“Better living quarters. Deal.” I agree to this only because my instinct tells me I need to trust him for once. “If you succeed,” I add. “If you get caught—”
“I’ll die before I let them know where you are.” He doesn’t say these words to me. He says them to Nephele. A promise. And I can’t help but believe he means them.
I also don’t know what our other options are. Much as I want to rampage into the Watch’s headquarters, I have to remember that the Prince of the East wants me, and he wants Raina. I can’t risk letting him have either of us.
“Nightfall, then,” I say, even as everyone looks at me like I’m making another grand mistake, especially Callan, Nephele, and Helena. Because this will force Raina to decide about continuing this journey or staying behind with Finn. Today. I can’t imagine she’ll leave him, and I can’t imagine leaving her. The thought makes me sick.
Joran pushes up from the table. “Be packed and ready. In three days’ time, we’ll be in the Summerlands.”
39
RAINA
I think I’ve loved you for my entire life. And when we’re both gone, I will love you still.
Those words won’t stop repeating in my head, even as I lie beside Finn, holding his hand. Everything about him feels comfortable and right, except when I think about the Witch Collector. Then everything in my head jumbles into an unrecognizable tangle.
I stare at the red scar screaming across Finn’s throat, glistening with Yaz’s salve, then I glance at his still-pale lips, wishing he would open his eyes. I’m trying to focus my thoughts on him.
But those words…
It’s been this way all morning, I think I’ve loved you for my entire life waking me as I try to rest, distracting me when I try to think. One moment, the memory of the Collector staring down at me and saying he loved me makes me want to cry. It makes me want to find him and kiss him and hold him, as inconceivable as that seems. The next moment, any notions of tenderness are smothered by utmost rage, and I feel like I did on Collecting Day, wishing I could plunge my dagger into his heart.
Despite the consuming coldness I feel toward him, I also remember such wild and relentless passion. Though Nephele and Hel assured me that my unimaginable memories of the Collector really happened, it feels like they were only dreams. Being with him in Frostwater Wood. His rough hands on my naked body at Winterhold. All those nights in his tent, his eyes locked with mine as he moved between my legs, fucking me until I couldn’t breathe. All our many moment here, at Starworth Tor.
Dreams. All of it. Unreal.
My hatred, however, feels strong and true, something to cling to.
I touch the new scar above my left breast, flinching at the phantom ache that lives there. What torture is this? To desire and loathe someone so wholly at the same time? What cruelty?
I crawl out of bed and cringe, my ribs still sore from the blade that barely missed my lung. Gavril’s half-scorched face flashes across my mind as I throw on a cozy robe and slide my feet into slippers. I’ve a feeling I haven’t seen the last of that sorcerer, but I shake it off. I won’t let his attack create more fear inside me.
Mari looks up from her chair on Finn’s side of the bed, tucking a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. “Where are you going, Miss Bloodgood?”
She’s been sitting with us—reading a book on infirmary care—for the last hour, constantly glancing at me as I lay next to Finn. After Nephele told me about the meeting that was held this morning, she went to the lighthouse to retrieve the rest of my things and assigned Mari to care for me and Finn in her absence. She should be back by now, but she isn’t, and I need a little time out from under Mari’s watchful eyes.
I motion toward downstairs as I move to the door. I then point to the window and take a deep, exaggerated breath, fluttering my hands toward my face.
“Everyone’s packing their belongings and prepping the horses,” she says, her brow scrunched in confusion. “Just in case they’re needed for a quick exit.”
That’s not at all what I was getting at. Frowning, I grab a shoulder bag of Zahira’s and stuff my scrying dish, dagger, the books on curses I’ve been reading, and a beach blanket inside. I need to check the waters, but I want some fresh air too, and to be alone. Thankfully, Mari doesn’t argue when I slip out the door.
I bump into Hel at the top of the stairs. “I was coming to see you.”
“I need air, to be on the beach,” I sign. “Mari is with Finn. Nephele…” I make a face and shrug.
One side of Hel’s mouth curls. “She’s passed out on Alexus’s bed in the lighthouse. We all need to sleep, I think.” She jerks her head toward the stairs. “Go. I’ll lie with Finn. Zahira and Yaz went to the archives and to check on the Watch’s movements. If I hear anything at all, I’ll come find you.” Out of nowhere, her brown eyes glaze with a sheen of held-back tears. “I love you, Raina. So very much.”
She’s said that to me several times since last night. She feels guilty for leaving me and Finn, but chances are, she would’ve been hurt too if she’d stayed. Gavril had only been making his task easier when he sent her away. She couldn’t have known. I’ve tried to tell her this, but guilt has a way of turning truth into lies, a fact I know all too well.
I make the sign for I love you too and fold my arm around her neck, kissing her forehead. She wraps her arms around my waist and presses her head against my chest, squeezing tight.
When she pulls back, she wipes a tear from her eye. “All right, now you can really go,” she says with a soft laugh, making me smile, and in minutes, I’m walking across the veranda and down the flagstone stairs to the cove, intent on a nap by the sea.
One glance at the sky, and I’m remembering how the Collector flew us over the city last night, and that when I finally surrendered to my abyss, it saved us from drowning. I don’t know how. I wasn’t alert for much of it. I haven’t mentioned the strange occurrence to Nephele yet, and I don’t think the Collector has either, if he even realized what happened. My sister would’ve said something by now if he had. Whatever it was—whatever it is—I don’t fear it so much anymore.
A cool wind blows my hair across my face and plasters my gown and robe to my body as I step onto the beach in the noon-day sun. I stop and take off my slippers, carrying them in my hand. The sand holds meager warmth, but it feels good beneath my feet and distantly familiar, enough that somewhere in the back of my mind, a new memory rises, as if loosened from beneath years of forgotten time, like something buried beneath a billion grains of sand. It’s a tiny girl building a sandcastle on the shore with a handsome blue-eyed man.
