“Those three Shades are as good as dead, but more could be coming as we speak. We have to go!” Master Cymbre puts a hand beneath one of my aching arms, supporting me.
“How’d you know where to find me?” I lean against her to stay standing.
Master Cymbre purses her lips. “Call it a guardian’s intuition.” She points to a blue glow near the foothills of the mountains. “I heard about the missing nobles and went to see you.” She begins a brisk walk, the fastest pace she can manage with me stumbling alongside her. “When you weren’t in your room and your sword was gone, I made a guess. Lucky for you, I heard your whistle, but the landscape kept changing as I tried to reach you.”
“But I did it...” I manage. “I killed the Shade that murdered Evander!”
The thought should make me giddy, yet all I feel is sore and tired and shaken.
“Yes, and you nearly lost your life in the process!” Master Cymbre’s voice cracks. “Does that mean nothing to you? DoImean nothing? Did you ever stop to think about everything you risked leaving behind?”
“Of course! I—”
“Tell me this,” Master Cymbre cuts in sharply. “Now that it’s dead, do you feel any better? Do you miss him any less?”
As we hurry into the tunnel, I search past the agony of my charred skin, seeking the hole left by Evander’s absence. It’s still there, gaping like the Shades’ hungry mouths, a darkness that threatens to devour me.
“No,” I answer as the tunnel takes us home. “I don’t think I ever will.”
XV
Healing all my burns makes Danial’s entire arm and half his face go completely numb. After I’ve locked myself in Valoria’s private bath and scrubbed my new skin raw with fig soap, I head to the palace kitchens and convince the cooks to whip up an amazing lemon-and-rosemary cake that I deliver to Danial’s chambers myself.
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” he says, gazing down at his favorite cake with no enthusiasm. The kohl around his eyes is blurred at the corners, smudged into his alabaster skin like bruises. Or like he wiped away tears with a careless hand. “Simeon and I had a fight.”
“About what?” I probably shouldn’t pry, but those two hardly ever exchange an unkind word.
“About you. About him not going to the Deadlands anymore, because I can’t sleep with the thought of him bleeding out someplace where I can’t save him.”
“Danial—”
“So if you don’t mind, I’d rather be alone right now.” He gently shuts his chamber door in my face.
I wander across the palace to Jax’s room, not wanting to be alone, but it’s empty. I notice several new holes in the wall above his bed.
My thoughts turn to the Deadlands as I stare at the shattered wall. If Master Cymbre hadn’t found me, I’d probably be dead. And as I brush pieces of wall off Jax’s quilt, I realize I’m glad I’m still here.
I just wish Evander were here, too.
Tucking my shaking hands into the crooks of my elbows, I hurry to my room and the promise of a calming potion’s bitter-apple relief.
It now takes three vials to get to the place I want to be, the place where closing my eyes and seeinghisface—his real face, not the perfect apparition the potion sometimes brings—doesn’t make me feel like a giant fist is squeezing my heart, trying to stop it from beating.
No longer shaking, I pick myself up off the floor and put on a clean black tunic and trousers. My belt and sword hang in my wardrobe. I won’t be needing them anytime soon.
I slip into the hall and climb the tightly wound stone steps that lead to the rookery, where the palace’s messenger ravens are bred and kept. It appears to be empty, save for many sets of glittering dark eyes and rustling wings. The attendants who care for the birds are likely at supper, judging by the sky’s deep indigo and the crescent moon that shines down through the rookery’s glass ceiling.
As I poke my head inside, a rough voice calls, “Sparrow.”
Jax strides down the hallway toward me. As he moves closer, I steel myself against the storm crackling in his eyes. “I went to the healers’ wing, but you weren’t there.” His long, muscular legs close the distance between us, and his broad hands grip my shoulders hard. “And you weren’t with Simeon and Danial. Or in your room.” There’s something accusing in his tone as he finishes, “I thought you’d gone back to the Deadlands.”
“You’ve been talking to Cymbre,” I whisper, because whispering’s about all I can do with Jax’s weight pressing me against the outer wall of the rookery. “How is she?”
Jax shakes his head. “Not her best. She’s been drinking and pacing and drinking some more. But she’s still smart enough to know we’re nowhere near finding the missing nobles. And that she can’t tell King Wylding or anyone else but me and Simeon that you went to the Deadlandsalone.”
“And killed three Shades,” I add, putting pressure on his wrist to free myself from his grasp. I use his momentary surprise to my advantage, shoving him against the wall and pinning his arms. Leaning in until our noses almost touch, I murmur, “Including the one that killed Evander. So you’re welcome. What’s the matter with you?”
Jax narrows his eyes, but they don’t stop searching mine. “You should’ve told me what you were planning. I would’ve gone with you. I would’ve helped.”
