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My heart aches as Amity flips through the pages, underlining and circling sections with her quill.
She searches for a cure, and I don’t quite have the heart to tell her there is none.
That’s the thing about the Rip.
There’s no flax here. At least, no flax that hasn’t already been harvested. Amity reminds me that this means there’s someone out there selling the flax, and that we need only locate those merchants to find the cure for my illness, but even if that’s true, I know better than to think I’ll make it that long.
My body is failing me.
It’s a strange sensation, given I’ve always been so adamant about training it, bending my muscles into submission, disciplining my body rigorously to endure whatever is thrown my way.
But my strength is wilting. I managed to hold my bow while Ellie was in labor, but I was running off the thrill and necessity of the moment. Now I feel the consequences seeping exhaustion into my very bones.
I’m never quite rid of the urge to cough, which has only worsened since that mere pounced on me, crushing at least one, if not multiple, ribs.
I wish Piper were here. It’s ripping my soul to shreds that I’m spending the last of my days without her. It’s not that I want her to see me like this. The idea of her watching me wither away makes me sick. But I miss her laugh, her morbid sense of humor. If she were here, she’d poke me in the shoulder and make some comment about how she likes seeing my vulnerable side.
I can’t stand the thought that one of these days, someone, Lydia probably, is going to bring her the news that I’m gone.
I can’t stand that I won’t be there to hold her in that moment.
I find myself dwelling on this thought often, mostly because my mind can’t handle the alternative. That once Abra is done with her, there will be no one left to bring news of my death to. That Amity will find herself an orphan, parentless, and not for the first time.
It’s that thought that keeps me fixated on the image of Piper mourning my death.
Because then at least she’s alive.
At least she and Amity will have each other.
The Thornwall baby stirs, struggling against Amity’s expert swaddle.
It hurts me to look at her sometimes, that baby.
I’m abundantly happy for Evander and Ellie, grateful to the Fates for that little bundle of hope they’ve granted us amid so much turmoil.
But when I look at the infant, I don’t see her. I see the child that won’t get to exist, the one I’ve been dreaming of since that night in Evaen when I couldn’t stop searching for Piper in a crowd of dancers. Swaddled in terrycloth is the little sister Amity will never get to hold, even though Amity should get to be a sister. She’d be the best, most attentive older sister in the world.
Amity would be much better at having a little sister than I had been.
My mind flits to Cheyenne, the sister I forgot, the child who’s grown into a woman who doesn’t want or need my protection.
I have plenty of regrets about dying, and many of them belong to the fact that Cheyenne and I, while on civil terms, never restored our relationship fully.
I wonder if she’ll regret her grudge against me when she learns that I’m dead. It’s not that I want that for her. It just seems like another way that I’ve failed her.
Acute pain jolts through my chest, sharp enough that the world around me threatens to spin. I breathe in deeply to steady myself. That strategy worked much better before that mere crushed my ribs.
Amity’s gaze jolts to attention, but I offer her a placating smile.
I’m fine, I mouth, which is a lie. The only lie I’ve ever felt comfortable telling her.
Well, after she learned I was a mercenary sent to capture Piper, and I vowed never to lie to the child again.
She frowns, the line between her bushy brows deepening, but then the baby starts to whine, stirring Evander and Ellie from the way they’re sleeping, holding each other.
They both wipe the exhaustion from their eyes, and while Ellie sits up and props herself against our baggage, Evander rises to retrieve the child from Amity.
She hands the girl over eagerly, shaking her arm out rather conspicuously.
