Silence.
Then Thistle collapsed backward into the grass and howled. Vesper wheezed on his branch. Branrir muttered under his breath and looked every inch the long-suffering uncle.
Mav stared for one long second. Then, with a flourish, he dropped to one knee. “You deserve better—that much is true—a bard with wit, not a knight gone blue. Yet if you’ll have me in your tale, I’ll ride beside you, without fail—in peace or war, in sun or shade—and rhyme until this curse has fade—” He winced. “—faded.”
The grove held its breath. Then we all burst into laughter. I folded into the grass beside Thistle. My ribs ached. My head swam. Mav sank down a moment later. His hand brushed mine. I resisted the urge to look at him, but I did not move my hand away from his. His fingers wrapped around mine. And with the fragile gesture, the silence was no longer painful.
25
MAV
The last traces of sunset clung to the treetops, a fading bruise of gold. Our campfire crackled in the center of the grove, throwing restless flickers of light against moss-draped trunks and the worn outlines of our bedrolls. The horses were tethered beyond the ring of trees, quiet save for the occasional impatient chuff.
Thistle sat cross-legged by the fire, chewing on something charred with the unyielding conviction of having declared it edible and refusing to believe otherwise. Vesper snored from where he’d curled in the deep fold of Thistle’s hood. Branrir was asleep, one arm slung loosely across his chest, the other curled protectively around a wineskin he had no intention of sharing. His glasses had slid halfway down his nose, threatening to topple entirely should he lean an inch farther.
Quinn sat across from me. She stared at the flames, though I doubted she truly saw them—her gaze was distant, unfocused. I shouldn’t have been staring, but after a day spent wading through tense silence, I couldn’t stop myself. I wondered if I’d destroyed the only thing that had ever been real in my entire wretched life.She hadn’t looked at me much since the rhyming confessions, and not with the same softness as before.
And it was my fault.
I jabbed at the fire with a stick, watched a scatter of sparks leap upward and die in the cooling night. Quinn shifted. I glanced up in time to see her rising to her feet, brushing dirt from her palms. She caught my gaze and tilted her head toward the trees in silent invitation.
I pushed to my feet, falling into step behind her as we slipped into the dark. We didn’t go far, barely beyond the reach of the campfire’s glow.
Eventually, Quinn stopped beneath an old cedar and faced me. “That rhyming grove,” she said, voice dry. “Might have saved us.”
“Didn’t feel much like saving at the time.”
Her soft laugh loosened the knot in my stomach. “It was ridiculous,” she admitted. “But I think if I had attempted to speak with you without being enchanted into couplets, I may have shouted.”
I winced. “I would’ve deserved it.”
Quinn’s gaze dropped to her fidgeting hands. “I was frustrated and hurt. Last night, you kissed me, then this morning you acted as if nothing had transpired between us. And I—” She shook her head, brows knitting. “I have learned to expect people will change their minds about me. And when you went quiet, I assumed the worst.”
My throat tightened. Her voice was soft, but every word was a blade aimed inward. I didn’t know how to fix it, but I could at least own my part.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words thick with everything I hadn’t managed to say before. “I handled it badly. I didn’t know what to do with how I felt. I still don’t. You deserve someone less…” My jaw worked. “…less me.”
“Mav,” she said, pinning her gaze to mine. “If none of this had happened—if I had lived the life I was once supposed to live—I never would have met you.”
My breath snagged.
She raised her shoulders as if it wasn’t a world-shattering confession. “I have lost much to the spell that I shall never get back. But if it brought me here—if it brought me you—then perhaps I am grateful for it.”
I stared at her, not because I didn’t believe her, but because it was the last thing I’d expected her to say. It was also exactly the thing I hadn’t let myself hope for.
A shaky laugh scraped from my throat. “You know I’m not great at taking compliments, right?”
“I am aware.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “You’re brilliant and stubborn and terrifyingly powerful. And me? I’m a disgraced ex-knight with a half-broken lute and a mind that never stills.”
Quinn stepped forward enough to erase the gap between us. “You are also the reason I am still alive,” she said, the words steady and unwavering. “And the only person who has ever made me feel like I could be something more than what I was born to be.”
My heart made a sound I didn’t know hearts could make. “I don’t know how to be what you deserve,” I admitted, my voice low and raw.
Quinn looked at me as though she didn’t need me to be anything except exactly who I was.
No one, in my entire life, had ever looked at me that way.
