“I can’t do surgery!”
“So what? Support in other ways!”
“You don’t get it,” he snaps. “It’s not just about surgery. I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s less painful for me to start over somewhere new.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.”
“I’m very tired, Lyria,” he says softly. “Thank you for the food, but I’d like to sleep now.”
It’s a gentle dismissal but a dismissal nonetheless. I stand reluctantly. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” he says. “And I’m sorry for what I said.”
“Me too.”
As I close his chamber door and start down the steps, my Talent flares—not quite painful this time, but present. Demanding.
I know what I have to do.
In the early hours of the following morning, I tiptoe back into Cygnus’s chambers. The curtains are open this time, and moonlight washes the chamber a ghostly pale blue. Thanks to the nocturn I snuck into his tea after dinner, he doesn’t wake at theclickof the door, or at my gingerly approaching steps. His breathing is regular and deep.
My Talent is red-hot and pulsing with anticipation. Drawing a deep breath, I reach for the coil at the base of my spine and tug a thread—willing a strand to unspool and flow through my fingers.
When I touch Cygnus’s face, I keep the contact featherlight. Nocturn should hold him, but I can’t be too certain. His wounds are complex. As I graze my fingertips over his brow and cheek, I sense each of the infinite threads that comprise his life force. Some are tangled and battered, pulsing raw in the spots where the nerves had been damaged or severed. I find the fractured section of delicate bone just below his left eye, and behind it, a whole mess of swelling and bruises.
Discretion is everything. I can’t mend the wound outright without risking discovery. I focus on the inner nerves around his eye, weaving my magic into his invisible tapestry. I leave the fracture, merely aligning the bone fragments to ensure minimal disfiguration.
It’s complicated healing, even more detailed than what I did for Finn. Working so close to his brain makes my heart race. By the end of it, I’m panting and slick with sweat. But when I step back to admire my work, I feel confident that no one can discern what I’ve done. His eyes are still raccoon-like, his bandages untouched.
Nothing looks changed.
But everything is.
I linger at his side for a beat longer than necessary, watching his chest rise and fall. In sleep, Cygnus’s features are more peaceful, less jaded. Overlooking the swelling and gauze, I can appreciate the slope of his nose and the gentle arc of his lips. He is almost as beautiful as Finn.
As I creep back to my room, my heart is pounding again.
This time, it has nothing to do with fear.
t’s late afternoon, a fortnight after the incident, and Daisy and I are high on the rocky cliffs flanking the north side of the castle.
“Let me get this straight,” Daisy shouts into the wind. “You chased the fox into a war meeting, met the princess of Ursandor, blew off work with Prince Finneas,andstarted a brawl?”
Daisy offered to accompany me to find cliffcrow feathers for the omnidraught. They are the last ingredient I need, and the queen’s soldiers have yet to bring me any. I agreed, mostly so that she’d stop pestering me with questions.
I cringe. “I didn’t start a brawl. It wasonepunch. And Cygnus and Finn already have a history; I just got wedged into the middle of it.”
Daisy sits with Dante on the rocks far below me. I’m currently clinging like a spider between two walls of a slot canyon. I learned the method from Mother. She taught me how to look at walls of stone like riddles to be solved, finding the footholds, the finger-wide ledges, the narrow pathway forward and up. I can vividly picture her scooting up a canyon like this one, shouting encouragement for me to follow. The memory makes my chest ache.
“What I don’t understand is why Cygnus was so invested,” Daisy muses. “Do you think he’s in love with you, too?”
“What do you meantoo?”
“I mean in addition to the prince.”
“Finn’s not—”
“Whatever you want to call it.” Daisy rolls her eyes. “Infatuated, interested, trying to get into your pants—”
