Wilder frowned. He blinked again, as if clearing his vision, and his confused gaze found me. “Amber?”
I burst into tears as I ripped my hand free from Desmond’s. I raced past Iris to throw my arms around Wilder.
He returned my embrace, a little more slowly than I would have liked, and his arms were cold, though they seemed to grow warmer with every passing second.
“We have an accord, then,” Iris said. “And in case you have any thoughts about abandoning your obligation therein…” She gestured again at Wilder, and he suddenly stiffened in my arms. He shoved me back, his eyes horrifically blank again, and seized my throat in his left hand, squeezing so that I could draw in only the thinnest of breaths, no matter how I clutched at his wrist and fought his grip.
“Wilder!” Desmond lunged forward. “Let her go!”
Wilder’s right hand shot out and slammed into Desmond’s chest, sending the larger man reeling backward into the shrine, gasping for breath, clutching his own sternum.
“You cannot break his hold,” Iris said. “But I will let you have him, for now.” She waved her hand again, curling her fingers, and Wilder’s hand fell away from my throat. I stumbled backward, rubbing at my neck, while he blinked and awareness rushed back into his eyes like the morning tide.
“Amber!” He reached for me, but I shuffled farther away, until I felt Avalona’s dress beneath my heel. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what—”
“He truly doesn’t. He has no control over it,” Iris said. “So understand that if you veer from the task in any way, I will take him back. Iwillset him to my bidding.”
“What bidding?” Desmond demanded, still rubbing his chest.
She backed toward the door to the small chamber with Petyr behind her, and though I wanted to free him, too, I knew better than to ask, considering that we hadn’t even truly managed to free Wilder.
“The wolves are at the gate, Desmond. They’re coming from all angles. Some, in fact, have already dug their dens deep into our garden. And if you cannot do as you promised—or if you will not—then instead of working with you, Wilder will fight the wolves with me.”
With that, she turned and marched into the dark corridor, leaving the three of us to stare at one another in utter shock.
“He will never forgive me,” Wilder whispered, hunched over the small table in Desmond’s apartment, breathing deeply from a steaming cup of fragrant tea. Nearly a day after Iris had returned control of his body to him, he didn’t seem to trust his own autonomy. He’d steadily refused to leave his brother’s private apartment, for fear of what he might do, if she revoked it.
Or maybe he wasn’t yet ready to be around other people. I certainly understood his reluctance.
“Desmond will forgive you,” I insisted as I stoked the fire with an iron poker. “Ihave.”
“You should not have. I surveilled you. I reported on your progress to the Bluehelm. To the woman Ithoughtwas the Bluehelm, anyway. I do not deserve—”
“Deserving is not the issue.” I set the poker down and crossed the room to squeeze his shoulder. “We do not forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive people because we love them. Because we want them in our lives.”
He blinked up at me as I poured hot water from the kettle into my own mug. “You want me?”
“In my life? Yes. Desperately.” I laid one hand over his on the table. “As does Desmond.”
“No. He—”
“He feels guilty for what happened to you, as do I. And beyond that, weneedyou. We need your mind, and your aptitude.”
“You’re really going to do it? You’re going to cure Cre—I mean Iris?”
“We’regoing to do it.” I squeezed his hand then sank into my own chair. “At least, we’re going to try. But she need not know ourtruegoal.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice, as if there were anyone around to overhear. “We’re going to cure you and Petyr, and all of the other aurums.”
Wilder frowned. “What makes you think that’s even possible? We have no understanding of how she made them, and we don’t have access to her formula, or—”
“But we have you. We haveyou, and your blood, which will still have some trace in it of whatever she’s done to you. And that can be distilled.”
He nodded, slowly.
“Beyond that, we will have the Elixir of Life—at least the small portion she’ll give us to work with.”
“What has that to do with the aurums?”
“Everything, I suspect.” I blew across my own teacup. “I believe Iris has been working on her aurum serum for more than a century, but I donotbelieve her original intent was to control people near death. You’re the one who taught me that even when a new formula misses the mark, it often does something unexpected and sometimes miraculous. I think she made use of one of her mistakes, just like you often do. I think she was trying, all this time, to re-create the Elixir of Life, in order to come up with an antidote.”
