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“I wanted to know if she will . . . ?” Naomi took a deep breath, stiffening her shoulders. “If she will recover?”
“I’m assuming you’re not looking for my opinion,” I said, grinding the pestle into the mound of chamomile. The slightly fruity tobacco scent increased. “Are you?”
“Not unless you have been moonlighting as a physician or midwife,” she replied dryly. “I . . . I want to know what the future holds for her.”
I exhaled softly. “You shouldn’t be asking this.”
“I know.” Naomi lowered herself to her knees on the floor beside me, the skirt of her gown pooling around her. “And I know the Baron doesn’t like it when someone asks you to do this, but I swear he will never know.”
My reluctance had little to do with Claude, even though he didn’t like it when I used my foresight— my heightened intuition— for anyone but him. He feared I’d be accused of being a conjurer dabbling in forbidden bone magic, and while Iknewthe Baron did worry about that, I alsoknewthat it wasn’t the magistrates of Archwood he was concerned about. All of them were in the Baron’s pocket, and none of them would go against a Hyhborn, even if he was only a descendant of one. What he truly feared was that another with more coin or power would steal me away.
But his command to keep my abilities hidden and my own fear of being labeled a conjurer hadn’t stopped me. I just . . . I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when Isaworfeltsomething and was foolishly compelled to speak up. It was the same in all the places Grady and I had lived in before the Midlands’ city of Archwood, which had caused me to be accused of being a conjurer and led to us fleeing in the middle of the night more times than I cared to remember to avoid the hangman’s noose. My terminal inability to mind my own business was how I met Claude.
And it was also how people in the manor and beyond had learned of me— the woman who knew things. Not many, but enough.
The reason I didn’t want Naomi to ask this had everything to do with her.
When I first came to Archwood Manor, at sixteen, Naomi had already been here for about thirteen months. The same age as Claude, she was only a few years older than me, and clever, and she was so much more worldly than I could ever hope to be that I assumed she’d want little to do with me.
That hadn’t been the case.
Naomi had become, well, my first . . . friend outside of Grady.
I would do anything for her.
But I feared I’d break her heart, and I was as terrified of losing her friendship as I was of losing the life I’d finally carved out for myself in Archwood. Because more times than not, people really didn’t want the answers they sought, and the truth of what was to come was often far more destructive than a lie.
“Please,” Naomi whispered. “I have never asked you anything like this before, and I . . .” She swallowed thickly. “I hate doing it, but I’m just so worried, Lis. I’m afraid that she will leave this realm.”
Her dark eyes began to glimmer with tears, and I couldn’t bear it. “Are you sure?”
“Of course— ”
“You say that now, but what if it’s an answer you fear? Because if it is, I won’t lie. Your worry will turn to heartache,” I reminded her.
“I know. Trust me, I do,” she swore, the rich brown curls spilling over her shoulders as she leaned toward me. “It’s why I didn’t ask when I first learned of the fever.”
I bit down on my lip, my grip on the mortar tightening.
“I won’t hold it against you,” she said softly. “Whatever the answer is, I will not blame you.”
“You promise?”
“Of course,” she swore.
“Okay,” I said, hoping she spoke the truth. Naomi wasn’t a projector, meaning she didn’t broadcast her thoughts and intentions like so many did, making them far too easy to read.
But I could get inside her mind if I wanted to and find out if she spoke the truth. All I would need to do was open my senses to her and allow that connection to snap to life.
I didn’t do that when I could help it. It was too much of an invasion. A violation. However, knowing that hadn’t stopped me from doing it when it benefited me, had it?
Shoving that little truth aside, I drew in a breath that tasted of the chamomile as I set the bowl on a small table. “Give me your hand.”
Naomi didn’t hesitate then, lifting her hand, but I did, because it was so rare for my hand to touch others’ flesh without their intentions, and sometimes even their futures, becoming known to me. The only way I could touch another lowborn was to dull my senses, usually through alcohol or some other substance, and, well, that dulled everything else too and didn’t last very long, so there really was no point.
I wrapped my hand around hers, wanting to take just a brief second to simply enjoy the feeling. Most didn’t realize there was a world of difference between being touched and touching. But this wasn’t about me. I couldn’t take that second, because the longer I held Naomi’s hand, the more likely it was that I would end up seeing things about her she might not want to know or want me to learn. No amount of humming or keeping my mind active would stop that.
Quieting my mind, I opened my senses and then closed my eyes. A second passed, and another; then a series of tingles erupted between my shoulder blades and spread up, over the back of my skull. In the darkness of my mind, I began to see the hazy form of Naomi’s face, but I shut that down.
