“Are you alright?”
Her blurry gaze drifted to me. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
I shook off my fear like a chall tossing rainwater from its silky fur. “I’ll take a quick look in your bag and then I’ll leave you to go back to sleep.”
“Jeez, Tempest. It’s me you’re talking to.” Her heavy sigh seemed to bleed away all her energy. “We’ve been friends from the moment we met years ago. We watched out for each other. Made sure the other was protected from bullies and even from unruly dragons whenever we could. And now you come here in secret . . . I told you I don’t have it. Do you think I’d lie about something like that?”
Not really. Madrood had handed me a weapon, and I’d been slashing it around, hoping it would gouge the betrayer, but in the process, I was slowly pushing my friends away.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I said again, striding to the door. “Please forgive me.”
I turned sideways to slip past her, but she grabbed my arm before I could leave. I could flit. Ishouldflit. But doing that felt as slimy as me sneaking inside her room to look for something she denied having.
Shadows drifted across her face. “In all honesty, I haven’t opened that bag since you handed it to me back at Bledmire except to tug out the clothing I stuffed into the top. The bottom holds mementoes from . . . You know.” Pain soaked her voice. “Things Kinart gave me. Memories. Touching them will only make my heart feel like it’s been ripped from my chest and sliced to pieces again. He’s gone. I know that, but I still feel him all the time. I loved him more than myself. He was so much better than me.”
“I’m so sorry, but that’s not true.” I tugged her into my arms, and we hugged like we hadn’t for too long. “You’re amazing. Do you think he would’ve loved you if you weren’t? Do you think I wouldn’t?”
She shrugged, tears torturing their way down her cheeks.
“You’re much stronger than me.” Raw emotions brought out a croak in my voice. “Look at you. You lost the man you loved more than life itself, but you keep going. I don’t know if I have the heart to do it myself.”
She leaned back and cupped my face, lifting it to make my eyes meet hers. “Vexxion will come back to you. I know this. I’m not sure how, but I do.” Creases networked her face, and she seemed to stare inward. “I feel like there’s a mist or a film between his overwhelming love for you and the part of hismind that needs it. All we need to do is drive the mist aside, and it’ll blaze across his soul like it did from the moment he met you.”
“He barely touches me. He told me not to speak to him in his mind.” That hurt as much as the coldness sharpening his gaze whenever he looked my way.
Her lips quirked up, and she sniffed back her tears. “You two can talk to each other in your minds?”
I lifted my wrist, showing her the mark. “Fated mates can, but I feel farther away from him now than when we shared our first kiss.”
She stared down at her own wrist devoid of a marking binding her to Kinart before placing her palm on her chest. “I don’t need something like that to prove he was worthy of my love, but it would’ve been wonderful if we’d had it.”
Lesser fae—Nullens—didn’t appear to form the same bonds, but she couldn’t have loved him any harder, and he couldn’t have loved her more. They were fated for each other even if it wasn’t the bond Vexxion and I had formed from the moment we met.
“Give Vexxion the time he needs to find a way past that mist or whatever might be holding him back,” she said. “He’ll love you again.”
“He won’t let me in. He told me not to use magic on him. I don’t know how to help him and it’s tearing me apart.”
“I’m sorry.” She hugged me again before stepping back. “But as long as he’s alive, you have hope. Cling to that.”
I had so much more than her.
“Don’t let doubts jump in to rip away at what you two still have,” she added.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re strong.” She gripped my upper arms tight. “No matter what this world is determined to send your way, you can face it. Not only that, but you also can defeat it. And by then, Vexxion will be standing by your side. I know this.”
“Thank you for always being here for me.”
“You dragged me out of that wasteland where I would’ve wandered until my body gave out. You’re talking to me about the book and not making accusations. Nothing will ever tear our friendship apart. Trust in that too.” Her gaze flipped to her pack slouching on the floor. “Look inside,” she said simply. “Then you’ll know I was honest with you from the start. This is me, Tempest. Reyla. Your best friend forever. I’d never keep something like this from you.”
Even when she and Kinart were together, she hadn’t wanted to replace me with him. She’d said more than ten times that I was just as important to her as him. I hadn’t needed to hear her say it because I felt it.
“I don’t need to look,” I said. “I trust you. If you say it’s not there, it isn’t.”
“I told you I haven’t looked inside in forever. Maybe itisthere. Magic stole it from your room. We’d be foolish to think magic might not place it back inside my bag.”
“If it did, then that very magic—the fates, if we want to give it a name—might want you to read it, not me. Maybe I’ve learned all I could from it. There were passages I can’t remember, and I suspect the book is blocking them from my mind.”
