“As the Council’s reporter, I have arightto investigate the important matters affecting Everden, including what you’re doing down here in these very interesting, very” — she laughs unkindly — “notorioustunnels.”
I’m not leading her toward Seracia. Which puts me in the position of waiting for her to leave. However long it takes.
“While I have you,” she prompts, “would you like to disclose what’s been going on between you and the half witch?”
My jaw ticks. I’m fifty-fifty on hitting her, a hundred that I’ll hate myself if I do. I don’t hit women. Not in combat or in my gym, not when a Healer’s on standby, not if we’re the same size, not if I’m fighting a coven. I don’t hit women.
But I also see Ember’s nose bleeding as she’s screaming in pain outside the academy.
I’ve always hated Farrah. Her lies put innocent people in danger, she thinks she’s way smarter than she is, and she claims to care about the safety of the realm, but I’ll never forget the part she played as they all stood over me, mangling my legs. Howthrilledshe was to witness it.
My fingers twitch.
I Summon my bag and hope Farrah isn’t staying to find out what I’m getting from it. Which is nothing. Because I can’t think today, and there’s an order of tranqs waiting to be picked up in Hartik’s Hollow, but none in my bag. None I can access.
She dives a hand in her satchel and yanks out a dark photograph, holding the lantern light in front of it so I can see it. It’s not the best picture, but it’s good enough to make me swallow. It’s one of Ember and I on the daybed outside the tavern. Her head’s to my chest. Wind not photographed.
“You see,” Farrah says, “last night, when she said youhatedher, I believed her. I believed herso muchI stopped asking questions.” She tucks the photograph in her satchel as I come to the realization that Ember told her first lie for me.
I cast Privacy. “I hatewatchingher,” I say. “That’s what she meant.”
“Really? It wasn’t what she said.” There are more photographs in her satchel, and the next one she removes, I Shred without looking at it.
“And,” says Farrah, deliberately pausing until I look at the next picture. “You don’t look like you hate watching her.” In this one, her head’s in my lap, the picture taken right after she fainted across the street from the Allwitch temple.
“Well, I do. That part was true.”
Farrah sets the lantern on a shelf of rock. “What about the part where you hateher? Or were you not planning to address that?”
I don’t answer.
Hands on her hips, her elbows jut out into the tunnel and block my exit so I can’t leave without shoving her out of the way.
“Do you want to know what I think?” she asks.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Have a feeling you’ll tell me anyway.”
“I think you look like this” — she waves at my face — “in all your public moments. But you look like this” — she takes outanother picture — “in your private ones with the half witch.”
“Okay?”
“There arenone, zero,noredeeming qualities about her. So whatpossiblereason could you have for being interested in her? Everything I’ve seen points to power, specifically the kind that doubles in a sealed Counterpart bond.”
Fuuuuck.
“I hate the girl,” Farrah spits. “She’s an abomination. So you expect me to believe I found it in the goodness of my heart to beconvincedby her? Her truths are lies, aren’t they, Truth-Teller? The half witch is your Counterpart, and the only reason I believed her is because she used her gift on me.”
I shake my head. “She’s never lied to anyone.” Ember doesn’t lie. She doesn’t. Except for this. Except for me.
In the distance, a growing kernel of light brightens. With Privacy up, Farrah can’t hear the rhythmic, echoey splash of footsteps of a witch closing in. I casually peer around her to try to make out who it is without Farrah noticing. From the Levitating Flame, I gather it’s an Elemental.
Farrah prowls in pacing half circles in front of me, her chunky silver bracelets jangling as she gesticulates. “Do you not see how pathetic she is? She refused to fight me yesterday, did you know that? All she had to do was ask me to leave her head, but she couldn’t even do that! She only cried and cried and waited to be rescued. That’s the kind of witch who captures your interest?”
“Yes,” I can’t stop myself from answering. “She didn’t fight you because she’sgood. Hurting people’s whatwedo, Farrah. Ember’s not like us. She doesn’t help herself at someone’s expense. She didn’t fight you because she was thinking about what problems it would cause if she did.”
“Pathetic!” Farrah spits.
But she isn’t. Ember has her code. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, even if she’s the one who has to suffer for it. It’s notmy code, but it might be braver than what I’ve been doing, who I am — weak or winning, surviving or dead. Which is how I know how my end of the bond will seal. I thought it might have been physical intimacy. Someone to hold and be idle with. Now I realize my deepest desire is something else.
