Valentine,
My magic is a mess with the loss of my hand. I don't trust anyone but you to help me with it. They won't understand my power, and it will only scare them. You don't scare so easily.
In return, I will help you integrate your dragon and magic. It's unhealthy to keep it locked up anymore, and it's only hurting you.
We are no good for Taranis and protecting Mag Argatnél in this state. I miss my friend, but you're welcome to stay angry with me if you'd like. It doesn't mean we can't work together.
Deal?
Yelena.
She contemplated signingit off as Caelan but thought it might provoke him unnecessarily. When the servants came with tea and her daily healing elixirs, she gave them the note to pass on to him.
A short time later, a letter scorched with Valentine's magic landed on her desk.
Yelena,
I have something that might help.
Order dinner for two tonight, and I'll be there.
Valentine.
Yelena liftedthe paper to her nose and breathed in the ginger citrus smell of him. She smiled, her first in days. She looked around at the state of her chambers, and the smile slid off her face. If she was going to have a visitor, she was going to have to do something about the state of it. She looked down at her rumpled clothes and realized she hadn't bathed in days, either. She had been too manic to remember to do it.
At least cleaning was something she could do without her magic backfiring on her. With a sigh, she got up and got to work.
16
Valentine polished the silver hand one more time, double-checking the dragon design he had engraved in the palm. It was the same one that was painted on her door, but it was in a different position.
"It looks a little like an ouroboros," Reeve had commented earlier that day. He had been keeping Valentine company—not his idea—and had been there when he had received Yelena's letter. He had told Reeve that he was going to see her that night, and his youngest brother's sage advice had been, "Don't fuck it up again, and don't be clueless like Apollo was, when it comes to what's right in front of you."
Valentine was going to do his best. He had spent two frustrating days making himself miserable. He had wanted to give Yelena space after their spat, but he was contemplating going to her when the letter had arrived.
Valentine carefully wrapped the silver hand and sigil designs in a length of scarlet silk that he had found while wandering the markets. Wood was scarce in the mountains, and the dark, bloody shade of scarlet had called to him.
"You can't do any more work on it without her," Valentine murmured to himself. He was strangely anxious all of a sudden. He didn't want to fight with Yelena, not about her visions or anything else. If she hated the hand, then at least he could convince himself that he had tried to make amends before going home.
After their last fight, Valentine had considered going back to England. He couldn't leave because his dragon had thrashed and raged about it. It didn't want to leave, knowing that Midir had plans to attack Taranis again.
Valentine had too many unanswered questions where Yelena was concerned, and he had never been able to walk away from a mystery.
Cradling the hand as if it were a newborn, Valentine headed to Yelena's tower. He hadn't noticed the checkpoints in the wards the last time he had raged all the way to her door. This time, he could feel the intricate web of them. They were unlike any he had created before, and he immediately wanted to ask her about them.
She mustn't have been too angry with him because the wards parted for him like gossamer curtains. He had no doubt that if she wanted to keep him out, the wards would have flayed him apart.
Valentine frowned the more he came across. He knew there were lords like Afon who didn't like her, but she wouldn't have made such wards if she felt safe from them.
Did Taranis know about them? Valentine hated the thought that she had to protect herself from assholes in her own home. It was just one more mystery in the pile of mysteries.
Valentine took a shaky breath and straightened his clothes before lifting his hand and knocking on her door. Yelena opened it, and his heart did a dangerous double-beat. Her hair had been braided into a crown, and she was wearing black pants and awrap shirt similar to his own in a silky dark purple. She wasn't wearing shoes, and her nails were painted the same purple.
Valentine hadn't realized he had been staring at her like an idiot until Yelena's lips quirked into a smile.
"You can come in, Valentine, I'm not going to bite," she teased.
"That's a shame," he replied and stepped into her chambers.
