“Stray magic sloughed off during the transference. It will fade.” I gestured to the front doors. It was quiet, still dark. Dawn had not yet come. “Shall we?”
She fell into step beside me. Freyda circled overhead, Brigid’s hawk familiar not far from her.
“Well?” Brigid said. “Are they making progress with the transference?”
“Everything looks the same to me as it did when they started yesterday morning, only now they’re clearly exhausted. I’m trying not to read anything into that.”
“Since you don’t really know what you’re looking at?”
“Exactly.”
We nodded in greeting to three Lower Army soldiers en route to their lookout posts, freshly cleaned rifles strapped to their backs. Once we were past them, Brigid cleared her throat.
“And how is Gareth?”
I glanced at her. “I don’t think I like your tone.”
“Oh, it’s not that much of a tone. I’ve just observed that you look much more comfortable than you did three days ago.”
“Nanette’s balm has worked wonders.”
“Ah, Nanette’s balm,” she said gravely. “Yes, of course.”
I swallowed a smile. I’d missed this. I’d missed Brigid. If I ignored the tidy battlefield all around us—the barricades and trenches, the watchtowers and soldiers, the hum of ward magic surrounding the grounds—I could almost imagine that we were on patrol in the Mistlands, years ago, when things were easier.
Except back then, I’d known Gareth only through Farrin’s letters.
And now I couldn’t imagine living even a day without him.
“He’s behaving himself, then?” Brigid asked after a comfortable silence. “He doesn’t need any sort of talking-to?”
“Brigid,” I began.
“Because I have several on hand.”
We stopped on a ridge overlooking the long, rocky slope down to the northern perimeter. A slight breeze slid between my feathers. Beyond us stretched the network of canyons, still black and blue with night, and beyond even that lay the southern front—and the encroaching Mistline, which grew closer every day. It now hovered on the horizon like a thin line of smoke, illuminated by the distant lightning strikes of storms and Mistfires.
“You don’t need to worry about Gareth,” I told Brigid. It was peaceful here on this ridge. Even the Mist, at this distance, was beautiful.
“I’m not worried about Gareth,” Brigid replied. “I’m worried about you. I want you to be happy, as impossible as that might be given your propensity for self-destruction. Though there does seem to be a bit less of that now that he’s in your life. As your friend, however, I must remain skeptical.”
“Of course.”
“It’s my solemn duty, and I expect you to do the same for me, should I ever find someone I can tolerate sharing a bed with for longer than an hour or two.”
The slight disgust in her voice made me smile. “I understand, and you know that I will.”
Another peaceful silence fell. Then Brigid cleared her throat again, this time more delicately. “As your friend,” she said, “it’s also my solemn duty to ask for details about how well that gorgeous man satisfies you, and in what particular ways he does so.”
My smile became a grin. Gareth’s hands gliding through my feathers, the kisses he stamped into my downy skin, my talons encircling his wrists as I rode him on his childhood bed—the memories made my heart soar and my legs weak.
“I love him, Brigid.” I looked right at her so she could see the truth on my face. “I love him so much.”
She smiled at me, just as she had as a younger woman on the day of my trials—a little proud and terribly fond. “I know you do.”
Then, to my left, a quick flash of brilliant light came and went.
I whipped my head around to find the source—not lightning, not an Upper Army soldier running drills. Something else. With my mother’s help, the Upper Army’s beguiler teams had erected a shell of protective wards around the Fontaine estate. Now, as we watched, that shell thrummed, shimmering with watery blue light, before falling silent and dark once more.
