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“And then we had dinner at the Dragon’s Rest. And then he left,” I snap.
Ithronel sniffs. “Not your type, huh?”
“Stars, stop it!” I say, rolling my eyes. “I don’t want you to set me up. First, because I don’t want to date anyone, and second, because no one wants to date a magician!”
Ithronel leans back, crosses her arms over her chest, and raises an eyebrow. “I think I know the problem,” she says.
“No, you don’t,” I answer.
She gives me a wicked grin. “Connak has too many arms, doesn’t he?” she asks.
I blink at her in stunned silence. “Wow,” I finally say. “That was inappropriate.”
Ithronel shrugs. “I get it,” she says. “Phaedron’s hot as hell. He’s got all the personality of a wet blanket, but damn, those eyes. You could get lost in those suckers.”
My cheeks are on fire; I press my palms against my face and close my eyes. “Stop,” I say, in a voice that sounds like I’m begging her. “Please. Stop.”
She sighs, then leans back. The chair creaks beneath her. “Have you tried sending a lett—” she begins.
“No!” I snap as I push back from my chair and come to my feet.
Ithronel jumps. Her chair returns to the floor with a bang.
“I’m not trying anything,” I say. “Phaedron’s not interested, okay? Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”
Ithronel stares at me as my heartbeat bangs a drum inside my skull and the dozens and dozens of letters I’ve written to Phaedron flash through my mind. Short, flirty letters. Long, heartfelt letters that made me sob. All of them horribly stupid.
And all of them, eventually, went into the fire.
“Everyone?” Ithronel asks.
“Rowan and Arryn,” I admit. “They keep saying he misses me. But I don’t know what they want me to do. Phaedron told me I couldn’t go into the Lands Below, and he’s not coming out.”
“And you would know,” Ithronel says. “Because you’re right here. Watching the only exit from the Lands Below.”
I groan, then sink onto the side of my bed. “You make me sound like a crazy person,” I mutter.
Ithronel shifts in her chair before standing up to throw another piece of wood into my stove. I know what she’s going to say. We’ve been having this same argument for weeks now.
“I like it here,” I say, waving my hand at the canvas walls. “I like having my own place, being able to decide where I go and what I do.”
Ithronel crosses her arms over her chest and fixes me with a look. She’s not saying anything, but she’s saying everything. In a year and a half, stars willing, I’ll be a mother. And this would be a terrible place to have a baby.
“I know,” I mumble, crumpling in the face of her silent argument. My shoulders curl forward, as if the gaping hole in my chest is tugging the rest of me inward. “I’m just— I’m not ready to leave. Not quite yet.”
Ithronel makes a sound in her mouth that’s something like an exhale and something like an explosion, and then she settles uncomfortably back into the chair. She crosses her arms over her chest. Uncrosses them. Crosses them again.
“Look,” she finally says. “After the envoy from the Kingdom of the Summer clears out of here, Aloserin and I are going to the Kingdom of Stone and Sea.”
My neck stiffens, and I stare at her. This is a surprise.
“For the winter,” Ithronel continues. “Aloserin will be a visiting representative from the Kingdom of the Fall, and with the new agreement between the kingdoms, it’s safe for us to travel right now.”
I glance down at the rough, pitted floorboards beneath my feet. She’s right. We’re safer than we’ve ever been, the two of us. Malron pursued me to the Crystal City, but I’m legally a citizen of the Kingdom of the Fall now, and the Kingdom of the Fall is protected by the dragons of the Iron Mountains. King Grathgore’s a nasty, vindictive bastard, but I don’t think he’d risk abducting one runaway magician and her sister for all the gold in the Lands Below. Besides, if he did, he’d have to face a kingdom full of angry dragons, not to mention the legendary Rowan Undervale. No, Grathgore’s goons coming out of the shadows to pull me away from my new life here is even less likely than my stupid dream fantasies about kissing Phaedron.
I’m not worried about Grathgore, or anyone else from the Kingdom of the Summer. But there is something Ithronel hasn’t mentioned yet.
“The Kingdom of Stone and Sea,” I say. My words come out slowly, almost like I’m afraid to acknowledge the part she hasn’t said. “That’s where Mom is.”
