Page 34

Tucked against Camille, I start to tremble.

“Good.” Alastair rubs at where I was holding him, as though to wipe away my touch. He opens the front door. “It’s settled, then.”

He strides away, not looking back. Camille and I stand side by side, watching until Alastair has been swallowed up by the night. Silence fills the air. The dark slithers in through the opened door, and I imagine the creep of hidden eyes, tracking my movements. A clawed hand reaching out for me from beneath the trees.

I close the door, turn the key in the lock. Inside the house, shadows curl up like wolves in the dimly lit corners. Night presses against the windows with a palpable weight, swathing the cottage like a shroud. Apprehension drags a cold finger down the length of my spine.

Wordlessly, I go upstairs. Camille follows, staying close at my heels. We go into my bedroom. I close the door, prop a chair beneath the handle, and double-check the window latch. It doesn’t feel much safer in here. I’m hopelessly aware of the darkness outside, the sinister creep of the shadows. I rub my arms, trying to rasp the chill from my skin.

I think of Alastair, his bloodied eye, Therion’s voice spilling from his lips. No matter how much I despise him, there’s a treacherous piece of me that wishes he were here, too, closed in the false safety of my room instead of walking back to Saltswan on his own.

“Why?” I ask Camille. “Why did you stay here, instead of going with Alastair?”

“Because you need me.” She regards me levelly, and for a moment, her serious expression is so like her brother’s—cool and pragmatic. Then her mouth tilts, and she gently squeezes my shoulder. She guides me toward the bed. I sink down.

“Thank you,” I tell her. I feel tied and tight, every piece of me lined by fear. “Thank you for staying with me.”

Camille’s hand slides to my nape, her thumb stroking reassuringly. I stretch out on top of the quilts, turn my face against the pillow. I’m still dressed in my brothers’ clothes, and when I curl onto my side, the collar of the shirt brushes my nose. I can smell the faded notes of Oberon’s aftershave. It makes me want to cry. Slowly, Camille lies down beside me. Her hand draws away from my nape. My skin there feels cold without the press of her palm. We’re both still for a moment, a careful distance between our bodies. Then, Camille touches one of the feathers on my arm, tracing over the vane to where the quill sprouts neatly from my skin.

“We’ll figure this out, I promise,” she says. She hesitates, shifting restlessly on the bed. “Lacrimosa, after the bonfire, when I kissed you it wasn’t to be cruel. Alastair didn’ttellme to do it. I just… wanted to.”

I bury my face deeper into the pillow, caught by sudden, inescapable shyness. Camille draws me close, her forehead against the back of my shoulder. I can feel the rise and fall of her chest against my spine as she breathes.

The rhythm lulls me, and I let my eyes sink closed. Pretending I am safe, here in my room with the window locked and a barricade at the door. With Camille and I tucked together like twin crescent moons.

And neither of us mentions that the true danger isn’t out there, in the dark. It’s within me.

Then

Astera was caught in a heatwave when Lark returned to Marchmain for her second year. Though it was early autumn, the summer heat dragged on, holding the city in stalemate. Everything was as still as a painting. The courtyard elms draped limp branches over dying grass; the river was flat and motionless, a dropped ribbon that bisected the city. At night, a fog of pollution rose from the factory district, where salt crystals—like the ones hewn from her family’s mine—were transformed into fuel and lamp oil.

The polluted air made for crimson sunsets, the sky streaked like blood, clouds clotted together in violent hues. Lark could smell the salt smoke on her hair and her clothes, and on her bedsheets at night as she lay sweating on top of the crumpled quilt.

It felt cruel, the way the summer lingered. The heat was a reminder of her time in Verse during year-end break, the painful memories that refused to let her go. She had held herself together in the last few weeks at home. Busied herself with her reading list. Lied to her brothers when they worried about her. She told them she was tired; she was anxious about staying ahead of her class.

It helped that Alastair and his father left the morning after Lark went to Saltswan. The house was all shuttered, the beaches and clifftops empty. That made it easier to pretend nothing was wrong. But asher brothers walked with her to the station, Oberon had gently asked, “Did you have a fight with Alastair?”

Lark quickly shook her head. “We aren’t close enough friends to really fight,” she told him. “It’s just that we have such different lives now.”

She managed to force down her tears until she was on the train. As they pulled out of the station and away from the platform where her brothers stood waving, she curled up in her seat as tight as a shell. With her knees hugged to her chest, she bowed her head and sobbed, hot tears soaking into the fabric of her stockings.

Damson met her at the city station. Lark stepped down from the carriage with her satchel and her suitcase full of books and watched as Damson emerged from the crowd. It was a surprise—they hadn’t planned to meet—and the gesture set fresh tears spilling down Lark’s cheeks. She was pulled toward her friend like a moth to a glimmering lantern.

While everyone else was hurrying to connecting trains or to the station exit, Damson stood as regal as a sculpture in her pinafore dress and polished Mary Jane shoes. Her hair fell long around her shoulders, unadorned except for a tiny ribbon pinned beside her ear. The strands gleamed like a polished coin. She said nothing, only held out her arms. Lark stumbled through the busy crowd and fell into Damson’s embrace.

Damson took out a clean handkerchief and blotted at Lark’s tearstained cheeks. She knew everything from the letters Lark had sent, written daily as she had promised. At the time it had been painful to put it all down on paper, the story of Alastair and the way he broke her heart. But now Lark was glad that it was already laid bare. She didn’t have to pretend to be brave anymore.

Damson frowned at Lark in tender sympathy. She looked as though she was about to cry, too. She rested her chin against Lark’s hair and held her close. “Boys are so dreadful.”

On the walk to Marchmain, they took a detour through the cafédistrict. The afternoon sun struck the sides of the buildings, and even the shaded space beneath the striped awnings was overwhelmingly warm. They bought fresh pastries filled with strawberry jam and topped with spoons of clotted cream, eating at the counter so quickly it had no chance to melt.

The sugar was a balm. Lark felt her sadness soften as she licked jam from her fingers. Even if the summer heat had followed her here, it helped to be far away from Verse. The span of distance between her and Alastair felt like a barricade that she could build and strengthen to guard her heart.

As night fell, she and Damson sat in the windowsill of Lark’s dorm. They wore soft cotton dresses and left their feet bare. Damson had brought in her dish of hairpins and her wooden comb. The humming song of insects flowed in through the open window as she braided Lark’s hair into a coronet.

Autumn twilight crept over the courtyard like a thief. The pollution-bright sunset was slowly fading to pastel, and the trunks of the elms were lit in pink and mauve. Lark’s scalp prickled from the press of the pins, and her neck felt bare, sleek as the curve of a swan’s throat. The barest breath of the wind stirred into the room, carrying the scent of soot and dry grass. She had never been so happy not to smell the sea.

She let her head rest against Damson’s shoulder. “You were right. I should have stayed here.”