“I wanted to tell you the truth from the beginning,” Finn implores. “I tried to convince my parents that it would be better to just come clean about our plans, but they were convincedyou’d refuse to help us if you knew what the the omnidraught was really for.”
“They wereexactlyright!”
“I’m sorry! I just thought—”
“What? You thought I wouldn’t mind being manipulated? Or maybe you thought I’d be so thrilled that you chose me, I’d overlook the fact that you’re a piece of shit?”
“I THOUGHT THAT WE COULD BE TOGETHER!” Finn roars. He grinds his palms against his forehead, and I wonder if he’s about to start crying, too. “The omnidraught was supposed to mean that we could have it all! We could end the war, and take the throne together. We could craft a new world. We could bring the Elves out of the shadows—”
“By killing our magic?”
“By making everyone equal!”
I take a step back. “Can you even hear yourself right now?”
“You’re really telling me your life wouldn’t have been better if you weren’t born with a Talent?” Finn challenges.
His words fall like hot rain. Of course I can’t. Normalcy is my daydream. It’s the fantasy I’ve fallen asleep to a thousand times: the world where my Talent never manifested, and we never needed to stay hidden in the Ironwoods, the world where Mother clipped my ears and raised me inwall instead.
In that world, I could have had a childhood. I could have a future. I could have him.
Marking my hesitation, Finn reaches into his tunic and withdraws a small vial of golden liquid. The sight of the omnidraught makes my stomach turn, but I’m not sure he notices my discomfort. Finn holds it out to me. “If you drink this tonight, I guarantee that everything else will be forgiven. What happened in the garden won’t matter. We’ll just say you were panicking, and overwhelmed….”
“Iwas.”
“Right. My parents would be willing to overlook it. I know they would.”
“Why, because I’m the Heir of Evermore?”
Now it’s Finn’s turn to be floored. He snaps his mouth shut, but the expression of shock remains. “I need you to understand, it was never my intention to hurt you. All I ever wanted—”
“Stop.”I snarl the word with so much venom I hardly recognize my own voice. “Stop talking.”
His eyes widen, questioning.
“I know what you’re doing,” I continue. “And you think it’s going to work because it has worked. Because I was naive and clueless and so fucking in love with you.” My eyes burn. “You have been telling me who you are this entire time. Everyone has been telling me, and I was just the last person to believe it because for some reason, I thought there was something in you worth saving.”
“Lyria—”
“NO. That is not working on me!” I shout. “I know what you really think.”
He reels back, his brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“What was it you called me? ‘Grotesquely starved for affection’?”
Finn shakes his head furiously. “No, I would never say that! Lyria, you’ve got it all wrong. I—”
“I saw it! Okay? I saw it with magic! So you can keep lying to me and digging yourself a deeper hole, or you can just tell me the Gods-damn truth for once. If you’re even capable of that.”
His shoulders slump in surrender. And finally, finally, it all tumbles out. “The truth is…the plague was a hoax. We planted the rumor as a tactic to lure Elven apothecaries out of hiding. My father has been working toward achieving the omnidraughtfor decades. Ragglestaff was one in a line of potioneers we’ve employed.”
“There was no fyrehound,” I say slowly.
Finn shakes his head, his eyes dropping to the floor. “When Damien and my father argued about the heirship, he did storm off to go hunting. But not for a fyrehound. He was trying to find the Heir of Evermore.”
“And?” I ask quietly.
Finn exhales. Then he lifts his gaze back to me. “And…I think I found her instead.”
