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“Aquis.” Water splashes from Eliya’s fingers. It soaks me from head to toe.
My mouth falls agape. I stare down in disbelief at my drenched dress. A chilling wind rolls over me, far icier now that I’m soaked through. “I can’t believe you just did that!”
“And I can’t believe you just called me dirty,” she says, a smile twitching on her lips. “Serves you—”
Before she can finish, I call outaquisand return the favor. My water spell splashes over her, and then she is as drenched as I am.
We both burst into laughter. But it isn’t funny for long, because now we’re both soaked and shivering. My teeth chatter. If we weren’t magi in training, the chill would spoil our evening. Luckily for us, the problem is easily fixed by speaking the spell-wordcalida. Warmth sparks within, and I can no longer feel the chill. The heat radiating from my skin dries the fabric of my clothes.
We soon return to drinking our moon-blossom wine, and it doesn’t take long for us each to finish a bottle and crack open another. With each sip, more aether courses through my bloodstream.
“Reyna?”Eliya says after a moment.
I glance up at her. “Yeah?”
Her fingers play around the top of her crystalline bottle, and she chews on her lower lip. She looks stuck for words. Eliya never hesitates to speak.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she finally asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t seem yourself the other day.”
My heart skips a beat. I hope she hasn’t found out I visited the library after leaving the bakery. “On Friday?”
She nods.
“I had a headache.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I flinch.
“At least, not entirely. I don’t think it was just because you had a headache.”
I lean back onto the grass. “Then what do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a sigh. “It’s just after you went, I remembered that street was where I found you three years ago, when you were...”
When I was searching the heaps of bodies for Arluin.
She doesn’t say those ghastly words. They linger between us, nonetheless.
She puts down her bottle and takes my hand. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”
I lower my head, unable to meet her gaze. I know I should probably talk about everything with her. It’s been so long, and yet I’ve not spoken to anyone about what happened that night. I doubt it’s healthy to keep such awful things bottled up, but trying to speak about it feels like a monumental task.
“I... I never found his body,” I whisper. My words are so quiet I don’t know whether they reach Eliya over the roaring wind. “I have no idea whether he’s dead or alive. And I don’t think I’ll ever know the truth.”
Eliya squeezes my hand. The small gesture grants me a sudden burst of courage. My caged emotions bubble and overflow, spilling from my lips.
“If he’s alive, why has he never come back? Why didn’t he at least let me know that he isn’t dead?”
“Reyna,” Eliya says softly, “if he’s alive, after the crimes he committed, he can’t return. And I think it’s best he never does.”
“I know,” I reply, swallowing down the bitterness swelling in my throat. “My father would have him executed. That night, he ordered Archmage Calton to burn them all. Even Arluin. I know what fate awaits him here, but I miss him so very much.”
Eliya releases my hand and presses her lips together. Her reluctance is clear. Whatever she intends to say next, I know I won’t like to hear it. But I don’t stop her from speaking. “Reyna, he’s a necromancer. During the attack, he sided with his father. He murdered innocents and raised them from the dead.”
