Page 45

Now his fingers did move, although his eyes remained closed.Did you expect me to be happy about it?

‘No.’ The conversation was slipping further from my grasp with every word I uttered. ‘No, but I hoped …’

The sentence died an unsatisfying death. But I’d hoped he’d see the necessity of it. Hoped he’d understand we couldn’t let Edored run off with the explosive news of our love, hoped that he’d see it as an amusing shared secret between the two of us rather than a sacrifice that kept him awake at night.

It’s alright, he repeated, signing it this time. But his wing didn’t unfold to nudge me closer; no ghost of a smile touched his lips.You don’t want them to know. That’s probably sensible. I can handle a few days of this.

A few days of me acting like he was nothing to me – of me pretending I agreed with every terrible opinion the world harboured against him and every terrible opinion of himself he fostered. Zera help me, I truly should have thought this through before merrily dragging himandhalf a family of alves with me on this quest.

‘I love you,’ I whispered, hunching up my shoulders. ‘Warn me if I’m ever enough of an idiot to make you doubt that, will you?’

He stiffened for the shortest sliver of a moment, then sagged back against the wall, wings slumping against the weathered wood.Em—

‘Oh, there you are,’ Beyla said behind me, the frail sound of her voice loud as a shout above the quiet of this dead, deserted continent. ‘Breakfast?’

I jerked around. She’d appeared barefoot from the open front door, dressed in a man’s shirt and leather trousers, her ash blonde hair loose and falling nearly to her waist. She was holding a generously buttered piece of braided bread; no traveller’s bags, no swords.

Somehow, she looked more at home in these uncharted lands than I’d ever seen her in the safety of the Underground.

‘Oh,’ I forced myself to say, quelling the urge to jump up and shoo her back inside. It was bad enough that she’d found the two of us cosying up on a silent porch; I couldn’t afford to make her any more suspicious. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

She threw Creon a cold look, sighed when he didn’t move, and sat down on my other side, tearing the bread in three parts with quick, slender fingers. I got the largest part. Creon got the smallest. When I looked to him to suggest swapping our portions, he’d turned away, examining the breathtaking scenery below our hill with the boredom of a spoiled prince who couldn’t wait to return to the civilised world of balls and lavish banquets.

No chance he would accept an offer of help, no matter how small, when there were others around to see.

So I swallowed my words and nibbled on my bread, hoping Beyla would leave if she’d reassured herself I was still wearing all my clothes. To my disappointment, although not to my surprise, she didn’t.

Some conversation, then. The longer I remained quiet, the more it would seem she had interrupted us in something unsavoury. So I steeled myself and muttered, ‘Are you happy to be travelling again?’

A pale smile slid over her face, wistful but just a tad less shallow than most of her smiles. ‘I’ll never understand why so many immortals spend their centuries in the same handful of places. With all that time on our hands …’

I pulled a face. ‘Not sure if I’m the one to answer that question. For most of my life, taking a ship to the next island was a thrilling adventure.’

‘The human life.’ Her smile froze – reminded, perhaps, that she was the one who’d doomed me to that same life, unaware of my magic when she’d left me on Valter and Editta’s doorstep. ‘Are you feeling grateful for being dragged into this mess?’

A question I’d never considered before, but the answer crystallised in my thoughts with razor-sharp clarity – Iwasgrateful, infinitely grateful, for even the flames that had burned my old life to the ground in that night that changed everything. Even here, farther from Cathra than I’d ever been, the idea that I might have spent the rest of my years surrounded by stifling whispers and impossible expectations made my skin crawl.

Going by the tone of Beyla’s voice, though, that was not the answer she expected.

I had been cruelly dragged from my safe home into the treacherous hell of the Crimson Court, after all. If not for the Alliance intervening, I would still be living at the mercy of the Silent Death and his ruthless games.

So I chuckled, or produced a sound close enough to a chuckle, and said, ‘Grateful isn’t the word I’d use, really.’

Beyla breathed a laugh, then continued to eat in silence.

I tried to follow her example, but the sweet bread tasted dry and dusty with my lie lingering on my tongue – that throwaway remark which made a joke of everything the past months had meant to me. Creon’s silhouette was a motionless fleck of darkness in the corner of my eye. I didn’t dare to glance at him again. Gods knew what Beyla would think of another moment of unintentional intimacy.

He’d understand. He’d told me it was alright. Just a few days – we could handle a few days.

But when he rose and sauntered back into the house a couple of minutes later, he didn’t look back at me – didn’t even meet my eyes for the briefest of cold glances.

The company in the living room had woken up when I made my way back inside. Tared was folding blankets. Edored was scarfing down the leftovers of the lentil stew. By the window, Lyn worked her way through a melon slice the size of her head, peppering Creon with questions on how to sign this word and that word and what exactly should she make of the impractical similarities between the gestures fortableandlandscape?

Over his packing work, Tared followed every twitch of Creon’s fingers with hawkish eyes, a cold determination on his face that suggested he might learn our hand language faster than anyone else for no reason but undiluted spite.

I loitered at the hearth for a few minutes, attempting to catch Creon’s gaze and find even the smallest clue that he’d understood, that he hadn't walked away from the porch in a fit of fury. But no matter how blatantly I settled myself in the leather armchairs and leaned into his conversation with Lyn, no matter how brightly Lyn smiled at me over her breakfast, he didn’t look my way even once.

For the male who always saw me, who noticed me before I could blink or open my mouth, I could only assume that was a deliberate choice.