She didn’t try to kiss me goodnight before she went to the door into the back of the cottage.
Then it was just Tay and me in the cozy glow of the firelight—a little bubble that was just the two of us.
“Do you think I’m being stubborn?” I asked Tay.
“Always,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re wrong.”
“I just want the world to be different.”
But maybe I was too stubborn.
“If anyone can change it, I’d bet on you,” Tay told me, with the quiet warmth that he always spoke to me with now. My brother had always been kind-hearted, but now he was so tender, he terrified me.
As if he were always weighing his words, choosing carefully.
As if he knew that any words he spoke could be his last.
Two
Following my terrible day, it seemed unfair I had a terrible night. The only thing that saved me from my burning nightmares was Lidi’s sharp little foot trying to dig into my intestines.
I woke up enough to shove her bony arms and legs back onto her side without the tenderness I felt toward her during the day, knowing it wouldn’t matter; she made vague, grumbling noises in her sleep but didn’t wake. She just pulled half the covers off me as she made herself comfortable again.
I fought for enough blanket to keep from freezing and replayed the nightmare in my mind, as if it weren’t familiar enough. In my dreams, I was always running from the dragons. Cornered, desperate, I reached out for the magic I’d had as a child. But nothing happened.
Now that I was awake, what mattered was saving Tay’s life and Lidi’s magic. I tossed and turned, haunted by the ghosts of my flimsy, half-formed plans.
I never fell asleep deeply again before the sky began to brighten outside our little round window. I stared up at the ceiling as dawn pushed on despite my misgivings, the room’s darkness softening, and wished that today could be different.
Later that morning, I shakily climbed up onto a chair to get down the tin of saved seeds from one of the high shelves. Lidi watched me with the open judgment of the young.
“Lidi, could you go gather the eggs, please?” Tay asked her.
She nodded and ran off. I winced as the door slammed, the hanging pots swaying from the impact and sending a fresh wave of green smells through the tiny cottage.
Gripping the top of the chair, I carefully climbed back down.
I was irrationally terrified of heights. Even the not-so-lofty heights of a chair.
I set the tin down on the table and opened it, revealing the precious saved seeds. With Lidi’s magic, she could probably sprout anything, no matter the season. I had about a dozen half-formed plans, although I’d be better off with a singlegoodone. “If I went away to work for the Fae, they might be willing to help us.”
Tay had his arm braced on the table, looking too tired to finish eating his porridge, but he straightened at that thought. “Cara. No. You haven’t been particularly successful servingmortals.”
“You don’t believe in me?”
“I believe in you. It’s the rest of the world that gives me qualms.” He gave me a smile that was half-teasing, half-tender. “You are terrible at shutting up and smiling and serving. It’s bad enough down at the pub. How’s it going to work when poor graces will get youmurdered?”
His humor dropped away at the last word. “Promise me you won’t. The Fae aren’t safe. Especially for someone like you.”
Lidi flew back in then, babbling about rabbits in the garden, and I made a shushing sound toward Tay. He glared at me, knowing I was just cutting him off, and I smiled back brightly as I started washing the dishes.
After breakfast was cleaned up, I walked Lidi to school. I’d braided her hair back into two braids that started at her temples, and they were neat and perfect, the way I could never manage my own hair.
Curi walked with us as far as the gate to our farm.
The wooden poles for the gate leaned precariously, as if the flowers curling around them were dragging them down.
It had been a different world—to me at least—when my father drove the poles into that ground. “Look at this land of ours, Cara,” he’d told me.“You did this. Thank you.”
