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Real.
She dipped into her magic, using it to get a sense of that aura of summer storms and living embers.
Real.
Him. This washim.
Waiting for her.
Still, she wouldn’t drop the poker. “How—how did you know I’d be here?”
Adrien didn’t flinch at the object still pressed to his throat. He nodded to the side. “Well, I can’twalkthrough shadows, but you did leave me a friend.”
Raana watched as a writhing sliver of darkness crept over his shoulder. Hers. But not from this cottage, not the ones that gravitated towards her. It dripped with her essence. It was one of her own making. Her brows twitched towards each other, her jaw slackening. It slid over his shoulder to her hand, down her arm, and up her neck to her, where she felt it like a kiss against her skin.
His kiss—that had been burned into her memory, burned into every intimate part of her body.
And then, she heard his voice. An unheard question.Tell me you’re okay. Please.
Features falling, Raana met Adrien’s eyes, his tight smile as if, somehow, he’d known what it said to her. “I’ve been going out of my mind trying to figure out what happened to you.”
The poker faltered, and Raana let it fall to her side. She tried to wrap her mind around it. All of this. “It told you where I was going?”
Had the shadow always been connected to her, connectingthem?
“I get a feeling—Igota feeling, and I trusted my gut. It led me to you. Always does,” he said. “I figured you were coming here and knew where you hid the key. So, I waited.”
What a horrible waste of his night if he’d been wrong.
Raana could barely swallow as her eyes slid over his face. Darkness smudged beneath his eyes, and there was something more sunken and sadder about his features. She wanted to kiss away the bitterness, wrap herself up in him and use him, let him use her, and forget the world existed. Their horrible coping mechanism.
But the past, all she’d done, slammed down between them, separating them like a great wave. She stepped back, moving from where they’d ended up by the dining table, and headed for the potion’s cabinet to retrieve her grimoire.
Staying couldn’t be an option anymore.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, then cursed. No, that wasn’t the right thing to say. There were too many apologies she owed. Raana paused at the kitchen counter and turned. She squared her shoulders, looking him dead in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
It didn’t make her feel much better; it hadn’t mended everything perfectly as she imagined.
Adrien had remained in his place, and for a moment, she feared again that he’d been an illusion. “For?”
Raana let out a breath. “Everything.”
“Oh.” Adrien’s footsteps were heavy as he approached, punctuating every hard beat of her heart. He halted a few feet away. “Did you kill that man I saw you with at the river?”
His gaze was pleading, and though she understood why he’d think it—fully, absolutely—hurt cleaved her chest. “You think I could?”
“No, I don’t.” Another step, and he leaned against the countertop, looming over her. So close again.Spirits, his mouth was perfect. “Which is why I’m confused.”
Raana mastered herself and that traitorous organ in her chest. There was no reason to hide the truth from him. She looked away, searching for a knife to cut her hand, an offer of blood to open the cabinet. “It wasn’t me. It was another of Nerissa’s soldiers.”
“Nerissa?”
“That’s the witch’s name.” Raana tensed, realizing she’d never told Adrien where she’d actually gone. “She’s the witch who—”
His features darkened. “I know.”
“Oh.” When the counter yielded nothing, she moved to the altar, their tribute to the Mother and Spirits. “The soldier’s name was Callan.”
