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“Alindra,” Lady Arryn says.
Her voice is flat, betraying nothing. I’m mildly surprised she even knows my name. Aren’t all the magicians in the Kingdom of the Summer nameless and faceless? Aren’t we scarcely more than the human servants?
“She’s here to help,” Phaedron says.
Lady Arryn shivers, then seems to pull herself together. She steps back through the open door, swallowed by the warmth and light inside, and Phaedron follows. I rock forward on my frozen toes, hesitating as fear seeps through the back of my mind. Do I really want to know what brought Lady Arryn to this particular house?
But Phaedron is here, so I step forward, my feet crunching on the ice on the threshold, and enter the warmth of Phaedron’s home. He closes the door behind me. I stand still for a moment as the heat of the fire washes over my cheeks. When Phaedron pulls my cloak from my shoulders, I feel like he’s pulling the cold away with it, like I can finally breathe again.
It’s a cozy little cabin on the inside, Phaedron’s home. There’s a fire in the massive stone hearth, a neat little kitchen tucked up under the eaves, a wooden table with four mismatched chairs, and two closed doors on the far side. Bedrooms, I’m guessing; one for Phaedron, and one for the brother he’s rescuing. Brightly painted spots of color dance along the roof and the rafters, white and red and blue, so cheerful they’re almost glowing.
Okay, so maybe I need to revise my earlier assessment. I suppose one could keep livestock in here.
“How bad is it?” Phaedron asks, his voice shaking me from my thoughts.
Lady Arryn shakes her head. She’s crying again, gleaming tears cutting a path down her dark cheeks, although she hardly seems to notice.
“They—” Arryn begins, but her voice cracks. She looks down at her hands, which are twisting together against her waist. “Phaedron, they’re hurting him,” she says.
Phaedron makes a low, growling noise. His brother, I realize. Somehow, Lady Arryn knows what’s happening with Rowan.
“We’ll go to the Crystal City,” Phaedron says, in a voice as sharp as his sword. “We’ll find Lythienne. We can open the portal—”
Arryn laughs. It’s not much of a laugh, more like the sort of noise you make at a funeral, but it stops Phaedron. She wipes her eyes, then pulls a trembling breath through her lips.
“We are,” she says. “We will. I— Oh, thank the stars you’re back!”
She stumbles forward, then falls into Phaedron’s chest. My throat tightens as I watch him raise his hand and run it down her back. Is that the way it is, then? Is that how Lady Arryn ended up in Phaedron’s town, in his house? I glance bitterly at the two doors, wondering which one leads to Phaedron’s room. Or perhaps to Phaedron and Arryn’s room.
Arryn pulls away again, then wipes her hand across her entire face in a very un-ladylike way. “Stars, Phae, I’ve been such a wreck,” she says. “I just— No one else loves him like we do, you know?”
Phaedron gives her a smile so tender and lovely it makes something inside my chest wince.
“I know,” he says. He takes a deep breath, and I find myself wishing he’d take his hand off her shoulder. “Let me make some tea. Tell us everything.”
Chapter25
Phaedron
WHAT’S THE PLAN?
I’m so furious the teakettle jumps in my hand as I hold it up to the pump, sloshing water down its sides. I have to make myself stop, breathe, and count to ten, all the little tricks to keep rage at bay that I haven’t had to do in years. Because my mind is screaming at me to get the nine hells out of here, to grab my sword and all my daggers, and just go.
They’re hurting him, Arryn said. And I don’t know who or where they are, but I do know that I will burn both of these worlds to the ground if that’s what it takes to rescue my brother. I made him a promise, after all. When Charay first placed him in my arms, that tiny, blood-streaked, screaming little bundle she called my brother, I held him close to my chest and whispered that I would always protect him. From our father, from the Lands Below, from whatever monsters lay waiting for the two Undervale brothers.
Now I don’t know how I’m going to keep that promise, and it’s making me feel like my skin is going to crawl off my body. I set the kettle on the hearth and turn back to the table, where Alindra and Arryn are having some sort of conversation whose threads I haven’t bothered to follow.
“That bond is with Phaedron’s brother? I mean, Rowan?” Alindra asks. “And it’s really heart magic?”
Both women are smiling in that odd way women do when they’re talking about something only they understand, and Arryn nods. There’s something unsettling about how quickly that bond between women can form.
“It is heart magic,” Arryn says, raising a hand to her chest. “I can feel Rowan, even when he’s in another world. I should be able to direct the portal to him, if I need to.”
“If you need to?” I ask, butting right into the conversation. “Why wouldn’t you need to?”
A shadow flickers across Arryn’s face. “The wedding is tomorrow,” she says.
I stare at her, waiting for the meaning behind her words to penetrate the dense fog of panic that’s currently swamping my brain.
