“No, Cris.” She stood up, clearly agitated at what just occurred. “I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to protect me. Why does everyone keep saying that?” she asked, and he could tell she was pissed off now. “I just want… I don’t know what I want anymore. I thought I did, and then everything blew up and I can’t have what I want anymore, so now I just don’t know.”
Ena paced back and forth now, and Cris reared back, as if shocked by the sudden extreme reaction.
“You know what, that’s a lie,” Ena continued, some dam having broken in her. “I do know what I want. I want to be safe,andI want to be wild. I want to feel loved, but I want to be free. I want to keep my family and all of my friends. I want to be a witch and be with a—” Ena cut herself off. She was practically yelling now, her voice echoing through the woods, and she seemed to recognize that and quieted down. “But it doesn’t matter, becauseI can’t have everything that I want. So I have to choose,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Ty’s heart broke hearing her words. He knew she’d felt that way, that she hadn’t broken up with him because of a lack of love, but instead had done it out of fear. And while he could never forgive himself for allowing her to get hurt, he also felt her struggle so keenly, because in many ways, he had the same one.
Since she was attacked, all he’d been able to focus on was getting her to safety, and now that they were safe, relatively, he had been focused on the last few steps required to break the spell. But for the first time, he now thought, truly thought, what about after? What about when all this was over and he had to go back to the Underworld, without her? What would he do then? Because like Ena said, it was impossible to have everything he wanted, and that thought broke him, both for his own sake and hers. And in this moment, hearing her grief over it, and feeling his own so acutely, he wanted nothing more but to go to her and hold her. Soothe her. Deny it all and fix it. But hecouldn’t.All he could do was watch from afar, and it was torture.
Ena had quieted down now, and her pacing finally stopped. Cris mumbled an apology and some reassuring words, but Ena just brushed him off and insisted on going into the tent to lie down.
Ty was frozen where he stood, though. He couldn’t move; he didn’t know if he even wanted to. Maybe he would just sink into the earth right here and end it all.
Out of the dark, he heard Turner approaching him.
“You alright?” Turner asked quietly. Apparently, he had overheard, too, though how much, Ty wasn’t sure.
“No,” Ty responded simply.
“Maybe not now,” Turner replied sadly, reaching out to grasp his shoulder. “But one day, you will be. It won’t be this hard forever.”
He knew his friend was trying to be reassuring, but it didn’t help. None of it helped. Because he’d already tried living without her for nine years and he’d been miserable, and that was before he knew without a doubt that he was in love with her.
So no, he wasn’t alright, and part of him knew that once they broke the spell and she was gone from his life for good, he never would be.
Chapter Thirty-two
Ena
Enaawokethenextmorning next to a snoring Cris. She’d reluctantly agreed to sleep in his tent with him, even after the failed almost-kiss, because she had no good reason to say no except that she didn’t want to be that far from Ty. Which was ridiculous because they were no longer together like that—a fact that she had to painfully remind herself of almost every hour of every day. Besides, after her outburst last night, she thought maybe it would be good for her to get some space from him.
She cringed with embarrassment just thinking about what she’d said. There was no way everyone, including Ty, hadn’t heard her innermost thoughts spill out after Cris had tried to kiss her. Not that any of what she’d said was necessarily a secret, but still. It was all so fresh, she just didn’t want to continuously open that jar of hurt for both of them.
Sitting up and emerging from under her blanket, she began to put her boots on. She’d admit it was rather nice to have the tent warmed by Cris’scalor, but his presence wasn’t the same as Ty’s.Not by a long shot. Even though Turner had taken to sleeping in between them, she could still sense Ty, just on the other side of him. She could hear his breathing, smell his scent in the tent, and it always soothed her. Without that, this morning she had woken up agitated.
The air was cold and she could see her breath instantly upon emerging from the tent, so she went to build up the fire. Soon, everyone else began to stir, too, and she was glad that no one asked her to talk about last night.
After eating a quick breakfast from their provisions—because unfortunately, Ty hadn’t had any luck with his traps last night, probably thanks to all the noise she’d made—they packed up and continued heading west.
They rode for several days, carving their way through the backcountry, and began to fall into a rhythm. Cris seemed to be on pleasant-enough terms with Turner, and coexisted with Ty, so they all chatted together companionably. When she could, Ena explained more about everything to Cris, filling him in on the binding spell and what to expect for breaking it. He was endlessly curious about her experiences in the Underworld, too, which she also shared, although she kept some of the more traumatic ones to herself so as not to scare him away. And, of course, she told him about Occidens, given how crucial that information was for their next task.
Every night, she, Ty, Turner, and Cris sat around the fire planning—trying to think through different scenarios for how they could contact an Occidens witch and sway them to their side. But every situation they envisioned seemed nearly impossible. Not only did Ena and Cris have zero contacts at Occidens, because of the rivalry, but she and Ty were most surely wanted by them because of their escape and theft of the amulet.
They agreed their best hope was to identify a witch who maybe knew Ty’s mother and held sympathy for daemons like she mostlikely did, but how to go about finding someone like that was the tough part. They planned to send Cris and Turner in, since they wouldn’t be recognized, to hopefully start some conversations with people while pretending to trade, and go from there, but Ena felt like there was a good chance that might not amount to anything.
They continued on anyway, clinging to that fool’s hope, until they were only about a day or so away from Attax—the last mortal village before Occidens.
They were planning to camp one more night in the backcountry, and join up with the Western Road tomorrow, before they made their way into the village, but Ena slept fitfully that night, despite the warmth of her tent, and again awoke earlier than the others.
Putting on her boots, she emerged from her and Cris’s tent, letting her eyes adjust to the dim morning light, and let out a small, startled cry at what she saw.
A small person with a slight, somewhat androgynous figure and short brown hair sat at their mostly dead fire, poking it with a stick as wisps of smoke curled into the cold air.
“Excuse me!” Ena said, shock and confusion warring in her tone. “Who are you?”
Ena Knew almost instantly that they were not threatening. Instead, they seemed almost relaxed, which was extraordinarily weird. She hadn’t seen a single other person outside their group in almost a week, and yet here was this stranger sitting around their fire? How did neither she nor Cris hear them coming with their Knowing? Or Ty with hisvenator? Not to mention, having a stranger just barge into an unknown campsite and make themselves at home was unheard of.
The person looked at her. Their eyes were big, brown, and friendly, though something about them was a bit…odd. A bit unfocused.
