Page 29

“As much as I’d love to stand here in the freezing rain while you descend into hysterics, I’m cold as shit, so let’s get under that overhang before you completely lose it, okay?” Ty said pedantically.

Ena jerkily nodded her head, and followed him around the pool to the overhang.

She felt instant relief as she stepped under it, the rain finally ceasing its incessant pounding onto her hood and shoulders.

She swayed again slightly as she made her way to the rock wall, and proceeded to slide down it until her ass hit the ground.

She cradled her face in her hands and tried to hold back the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm her.

“While you do… whatever it is you’re doing, I’m going to start a fire so we can dry off a bit,” she heard Ty say. But she didn’t look up. She didn’t even move.

Ena vaguely heard him puttering around, gathering sticks and breaking them, as she shivered in her corner.

Her mind had ceased working for the most part, too overwhelmed by the cold and the new information to function properly.

By the time she dragged her head out of her hands, she saw that he’d arranged a nice pile of small and medium-sized sticks with some dry leaves from just inside the cave.

He proceeded to strike his knife on a piece of flint he pulled from his pocket, and the sight of it got Ena’s brain slowly functioning again.

“S-stop with that. Let me,” she said, her teeth still chattering incessantly. She still didn’t quite know what the fuck was going on, but she knew she needed to get warm.

She approached Ty’s pile of sticks and leaves and spoke her spellword.

{ Ignis }

The leaves caught fire instantly, but it took longer for the soaked-through branches to catch.

Ena had to start the fire again with more dry leaves from the cave entrance before they held any sort of flame, and then Ty fed the fire slowly, grabbing progressively larger pieces of wood until a nice, consistent blaze burned before them.

Ena was enraptured with it and didn’t move a muscle as she held her hands as close as she could possibly get to it without burning them. The numbness slowly left them, but was quickly replaced with a painful, stinging sensation.

She finally looked up at the sound of movement to see Ty taking off his shirt and coat.

She couldn’t help but notice that his arms and shoulders were covered in more tattoos, like the ones that were on his head, and they rippled as he proceeded to wring as much water out of his clothes as possible before laying them down on the ground next to the fire. Next, he moved to take off his pants.

Ena averted her eyes. On top of everything else that was making her hyperventilate, the last thing she needed was a glimpse of his perfectly chiseled ass.

By the time she looked up again, he’d put on a spare shirt from his leather saddlebag. The shirt was long and ended at his mid-thigh, making him semi-decent again.

He walked over to her, holding out another spare shirt. “You can have this if you want to get out of your wet clothes.”

She looked up at him. His face was hard and businesslike, with no hint of kindness or concern. Although she hated the idea of taking favors from him, she took the shirt anyway, knowing it was best for her.

He turned his back to her as she removed her shoes and cloak, putting them as close as she dared to the fire.

Then she removed her soaked socks and, thank Gaia, her sodden black party dress.

Lastly, she pulled her shift over her head and, before the chill could take her, she shrugged into the spare shirt.

It was big and soft, albeit slightly damp from being in Ty’s soaked leather saddlebag, but significantly drier than the clothes she’d been wearing.

Her shorter limbs swam in the excess fabric, so she rolled up the sleeves.

But it smelled like Ty, and she didn’t like that.

As the fire warmed the small indent of their cave, she wrung out her hair and began to feel slightly more human.

She could feel and move her fingers and toes again, but they stung and throbbed painfully.

She knew from her experiences healing others that frostbite like this would pass in time, and as long as blisters didn’t develop on her fingers or toes, she likely wouldn’t lose any.

Questions began whirling in her mind once more, and she knew she needed to breach the silence with Ty to get some answers, but the first one that came out surprised her.

“Where are Turner and Steig?”

Ty looked at her from where he sat across the fire. He seemed surprised too. “They went ahead to the coast. We lost one of the horses to the wolves, so they took the remaining two while I tracked you on foot. We’ll rendezvous with them in Attax before continuing to the Occidens Coven.”

Ena felt a smidge of guilt that her actions had, indeed, cost one of the horses its life, but it was instantly swamped by a flood of helplessness.

Attax was the closest major village to the Occidens Coven. She was instantly reminded of everything they had planned for her, everything she would be forced to take part in.

“So that’s it then,” Ena said, her voice filled with resignation.

“I’m stuck with you again.” Tears began to fill Ena’s eyes and she looked away from him.

She felt so angry she could scream—angry at Ty and the daemons, yes, but also angry at herself.

She had failed in her escape, and now, everything she’d gone through was for naught.

Ty watched her for a beat, and when he spoke, his voice was gentler than it had been. “I told you. We need your help to see this through. I promise I’ll let you go once we have the amulet.”

Hearing him use that word “ promise ,” the last word he’d said to her all those years ago, brought up another wave of bitter emotions. She was trying to shove those back down, but then she remembered something.

“Wait a second—you said my name.”

“What?” Ty replied, in a tone that implied that she was slightly unhinged and vaguely exhausting.

“When I fell into the water, you shouted my name.”

“So?”

“So, I never told it to you. Not to mention, how did you know I couldn’t swim and would need help when I fell in?”

Ty looked away from her and stared pointedly at the fire, poking it with a stick, his face carefully blank.

“You do remember me,” Ena said quietly, realization dawning on her. There’d been a lot of new information thrown at her in the last two hours, but this realization shocked her the most.

At first, she felt elated at having figured it out, and relieved that he did remember her—he must. But then she realized what it meant, and her blood started to boil with anger.

“What the fuck, Ty? Why did you let me believe I was a stranger to you? That you didn’t remember me?” Her voice was louder now; she could hear it getting shrill as it echoed around the quiet forest.

Ty still did not respond or even look up from the fire, and Ena lost it.

“Look at me, Ty!” she yelled.

For a second, the only sound was the rain falling outside the cave, and the pop of the fire.

Then Ty raised his eyes to hers, and the look in them could’ve killed. “Of course I remember you.”

Ena stared at him for several seconds. Rage filled his eyes, and if she had a mirror, she was certain she’d see the same emotion reflected in hers too.

“Why?” she asked, struggling to control the waver in her voice. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you let me believe you’d forgotten me?”

Ty took a deep breath and sighed, finally breaking eye contact with her to look back at the fire. “Because I’m not the person you remember. And I wish I could forget any of that ever happened.”

His words were like a knife to her heart, and all of a sudden, it was hard to breathe.

She didn’t know why she was reacting this way.

That summer had haunted her, too, and she’d tried her hardest to not think about it anymore.

Even before learning who he really was, and all the reasons they should never have been together, she’d told herself that she needed to get over it, that everything that had happened wasn’t a big deal, that she’d moved on.

But now, as she watched the harsh planes of his face in the firelight, even knowing what he was, she knew that wasn’t true. That she’d been lying to herself.

She hadn’t moved on. Not really. Not in the ways that mattered, not in her heart. And when she’d thought he’d forgotten her, that had hurt, but it had allowed her to hate him for it, and she’d latched on to that hate like a lifeline.

Now, somehow, this was worse. Knowing that he remembered everything, just as she did, and regretted it—regretted the moments that she’d replayed over and over for years before she’d forced herself to stop, it tore at something deep inside her she thought she’d shed long ago.

Dashing her hand across her cheek before he could notice the tears starting to fall, Ena fell silent. There was nothing more to be said.

They sat in silence, staring at the fire as the sun set. And even when she’d been shivering in the freezing rain, she’d never felt more alone.