And I cut.
Tay made a sound I was going to be hearing for a long time.
“Almost there,” Fear said for the second time today, and he was right.
Tay stopped fighting. Not because he believed me or trusted me, but because Fear was holding him, and there was nothing useful fighting could do anymore. Tay had always been practical. That thought was accompanied by too many memories of Tay having known the end was near and there was not another battle.
I did the work and cut away the enchantment.I trust you. I always trust you.
Not always.
I flung away the enchantment, which was already melting away into nothing. I didn’t even aim. I just wanted the queen’s poison away from us both.
“Here,” Fear said, his arms loosening around Tay.
As soon as he was certain Tay would harm no one, his hand went to his belt. It meant nothing to Tay that Fear forced the blood salve on him. I was afraid for an instant that Tay would knock the blood salve from his hand, but Fear convinced him. Instantly, the wound healed over.
I thought of the precious potion made of Shadowbane’s blood that I had dropped onto the labyrinth floor with sudden, tight guilt.
Tay didn’t yank away from Fear. He was forever gentler than me. He just went as far away from the four of us as he couldwithin the confines of the tent, his tense shoulders and bowed head all we could see as he tried to put himself together.
After a long moment, Tay turned around.
I had known every version of my brother’s face for nineteen years, and this was a new one. Not the anger I had braced for. Not the fear.
His gaze found mine. “I trusted you.”
A fact that had been and might never be again.
He sat down on the cot.
He put his face in his hands.
Maris sat beside him. She put her arm around him, and he leaned in.
I went to wash my hands.
Fear came with me, and I was, despite it all, grateful for his presence at my side.
Thirty-Eight
Cara
When I had washed up, I found Fear standing behind me with a cup of tea, steam curling up in the fading dusk.
I took it and glanced around before I raised it to him like a question. “There’s no one to see.”
He looked as if he were deciding what to say.
I couldn’t stand the thought he pitied me too much to hate me. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to fall apart.”
When I turned my back on him to go into the tent, he said quietly, “You never fall apart. That’s what worries me.”
I let the flap fall behind me, cloaking me in the dim light and the scent of wet canvas and the hint of woodsmoke from the brazier so that I was alone with my irritation. Fear never fell apart. Why would he pretend I could indulge in that luxury?
There was blood crusted on my sleeve. I cursed to myself and pulled my tunic off. Of course that was the moment he followed me into the tent. I turned on him in exasperation.
He parried my irritation with that maddening cool amusement. “If you’re not falling apart, I suppose you don’t need me to distract your mother? She’s outside.”
