She nodded.
“As did I,” he said. An inscrutable expression flitted across his face. Then he shook himself, as if trying to knock loose the grip of a spitefully stubborn memory.
Echo wanted to ask him if he’d been allowed outside during his captivity, if he’d felt the warmth of daylight on his skin or if he’d seen the sky, but she kept her queries to herself. If there was anything Caius felt obliged to share with her, he would share it in his own time.
“How are you holding up?” she asked. General questions seemed safe.
He heaved a weary sigh before answering. “Well enough. Violet healed most of the cuts on my arms. The blade was plain steel. Unenchanted. That helped. Wounds inflicted with magic are harder to heal.”
Well enough to get through today and maybe even tomorrow. Well enough to stand on his own two feet and do what needed to be done, like a good soldier.
“So, terrible, then,” Echo said.
This time, Caius’s grin had some life. There was a ghost of his true smile in it. “Am I so transparent?”
“Only to me.”
The moment stretched between them in a thick, meaningful silence. Something in Caius began to loosen, as if the earlier stiffness Echo had noticed was working its way out of his system. He didn’t have to pretend around her. She knew too much. She and Rose.
Neither Echo nor Caius acknowledged this revelation. It didn’t need to be said. It was simply the truth, and it allowed Caius to let go of the tension he held so tightly.
“We should go back,” he said. “Before they send out a search party.”
“Mother Hen would be most displeased,” said Echo. She wanted so badly to see that smile again, to know that he was wounded but not broken.
It flashed across his face for the briefest moment before he schooled his features into something more staid. “Come,” he said, offering her his hand. His skin felt feverish to the touch, but Echo knew that was his normal temperature. “They’re updating the map and managing to work together without killing each other. It’s all very impressive, but I don’t know how long it’ll last.”
—
It lasted longer than Echo would have thought possible. Though the alliance was heavily skewed toward the Avicen, most of them had come around to having the Drakharin present. Echo thought it was hard for them to hold on to their animosities after they had watched Caius spill his blood to protect them. Dorian had carved a niche for himself when he’d been at Avalon and earned the Avicens’ grudging respect. Echo had had precious little time with Helios, but if Ivy trusted him, that was good enough for her.
With a frustrated sigh, Echo knocked her head against the wooden backrest of the chair she’d claimed at the table. Across the table’s surface lay a larger, more detailed version of the map she had carried in her backpack. Black markers had been placed on the two seals they’d managed to close, while ten red markers remained dispersed across the continents. The sheer amount of work ahead of them—coupled with the ever-present danger of travel through the in-between—was enough to make her head throb. Even if mages closed the seals with vials of Caius’s blood, there was nothing stopping Tanith from tearing open more. She didn’t seem to need Caius to do so anymore. Either she’d siphoned enough of Caius’s magic, as he suspected, or the ku?edra was strong enough to open the seals on its own. Neither possibility filled Echo with much hope. Closing the seals was a losing battle, but at the moment, options were less than abundant.
Sage had led the meeting, with Violet and Caius taking point. They’d discussed additional guards for the mended seals and the unbroken ones Tanith either hadn’t discovered or simply hadn’t gotten around to breaking yet. Ivy brought news of more Avicen refugees filling the halls of Avalon Castle. Word of its wards had spread far and wide, and anyone with a shred of sense knew there was a clash brewing, a game-ending battle between the firebird and the ku?edra. Everyone wanted to be behind those wards when it happened. Dorian updated the group on the progress of his agents working to undermine Tanith’s power base at Wyvern’s Keep and the likelihood of Drakharin reinforcements. Barring some kind of miracle, they were unlikely to arrive anytime soon. Echo had drifted in and out of consciousness, lulled into a half-dozing state by listening to plans she couldn’t help but find tedious.
The black mark on her chest itched. She rubbed at it through her sweater, but that only made it worse. Ivy shot her a curious look across the table. “Mosquito bite,” Echo whispered. A small white lie to mask a big black scar.
“That about covers it,” Sage said, resting her hands on the table. Even she was beginning to show signs of exhaustion. Violet rubbed soothing circles into her back. “We set out for the next seal tomorrow. Our scouts will report back with any unusual activity near their assigned seals, but if we’re lucky, Tanith will take a night off. Gods know we could use one. There’s dinner near the fire at the center of camp. Eat well and rest up. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
One by one, they left, until only Echo, Ivy, and Caius remained. “You coming?” Ivy asked.
“I’ll catch up,” Echo said. “I need a minute.”
Ivy shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll save you some food. Those Warhawks eat like wild dogs.” She left without a second glance.
Caius lingered. “Is everything all right?”
Echo smiled, hoping her expression didn’t betray her. The black mark felt hot. She had snuck a peek down the front of her sweater after leaving the second seal. Either she was hallucinating or the mark had grown larger. She needed to double-check. Not that there was anything she could do about it. Still, their lives were hard enough without this hanging over their heads.
“I’m fine,” Echo insisted. Another lie. Soon she’d be buried under a mountain of them. “Go eat. You need it.”
Caius nodded, not like he was convinced but like he was giving in. “Find me later,” he said.
“I will,” Echo replied. “I promise.”
As soon as he was gone, Echo claimed one of the lanterns holding down a corner of the map and found a room with a half-broken mirror mounted over a rusted metal sink. There was no lock on the door, so she shoved a chair under the knob.
She stripped to the waist and stood before the mirror. Black veins branched away from the mark over her heart, snaking around her rib cage and reaching nearly to her stomach. If they spread a few inches upward, they would reach her clavicle and be visible above the neckline of her sweater.
“Shit,” she said, tracing the thin black lines with an unsteady hand.
The mark had nearly doubled in size since it first appeared, after she fought Tanith at Avalon. The growth hadn’t been immediate. Only in the past few days, since the first seal, in the rain forest, had it changed.
Tell someone, came Rose’s voice.