Fox shoulders open the door and the wood groans in protest. ‘After you.’
The inside of the cottage is as quaint as the outside, filled to bursting with handmade furniture. The largest room contains a soot-blackened hearth, mismatched lace curtains and an oblong table surrounded by spindle-legged chairs. Slightly threadbare rugs carpet the wooden floor, and the whitewashed walls are lined with dozens of willow-patterned plates, each covered in a thin layer of chalky dust. The sun pours through the stained glass, bathing everything in kaleidoscopic light.
Fox is looking at me, his expression guarded, as though half expecting me to sneer.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I tell him earnestly. ‘Your grandfather really built all this?’
He nods and sets my dagger down on the table as Scout curls up in an armchair. A column of horizontal markingshas been scored into the wall beside it. Above the notches someone has etched two names – Fox and Freya.
Fox sees me looking. ‘She never grew much taller than that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper.
‘My sister was happy here. She adored our grandparents. We both did.’
‘They must’ve loved you very much,’ I say quietly. ‘When did they …’
‘My grandmother died a year or so after Freya, and our grandfather a few months later.’ A ghost of a smile flickers across Fox’s face. ‘They could never bear to be apart.’
I’m overcome by a desperate wave of sadness as I think of my own grandparents, bound by fate, divided by circumstance, forced to love one another from afar.
‘River,’ I say suddenly. ‘Is he –’
‘Hold on.’ Fox reaches up to grasp the Eye round his neck, his forehead lined with concentration. After a minute or two he seems to resurface. ‘He’s alive. It looks like the Ventalla retreated soon after we disappeared through the portal.’
I sag into a chair, rendered boneless with relief. ‘And the rest of the Singers?’
Fox grimaces, and my stomach churns. ‘Most survived.’
Most, but not all. I ball my shaking hands into fists.
He sinks into the seat opposite, his face twisted in anguish and dappled with soft violet light. ‘I should’ve stayed. I should’ve killed my uncle while I had the chance.’
‘And what if you’d got yourself killed?’ I challenge. ‘You saw what those Demari were capable of.’ I shudder as Irecall the shadow flame burning ink-black, the dead soldier moving disjointedly like a puppet on strings.
‘If I’d managed to take Balen down with me, it would’ve been worth it.’
‘Not to me,’ I tell him.
His eyes are so full of warmth that when he glances away I realize how cold I am.
‘Here.’ Fox fetches a slightly moth-eaten blanket and drapes it round my shoulders, then sets to work building a fire in the hearth.
My thoughts return to River and the Rain Singers. If only I’d achieved what I set out to, I could have prevented this. How many were lost in the attack? How many more deaths am I responsible for? And what if it’s all been for nothing?
Suddenly I feel impossibly, painfully small.Useless.Tears prickle, threatening to spill. A cloud of drizzle forms over my head, hazy droplets kissing my cheeks.
Fox turns instinctively, sets aside a box of matches and kneels in front of my chair.
My breathing is jagged. ‘This is all my fault.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he says, blotting a tear with the pad of his thumb.
‘I’m the one who threw the Eye into Queen Hydra’s portal. I’m the one who failed to find it again. Because I can’t, all right? I can’t find it. I can’t stop your uncle. I can’t save Hal.’
Fox arches a brow. ‘Really, Storm Weaver, this defeatist attitude doesn’t suit you. The Blaze I know wouldn’t give up so easily.’
I sniff pathetically. ‘And who is she exactly, thisBlaze you know?’
