“With what?”
I don’t answer, sifting through the jars of tea stacked on a shelf above the stove. After unscrewing a lid, I sniff the contents and make a face that doesn’t quell the tumult in my chest. “Rosehip,” I say with a forced smile, turning to offer the jar toward him. “Is that what monks drink in New Prevast?”
North holds my eyes with a half smile before demonstrating his swollen hands. I flush, embarrassed. Of course. Rosehip for its anti-inflammatory properties. It’s exactly what monks would drink in New Prevast after years of praying gave them arthritis.
I cradle the jar to my chest and wish I was back outside hitting things, instead of in here, where the conversation feels too delicate—too dangerous—for someone like me. Bryn laughs, bright and sincere, and I look out the door with a strange hitch in my chest.
I didn’t know she could laugh.
“Would you like some?” North joins me by the stove, opening the samovar.
Relieved at the change in subject, I slide the jar back on the shelf, aware of how close he stands, within an elbow’s reach of me. “I don’t drink tea.”
“Political or religious opposition?”
“What?”
“Are you socially opposed to the importing of tea from foreign shores, or morally opposed to the rumors of child labor involved in the process? Because I assure you, Miss Locke, I only buy locally grown product. That’s all we have anyway.”
He’s teasing me.
“Traditionally,” I say, relaxing even more. “My sister refused to drink tea. It’s what old women with bad hats and twelve surnames drink, she said; she wanted coffee. Like soldiers drank.”
Like Thaelan did.
“But coffee cost money,” I continue. Cheap herbal tea could be grown in the hothouses of the higher stretches of the kingdom, but coffee grew more finicky and couldn’t be bought anywhere that gold didn’t flow freely. “So to compromise, we drank hot water with sugar.”
“You have a sister,” says North.
Too close, I think with a mild rise of panic. He’s getting too close and I’m getting too sloppy.
“Sangreve,” I blurt.
He blinks. “Is that her name?”
“It’s a suggestion.” I can’t look at him. “I used to work in the fields and my fingers would always be swollen by the end of the day. Sangreve helped.” Eager to escape his intoxicating closeness, I return to the table, finding my mother’s book tucked in between several of North’s. Flipping through the pages, I demonstrate the inked illustration and detailed entry on sangreve. “It grows by water,” I say.
Taking the book, North skims the entry before his eyes meet mine. “Show me,” he says.
“It’s dark,” I say. And Perrote could be out there, hidden in the shadows.
Leaning forward, he mock whispers, “I know magic, Miss Locke.”
“Magic hurts,” I say with a half laugh that’s half truth, flashing my wrist and the spell shackled around it.
But he’s already pulling on his coat, snapping out the collar. “Not always,” he says, and there’s an invitation in the way his mouth curves, a hint of what it was like those nights when Thaelan snuck out of the barracks to meet me on the rooftops. Familiar places turned new again, transformed by the thrill of stolen freedom. The nights felt crisper, the stars looked brighter, and the kisses tasted sweeter. Defying a king was less a dream and more a possibility.
North watches me, waiting for an answer, his expression cautious. Hopeful.
I miss the girl that Thaelan loved, who wasn’t afraid to take chances or make plans for her future. That girl died the night he did, replaced with the girl I am now, full of guilt and grief and only one goal: to get my sister back. It’s a risk to leave the safety of the wagon, and to trust this boy with his unsettling curiosity and unwavering kindness.
But it’s defeat to let Perrote terrify me into being an obedient Brim rat again.
Like Farodeen the First, I take a leap of faith. I tip my head toward the door in invitation, fighting the hesitant smile that crosses my face.
North smiles in reply.
Sixteen
NORTH WALKS BRISKLY, STEADY AHEAD, and I hurry to keep up even as I slow down, eager to map every labyrinth path between the trees, to touch every shelf of stone that rises from the ground like a mountain made in miniature. Everything is overgrown and green, ringed with flowers smaller than the freckles on Bryn’s shoulders. The storm-charged air is damp with smoke and something else, something that seems to radiate from North as he turns to check I’m still behind him. We don’t carry a light but I see him clearly, outlined in gray shadow.
“Everything all right?” he asks.
I shake my head. It’s dangerous, this wild, this world. Only a few days here and I can taste it melting on my tongue, seeping into my blood, threading through my veins like stolen magic. Closing my eyes, I tip my face to the hidden stars, to the smell of the Burn and the smell of the storm. Slowly, my muscles unfurl and I spread my arms, my fingers, my feet. For too long I’ve lived cramped, hunched, forced to be small in a kingdom that didn’t leave any room to breathe. Now I touch nothing but air.
Is that what my mother understood? She never stole any gold but she stole the idea of it, the luxury of what the world could be like when you were free. Dangerous, yes, but full of choices.
“Miss Locke?”
I open my eyes. North watches me, expression guarded, almost envious. He is the pious and I am the pagan. Raised by monks to be sober, sedate, North thanks the gods for their blessings whereas I was raised by the Brim. I fight and draw blood to get what I want.
A fat bead of rain hits the top of my head and I lower my arms, feeling euphoric, silly. Above all, alive. In an instant, I’m tempted to tell North everything, starting with Thaelan and ending with Perrote and the warning I found in the wagon. But then lightning casts the trees in shades of violet, throwing shadows of doubt back over me.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Which way?”
He gestures wordlessly, without pressing, but I catch him stealing glances laced with unasked questions. It’s a relief when we finally reach the river and I can direct his attention to the task at hand. Sangreve grows thick and nettled, I tell him, close to water, with serrated leaves and a fat, bristled stem. The sap will cause blisters, I add, so don’t touch it. He listens and nods and begins to dig, carefully unearthing a plant, roots and all, before setting it on the ground between us.
Before long, we have a small pile, more than enough for a jar of tea. I sit back on my heels and North wipes his cheek against his shoulder. “Good?” he asks.
When I nod, he smiles. “My turn.” Tugging his boots off, he rolls up his pant legs and slides down the riverbank in a spill of stones, splashing into the water. Fog eddies away from him, threading up the bank to creep toward me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, leaning forward to see.
He bends into the river and emerges with a handful of stones. “Resupplying,” he says.