Deescalating tension was never my strong suit.
I pulled Lidi with me as we swerved around Julvi and started home.
“You’re walking so fast.” Lidi sounded breathless, and I realized she was half running to keep up with me. “Are you mad at me?”
“Gods, no,” I said, feeling a rush of guilt that she’d seen my rage and interpreted it as anger toward her. I should be more controlled. “I’m sorry, Lidi. I’m not mad.”
I swept her up into my arms. At seven, she was awkward to carry; her bare feet swung against my legs when I settled her onto my hip and sometimes dug into the bruises that perpetually marred my pale legs from farm work. But I could carry her for a little longer, and when she slipped her arms around my neck and put her tear-streaked head down on my shoulder like I was her home, warmth spread through my chest. I’d carry her as long as I could.
I breathed in the sweet flowers in her hair and her clean, soapy scent. “You know, you still look like a Fae princess.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No, not really.” The memory of the Fae who had hollowed out my magic was distant, dreamlike. She had indeed been beautiful, though, leaning over me with disinterest as I screamed. She’d been so tall, her bones sharp, her pink hair bright and woven with jewels. She had looked like a dream.
“But I know you’re prettier than any Fae princess. Or even the queen herself,” I promised her.
The Fae claimed mortals weren’t supposed to have magic, not even the flimsy shadow of it most of us possessed when we were small. Maybe beyond our village, there were mortals who managed to keep their magic.
“I shouldn’t have had my hair all fancy,” she sighed into my shoulder. “Will you braid my hair for me for school tomorrow? Just like everyone else’s?”
My heart felt heavy. “Sure. And then I’ll walk you to school.”
“Don’t make trouble, Cara,” she murmured, and now she sounded like our mother. She was repeating her words.
But she popped her thumb into her mouth.
“Better not let Mam see you do that. She’ll put bitterroot on your thumb like when you were little.”
Lidi only sucked her thumb now when she was desperate to soothe herself. I wished I had a way of soothing myself that worked so well. I was more of the slamming-doors-and-cursing-things school of self-regulation. It was not very effective.
“You won’t tell,” she said confidently, around her thumb. She was right.
The lights were bright in our little cottage, shining out as dusk fell over the garden. Our cow and goats were still out in the pen, so I’d have to bring them in. Tay must be worse today, and I felt an ache of loss for something that hadn’t happened yet. Something I wouldn’t allow to happen.
Carrot, our orange-spotted cow, mooed at us as we passed. The scent of rosemary and thyme rose to greet us as I carried Lidi down the path toward our front door.
I set her down in the entryway. “Tay? Are you…well?”
He turned over in the bed by the fire. The patchwork quilts had flooded onto the floor, so he must have had a rough day. He wouldn’t have left the blankets I’d sewn him on the floor otherwise. “Cara. My favorite older sister.”
“Your only older sister,” I said, bending to pick up the quilts and fold them. “Which makesfavoritenot much of a qualification.”
His tunic was soaked with sweat, but he was shivering. I could smell the odor from his fever when I was this close, the way he’d been sweating and shivering in turns all day long. The flash of feeling I felt breathing the stale, sweaty smell shifted almost instantly into disgust at myself.
He might’ve sent Lidi to me so that he could have peace as he writhed in pain.
“Where’s Mother?” I asked, trying to keep the edge from my voice.
“Working, Cara,” he said, giving me that look, the same one Lidi had. He thought I put too much pressure on our mother. He thought I put too much pressure on myself. But someone had to hold our family together.
I sighed. “I’ll start supper.”
The kitchen windows were open to the garden, and tendrils of greenery spread through the window and clung over the sink and stove. I pulled herbs to cook our dinner with. There was a basket of mushrooms on the side table. “Lidi, are you sure about these mushrooms?”
“She’s a good forager,” Tay said.“I’msure.”
I wouldn’t have trusted Tay and myself not to poison ourselves at her age, but she did have a sixth sense for what was safe. It was part of her magic.
