“You’re not coming with me?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to find Meirlach.” No matter the obstacle, I will end this mission gripping the hilt of that fabled sword.
Harper studies me, suddenly unsure. If I’m not mistaken, respect lightens her gaze.
I’m probably mistaken.
Movement on the far side of the clearing catches my attention. I shift in front of Harper, dagger out. Zephyrus ambles from the busheswith his hands raised, applauding slowly and intentionally, each clap punctuated by a brief silence.
I stare. His appearance is more rumpled than I have ever seen it. His curls sit in piles of corkscrews, a few leaves scattered throughout. Dirt deadens the green threads of his tunic, the slim, nondescript trousers.
“A mortal woman, ending those beasts with nothing but a knife?” he says. “I am duly impressed.”
Realization wars with the dull horror of the implication. “You were watching the whole time?” My question wobbles. Rage? Disbelief? Perhaps both.
The West Wind shrugs, mouth pursed. “Long enough to see that you had everything under control.” He glances at the fallen beasts, curious. “Your dagger,” he says. “By chance is there salt on your blade?”
The change in topic momentarily confounds me. “I add salt to the water when quenching the blades.”
“Ah.” A vague nod. “That would explain how you were able to bring down the beasts.” At my puzzlement, he elaborates, “Salt greatly weakens them. Luckily, you were quick on your feet and displayed admirable swordsmanship. Whoever your teacher was, he taught you well.”
Shetaught me well.
My mouth hangs open for a moment before snapping shut. I understand this feeling: skin too tight, body restless. My legs seek movement. Not to walk, but to run, to extend across vast distances, and carry me away from here. “Why didn’t you help us? We could have died!”
“You questioned whether you were capable of completing this journey.” He surveys me as though trying to determine whether something has changed since our last meeting. “Now you know.”
I am staring at a far-off wave. Nearer it comes, its sapphire back arching into a ruffled pearl collar. When the wave hits, it rips the ground from under my feet, and I tumble, caught in the churn of salt and sand.
That is how I feel, pummeled by those words.Now you know.
“You’re an ass!” I spit at Zephyrus.
The West Wind slides his hands into his pockets. “Do you deny that it was necessary?”
“What was necessary,” I growl, striding forward, “was your help. Instead, you watched like a coward in the shadows.”
Lack of light imparts a leanness to his features, an effervescent quality to his skin. He appears more godlike than I have ever seen him, power suffusing his voice, brightening his emerald eyes as he says, “If I believed you were unfit to bring down the beasts, I would have intervened. You have depended on the abbey for protection your entire life. It is time you recognize you can weather what the world throws at you.”
Stepping around me, he bows to my companion, his mouth the shape of laughter before it forms. “I do not believe we’ve had the pleasure of acquaintance,” he says. “I am Zephyrus, the West Wind, Bringer of Spring.”
“I know who you are.” Harper climbs to her feet, hands on hips. “There are tales written about you.” One dark eyebrow twitches upward. The cool, unimpressed motion gives no indication of her hysterics moments ago. “Is he the man from your room?” she asks me. I stare. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You’re a terrible liar.”
What I wish to say is that the world would be much improved if she shut her mouth and never opened it again. Yet Harper looks at me, and she sees, and she knows.
Zephyrus drifts a few steps away before turning to face off with Harper. He stands a handspan taller, though she does not appear cowed in the slightest. “And if Iwasin Brielle’s room? What are you going to do, novitiate?”
My stomach bottoms out, a sudden free falling without end.
Her grin stretches so wide I’m surprised cracks do not split her cheeks. “So you admit you two areinvolved?”
“No!” I cry, stumbling forward. “You are misreading the situation. We are definitelynotinvolved. I hardly know him.”
That harsh smile chisels deeper into her features, a hunger sharpening the elegant bones of her face.
“I discovered Zephyrus injured in the forest,” I stammer, “and I took him back to the abbey for healing. He’s a man, I know, but Icouldn’t leave him to die. He used my room for rest. That’s all. Once he recovered, he left.”
“You’re forgetting the most important part of the story,” the West Wind drawls, peering at me through lowered lashes. “Don’t be shy. Tell your friend how we crossed into Under together.”
