Page 58

“Only you,” Lily teased. “If you’re so concerned, why don’t you ask for my hand?”

He chuckled. “I don’t think the missus would be too happy with me.”

“Then thank you very much for the cleaning, but I don’t pay you for life advice. I’ll see you next month.”

She turned to find Luka crouched on the other side of the wall, alone. Clasped between his fingers was a small blue bird. Lily leaned over the brick with crossed arms, knowing right away what interested him. Luka pushed his sunglasses closer to his face when he realized she was watching him.

“I found him lying there.” He pointed at the base of a tree. “His legs aren’t broken, and his wings are fine.”

Lily tapped her knuckles against the top of the wall. “Bring him with us.”

Luka followed as carefully as he could manage, the loose seeds and coins jumbling in his pack as he hopped over the wall.

Lily greeted a few friendly faces making their way through Acadia but kept her head low as she passed the cobbler’s shop. Luka said nothing through the village, keeping up with her while petting the bird’s feathers, getting lost in himself like he so often did.

“Well? What do you want to do about it?” she finally asked when Acadia was far behind them.

Luka didn’t respond, petting the bird as Lily found a spot to rest just off the trail. She set her rifle down then untied the scarf from her chin, freeing and combing her short, sweaty hair with her fingers. Luka silently kneeled in front of her and placed the bird at Lily’s feet like a mouser offering its master a strangely serene rodent as a gift. It nestled into the dirt, fluffing its wings.

“Is it sick?” he asked.

Lily slipped off her gloves, pocketing them, and followed a compact spot of purple under the bird’s breast feathers. “It is. It’s inside.”

This wasn’t the first sick animal he’d managed to catch. After a little experimenting, they learned an illness couldn’t be taken away by the Guardian, and after some insistence on Luka’s part, the Wraith either. The Guardian healing them equated to patching an already sinking ship. The Wraith could pull the aura from it, delaying its death, but Lily couldn’t take away what was killing it, and eventually the aura would return.

Not only that, but it felt… wrong. Disrupting the path of an aura of any kind was completely taboo to traditional Imordials like Amalia and Minerva. And though Lily wasn’t exactly worried about what they would think, she knew what could come from an abuse of magic like this. The kind that controlled specters or rose the dead from graves.

But that isn’t the same thing, Lily told herself as Luka gingerly picked up the bird and placed it in her hands. They were trying to help, not harm.

“If it stays sick, it’ll only get the other birds sick,” Luka said.

It thrashed wildly when it realized it left Luka’s gentle touch, cocking its head this way and that, giving her the mightiest of squeaky war cries. She senselessly hushed it while waiting for Luka’s final nod of approval.

A bird didn’t require much venom. Barely a drop. At least that’s how she began to picture it—a dark sludge coursing through her veins she could pull just under the surface of her skin, warming her fingertips depending on how much pooled. The sensation was like slipping into a steaming bath—pulling back from the temperature at first before eventually succumbing to temptation and submerging completely.

She hoped what she killed felt the same.

The bird quieted its call; its body loosened, and after a few seconds, its head went limp. No marks from her touch were left behind. If there was anything she could say, she had that under control. Lily placed it in the grass, the aura within spreading over its entire body when its chest stopped quivering.

Luka grinned. “Its light went into the grass.”

She returned his smile with a sheepish one.

As strange as it was to admit, killing did get easier. Every time Luka asked her, or she felt the obligation herself, it started to feel normal, and for a second, she’d feel at peace with the Wraith.

Luka wrapped his arms around her middle before darting ahead.

Except she was killing animals. Pests vastly insignificant compared to human life. No one would shed a tear for the bird.

The trek back to the cabin was a few hours hike. The afternoon sun dipped to a blinding sunset while they moved through the trees. Near the end, Luka lingered behind in an odd silence, so much so that Lily had to check and make sure he wasn’t physically lost.

She slowed her pace. “Out with it.”

He twiddled his thumbs. “I tried to fix Brady today.”

Lily bit her tongue to keep the anxiety out of her words. “Luka, we talked about this. It won’t work.”

“I know, but I wanted to try. I even borrowed. A lot. A whole bush from Miss Vin’s gar—”