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Verve gritted her teeth. She could handle this. Even her crossbow had been new once. With practice, she could learn this new power, too. And now that Danya (hopefully) thought she was dead, she had a fighting chance.
After only a little begging, Verve convinced Ivet to leave her alone at Alem’s garden gate, and Verve limped around the humble cottage, following the heady trail of Alem’s magic. She found the dendric mage behind his cottage, hair loose, eyes closed, seated on the ground between neat rows of lavender and blooming glosswing flowers. There were blue-gray smudges beneath his eyes, but otherwise, he looked whole.
She took a single step his way. “Alem?”
His eyes didn’t open, but a feeling burst free from him, like water from a broken dam. She tried to analyze the swirl of emotions pouring into the space between them, but before she could, somehow he staunched the flow.
“Verve,” he said, blinking into the sunlight. “What are you doing up? You should be in bed.”
“So should you.”
He gave her a smile that did not reach his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Alive.” She took another step toward him, drawn not only by the pull of his magic but also by her own silly heart. “How did you find me the other day?”
He plucked a weed and twirled it in his fingers, his gaze going distant. “It was strange. I was in Freehold, arranging the last couple trades, when I felt… No, I heard your voice. In my mind. You were…” He gave a shaking inhale. “You were calling my name, but you sounded… Verve, you were dying. I could hear it in your voice. No, I could feel it, feel you…”
His cheeks colored, and he focused on the weed in his hand. “I raced out of the market and headed for the gates. No idea what my plan was. I suppose I was going to steal a horse or something.” A thin smile crossed his face. “But then I spotted Sohvi and Hasina. Apparently, they’d been searching around Freehold, looking for their friend. The man you captured.”
Space-Between-Stars’s anger flared, aimed at Verve. An answering shame coursed through her and she leaned against the garden fence, as much to shift her weight as to distract herself from the feeling. “But how did you find me?”
He did not reply immediately. “It was like…there was a cord tied between us. All I had to do was pull, and it led me right to you.” He scoffed and tossed the weed down. “It sounds stupid, I guess, but it worked.”
“Sohvi couldn’t manage it?” If they were both meridians now, then surely…
Alem shrugged. “She said she could sense Celidon, but after he died, I think she was too…distraught to sense much else.” He glanced up at her, squinting through the sunlight. “How does it feel to be a meridian?”
All around them, lacy butterflies danced over the yellow glosswing blossoms. A warm breeze brought the scent of water, of new grass, of the soapwort the villagers used to wash their clothes. But beneath all of that, or perhaps only mingled within it, was a sense of peaceful occupation, relief, joy: the emotions of the Lotis villagers. They were happy because Verve and Alem were safely home.
Home.
She’d lost her last home at six summers old. After that, there’d been no other place that she could consider home. Not until now.
“Strange,” she said at last. “But good. Sometimes, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
She skimmed her fingertips over a lavender bush. “I can…sense emotions from other people. At least, I think that’s what’s going on. I’m glad Lotis is so small. I think it’d be…noisier somewhere like Freehold.”
Alem nodded thoughtfully. “Milo sometimes spoke of sensing others’ emotions. He taught me a little of how to shield my own.” His voice turned grim. “Came in useful when living near meridians.”
That explained what he’d done when she arrived. How much else did he know? She said, carefully, “I think my Fae spirit hates me.”
Alem went still. “Why?”
“Why do they hate me, or why do I think they do?”
“Either.”
Verve pretended to study the nearest plant, a leggy dandelion with about half its fuzzy puff missing. “Probably all the killing I’ve done.”
She could almost hear Space-Between-Stars’s snarky response, You think?
“Milo once told me the Fae are highly empathetic beings,” Alem replied after a beat. “It wouldn’t surprise me that the one you’ve joined with isn’t thrilled with the arrangement.”
Great. “What do you think Milo would say to someone in my case?” Verve asked.
Alem gave her another of those not-smiles. “I think he’d say give it time.”
