Maeve said she didn’t want to choose at all.But does that mean what I think it means?
“I’ll get Arthur,” Flynn darted off. Maeve shot me a sad look, then slunk away, smoothing her skirt down.
I slid the silver tray in my hands onto the small coffee table we placed in the center of the circle. On it stood five small shot glasses of foggy brown liquid, each one spaced exactly eight centimeters apart (I measured). In the center I placed a tall glass filled with salt and a red candle tied with sprigs of rosemary and rowan. Beside the candle were four bracelets, which Maeve had woven earlier from locks of our hair. These were how Maeve would pull us into her dream and ensure we stayed locked with her.
Everything we needed for our ritual, all nearly arranged in a perfect circle.
Corbin came up behind me. “Rowan, I?—”
I hated to see that fallen look on his face, that said he thought he’d hurt me, that he’d give up this one for me if he thought it would make a difference. But it was also a look that said he knew I didn’t have a shot.
For once, he had thingswrong.
“I wish it had been me,” I said.
“I know,” Corbin looked so forlorn, it almost made me burst out laughing. “It should have been you, Rowan. I wanted that, you know, right? Even though the magic makes me want her, too. This just sort of…happened. I know even know what I was thinking – she slept with me last night, and then she went and slept with Arthur, too. But I’ll stop. I promise that I’ll stay away from her from now on. She’s yours. I just….I just lost it a little, and then Flynn jumped in and I got carried away?—”
“No,” I shook my head. “I wish it had been me, instead of Flynn. Me, and her, and you.”
My heart thudded against my chest.
I’d never seen Corbin look so…lost.
“Um…” he gulped. “Right.”
A hundred unsaid things passed between us in that moment.
“And it wasn’t Arthur who slept with her last night,” I couldn’t resist adding. “It was me.”
Corbin looked stunned, and I had to admit, I liked seeing him look like that. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something. I leaned forward. I wanted every word he spoke, even if it was a rejection. I’d take every piece of him that he was willing to give. But no sound came out. A hundred thoughts whirled around in my head – images of him and me and Maeve – but I couldn’t find the words to articulate them, to make him understand.
Instead, I counted the cracks on the wall behind his head.
“Rowan—” Corbin started.
Please…
Footsteps on the staircase broke our bond. A moment later, Arthur appeared at the door to the Great Hall, dressed in his medieval garb – a long tunic and linen breeches tucked into enormous leather boots. A leather belt slung around his waist held his two-handed sword and two shorter blades. Flynn dashed in behind him, dressed like a normal person but wearing an enormous iron medallion around his neck.
“Right, we got rid of Dora,” Flynn announced. “I convinced her there was a special sale on silver polish over at that bargain store in Crooks Crossing. Now, where’s my dram? I want to get under before Arthur’s snoring starts.”
I pointed to the silver tray. Flynn picked up one of the glasses to inspect it, his brow furrowing. Then he set it back down, deliberately off-center. Because he was Flynn.
Corbin picked up the salt and raised it, then hesitated. He glanced at Maeve. “You should be leading this.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “Please, I need you to take charge of the ritual. Let me focus on the actual dream walking.”
She knew just how to give Corbin what he needed. He grinned as he raised the salt again and said his blessing over it. He offered the salt to the four corners – the north, south, east, and west. Then – while we chanted the invocation we all knew by heart – Corbin sprinkled the salt in a circle around the sofas and beanbags Maeve had arranged around the center of the room. He left a small gap, not quite two feet across. I would have measured two foot exactly, but that’s why Corbin does this and not me.
Arthur lit the candle and passed it to Corbin. The woody scent of rowan – the tree of protection from which I’d been givenmy name – filled the room. Corbin walked clockwise around the circle again, holding the flame high as he spoke the invocation once more. He stepped through the gap he left in the ring of salt, closed it off with the last granules in the glass, and set the candle back down on the table.
Maeve gestured to the couches and beanbags. “Shall we make ourselves comfortable?”
After what had just happened on that sofa, I doubted anyone would be getting comfortable there. Corbin looked ready to jump out of his skin. Flynn kept glancing between me and Corbin, and Maeve was biting her bottom lip, her usually-neat pixie hair sticking out all angles. I suspect her nerves were more to do with what she was about to do. Maeve didn’t strike me as the type of girl who bothered with regrets.
That was a good thing. There was plenty enough regret in this castle to go around.
Flynn was the first to sit, grabbing his shot glass from the tray, flopping down on one of the beanbags and crossing his long legs on the table. “I’m ready for the best night’s sleep of my life.”
