Roxie released a sigh, thick with exasperation. “Yes, but in what way? I was hoping–”
“I know what you are hoping, Roxanne. You’ve only proclaimed it a dozen times since my aunt announced the ball.”
“And your answer is still no? That you won’t go as more than friends?”
“I don’t understand your need to make this into something more. Is it not enough to simplybe?” Lily settled onto the cold ground to stare across the water, her eyes fixed and distant. Not the first time, Seren wondered at the thoughts that brewed on the other side of them.
"You are absolutely confounding, Lilith Sinclair. One moment I feel we are in perfect synchrony, you let those walls slip, and I can glimpse the woman underneath it all. The woman who I know feels the same. And the next you are this. Did our day in Dunebury mean nothing?" Roxie made a fierce gesture between them with her hands before plopping down beside her. A brief silence followed that made Seren feel like she was eavesdropping on something far too intimate, but she didn’t dare move and alert them to her presence.
A low, sorrowful laugh escaped her friend. "It meant everything, Roxie. But you are a woman ruled by dreams and stars while I am bound by blood and duty."
"Are you saying they wouldn't understand, back in South Silden? You being with a woman?"
Lily shook her head. "Many blood witches prefer the company of other women. No, what I am saying is that my honor might someday compel me to return home. That putting down roots in Lynoria is dangerous and is a path that would likely lead to . . . pain.”
Seren watched Lily shiver and not from the breeze cascading around her.
“I could go with you,” Roxie spoke more quietly than Seren had ever heard her before. Her face was lush with a vulnerability and earnestness she hadn’t known the woman capable of.
Lily’s expression twisted into something dark. “You would not be well suited to life in South Silden, Roxie. Not after the life you’ve lived here. Not after–”
Seren watched her friend bite her tongue, holding back whatever it was she longed to say.
“I’m well suited for whatever life keeps me close to you.” Tentatively, Roxie reached to weave her fingers through Lily’s. The rising sun gleamed off her hair and danced over the soft smile on her lips.
At this, Lily finally turned to her, and at that moment Seren knew Lily was not only ruled by the blood and duty she claimed, but by something deeper. Something far more dangerous.
The thought of storm blue eyes enveloped her mind, and she knew she had seen and heard more than she ever should have. With a new heaviness on her shoulders, she found her way into the dusk under the protection of an eaves spell.
Chapter twenty-six
Calder Darkmore
Calhadmeantitwhen he said his happiest memories were Ara. He had truly forgotten what happiness felt like in the years since his father’s death and his brother’s betrayal had torn his world apart. His mother was a husk, kept alive by healers. He often wondered if it would be a mercy to let her join his father in death.
He had waited with anticipation for the tedious gatherings between Mistral Hall and Calami simply because he could look upon Ara’s face. To watch her from a distance and feel his heart catch when she caught him.
The mysterious identity of the prisoner in Cyrus’s dungeon hung heavy over Cal. There was something so hauntingly familiar about him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, as if he had entered a room and suddenly forgotten why he was there. What was his uncle doing and why?
He realized he knew where the dungeons were. He had hidden there plenty of times playing Seek and Find with Icarus as a child. The manor house where he had grown up. The manor house where his father had ripped his mother’s mind apart. The manor house he hadn’t set foot in since.
A shudder ripped through him, bringing him from his macabre thoughts. His nightmares had stopped completely since he first heard Ara in his head and he almost wept with relief the morning he woke up and realized he had slept through the night. He would tell her someday. When they had accomplished what he set out to do, he would tell her when he knew that she was safe and he could keep her. That she would want to stay.
The carriage jostled to a stop, and he peered out the window, parting the red velvet curtains. The front of Calami was protected by a moat and a thick stone wall with turrets every so often and only one entrance. Ivy spread across the wall as far as the eye could see, shrouding the building so that it appeared to be part of the woods that surrounded it. As if nature was reclaiming what had once belonged to it, long before humans had selfishly declared this world theirs.
The drawbridge was down, and the heavy wooden doors were thrown open. The yard was alive with students dressed in finery from the four schools who had converged for the Solstice Ball. A sense of dread formed in the pit of Cal’s stomach. The events he had put into motion could all come to a head tonight. He and Ara needed to find the omnis stone and put things right. If they had the grimoire and the Omnis stone it would only be a matter of time before Ara’s power as the vessel unleashed over the land.
“Something troubling you, Calder? You’ve been unusually quiet,” Cyrus sat across from him in formal wear, “Nary a quip or jest in twenty minutes. I believe that’s a record for you.”
“Never fear, Uncle,” Cal replied, straightening his cufflinks, not bothering to turn to the man sitting across from him. “I’ve thought of quite a few insults in the time it’s taken to cross The Whispering Woods. I have no doubt you’ll hear them all before night’s end.”
Cyrus smirked and leaned forward. “You are losing your edge, Nephew. You are distracted. Have you lost sight of your goal of finding the fabled grimoire? Your father would be so disappointed in you. I know I am.”
Calder scoffed and made to leave the carriage but Cyrus gripped his wrist.
“Or perhaps you have found it.” Cyrus’s eyes were wide, and he glanced towards Cal’s chest, right where he had tucked it into the inner pocket.
“You sound as mad as my father was.” Cal gently pulled his arm from his uncle and opened the carriage door. The back of his neck prickled with unease.
