Without hesitation, Mirren declares, “All of it!”
Rhonwen beams and disappears back into the kitchen, laden with empty trays. No matter how many times we’ve asked her, she always insists on eating separately, a remnant of procedure from whatever house she worked in prior.
I wait until the table has been mostly cleared before beginning, only half empty bottles of wine still strewn about. “We need to talk,” I announce grimly.
Three sets of eyes turn to me, Max’s only after a dramatic roll. “Can’t we have one pleasant dinner?” she whines.
“You know what they say,” Cal quips, hiccupping and raising his glass to me, “moody and brooding is best served hot.”
A surprised laugh bubbles out of Mirren and I whip my head toward her. She giggles, eyes innocent. “You areverybroody.”
I scowl, at once feeling light at the sound of Mirren’s laughter and justly misunderstood. “I am not broody,” I mutter. The sullen tone of my voice seems to imply the exact opposite and the three of them burst into laughter. I flash a conciliatory grin. “Fine, maybe I brood a little. But at least I look good while doing it.”
“Here, here!” Cal whoops, thrusting his glass in the air in a mocking toast and then draining the last of its contents.
Max shovels three overlarge bites of chocolate cake into her mouth. “What?” she asks through a mouthful of crumbs when I raise a brow. “I don’t want your doom and gloom ruining my dessert.”
“I don’t think anything could ruin chocolate cake,” Mirren sighs reverently. She takes another bite with a contented squeak, a sound that immediately transports me to a bed bathed in morning sun.
Max nods her agreement, smiling broadly at Mirren. Her change of heart is both a surprise and an inevitability. Max does not give her trust easily, but Mirren has proven capable of winning over even the most obstinate of people.
“Alright, Anni,” Cal says, sobering his expression to one of resigned appeasement, “let us have it.”
“Evie gave me five days to hold off the council. It’s a days’ ride to Yen Girene and a day back. That leaves us three days.” I speak evenly. No one wants a leader whose throat is clogged with fear. Even if that’s exactly what I am right now.
“Three days,” Cal repeats softly, “to rescue Denver and convince the council that Jayan’s plan for Nadjaa is the wrong one.”
I nod stiffly. “I know it isn’t a lot of time—"
“Shaw, it’s impossible,” Max interrupts hotly. “We don’t even have an escape plan. Even if we somehow manage to find Denver, what then? We’ll be trapped inside the city walls.”
I explain what took place during our discussion with the assassin and our plan to bargain for Denver’s release with the information. I leave out the part where his eyes traveled to my scar. I’m certain I’ve never laid eyes on Avedis before, so his knowledge of me is particularly troubling. Something I’ll be sure to see to before he leaves.
Max stares at the remainder of her cake dubiously, poking it with her fork. “It could work. But if it doesn’t? We’ll have showed the Achijj our hand with no plan B and no way out.”
“Actually,” Mirren intercedes shyly, “that’s not entirely true.”
The room grows warm in anticipation. Max and Cal obviously knowsomethingodd happened last night, as evidenced by the look of a typhoon having touched ground around the cliff pond though its nowhere close to storm season. But they haven’t pressed about it, something I love them for. It isn’t my story to tell.
“We looked through Denver’s maps after we talked to Avedis.”
Max raises a sculpted brow at Mirren’s use of the assassin’s given name but makes no comment.
“And there’s a river that runs directly under Yen Girene. It’s the reason they don’t have to venture outside their walls. It provides fresh water and a steady supply of fish.”
Cal looks skeptical. Max says, “So?”
“So,” Mirren says slowly, gathering her strength to speak what she must out loud, “it means we have an escape route. I can…”
She turns and meets my eyes. Determination lines her face but there is also a question. I answer with a reassuring smile, and it strikes me how easy it comes. Only days ago, I smiled only to further incense my opponents; never because I meant them. Never because I simplywantedto.
Mirren searches my face, finding whatever it is she needs. Steeling herself, she turns back to our friends. “I can…do things with water.”
Max and Cal are still as they study Mirren, and I can almost see my story of the mountain cave coming back to them, along with all the implications. Of magic and the Dead Prophecy and all of this being about far more than a simple abduction.
“It…the water listens to me. I think if I try hard enough, I could use the river as a distraction to get us out of Yen Girene. If it comes to that.”
Tension lines the air and I can’t determine whether its Mirren’s or my own. What will Max and Cal think of her declaration that magic has returned to Ferusa? Will they embrace her power or fear it? Max hails from a superstitious island, and while Cal doesn’t ascribe to a particular belief, he’s heard the stories of the nature elements’ volatile nature and subsequent downfall.
