It’s Evander who should be taking jobs like this, not me. He’d have been thrilled to climb these wild, lonely mountains, would’ve gazed around with wide eyes and explored off the trail with anadventurer’s heart, much like Lysander does as he follows our wagon east and upward.
I drink in every new sight for Evander, aided by the fading light of a blood-red sky seeping through the opening in the canvas-covered wagon. I know he’d be proud I’ve come this far.
I clutch the pin tighter, closing my fist over it, and suck in a breath as the gold needle pricks my palm. I hold on through the pain, hoping somehow the little pin will infect me with the courage and strength of one worthy of wearing it—as opposed to the addict and poor friend I’ve been since Evander died.
“Odessa.” Meredy waves a hand near my face, drawing my gaze. “You look ill. What’s on your mind?”
I blink at her in the dimness of the wagon hold for a moment before turning away, toward the front of the wagon where Master Cymbre commands a team of sleek brown horses.
Cymbre had jumped at the chance to leave Grenwyr when we knocked on her cottage door, even as tears were drying on her weathered face. She couldn’t protect her prodigy, Evander, and she couldn’t protect her king. Escaping to Elsinor on a dangerous and potentially deadly mission probably seemed like the only option left to her, the way the potion seemed like my only choice to distance myself from my nightmares.
I see so much of myself in her, she might as well be my mother.
Meredy shifts her weight, pulling me back to the present again as the wagon boards creak beneath her. “Thinking about that rogue necromancer again? Vane?” she guesses.
It’s a safe bet. He’s all I can think of since we left the throne room many hours ago. “Have you ever heard of anyone like him?”
“Maybe,” she answers thoughtfully. “I’m willing to bet he has a different Sight than we do. Which would mean he has a different power.”
I blink at her. “But Vaia only has five faces. So there are only five Sights, five powers—”
“That we know of,” Meredy interrupts. “But when I was in Lorness, in one of the smallest villages buying supplies, I heard a rumor about a wild man withambereyes, who could change his shape at will. It was terribly painful for him, they said, and his cries in the forest near their village were often mistaken for a Shade’s.” She pauses, fixing me with a thoughtful look. “I don’t know if it was true. I stayed near that village for weeks, camping and foraging with Lysander, and I never heard any sort of screaming. Still, there are many things we can’t explain, aren’t there?”
Her face falls into shadow as she bows her head, searching through her bag for something. “Things that perhaps no one can.”
I rub my gooseflesh-covered arms, hoping she’s wrong about that last part.
A loud, familiar crack rings in my ears as Meredy bites into a handful of coffee beans. “You’re on to something with these,” she mutters thickly. “Kasmira could make a fortune selling them at harbors all over Karthia. I’ll have to tell her.”
With the heat of annoyance prickling the back of my neck, I snatch the bag of coffee beans from her grasp. “She already does.”
I toss a handful in my mouth, settling the bag on my lap. Casually, like we’ve been friends forever, Meredy leans over and reaches into the bag.
She gasps as my fingers close over her wrist and I say through gritted teeth, “Quit taking things that aren’t yours.”
“I bought these!” Meredy snarls, tugging herself free with none of her usual composure.
“Well, you can’t buy Kasmira’s friendship. Or Valoria’s. Ormine.” I throw the bag back at Meredy, who doesn’t even attempt to catch it. She’s too busy trying to keep a scowl off her face.
I close my eyes and lean against the wagon boards, thinking of the carefully folded drawing I found in my cloak pocket as we pulled away from Grenwyr. Three ink girls smiled up at me from the parchment, three perfect likenesses of me, Valoria, and Meredy. I don’t know what the princess was thinking when she drew it, but had it been a gift from anyone else, I’d have fed it to Lysander instead of shoving it back in my pocket.
“Do you know why I agreed to this job?” Meredy says suddenly, cutting into my thoughts once again. “I certainly don’t need the money.” She waits until I’ve cracked open one eye, giving her a reluctant stare, before continuing, “Lysander likes you.”
I look past her, through the canvas opening, to see the grizzly lumbering in the wagon’s wake. “Good. I like him, too.”
Meredy gives me an expectant gaze, like I’m supposed to say something more. She tilts her head in the silence. “You really don’t understand the depth of the bond between beast and master, do you?”
I shrug.
She leans toward me, and I instinctively draw back. “Lysander doesn’t like most people,” she murmurs. “But when he looks at you,he practicallyglows. I suppose you’d have to see it to really picture it, but the feelings he shows when you’re around are the brightest shades of yellow and pink that tint the air around his fur.”
I smile, trying to imagine it. “What about when he’s unhappy?”
“If he’s sad, I see a lot of dark blues and greens. And if he’s angry, reds. Or if he notices someone he really doesn’t like, I see black all around him, like a stain or a silhouette of a second bear blurring with his...” Meredy pauses, frowning. “Like today in the throne room, for instance.”
I sit taller, gooseflesh rising on my arms. “Someone there was upsetting him?”
She nods. “Could’ve been anyone, for any reason. It happens often, and it would be impossible to know who unless we tested each person alone with him. I’ve just seen that he likes you. And he thinks Valoria is a bear cub.”
