starting to sound belligerent, but so what? Belligerence looks good on me.

“So, we don’t know what the king would do with her heart,” Phaedron says. “Or to her heart. Or to her.”

I groan, then rub my knuckles against my own chest. The lady’s heart. The rumors say the king needs a heart from the Worlds Above to awaken Captain Orryen, the orphan he raised as his first-born son and heir. What in the voids he and his magicians will do with that heart, I don’t know. The thought occurs to me that I might know exactly what they would do if I’d accepted Orryen’s offer in the first place, but screw that. Orryen’s offer was crap.

“The king’s already got a heart,” I say. “I brought him the voids-damned monster who hurt you. He shouldn’t need a second heart from the Worlds Above.”

Phaedron sighs, and I belatedly realize I’ve just agreed with him.

“Okay,” I say as I run my hand distractedly over the ragged edge of my frost-bitten ear. “So, if we’re not turning her over to the king, then what in the voids are we gonna do with her? Where are we going to hide her?”

Voids. In the silence following that question, I realize I already know what Phaedron is about to say.

“Take her to the thin place,” he replies, as I knew he would. “Take her home.”

“Yeah, no,” I reply. “There’s no way I’m hauling her to the thin place.”

Phaedron raises an eyebrow, and he somehow manages to look both condescending and long-suffering.

“Do you have a better alternative?” he asks.

I open my mouth, then close it. The ruins of Kara’s barn drift through my mind, a singularly unsuitable place to hide a lady.

“Look,” I begin, “that’s not an easy trip. Not even for me. There’s no way that lady could even—”

But my words dry up because, damn it, Phaedron’s right. He’s boxed me into a corner with a half-dozen words. If we’re not handing her over to the king and there’s no place in the World’s End to hide her, then what choice do we have?

“So that, uh, that trip might not even be possible,” I stammer. I’m losing, and I know I’m losing, and I’m doing it gracelessly. As usual.

I don’t even need to look at Phaedron to know what kind of expression he’s wearing. And he doesn’t even need to say anything further to win this argument. Sheer, brutal logic is going to force me to accept his position.

But Phaedron says something anyway, just to clinch it.

“I trust you,” my brother says. His voice is almost a whisper. “You said you found a thin place in the void. I believe you. You said you won’t turn this woman over to the king. I believe that, too.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I reply, waving my hand vaguely in the air to shut him up. “You don’t need to rub it in.”

Phaedron sighs again, softer this time, and then falls silent. The fire snaps and pops, and I realize the ice beating against the roof of the house has finally fallen silent.

“Rowan?” Phaedron says.

“I’m here, buddy.”

“You’ll want to bring the shelter.”

“Shit!” I snap, because I know he’s right. “I hate that thing. It’s so freaking heavy.”

Phaedron purrs in agreement. Easy for him to say, the smug, injured son of a bitch. He’s going to be here in bed the whole time. I sigh and let my head fall into my hands.

“She’s not going to carry a pack, is she?” I ask through the cage of my fingers.

“Nope,” Phaedron agrees.

I grumble, then stand up and shuffle back to the pantry to grab the bottle of brandy. If I’m going to have to drag this lady from the Worlds Above through the void, then I’m going to wring every last minute of comfort out of this place before we go.