He halted, hood shifting backward just enough so that I could see his tightly clenched jaw and vexed eyes.
“Is this what we’ve come to? Tailing me, but also avoiding me?” I asked, leaning back to check again that the library was vacant. “I saw you in the plaza.”
“Your performance was beautiful, little fox.” The sound of his voice made my body respond with a deep, sorrowful twang. I missed his voice, his smell. I’d been mourning him this past day without knowing it, and now I felt it all rushing into me.
I folded my arms, trying to hide my trembling hands. “And why are you here now?”
“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“I’m safest when I’m with you.” I peered up into his shadowed face, feeling his eyes pierce into me. “Would it really be that bad? To be with me?” I repeated the words he had asked me so many days ago in that tent.
“No, little fox.” He reached out and swept a thumb across my cheek. “It wouldn’t be bad at all.”
I covered his hand with my own, holding his palm to my cheek as I fixed him with my gaze. “Talk to me.”
His eyes guttered and his hand pulled away. I let it drop, knowing that I had just touched upon some festering poison within him.
The library door swung open and two humans walked in, shoulders raised against the torrent of snow that followed them in the door. Grae pulled the rim of his hood higher, concealing his face again.
“Talk to me,” I pleaded, searching for his eyes in the shadows of his hood.
“Not here.” He turned his hood toward the direction of the humans perusing the shelves. His warm hand reached out and threaded his fingers through mine. That gesture meant more to me than he would ever know. I knew he was battling with himself not to pull away from me.
“Come,” he said. “I have a place in mind.”
Twenty-Seven
“Tell me you said no.”
“I couldn’t!” I lifted my shoulders. “What was I supposed to say? Tell the Queen I won’t perform for her?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you should have said,” Grae growled.
I snorted, stomping harder through the deep snow. “That’s rich coming from one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas.”
I squinted against the gale, keeping my head down as we trudged toward the pine forest at the eastern edge of Taigoska.
“You are also one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas,” he muttered.
“No. I should be, but I’m without a kingdom or a pack, remember? That secretary thought I was a human. To him I was a nobody, and I couldn’t say no.” We broke into the tree line and I sighed with relief. My cheeks tingled with the wind’s absence, my nose numb. “Besides, it’s a masquerade. No one will see my face anyway, and we were planning on going to steal the nitehock—”
“The plan was to stay hidden amongst the human servants,” Grae said. “Not parade in front of the entire pack of Ice Wolves. You’d be walking straight into the belly of the beast, Calla.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing going after Maez?” He didn’t reply, so I moved on. “You don’t have to come with me,” I insisted. “In fact, you and the others should stay back in the wagon. I’ll perform, get the nitehock, and get out. The fewer of us in the palace, the better.”
“No. We’re coming.”
“Esh, you are so stubborn,” I said, exasperated as I realized I’d used the humans’ curse word. “One minute you won’t even speak to me. Now you refuse to let me go alone.”
“You were never alone. You always had the protection of Sadie and Hector. Or I was close enough to scent you,” Grae said.
“That’s not creepy at all,” I grumbled, stepping into the foot holes Grae’s boots left in the snow.
“It’s not just about you, little fox. None of us should be alone right now. Not with the Silver Wolves searching for us.”
“Okay, fine then, you’ll come to the masquerade. You’ll stay behind the scenes.” I ducked under a heavy pine bough laden with snow. “I’ll perform and distract everyone with my glorious performance”—Grae chuckled—“and you’ll raid the royal apothecary, and then we’ll go.”
“That easy, huh?”
“Believe me, I don’t want to perform,” I muttered. “And the idea of stealing from the Queen makes my stomach hurt. But we need the poison and it’s a good ruse, better than any we’d come up with up to this point. And you should’ve seen Ora’s face.”
“I don’t care about their face.”
“I do,” I said. “They’ve been so good to us, and I don’t want to disappoint them. I’ll probably not be able to get a single note out.”
“I doubt that,” Grae said, his voice considerably softer as he ambled toward a deep bank of snow. With his sleeve, he swept the snow away, revealing a fallen tree trunk. He perched himself upon it and I joined him. Grae’s nose and cheeks were rosy from the chill, his breath coming out in a swirl of steam, but his eyes were filled with fire as he smiled at me. “Your voice is the most moving sound I’ve ever heard, by the way.”
“You’re just saying that,” I said.
“Not at all, little fox.” His cheeks dimpled. “I only say it because it’s true. It felt like you were singing straight to my soul.”
I tucked a curl behind my frostbitten ear. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” Grae said. “I’m just glad you heard it.”
I looked up to the pale blue sky peeking between the thick, dark clouds. “Is this another one of your special places?”
“No,” Grae murmured, staring up at the heavy pine boughs. “I just knew there wouldn’t be many humans all the way out here. There are still ebarvens in these woods.” His eyes turned toward me and I could see it all—the fear, the pain.
“What will happen now?” I whispered. “Do you think your father will truly disown you?”
The muscle in Grae’s cheek flickered as he bobbed his head. “He’ll say it was for the good of the pack, or that he’s trying to protect them.” He brushed his hair off his forehead, leaning forward onto his knees. “It’s amazing the lies we tell ourselves to justify the actions of others.”
I could think of so many lies I told myself, about me, about the pack. “What lies do you tell yourself?”
“That I deserved the way my father treated me.” Grae hung his head and let out a long breath. “That I could’ve saved my mother.”
Pangs of sorrow carved into me. Grae kept his eyes fixed on the snow. I placed my hand on his back, needing him to feel anchored to me in that moment. I’m here, that hand told him, better than my words ever could.
“What happened to her?” I couldn’t hide the shake in my voice.
“I wasn’t the easiest pup to control. I was stubborn and impulsive, like all good princes should be. But I was going to get a crown for marrying Briar, and that gave me power. So the king used my mother to keep me in line.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “How?”
His eyes remained fixed on his hands. “I think you know how.”