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“I hope Lucinda was halfway through eating something and wakes up with rotten food in her mouth.”
Hawthorn snorted. “I enjoy hating things together. We should do so more often.”
Something about his words, or perhaps the setting, reminded her of an evening she’d spent with her father years ago, before they’d left for Autumn. She had asked for tales of her mother, and he’d given her the usual—brave knight, excellent swordswoman, beautiful voice—but she had begged him formore.Earlier in the day, she’d watched a couple curled up together beside the bank, whispering to each other. She had not been sure of the words, only that something about the image seemed to trickle inside her, like imbibing a hot drink.
“What did you like doing with her?” she’d asked her father.
Markham had paused, as if the answer was a hard one to collect. Perhaps it was; he so seldom spoke about her Juliana sometimes wondered if she were half a dream, a creature summoned only when thought of.
“Everything,” he said finally. “Or rather… nothing. I liked doing nothing with her but being.”
Juliana frowned, her fingers stroking her ragdoll, its felt hands turned threadbare. “I don’t understand.”
“You will, one day.”
Juliana hadn’t believed him, but now, sitting here in the dark, she felt something familiar to that sensation she’d experienced watching that couple on the bank, the warm, whispery, hot-drink feeling.
And for once she was too tired to fight it.
“What are you thinking of?” Hawthorn asked, glancing down at her.
She realised she was resting on the ground. “My mother,” she answered, unwilling to admit the full truth.
Hawthorn folded an arm beneath his head and sank to the floor beside her. “Do you really not remember her?”
Juliana paused. She liked to pretend she didn’t remember her. Partly for her father’s sake, partly for her own, and partly because she could never be sure how much of what she remembered was real and what parts she’d conjured based on wishes or the recollections of others.
“I remember her,” she admitted, her voice quiet, like the truth might shatter the world. She had never told anyone before. “In tiny things and bits and pieces I’ve stitched together. I don’t know how much of it is real though, how much I’ve made up, how much other people have told me.”
Hawthorn’s free hand reached across, then stopped. “I wish I could remember her for you.” He paused. “Whatdoyou remember?”
“Her songs,” she admitted. “The colour of her hair in the firelight. The way she smelled of elderflower and citrus and baking hay… sometimes all at once.” She stopped, her throat tight. “Mostly, I remember that I loved her, that she made everything better, and I have never, ever understood why she left.”
The day before, she’d sliced the back of her hand with a blade. This was worse, more visceral, more exposed, and toHawthornof all people, who was far more frightening than any element.
“Why she leftyou, you mean?“ he asked.
She could only nod.
Hawthorn’s gaze circled back to the sky, as though he were aware of the intensity of it, how it made her buckle. “Do you not like to sing because that’s what she did?”
Juliana stiffened. How did he see right through her? “Yes. Also, because I’m not perfect at it, and I don’t like performing anything to anyone unless I’m perfect at it.”
“This,” he said, “I already knew. But… well, your voice is… not unpleasant, and… and as for that other thing… much as I may have complained about your presence once or twice, why anyone would leave you is… somewhat baffling. To say the least. To me, that is. And possibly a few other people you haven’t managed to irk yet.”
It was, oddly enough, the perfect thing to say, which made it all the more strange how he’d stumbled through it. Juliana could count the number of times Hawthorn had slurred his sentences on a single hand, outside of alcohol consumption. He was usually far more eloquent and far less serious.
Tease me,she begged him,be cruel, be horrible. Make me regret telling you.
Because she needed to regret it. She needed to be reminded that he was detestable, that she hated him. Because the alternative—
She froze.
The alternative wasn’t natural.
Her gaze turned to Hawthorn’s pendant, resting on the ground, the leather cord around his neck. Her own buzzed pleasantly.
There may be side effects,the witch’s words rang in her head.Other ways you find yourself bound.
