“Yeah, whydidn’tyou?” I blurted, keeping my voice low to not wake Luna. “Why didn’t you just let them throw me in the dungeons?”
We’d never talked about this, not really. Everything was such a blur after they found out I’d been spying on Clarissa, when Nox volunteered to bring me back under his supervision. Now that he and I were on…betterterms, there was no harm in asking.
“Because you’re not from Mysthelm. You’reVeridian. You were our responsibility.”
“Ah.” I wasn’t sure why that made disappointment curdle in my stomach. “Just another part of the job, I guess.”
He took a step forward. “And because I know Clarissa. As angry as she was, I could tell she didn’t want to send you to the gallows. She cared about you, Devora. But she wasn’t ready to deal with it, not after everything that had happened. I guess I wanted to…to give her time. I knew she’d want the chance to forgive you one day.”
I hummed. “That day may not come for a while.”
“Actually, it could be sooner than you think.” He waved the letter at me. “She wants to extend an invitation to you.”
Thatsent me reeling. “For what?”
“A royal wedding. She and Thorne have set a date, and they want us to come.Bothof us.”
I shook my head and let out a huff of surprised laughter. Herwedding? Was he serious? “Why would she wantmethere? Has she forgotten what I did to her?”
“You’re not the sum of your past, Devora,” he said quietly. “Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting. It’s about choosing to believe you’re more than your mistakes.”
A lump formed in my throat. That was a far cry from what he said to me weeks ago.
My nose twitched, and I quickly looked away. I wasn’t sure what to make of Clarissa’s olive branch. Part of me still felt I didn’t deserve it, despite how much I was trying. I wanted to absolve myself of the terrible things I’d done, but now that I was doing it, it didn’t seem real. The guilt that had weighed on me for so long wasn’t easily moved.
I didn’t know how to respond. Instead, I switched Luna to my other hip and asked, “When’s the wedding?”
“A little less than two weeks, on the winter solstice.”
“Oh.” Anxiety trickled back in. “Well, it may not even matter. I might not be back from Scarven’s by then.”
His features darkened, but Luna let out a little snore before he could say anything. “I need to put her down for a nap,” I whispered across the hall. “Will I—” I cleared my throat. “Will I see you tonight? Before I leave?”
He stiffened. Tonight was the night Scarven’s men were supposed to pick me up from the Mysthelm base. Scarven believed I had nowhere else to go, so I had to stay with him to keep up a convincing cover. I had to admit that living at his mansion would make spying much more convenient, however anxious I was.
Nox looked like he wanted to say something else, but he merely pinched his lips in a grim line and nodded curtly. “I’ll be there.”
I slipped inside the room and gently laid Luna on my bed, tucking the covers around her small frame. The tension from the conversation with Nox hovered over me. Something was changing between us, but for the better or worse, I didn’t know. He was hot one minute and cold the next. Fire racing along my pulse, then confusion leaving me hollow.
I had no clue how to feel. I once told him I hated him, and he said he’d never trust me. How did we get from that, to this?Lingering stares, rough touches that lit my veins on fire, aching sadness for his past, longing for him to find happiness.
You didn’t feel that for someone you hated. You didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of their frightened cries, filled with nothing but the desire to take their pain away.
I glanced at my bag, packed and ready by the door, then flopped down on the bed next to Luna. My stomach churned at the idea of staying at Scarven’s manor. I was scared of him; that was for sure. Scared of what he could do to me. Of what I might have tolethim do to me for the sake of saving so many others. Scared of messing up and being a failure.
But the one fear that stuck out was that nobody would be here to listen when the nightmares came for Nox again.
The eight ofus were eating an early dinner in the drawing room—the first time we’d all been together since the rescue mission at the Hollow. The atmosphere lacked its usual unhinged camaraderie I’d grown to expect from this group.
Tessa and Kieran were hunched over blueprints of Scarven’s manor they’d accumulated over the years, pausing occasionally to stuff bites of food in their mouths. Arowyn was flipping a dagger over and over in her hand while Silas jabbered to her and Milo about new tests he planned to try with the small amount of fatesprig he had left. Everett sat across from me, listening to the others while we ate.
And Nox was in a tall wingback chair in front of the fire, swirling a glass in his hand as he stared into the flames. He hadn’t spoken the entire time.
Tessa folded up one of the maps. “The drawing you sent us the other day was helpful, Devora. We’re connecting it with the network of tunnels we already knew existed, and seeing where it stands in relation to the new Hollow area.”
I nodded. “I’ll try to see if he’ll take me to the Hollow itself.That’s the last big piece we need, right? If we can figure out how to get past his wards and where he’s keeping his supply of fatesprig, we can destroy it and get the other prisoners out.”
“Just be careful,” Kieran said, and I raised an eyebrow in surprise. The stag Shifter had been the last one to warm up to me—although now that I’d gotten to know him, I wasn’t sure if he was “warm” toward anyone. But the fact that he cared thawed something between us. “You still have your enchanted parchment from Silas, yes?”
