“Would it help if I told you about my trials?” I asked slowly. “An exchange: memories for memories, violence for violence. It would make us even.”
Gareth opened his eyes to stare, as if I’d proposed something extraordinary. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, though beneath my outer calm, I was a buzzing hive ofnerves. “It seems only fair.” I stood and held out my hand. “Do you mind taking a short trip?”
“I’ll go anywhere if you’re with me.” He took my hand and stood. “But shouldn’t we help downstairs?”
I tried to ignore how the simple sweetness of his words made my heart race. “You shouldn’t be seen for a while,” I said, “not until things have calmed. You’re safer with me. And they can do without me for an hour. And—”
“And you don’t want to see it just yet,” Gareth finished quietly.
It.The wrecked priory, the possibility of yet more death.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“I don’t either.” He gave me a strained smile. “Do you think the Warden will send me away after this?”
I wish she would.
I pray she won’t.
“She can try.” I tugged lightly on his hand. “Come on. We’ll take the back stairs.”
***
The network of greenways that led us to the lake was well traveled and smooth, and the lake itself shone black and still at the heart of a secluded forest.
“The moon is always full here,” I told Gareth. We stood on the shore as he took a moment to recover from the journey. “No matter where you go, as long as the lake is in sight, you can look up and see a huge white moon. But the second you lose sight of the lake, the moon snaps back into its proper phase.”
“Fascinating,” Gareth said quietly. “That reminds me of Wardwell. It’s almost as if they exist in their own worlds—like pockets, separate from their surroundings, with their own seasons and their own configuration of time.”
I understood the urge to whisper even though we were alone. It was a somber place, and despite the wind whispering through the nearby pines, the lake remained smooth as glass.
“The Warden guards this place well,” I agreed. “Not once has an Olden set foot here without permission.”
Gareth turned around slowly, his tired green eyes cataloging everything. “It looks exactly like the images we’ve constructed from our studies of the crown and the egg. I’m baffled that your searches here haven’t turned up any signs of an anchor.”
“Your team should conduct a search, confirm it for yourselves. I suppose it’s possible we’ve missed something during the twenty times we’ve scoured this place from treetop to lake bed.”
“But unlikely.”
“Unlikely,” I agreed.
“Does it have a name? The lake?”
“Voroth. But we never call it that. It’s only ever ‘the lake.’”
“And your trials were here, in this very spot?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Ten-year-old Mara.” He smiled sadly. “I wish I’d known you when we were children. By the time I met Farrin, you were gone.”
Over the years, I’d gotten very good at ignoring the twinge in my heart that came with remembering my childhood. But here on the shores of this lake, everything hurt more than it should have. I breathed long and slow, smoothing over the sharp ache.
“Older Roses woke us in the middle of the night and brought us here,” I began, walking slowly along the shore. “We were still in our nightgowns. The Warden was waiting, and there was a bonfire, and many other Roses, all of them in masks. The games began immediately.”
Gareth walked quietly beside me. “Were you afraid?”
