“Kinda dumb to lock me in here with the Fire Witch, don’t you think?” Victoria allowed her own, much weaker magic to join Deryn’s. It was like a hug. Deryn realized she had missed it.It was not as powerful as her sisters’, Victoria having her own, very distinctive gift, but Deryn had missed it just the same.
“Well, I only have so much time before it exhausts me, so… I don’t think it was really all that dumb.”
She tried to put a bit of a damper on the intensity with which power coursed through her, but she was so cold that she knew it was impossible to dial it down. Her power would do what it needed to do to make her feel warm, even if it meant she would only be able to sustain it for a very short time.
“Okay, all right, no need to panic. I’m sure someone will come and get us.”
Deryn raised her eyes to the imaginary sky.
“Like who? Seren knows we’re here, but before it occurs to her that we’re in trouble, we will croak. I don’t think I have more than an hour in me. Maybe a little bit more, but also, this is just a level of cold I don’t think I’ve ever been exposed to. And there are two of us.”
Victoria immediately pulled her hands from Deryn’s grip.
“Then you stay warm.”
Deryn snatched the hands back.
“Are you crazy? Jesus H, old woman! Stop wiggling and sit still. You don’t want me wasting my energy anyway. If I’m warm, then so will you.”
Victoria settled after a few attempts at pulling away again.
“There’s no reception inside here either,” she said.
“I know that. Remember how I worked here for a few weeks before you booted me out?”
“I was so mad at you.” Victoria sniffed, and Deryn looked at her, horrified. Still, she did not interrupt. “I was so mad at you for being who you are and yet making the choices you were making.”
Deryn found her voice. “And what choices would those be?”
Victoria sniffed again. “The jobs, the women, the parties. No, none of these would offend me if you were actually into half of them. Well, you were not into any of the women—the many, many women. But I hope that is changing. You’re thirty-five. And you just can’t stop running. Been running since Lizzy died. And you’ve never stopped since.”
“You’re mad at me for…partying?” Deryn asked, her voice rising to an embarrassingly high pitch at the end of the sentence.
“No, more for wasting yourself. You are… Paloma is so right. You’re special. Unique. Fire itself. Everything you touch succeeds. You win contests, you have a résumé that would get you financing for any restaurant, any concept you wanted.”
Deryn just gaped at her aunt.
“I am literally a gazillion-timeBake Your Heart Outchampion, Aunty.”
“Oh, so you won this last one too, then. Congrats, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“You could’ve won that with your eyes closed. I stopped watching after the third. Why? Because I wanted you to reach for something else. Comfort in the known, sure. Maybe it would’ve still been comforting two or three times. But you’re wallowing. You made it big early, and the past ten years, you’ve just been going through the motions. You make your easy money?—”
“Nothing wrong with easy money, Victoria. You’ve been at the same restaurant for what, now? Forty years?”
“And I change my menu every season. I do new things. I consult and help others open restaurants. I sell concepts. But that’s not the point. I love the Tavern. It’s mine. I built it, every brick I touched. Even this goddamned freezer is something I helped install. I wanted this. As a kid, I dreamt of this. And you? You had dreams, your own restaurants, a career like Dominique Crenn and Nancy Silverton. So why are you still on that show?Why are you doing food festivals every month instead of using your fame to actually build something?”
“I… I don’t know. You’re razzing on me because I’m doing food festivals and haven’t achieved the heights of Crenn? I hit on her once, you know, she’s gorgeous…”
“Deryn…” It was Victoria’s turn to look at the heavens. “Goddess, give me strength with this child. I want you to want the things you have. I want you to love the things you do. I want you to have passion for your days. And for your nights, for that matter. You’re on every celebrity media outlet chasing every skirt in America, and sometimes outside of it. I don’t judge, I really can’t, all things considered, but I’ve never seen any of them make you even remotely happy.” Victoria rubbed the back of her neck. “You have this amazing gift. One perhaps greater than all your sisters. It’s the one we were all worried about the most, the one most difficult to master because of how dangerous it is. You are so very, very special, Deryn.” Victoria took a deep breath, then went on. “And yet you are…just going through the motions, warming up teacups, chasing the least difficult path because you…what? Don’t want more? I can’t believe that.”
Deryn hung her head. Victoria lifted her chin until they were eye to eye.
“Tell me you’re happy and I’ll never once criticize you or tease you or get mad at you again. Well, maybe not the latter, because you have a unique ability to push all my buttons. Still, tell me you’re perfectly happy the way you are with what you have, and I’ll leave this conversation behind.”
Deryn stared into the Crowhart green. Then she reached out and touched the crow’s feet around her aunt’s eye. No, Elizabeth Crowhart did not get to have those, but she’d have been just as beautiful in her old age as Victoria was. And she’d have been scolding Deryn just like this.
