“You didn’t think to mention you were in the crypt that night?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
He was lying. His blood somersaulted through his veins.
“Why are you lying to me?”
Fear poured off him in a cold draft, but it was mingled with something else. Mia felt a buckling in her sternum, as if her lungs were folding in on themselves, and then a tremendous heaviness. The weight was so crushing she staggered forward, her chest a block of iron and ice. She knew intuitively what it was. Shame.
“What are you ashamed of, Quin?”
He stared at her intently. His lips were parted, his eyes wide, and for a moment she thought she could see the color of his shame: red, then gray, like a cauterized wound. He let out a long, low breath.
“That was the worst night of my life,” he said.
Mine too, she thought. Mine too.
For three years she had refused to let it in, but memories were like water: they trickled under doors, seeped through cracks and holes, and pooled into pockets you never knew you had. They churned and grew stronger, strong enough to slam into you, to break the dam of everything you thought you knew.
The memory came in a flood, spilling out of her like a torrent.
The day her mother died.
Chapter 49
Deserve It
MIA WAS FOURTEEN, STUBBORN and precocious. She knew she was smart, obnoxiously so; she used her intellect to strike down anyone who didn’t agree with her particular point of view. She felt big by making others feel small.
“An ogre,” Angie called her, with affection. “A very brilliant ogre.”
Mia prided herself on being an excellent student. There was good and there was evil, and the lines were clearly drawn. For her, the world was a clementine sliced neatly in two: one half sweet, the other half rotten.
Her mother thought the world was a dappled sparrow’s egg in lovely hues of gray.
The day it happened, Wynna was packing a basket of provisions for a woman in a nearby village who had fallen ill. She had just lost her daughter; the girl had been delivered to King Ronan by one of his spies. The woman herself was rumored to be a Gwyrach, so the Hunters set up watch outside her house, scrutinizing her every move. “The poor dear,” Wynna said. “They’ve taken everything from her. Even her grief.”
Griffin and Angelyne had gone to the market, so Mia sat alone at the kitchen table, sketching the cranial nerves of a brain, while Wynna discarded her lambskin gloves. She rolled up her sleeves and set to work packing the basket with stone fruits, a loaf of bread, slabs of fresh butter, sweet brown mustard, a flask of blackthorn wine, and fried salted skalt wrapped in crisp brown paper.
Mia was fuming. Domeniq’s father had been murdered only days before. All the mountain villages and river towns were on edge; the Gwyrach who had killed him roamed free, her rampage of death and destruction unchecked. Tensions were high in Ilwysion—including in the Roses’ cottage.
“I don’t understand why you’re going to see this woman,” Mia said to her mother. “She might be a Gwyrach.”
“And what if she is?”
“She’ll kill you without a second thought!”
“Or perhaps she won’t. Perhaps she’ll help me.”
“That isn’t the way magic works.”
“And what do you know about the way magic works?”
“I know my best friend lost his father to a Gwyrach,” Mia spat, “and that this woman might be the one who killed him. And you want to reward her with bread and wine?”
“It’s not so simple. The world is far more nuanced than you think. There will always be a place for compassion and for love. Sometimes love is the stronger choice.”
“How can you talk of love when they thrive on hate? The Gwyrach hurt and kill people. You talk about them as if they’re human, Mother. I hate them for what they did to Dom.”
“Hatred will only lead you astray. I’ve watched it change your father.”
“Father has far more sense than you do. You would hand out loaves of bread and invite the Gwyrach to murder us in our sleep!”
“Mia, please.” Her mother grabbed her hands. “You are so very talented. So smart, so gifted. But you must promise me this. You must learn to quiet your mind so you can listen to your heart. This is the most important thing. Whatever you’re feeling—fear, anger, love—let yourself feel it. And then use those feelings for good. Use them to know and heal others; to ease their suffering, not cause them more. You must not let your feelings become warped by hate.”
Her mother brushed a stray curl off Mia’s cheek.
“You’re just like me. I fought it, too. For years I fought my feelings. They are frightening, treacherous things. But they are the only things. In the end, love is all that matters. Fidacteu zeu biqhotz limarya eu naj. Trust your heart, even if it kills you.”
Her hands were as sickly soft as the rest of her. Mia grabbed her by the wrists.
“I’m not like you. You say listening to the heart makes you strong, but I think it’s made you weak. Father keeps us safe by hunting Gwyrach, while you rush care baskets to them, feeding them like ducks. They’re not ducks, Mother. They’re demons. If a demon killed Dom’s father, what makes you think a demon won’t kill you?”
She saw the hurt in her mother’s hazel eyes, but she plunged ahead, fueled by righteousness and rage. “Maybe it’s only your heart that will kill you. And maybe you deserve it.”
Mia stormed out of the house, the door slamming behind her.
She didn’t look back.
Mia walked the forest on a bed of spruce and pine needles, waiting for her hands to stop shaking. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so angry, and never at her mother. But this was different. After his father’s death, Dom went numb, the twins cried for hours on end, and Lauriel walked the cottage like a ghost. The du Zols were decimated by their loss. And now Wynna was bringing treats to a woman who might be the Gwyrach who killed him? Mia couldn’t forgive her for it. There was a place and time for gentleness, but it was neither here nor now.
She came to a small clearing where she heard a strange sound. A songbird was fluttering and thrashing on the ground, its wing broken. It warbled a long, melancholy note, eyes darting in their sockets. The little wren knew it was going to die.
Before she could attempt to rescue it, the bird twitched and went still.
Mia observed a moment of respectful silence, then drew a knife from her pocket. She sliced the bird’s breast open, poking at its bones and tendons, marveling at the fragile anatomy that made it fly. She carried the wren to her secret cave, where she stored all the exotic treasures her father brought home from his adventures; she dipped the songbird’s wings into a pot of chinchilla dust from Fojo, fluffing the feathers until they were glossy. She buffed two tiny pieces of Pembuka black schorl for the eyes. Then she stuffed the body with dry kindling and sewed the torn skin back together with needle and twine.
Though her thumbs were stippled with pinpricks by the time she was done, it was worth it. She threaded a filament of bronze through the songbird’s feet and wrapped the wire around a forked twig. The wren looked like it might burst into song at any minute. She’d brought it back to life.
By the time she finished, night had slunk into the forest. Mia felt calmer now, penitent. Angelyne was right; she’d acted like an ogre. Even if her mother was misguided, she was only trying to be kind. Mia resolved to apologize as soon as she got home.
But something was wrong. She sensed it the minute she saw the cottage: the light inside was strange, the shadows long and ghoulish.
Then she heard her sister scream.