I nod, sinking onto the low stool by the fire. “Is there a way to trick the portal off realm? Some way to circumvent or imitate a monster binding?”
Rue tuts, pouring tea into a chipped cup and pressing it into my hand. “Always in a rush, Riven. You should think less aboutwhat you want to know and more about the circumstances that brought you here.”
My toe twitches inside my boot, the only physical sign of impatience I’m willing to risk.
Rue loves to ramble about cause, effect, and voices in the wind—romanticizing the old ways until we’re both exhausted. But I don’t have time for that. I’m trying to save lives, including my own. And she owes me.
“If I’m always in a rush, then you’re always in denial,” I snap. “You haven’t even asked about your daughter.”
Tea sloshes over the side of her cup, soaking her fingers. If it hurts, she doesn’t show it. “Hyacinth Belladonna is as she always will be until the planets align and the winking sun spreads fear in the hearts of the courageous.”
I roll my eyes. “Should I tell her that before or after I mention that her mom’s home is one stiff breeze away from turning into a pile of splinters on the mountaintop?”
“You’re angry with me,” she says.
“You neglect her,” I toss back, biting the words through clenched teeth. “Instead of being her mother, you’d rather get high in this treehouse. It hurts her.”
“It hurts me too.” Her voice is thick with unshed tears, and my anger evaporates.
For a moment, I see Rue as she was when we first met, when I was still a young boy. She was lovely, ambitious, crafty, and most importantly, lucid. We’ve had this conversation many times since then, and no matter what approach I take, the outcome never changes.
“I could sooner sway the gods than make you understand my reasons. If Hyacinth is to survive what’s coming, I must stay away from her.”
“I could bring her to see you,” I suggest. “She would like that.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Rue shoots up from her stool and turns her backon me. Her shoulders are hunched, and any blonde left in her hair is nothing more than a faded memory of brighter days.Gods, I’m starting to sound like her.
“Don’t come back here, Riven. If you do, sorrow is the only thing you’ll find.”
I frown. My eyes flicker to the small basin of water by her cot. A cloth lies next to it, and the coarse, loosely woven fabric is stained with blood. My heart sinks. For once, I think Rue is telling me the pure, unvarnished truth.
If I return to this hut, there won’t be anyone left to open the door when I knock.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” I ask, hiding my clenched fingers beneath my cloak.
She shakes her head. “My time draws near.”
“Hyacinth will hate me if I don’t tell her,” I say, trying to appeal to her sense of reason.
Rue faces me again. Her lips curl—they’re cracked at the corners—and a drop of blood pebbles on the right side. “No, Riven. My daughter won’t hate you for it; she’ll hate me—and that’s the way it must be.”
The wind gusts, and the treehouse moans, the sound mournful and loud in the heavy silence. “I’ll watch out for her, I swear it.”
She nods. “Soon it will be beyond you.”
I stare into the fire. Bits of charcoal and ash surround the smoldering logs, and thick, purple-tinged smoke curls up from the embers. Inhaling it makes me dizzy, but it also quiets the restless buzzing inside my head.
“You didn’t come here to revisit this argument, old friend.” Rue’s stare digs into my cheek, and it’s all I can do not to run away. She sees too much. “Bonds are a crafty piece of magic, you know.”
When I crane my neck to look at her again, my head moves inslow motion. “Can they be faked? Even temporarily, to trick the portal?”
Rue sits back down on her stool and absently toys with a bone tied in her hair.
“Bonds aren’t like other magics,” she says slowly. “They’re part of the soul, running through a person’s deepest essence. All shifters are born with a bond—linking them to an animal or monster with such totality that it allows them to change form. If that link is severed...” She shudders. “It’s a despicable practice that spits in the face of the gods. Worse than amputating a limb or removing an organ.”
I stare at my hands as the veins throb ominously beneath my skin. “I don’t disagree with you. You know that?—”
