Every sound, from her voice to the chair scraping the wooden floor before it catches on my rug, hurts like someone is jabbing tiny knives into my ears.
“Stop talking,” I beg as she holds a slender glass bottle to my lips.
I try to pretend she’s not there as I drink down the sage water, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid gazing into her eyes when she’s so close. I focus on the scar across her cheek, the four jagged lines that must have come from a large paw.
When I’ve finished with the water, my head is throbbing a little less. “Why a grizzly bear?” I ask.
Meredy settles into the chair she brought over. “What?”
“Beast masters choose the animal they study and bond with, don’t they?”
“They do. It helps to have a choice, because you wind up spending years in the wilderness with that animal.” A rare smile lights Meredy’s face, and for the first time, the resemblance to Evander doesn’t hit me like a blow. Perhaps because my body’s too exhausted to ache any more than it already does.
“I grew up watching Elibeth and her greyhounds. She was always bragging about how amazing their connection was, and what majestic animals they were,” Meredy continues, slipping further from her usual calm as her face darkens. “It’s not easy being the youngest of three siblings. Being the smallest often meant being overlooked. So when I learned I’d been selected to train as a beast master, I chose the most fearsome animal I could think of. Life hasn’t been the same since I met Lysander.” She bows her head. Hiding something, I’m sure. “He’s the one thing I’ve never regretted.”
“Not even when he gave you that scar?”
Meredy raises her eyes to mine again as she touches her scarred cheek. “Not even then. It’s a good reminder that wild things can never truly be tamed. Only respected.”
I wiggle my fingers as they start tingling, but my gaze keeps wandering back to her curtain of dark red hair.
“Are you hungry?” she asks, apparently mistaking my listless stare for something else. “I can send for something from the kitchens.” When I shake my head, she pulls a small sack from inside her cloak and tosses it toward me. Her face is unreadable, but I have the strangest feeling that she’s pleased with herself. “You’ll at least want these. Kasmira sends her regards.”
The sack hits my leg and rattles as it falls onto the bed. I blink at Meredy. “I haven’t given you enough credit, young beast master,” I grit out. She purses her lips as I raise my bound hands. “But how am I supposed to open them?”
“Oh.” She leaps up and grabs the bag. “Right.” Maybe it’s a trick of the moonlight, but for a moment a hint of flush appears beneath her freckles.
As the bag falls open, the wonderful aroma of coffee beans fills the room. Oh, how I’ve missed them. The calming potion had put my former addiction well out of mind, but now that they’re being held to my lips by Meredy’s long, slender fingers, I don’t know how I’ve gone without for so long.
Her eyes hold mine. Their rich green is flecked with amber. She blinks slowly. I lean in and catch a coffee bean with my lips. Her breath hitches, and a slight flush rises in her face.
“This doesn’t mean I like you all of a sudden,” I tell her. “Or that I ever will, after you’ve made me a prisoner in my own room.”
Her cheeks are still bright, but she says, “All right,” in her usual serene manner. “I’ll learn to live with myself, somehow.”
My lower lip brushes her thumb as I take another coffee bean, and a shiver races through me.
“You... you should try one,” I offer.
Meredy arches a brow. “Me, eating illegal goods?” She sounds slightly out of breath at the thought. Figures she’d be that virtuous. A moment later, she pops one in her mouth and crunches down. Her eyes widen, and she smiles.
A tremor suddenly grips me as my body clamors for something stronger.
Something blue in a glass vial that left me comfortably numb.
Something that could keep me floating above this swift, searing pain.
“How do you do it?” I ask as Meredy sponges my forehead with the cloth Valoria left. “How do you handle thinking about Van and Firiel without falling apart?”
Her movements with the cloth are careful, her fingers never once grazing my skin. “I don’t,” she says after a while. “I try not to think of them at all.”
My smile is tight with pain. “What do you think my potions were for?” I try to laugh, but it sounds more like a groan. “I wish I could be numb like you without them. I’ll deny I ever said this when I’m better,ifI get better, but: You’re strong. Stronger than me.”
A wave of pain makes me arch my back, my hands curling in their shackles.
Meredy’s eyes narrow in concern. She dabs fresh, cool water across my brow. “Thanks. But you’re the stronger one. I wish I could let myself feel as much as you do without falling apart.”
I shake my head. “What do you call what I’m doing now?”
