As Mags approached, skipping every other step and humming under her breath, he put down the dog-eared chapter on solitude and sighed.
“Wynnie said Griff and Vic went hunting in the Wyrmwood, but they aren’t allowed to do it again. Wynnie and Vic were arguing about it in the kitchen,” Mags reported as she threw her arms around her uncle’s neck and he gave her a tight squeeze. Her blue eyes—so much like Alys’s—glinted with knowledge she had sensed was forbidden. “Did you and Mom go hunting with them too? Are you going again soon? Is that why you packed the good knives?”
“No,” Mal said flatly, looking out over the creek and the distant trees beyond that led to the Wyrmwood. “We didn’t go with them.” He chose to ignore the question about where he was heading next entirely; the less Mags knew about that, the better.
“Why not?” the girl pressed, dropping down beside him and crossing her legs in a pose identical to his.
Mal sighed. “Because I could always stand to go a few more years without having my day ruined by Griff and his fucking mouth or getting punched just for existing, that’s why.”
“Why do you hate him so much? Is it the punching?” Mags asked, picking up Mal’s book and thumbing through it as if she could read already. “Sometimes Rodric kicks me and says he’s the best at kicking, even when I kick him back harder, and I still love him.”
Mal was quiet for so long that Mags had started gathering weeds and flowers, nestling them in the paws of their unhappy-looking stone griffin statue, by the time he spoke again. “Someday you’ll learn about people like him. You’ll learn that most people need a fucking fairy tale to keep them warm at night.”
Mags wrinkled her nose in distaste, patting the stone griffin on his cracked head before turning back to her uncle. But before she could ask him what was bound to be another prying question that he didn’t want to answer, Alys appeared, wading through the weeds.
Her comings and goings had been different lately.
True, he didn’t always tell her where he was going either—he preferred not to talk with the few people he cared for about anything that went on at Served With Love, so that in case he ever got in real trouble there, they wouldn’t know anything they could get hurt over. But Alys usually told him everything. Like him, she didn’t have many other friends, so when they’d both returned to Mayfair and picked up their friendship after years apart, he’d been the one to hear the ins and outs of her days.
Only not for a few weeks now.
He recalled her leaving earlier that morning; he had glimpsed her through the window, pale braid swishing at her back, a bouquet of flowers in hand. Curious, he had followed her for quite a way, though he wasn’t proud of it. Long enough to watch her enter the row of houses he always avoided walking past on his wayinto town. She was going to Griff’s, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. It wasn’t like Griff was particularly kind to her, even if the punches he’d thrown her way over the years were verbal, insults like the ones Mal was always making toward him. No doubt to punish her for her continued association with Mal—so what had changed?
“Mags, why don’t you go check on your spider?” Mal suggested as Alys drew nearer. “I didn’t see him crawling on the breakfast table this morning.”
“Teacup’s missing?” Mags gasped, her eyes shining with sudden worry.
“Yeah. Teacup. Grab your sister and have her help you look. Rodric, too, if he’s not playing with those kids across the creek,” Mal added, pleased with himself for coming up with this quick and easy distraction that would at least keep the children occupied long enough to let him talk with Alys uninterrupted.
He had put it off long enough, and now he was out of time.
He was on his feet before his old friend could climb the porch steps to the front door, making himself and his question unavoidable. “How’s Griff?”
“What do you mean?” Alys asked, blinking innocently. She would, he knew, pretend to understand much less than she actually did if she thought feigning ignorance could get her out of a difficult situation. It was one of her many talents.
“How long have you been going over there?” Mal continued, keeping his voice quiet and controlled, even though in some way he felt like he’d been betrayed again. She washisfriend, not some elf-boy wannabe’s. They were the most alike of their little trio from back when, both willing to walk a darker path than Griff’s polished boots would ever step down.
Remembering what Mags had overheard, he added, “You planning some kind of hunting trip with him? I should have known; you’ve always loved fairy tales.”
Alys frowned as she studied him, then motioned for them both to take a seat on the bottom of the porch steps. “Did Wynnie tell you what happened to him?” she asked, twisting the end of her pale braid around her fingers like she always did when she was grappling with something. “Or Vic?”
Mal shook his head and scratched viciously at his right forearm. He probably should have put some kind of balm on his feathered tattoo to help with the healing, but part of him had hoped it would all flake off if he just kept scratching hard enough. Fucking ravens. Fucking Shadow Queen knowing that he was asleep in his bed, or walking the streets, or finally hitting the road to do her dirty work for her.
Alys’s eyes clocked the frantic motion. Of course she had noticed the new ink, which was Mal’s only tattoo. And of course she hadn’t pressed when he told her it was something to do with work, thanks to the trust rebuilt between them. Only now, she pressed gently. “I know I should have told you about spending time with Griff again. Maybe especially about how it all started. But you …” Her gaze softened, and for a rare moment, he was the only thing reflected in her keen and caring eyes. “Whatever happened to no secrets between us?”
Damn it.
He pulled out his flask and chugged the whole thing, not bothering to even wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he led her inside, down the hall to the first door on the right, into his childhood bedroom where his pack and the delicate old map were waiting.
Even though he hadn’t held the knife, he still couldn’t look at her while he explained his part in the attack on Griff. He knew how his face might betray him, and he had no words for why he was so stricken at the potential loss of a man he frequently claimed was nothing but a nuisance. More than that, he didn’t want to see the way she was looking at him, not even when he started toexplain how he was going to make things right and what his tattoo really meant. Didn’t want to know how close this confession was bringing him to losing his only other friend in the world for a second time.
He could hear Guts back in the cellar, her voice ringing with soft laughter and admiration as she called him Mister Dangerous, not knowing it was the last thing he wanted to be. That name felt like nothing more than another curse now.
But when he finally chanced a look at Alys, her eyes weren’t narrowed in accusation or disdain. Rather, they were slightly misty and focused on the map. “This is Papa’s handwriting. Rhun’s, I mean. It’s so messy, I’d know it anywhere. The letters are just like the ones in his journals; look, there, see how he puts three dots over each of thei’s?”
With that, she hurried out of the room, presumably to present him with one of Rhun’s old books as proof. He slumped down against his pack, wishing Wynnie were home right now to steady him with a look or a few words in the way that only she could.
Alys reappeared seconds later, out of breath and carrying a leather-bound journal in one hand and a cloth-wrapped bundle in the other. She pressed both into Mal’s hands and knelt on the woven rug beside him, pulling away the wrappings to reveal a sword.
