“All right,” I whisper, tucking my hands in my lap.
“Firiel loved to explore the wilds, maybe more than Lysander and I did. She never trained as a mage, but she had greener eyes than mine. I used to tell her she’d make an excellent beast master.” Fresh tears splash down Meredy’s cheeks as she talks. “A few weeks ago, we went to visit her family’s manor in southern Lorness. She asked me to wake up early with her one morning. Said she had something special to show me.”
She pauses and sniffs, dabbing her nose with her shirtsleeve. I meet her eyes to show I’m listening, and she continues in a hoarse voice, “It was so foggy that morning, I could barely see the ground right in front of me. I told her we could go see whatever it was some other time, that it wasn’t worth either of us tripping and breaking our necks, but she insisted.”
Meredy lays a hand on her bow, her tears still falling steadily. “It was a fox’s den full of newborn kits. I only saw them for a moment, because we heard men and horses and tried to run, but Firiel . . .”
I nod, eyeing the bow in her hands as gooseflesh spreads over my arms, dreading the words to come.
“There were hunters,” Meredy says, swallowing a sob. “They must’ve seen us take off and thought we were deer. I don’t know. Firiel was standing beside me one moment, cooing at the foxes, and the next, she was on the ground with an arrow through her.” Meredy swallows hard again. “The men were really sorry, not that it mattered. I should’ve killed them on the spot, but I was too much of a coward to even do that. I watched her family prepare her for burial, dyed my hair, and then fled Lorness. I didn’t want to be the person she loved anymore. The person who failed to save her.”
“What could you possibly have done? No one is as quick as an arrow!” I wipe the tears from Meredy’s cheeks with my thumbs as fast as I can. They’re rough as bark against her dewy skin. “If there was a chance you could’ve saved her, you would have. Besides, there’s no point being angry with yourself for something you can’t change.”
“Have you forgiven yourself for what happened to Evander?” Meredy dabs her eyes on her already-damp sleeve. “Or did you just get addicted to a potion so you wouldn’t have to carry the guilt around?”
I open my mouth, but it takes a moment to find words. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure it is.” Meredy frowns at me, and her tears finally stop. “You seem to think it’s easy for me to forgive myself for not taking that arrow instead of Firiel, but you can’t forgive yourself for not letting Evander go into that ravine first?”
I gasp. “How did you know—?”
“You talked a lot in your sleep during those first few days of potion withdrawal.” Meredy scoots closer, extending a hand. “If you want me to even try to forgive myself, you have to do the same. Deal?”
I take her hand, but the simple shake turns into something more. I’m not sure who twines their fingers through the other’s first, or how much time passes before both her hands are joined with mine, only that every slight movement makes my heart jump.
“Do you ever get the feeling,” she whispers, her hands suddenly trembling in mine, “that if you make one wrong move, one stupid choice, the whole world will come crashing down around you?”
“All the time.” I shiver in a strong gust of wind, which frees a scrap of old parchment from Meredy’s cloak. I watch it flutter to the ground. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly, untangling our fingers to grab it.
I reach for it, too, so fast we almost bump heads. She catches one edge of the parchment while I grab another, stretching it into a flat sheet. If either of us pulls any harder, it’ll tear. Naturally, I tug the parchment toward me, forcing Meredy to release it.
I turn it over, blinking at an ink likeness of myself in a familiar style, and my stomach does a flip. “Valoria gave you this.”
“She did.” Meredy leans over the parchment, raising her gaze from the drawing to me. “She has a way of seeing how things are meant to fit together.”
“Must be those brown eyes of hers,” I whisper.
Without thinking, I drop the parchment and reach for Meredy.
She stiffens, then shivers as I press my palm to her cheek.
“We shouldn’t. We can’t,” she whispers, more to herself than to me, as she touches my waist with both hands. Her fingers are feather-light, as though they’ll vanish if I startle her the slightest bit. Her lips are red and inviting. She blinks a question at me, lowering the shield that always covers her face. I beckon her closer with a look.
I don’t know what’s gotten into me.
My lips burn at the betrayal of sharing breaths with her. But the small clouds of heat against my mouth make me shiver and set me on fire all at once.
As I close the remaining distance between us, pulled forward against my will by the invisible strings lashing us together, something moves at the corner of my sight. Startled to my senses, I jerk back before our lips can touch, gazing up in time to see a winged shadow crossing the moon, and whatever spell was cast here is broken.
“A messenger raven,” Meredy murmurs, low and urgent, as if she’s already putting what almost happened out of her mind. The bird’s shape becomes clearer as it descends toward the castle. “It’s frightened and in a hurry. We should—”
“Have a peek at its message. Just in case it’s from Grenwyr,” I finish, leaping to my feet. She tosses me a strange, unreadable look, and my head spins with the realization of what we almost did.
“I’m sorry, Evander,” I mutter under my breath as we start to run. Because all I can think of are his sister’s vivid green eyes, and the way she makes my blood run hot every time she opens her mouth. And when I try to remember what it was like to kiss Evander, I imagine kissing Meredy instead.
We race to the front of the castle, where the raven appears to be heading, with Meredy in the lead. I hold up my arm and let it fly to me, only wincing slightly as its claws graze my bare skin. Meredy breaks the ties around the letter strapped to the raven’s leg with her fingernail, then leans in as she unfurls the parchment.
I draw back, careful not to get too close to her again.
My blood runs cold as I recognize Simeon’s loopy scrawl. “More Dead are missing, including Her Majesty,” I read aloud. “It happened right after you left. And no one’s seen Hadrien for hours. There’s panic in the city. Don’t return to Grenwyr, dear sister. Go to the coast, or better yet, take a ship and set sail. Love, Simeon.”