She set aside the silver bowl, ignoring the drumbeat of urgency she felt when she touched it. As much as she wanted to use it right away, she still lacked several key ingredients required for the locator spell. Until each item was found, the bowl—despite the enchantments laced through its metal—was about as useful as a candy dish.
Ivy reached for the heavy textbooks Echo had plucked off a shelf at Enchanting Essentials. One was an anatomical text—similar to Gray’s Anatomy but with chapters devoted to Avicen and Drakharin anatomy—and the other was a compendium of spells, potions, salves, and poultices for treating wounds of the magical variety. Both had been among the Ala’s extensive library, and like everything else the Avicen had left behind, they had been lost to the mage fires that had cleansed any trace of the Avicen’s existence. The fires were a contingency plan they had hoped never to use.
“You found them,” Ivy said, her tone reverent. She traced a finger down the gilded spine of one book as if it were actually gold. “Echo…thank you.”
Echo shrugged off Ivy’s gratitude. Her heart was still too heavy to allow for any amount of graciousness. She felt Ivy’s gaze on her as she sorted the rest of the items: a few more books for the Ala, some glass vials for the bloodweed elixir, a half-crushed box of granola bars. Ivy remained silent until Echo picked up the last object: a candle in a heavy glass jar, its label sporting a cheery illustration to accompany the name of the scent.
“?‘Cookies and Cream,’?” Ivy read. She met Echo’s gaze with a knowing smile, her eyes a touch watery.
Echo nodded. She rearranged the items on the windowsill to make room for the candle. They were running out of space, but this one required a decent spot. “For Perrin.”
“I think he would’ve liked that,” Ivy said. She fished a box of matches out of the milk crate that functioned as an end table and lit the candle. Its scent was sugary and artificial, but it was enough to make a lump form in Echo’s throat.
She and Ivy stood in silence for a while, watching the candle’s meager flame flutter to and fro. The room’s perpetual draft refused to let it burn calmly. It was a peculiar vigil, and not one likely to be understood by anyone outside of that room, but that was what made it fitting.
Echo knocked her shoulder into Ivy’s. The harsh reminder of the fragility of life and the inevitability of mortality was making her maudlin. “I’m glad you’re here,” she told Ivy. She didn’t say that enough, especially considering their lives could be snuffed out any day, as easily as Perrin’s or Altair’s or those of any of the dozens of people they’d lost in the past few months.
“Are you getting sappy on me?” Ivy asked, rubbing her eyes in a valiant attempt to conceal their wateriness.
“Maybe.” Echo thrust her hands into her pockets. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being the Ron to my Harry. The Samwise to my Frodo. The Tom to my Huck.”
Ivy let out a sniffling laugh. “I get it. I love you, too.”
“The Watson to my Holmes—”
“Please stop.”
“The Horatio to my Hamlet—”
“Echo, everybody died in that play.”
“—except for Horatio. The Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote.”
“The Sancho who?”
“The Piglet to my Pooh.”
“Okay, now you’re just insulting me.”
A knock on the door interrupted them.
“Come in,” Echo called, hastily wiping moisture from her eyes. The tears hadn’t quite fallen, but they’d been close. The banter had helped. Ivy gave Echo’s shoulder a quick squeeze, her eyes similarly red-rimmed.
The door was pushed open slowly, and a head covered in tawny golden feathers appeared. Rowan peered into the room. His sweaty hair-feathers stuck up at odd angles and his cheeks were flushed. He must have run all the way up the stairs.
Ivy broke the silence first. “Hey, Rowan. Heard you took the scenic route home.”
Echo hadn’t even realized she and Rowan had been staring at each other like slack-jawed idiots. She shook herself internally and launched herself at him.
“Hey,” Rowan said, sliding through the door that never quite fully opened. The second he was inside, he had an armful of Echo.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Echo said into his neck.
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing her back. “Me too.” The hug went on for what felt like an eternity, but Echo was reluctant to let him go. He was so solid in her arms, so real and alive and safe. Only when Ivy cleared her throat did Echo step away.
Rowan took a moment to rake his gaze over the odd array of trinkets and candles and mementos placed around the room. His eyes landed on the still-burning cookies-and-cream candle. He looked at Echo, and there was no hesitation in his expression. Just empathy, raw and open. “For Perrin?”
Sometimes she forgot how well he knew her. Almost as well as Ivy did. In some ways, even better. Echo held nothing back from Ivy, but Rowan had awakened parts of her she hadn’t known existed. She answered him with a nod, not quite trusting the steadiness of her voice.
Ivy climbed over the stack of books she’d been reading and settled on the bed. With three people in the room, there was no place else to comfortably sit. Or stand. Or exist, really.
“You sure you’re okay, Rowan?” Ivy asked. “Echo said the in-between was acting wonky.” Ivy might have been Echo’s best friend, but she was Rowan’s, too. They had begun to grow apart once adolescence had dug its claws into them—Rowan and Echo’s relationship playing no small part in that—but the events of the past several months had erased the petty differences that divided them. They were family, all of them, for better or worse.
Rowan pushed aside a pile of clothes Echo hadn’t bothered to fold. Why fold clothing if you were just going to wrinkle it with wear? He perched on the bed next to Ivy and wiped at the sweat on his brow with a towel he’d draped across his shoulders.
“I’m fine,” he said, even though Echo could see he was still a bit shaken and trying to hide it. “I ran into the Ala on my way up here. There’s a meeting in the library in five.”
Ivy reached across him to pluck a bottle of water from their stash in the crate beside the bed and offered it to him. He accepted it with thanks and then downed half of it in a single gulp.
“You smell,” Ivy said helpfully.
“Like a bouquet of beautiful roses,” said Rowan.
“And sweat,” Echo added. “With a hint of old cheese.”
It was comfortable, the three of them insulting each other. It almost felt like old times.
Rowan sniffed his armpit. “I do not smell of old cheese.”
“Anyway,” Ivy said, drawing out the last syllable to signify how done she was with the topic of Rowan’s body odor. As if she hadn’t started it. “Who’s going to be at this meeting? What’s it about?”
Rowan eyed the silver bowl. “That, I’m guessing. And my jolly jaunt to the Upper West Side.”
“Okay,” Ivy said, clapping her hands once and pushing herself off the bed. “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t want to keep the Ala waiting.”