‘You are innoposition to ask questions right now.’ He leaps off the bed like a cat, graceful and fluid, landing on his feet and pointing a finger at me, his top lip curling. ‘You know, I never pegged you for someone stupid. Impulsive and bratty, sure. But notstupid!’ He shakes his head.
I push myself into a sitting position, wincing as my vision swims for a second. ‘What the hell is your problem?’
‘You!’ he exclaims. ‘You’re my problem. Why in the whole of Valmora did you think it was a good idea to go down there by yourself? When you know how many people in these walls would wish nothing more than to see you dead.’
I rear back, stung by his words. A heavy weight lodges itself in the back of my throat. ‘I-I didn’t think I would …’
‘You didn’t think at all!’ he interrupts, reaching up to rub at his temples.
‘That’s not fair,’ I pull back the covers on my legs to get up, because I’m not about to get reprimanded while I sit in bed like a child. But the second he hears me shifting around, his fingers drop from his temples and he’s stomping over.
‘What are youdoing?’ I ask exasperated, as he grabs the blankets from my hands and pushes me down, covering me back up.
‘Making sure you don’t do anything else stupid. You need to rest.’ His eyes drop to my cheek and whatever he sees there causes his lips to thin into a hard line. ‘She could havekilledyou, do you understand that? You could have died down there.’ He doesn’t move away like I expect him to. Instead, he stays hovering over me, hands fisted in the blanket on either side of my body. His face is only inches from mine and the close proximity of him, as I lay stuck on my bed trapped beneath my blankets, makes me want to squirm.
‘To a lot of people that would have been a good thing,’ I whisper.
‘A lot of people maybe.’ He nods. ‘Not all though.’
My breath hitches. ‘What does that mean?’
He stares at me for a long moment and the intensity swirling in his eyes makes my skin prickle. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being under the weight of his full attention. I don’t realise how much I want his answer until he eventually shakes his head and pushes off my bed to stand up straight. My stomach sinks.
‘Don’t do that.’ His voice is low. Husky. A warning. ‘Don’t ask me questions like that.’
Why? I want to ask, but I can’t. Instead, I sit there quietly and watch him leave. Through the open crack in the door, he stops to talk to someone – then he’s gone. A second later, a head pops in between the gap of my door and doorframe.
Jed’s eyes land on mine, and the smirk playing on his lips falters at the corners of his mouth as he takes me in. ‘You really have a way with him, don’t you?’ He steps in and closes the door behind him, leaning against it with his arms folded over his chest.
‘What did he say?’ I ask. ‘Where is he going?’
‘He’s going to see Nicks,’ he answers. ‘How areyoufeeling? Your face looks better.’
It does? Naturally, my hand reaches up. Delicately, I pat the skin over my cheek with the tips of my fingers, anticipating pain. I recall the burning sensation as Moira’s fist connected with it, and when she held her palm over my skin. I didn’t even think about it when I woke up; I was too distracted seeing Sebastian at the end of my bed to worry about what the burn might look like. As I gently tap my fingers along the skin, I feel no pain, but my skin feels … different. Like an old burn that’s healed and left a silky cast over the skin.
‘There’s no pain,’ I tell Jed. ‘I don’t understand.’ I’ve seen the scars on Xavier. I’ve seen what fire wielders can do to a person. While my skin feels hot to touch, there’s no agony like I expected.
‘The healers numbed the area, so you won’t feel anything for a day or two. But don’t be fooled, Nocthare, you didn’t get away totally unscathed.’
Confusion laces through me. ‘What do you mean?’
But Jed only shakes his head. ‘You’ll see the next time you look in the mirror, and no,’ he holds his hands up, ‘you are not getting out of this bed right now. I’ve been ordered to make sure you rest. You can see the damage when I know you won’t eat the ground the second you stand up.’
The damage? What happened to my face?
I have half a mind to get up and walk to the bathroom anyway. But I decide I’d rather do it once I’m alone. That way if it’s bad … well, at least I can sink into my pity party without judgement.
A soft laugh suddenly erupts from Jed as he pushes off the wall and crosses to my dresser, distracting me. He’s careful not to stand on top of the roll -out bed as he crouches down to run his fingers over a black spot on the side of the dresser. It’s about half the length of my forearm and from what I could tell when I first cleaned up in here, it seems to be a burn mark.
‘Now, this,’ he looks over at me, a grin stretching across his face, ‘was from our first week of first year. I almost burnt Lukas’s eyebrows off. He wassopissed.’ Jed glances back down at the burn mark with a fondness in his eyes. As if he’s remembering the day. Meanwhile my heart is jack hammering in my chest at hearing someone else say my brother’s name so casually.
‘Did you know him well?’ My voice comes out all shaky. I don’t care about rest right now, or what’s happened to my face. I just need to hear what Jed has to say next; I need it like I need air to breathe.
He nods, albeit a little solemnly. ‘He was one of my best friends.’
My quiet inhale gets stuck in my throat. Jed’s head turns my way, and the moment he sees the hot tears filling my eyes he sighs, deeply, and plants himself down on the bedroll to lean against the dresser.
‘I know you might not believe me when I say this, but I loved him. We all did. Seb, Lilly and I. Your brother was the glue that held the four of us together and when he—’ Jed pauses for a beat. I can tell he’s trying hard to think of how to say his next words. ‘When he did what he did, it threw us all for a loop. Lily’s walls went up; Seb retreated and threw himself into training and I … I just wanted my fucking friends back.’ His voice cracks. This is a vulnerability I’ve not seen from him before. The look he gives me is devastating. Full of grief and heartache, so unlike the version of Jed the joker and combat leader that I have in my head. The one who always smiles, not caring what others think ofhim. Something in the back of my head tells me that that version is a mask and this,thisis the real Jed. Still hurting. Still quietly grieving. Not just one friend, but all of them.
