“You,” she declared, pulling back to touch my face, “look wonderful.” Then she offered me her arm and smiled with such bright, genuine happiness that I felt all my nervousness melt away. “Shall we?”
***
Several inches of snow blanketed the grounds that morning, but Brigid had seen to it that a few potential walking routes had been shoveled clean.
“So you won’t have to trudge,” she’d told me over tea the afternoon before—and then stared at me in horror as I burst into tears.
“Someday I really will stop crying,” I assured her.
“I certainly hope so,” she replied. “For now, have a cookie.”
So I walked through the grounds, leaning heavily on Gemma’s arm, and tried to remember that pleasant tea, or anything pleasant at all.
On the surface of my new life, of this new Order, nothing was wrong. Nesset and Danesh were running drills in the training yards. Cira flew overhead on her way to a patrol, calling down to us cheekily before disappearing into the nearby Mist. As we passed the stables, we saw Talan holding up one of our youngest littles so she could knock snow off the branches of a pine. The snow scattered down all over them, and she shrieked happily. Her friend, waiting impatiently at Talan’s side, tugged on his coat for her turn.
And yet I felt on edge, like something monumental had changed, something even bigger than what had happened to me. It seemed that I no longer fit here, in this place to which I was now even more tightly bound than before.
Gemma watched Talan and the littles fondly, her face soft. “It already feels happier here.”
Her words were like rain on parched earth. I drank them up greedily. “What do you mean? How? Tell me.”
“The air is lighter. There’s noise all the time—happy noise, sounds of life. Everything always felt so hushed and dour before.” She paused near the aviary and helped me turn back around to see the house. “Listen.”
I did, and at first all I could hear was the wash of sound that underscored my every waking moment. But instead of letting that current overwhelm me, as it so often did, I made myself concentrate on specific things: the priory’s windows, some golden with lamplight, others thrown open to let in the air; two of our cooks sitting on a wooden bench outside the kitchens, gossiping about some man who lived in Fenwood and shaking with laughter; the snuffling horses in the stables; the distant clatter of someone running through the house; Freyda, alighting on the priory’s highest tower to enjoy what she could of the sunlight.
And the nearby littles, who were now crowding around Talan to gaze reverently at the bird’s nest cradled in his hands.
“None of the eggs are broken,” he told them. “Isn’t that lucky? Now, let’s put them back where they belong.”
I swallowed hard, feeling like my heart was ready to burst from my chest—but whether from happiness or sadness, I couldn’t tell.
“I’m not going to cry today,” I told Gemma firmly.
“You can if you want to,” she replied. “I cry almost every day.”
I looked at her in alarm. “About what? What’s happened? Your pain—is it getting worse? The healer who helps you with your panic—is she still proving helpful?”
“It’s not, and she is, so don’t get that look in your eyes.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you want to give my healer a talking-to. Sofi takes excellent care of me.”
Sofi. I hadn’t known her healer’s name was Sofi. Realizing that put a knot in my throat. Even after everything my sisters and I had been through together over the last several months, even with how utterly we loved one another, there was still that distance of years between us. Letters and monthly visits were no substitute for growing up together under the same roof. I felt that loss keenly with every breath.
I tightened my arm around Gemma’s, pulling her a little closer to me. “Then why do you cry almost every day?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “It will make me sound silly.”
“And what if it does? I certainly don’t mind silliness. In fact, I could probably use more of it.”
“I think I know just the librarian for that,” she said with a sly little grin.
I stifled a smile, my cheeks warming. “Don’t distract me. Tell me.”
“Well, then,” she said carefully. “Don’t misunderstand me, I love Ivyhill, and I’m happy to manage the estate in Farrin’s stead. The work she does in Fairhaven is important, and she’s brilliant at it. I think she and Ryder mean to live there permanently. And Ivyhill has become something of a waystation for people traveling back north to their homes. We’ve opened up a permanent hospital there, did I tell you?”
“You didn’t. Gemma, that’s wonderful.”
