“On the contrary, I think you know each other better than most of the people you let into your lives do.”
Fates, she was annoyingly accurate.
“I’m leaving in two weeks,” I said in another feeble attempt to brush off the turn in this conversation.
“I know.” Her keen gaze pierced me. “But think about this. If none of this existed, no rebellion, no tournament, no divisive provinces and hundreds of miles between you…would you want to be with him?”
My jaw shifted. What was I supposed to say? That Leo was the first man to see beneath my armor? That he made me feel valued and cherished and desirable and protected, all at the same time? I’d spent my entire life hiding from emotions like this, and yet in mere weeks, he’d uncovered my angry, smothered heart and showed me how to make it feel joy.
I’d never thought much about my future beyond running the Arcane. It was mostly blurry images of passing time, with the shop and my magic as the only constants. Often, I didn’t even picturemyself—my future was more of an abstract idea. A predetermined route. An endless void ahead of me.
Imagining anything but Feywood and the shop felt futile. Except sometimes…
Sometimes I wanted more. In those brief moments of solitude, those stolen breaths between the expected and ordinary.
I wanted freedom. Freedom from the past that weighed me down like an anchor. Freedom from the shadowed reputation I couldn’t seem to run from.
I wanted purpose. I wanted my work, my magic, my voice, to mean something, even if it was just to myself.
And perhaps…I wanted him, too.
“Yes,” I whispered, before my senses got the better of me and I retreated to my shell.
The moment I admitted it, my hands became clammy. I wiped them along the soft fabric of the black gown, tearing my stare from Rissa’s. I hadn’t allowed myself to go there, to picture anything outside of the confines of the tournament. I took it one day, one night, one flirtatious smile at a time. Nothing more. Because in the end, I was still keeping secrets from him. Fromeveryone.
Iwas the rose with thorns on the vine.Iwas the one with hidden secrets, the deceitful tongue, the poison the Oracle had spoken of. Anything in my path was likely to be struck. How could I expect Leo to want me once he found out the truth? That despite his vulnerability and trust in me, I’d still lied to him?
I glanced back up at Rissa, who gave me a knowing look. “Then I guess you have a choice to make, don’t you?”
An incredulous laugh bubbled out of me, breaking through my anxiety. “Achoice? Rissa, you can’t expect me to walk away from my life for a man I met not even three weeks ago.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She backed up to the dress rack, picking up gowns along the way. “You have to decide if your happiness is worth the risk, or if you’re going to let fear of the unknown get in the way.”
I ran my finger along my lip, letting her words sink in. “Has Leo ever complained about how irritatingly perceptive you are?”
“It’s one of my many amazing qualities. So”—she clapped her hands together—“do you like the dress? Is this the one?”
I faced the mirror, twisting my hair into a bun and assessing my reflection. Itwasa beautiful dress. The silver vines and flowers on the black fabric made it look like something out of a dark fairytale.
But in the mirror, another dress caught my eye. It was cast aside from the others, as if an afterthought. Discarded. Unwanted.
My lips curved upward. I nodded my head to the shadowed corner where it lay tossed over a stack of boxes. A matching mask rested on the ground beside it.
“That’sthe one.”
She followed my gaze, then looked back at me with a feral grin.
“Perfect.”
A second later, Chaz came bursting through the door, causing Rissa and me to jump in alarm.
“There’s been an attack,” he said swiftly, his chest heaving. “We need to go.”
53
Rose
We rode hard through the small villages and forests of the south sector. Leo’s viselike grip on the reins held me in place between his arms as we followed Chaz’s lead northeast. Adrenaline raced in my veins and branches scraped against my skin, wind and sunlight beating down on my cheeks.
