Fern sniffles, her body still trembling, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain anymore.
Yvan takes his hands slowly off her leg. The blood on his hands, on Fern’s leg and her clothing looks like splashes of ink in the darkness. Incredibly, Fern pulls her leg in and holds out her hands to her grandmother. I sit back and stare at her, unable to believe my eyes.
How can it be? The bone—it was sticking clear through her leg!
Yvan steps back as Fernyllia takes Fern into her arms and hugs her tightly.
“My precious girl,” Fernyllia says as she kisses her granddaughter’s head. “What happened?”
“I fell out of the tree,” Fern sobs, “and Yvan fixed my leg. But it hurt.”
“It was just a scrape,” Yvan tells Fernyllia.
What?
Did we just witness the same scene? I saw the odd angle of her leg, the bone sticking through it. And her blood is everywhere. Proof that I’m not mistaken.
Yvan takes in my wildly incredulous stare and looks back at me, his face harsh, as if willing me to remain silent. I glance pointedly at his hands, at the bloodstains all over his lap. I know that there are healers who can fix such extreme breaks over a span of a few months, but I’ve never heard of anything like this.
“Thank you, Yvan,” Fernyllia says with deep gratitude. She turns to me. “And thank you, Mage Gardner.”
“Elloren helped me,” Fern tells her grandmother, her head flat against her chest, clearly exhausted by her ordeal.
Fernyllia kisses the top of the child’s head before looking at me meaningfully. “Perhaps Elloren and Yvan would like some tea and apple pie,” she says in that singsong voice people use with children, and her use of my first name stuns me. Fernyllia gently bops her granddaughter’s nose with her fingertip. “And I’ll make some hot maple cream for you, little one. Would that make you feel better?”
Fern’s head bobs up and down weakly. Fernyllia stands up, her granddaughter cradled in her stout arms.
“Go ahead,” Yvan says kindly. “We’ll be right in.”
A quizzical look flashes over Fernyllia’s features before she nods and leaves us.
“How did you do that?” I demand in a low, urgent whisper as soon as Fernyllia is out of earshot. “That’s healing magic. And Kelts don’t have magic.”
He won’t meet my gaze. “I don’t know what you mean, Elloren. Her leg was dislocated. I simply popped it back into position.”
“That leg was broken. In half. I saw the bone, Yvan. With my own two eyes. And you’re covered in blood. That was no scrape!”
His eyes meet mine, the angry intensity back in full force.
“And the dragon. You can talk to her, can’t you?” I press on. “Just like Wynter and Ariel can. With your mind. How can you do that, Yvan? And when you went after Damion to help Olilly...you were so fast...you were like a blur. I thought I was imagining things, but I can’t be imagining all of this. What are you hiding from us?”
“Nothing,” he says, evading my eyes, his jaw tensing. “You are imagining things.” He visibly struggles with his thoughts for a moment before setting his eyes back on me, his gaze now searing. He leans in, his tone sharp. “You need to stop.”
I am undeterred. “I won’t stop,” I insist, leaning in, as well. “I won’t stop until you tell me what’s going on.” My brow tenses, concern for him breaking through. “Tell me, Yvan. You can trust me.”
There’s a flash of tortured conflict in his eyes, and his lips part as if he’s about to level with me. There’s a chasm of sadness there, and my heart wrenches as I sense it.
But then his mouth clamps shut and the conflicted look is gone, only a hard anger remaining.
“I need to go,” he tells me icily. “I have work to do.”
“Yvan,” I plead. “Wait...”
But I can only watch him, deeply discouraged, as he turns and stalks away from me into the night.
*
Wildly unsettled, I go to the kitchen, where I find Fern sitting next to her grandmother and sipping at a mug of maple cream.
Fernyllia has just finished cleaning up the child’s wound, the leg straight and strong and marked only with a small, red bruise.
Fernyllia looks up as I enter. “Where’s young Yvan?” she asks.
I take a deep breath. “He had to go. He...has a lot of studying to catch up on.”
“Such a hard worker, that one.” She clucks and shakes her head as she places her warm shawl cozily around little Fern’s shoulders. The child sets down her mug and reaches for her grandmother, Fernyllia chuckling. “Up with you,” she prods the child, who briefly rises so her grandmother can sit and then pull the child into her broad lap.
Settling in, Fern reaches for the maple cream and sips at it, her eyes shyly meeting mine.
“I misjudged you, Elloren Gardner,” Fernyllia says quietly as she strokes her granddaughter’s hair.
“I initially misjudged you, as well,” I admit.
Fernyllia’s eyes flick to the white band that encircles my arm. “You don’t really stand with Vogel, do you, love?”
I shoot her a level stare and shake my head.
She gives me a shrewd look of appraisal, her mouth tilting up into a grin. “I thought not.” Satisfied, she goes back to rocking and murmuring to the child.
I watch as Fern grows increasingly sleepy, until, at last, Fernyllia gently takes the mug of warm cream out of her granddaughter’s hands and lets the child fall asleep on her lap.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m sorry I was so ignorant...and wrong, when I first came here.”
Fernyllia looks at me appraisingly and then glances down at the child. “Apology accepted,” she replies with a smile. “Have some tea, Elloren Gardner.” She motions toward the teapot and mugs before her, minty steam wafting from the pot’s spout.
I pour myself some tea and drink it with Fernyllia as she rocks her granddaughter gently back and forth, the scene full of comfort.
I’m stung by Yvan’s anger and refusal to be honest with me, but as I watch the child sleeping and grip at my mug, the steaming heat seeps into my hands and some of my tension dissipates.
Fernyllia starts to sing a soft lullaby in Uriskal, the staccato language surprisingly lulling when lifted in song.
I slump back, sip at my tea and bask in this new, heartening friendship.
As I doggedly try to puzzle out Yvan Guriel’s secret.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Fae
“He must be Fae,” Aislinn says as she flips through a leather-bound text with silver-rimmed pages.
The two of us are sitting on the floor of her room, her two Elfin lodging mates absent. We’re squandering precious study time, poring over every book on Faekin that we can get our hands on.
“It must be strange,” I observe, looking around her room, “living with two Elves.”
Her face darkens. “I suspect I won’t be for too much longer. Now that the Verpacian Council is being run by Gardnerians.”
The University Council has always required the integration of lodging rooms, Gardnerians and Elves generally placed together since our countries are allied, our ways similarly reserved. But it’s only a matter of time until this widely disliked policy is dismantled by the Verpacian Council, with its new Gardnerian majority.