“I know.” She tilted her head. “Why does it feel like I know you so much better than I should?”
Jesstin swallowed. “I don’t know, but I feel it too.”
“I know we knew each other years ago, but that’s not what I mean.”
“No, me either.”
“Whatever the reason, it’s unlikely we’ll solve it when we’re awake,” she said sadly.
“Could be another feature of this bond.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. He wasn’t either.
“Can I ask you something?” He grinned with mischief. “Aelloven.”
“Oh, here we go,” she said, laughing. “I actually like the name.”
“Esme was real imaginative with that skulduggery. How could anyone ever guess Aelloven and Elloven were the same person?”
“Stop it.” She laughed harder. “Did you actually have a question?”
Jesstin waited a moment for their laughter to fade. “Sometimes I see you moving your fingers... against your leg. Are you counting?” He immediately regretted asking when he saw the panic in her expression. She had no choice but honesty. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I take it back.”
“It, uh, it helps me.” She nodded vigorously at the table. “When I feel like my control is slipping.”
“Your chaos magic?”
Elloven shook her head. “Now, maybe, but it rarely manifested until I came back from Whitechurch. I don’t... I don’t even know how to actually summon it. I’ve only consciously done it a few times. I’m not sure counting is strong enough to stop it when it comes up on its own.”
“It’s more of non-mystical aid then?”
“When I was a little girl, I’d run my anxiety away. I’d run until I couldn’t stand. Then Taven showed up, and my father—and Wilder died, and it wasn’t enough anymore. I don’t remember the first time I started counting things, but it’s become a reflex. I’m not always aware I’m doing it.”
Jesstin sat back. Someone else he’d known, one of the Penhallows, though he couldn’t recall which, used to count fenceposts when he couldn’t calm down. His father had taught him. “It brings you back to yourself.”
She nodded. “Not always as well as I’d like.”
“Taven knows that’s why you do it?”
“He knows, but he doesn’t like it.”
“That’s his problem.” Even in the Night Soul, he couldn’t escape his disgust for the man. “I suppose he thinks you’re stealing his job.”
Elloven half smiled. “That’s about the sum of it, yes.”
“I could kill him for you.”
Elloven’s head shot up. She choked on a laugh. “What?”
Jesstin shrugged. “Just throwing it out as an option.”
“I’m perfectly capable of killing him myself, thank you,” she said with a ludicrously serious expression that made them both laugh until they had tears in their eyes. He studied her as it slowly passed. Her languid eyes traveled toward his, her smile dreamy. She was so beautiful when unburdened.
“I’m worried for you here.” Until he said it, he hadn’t been sure he would. “There’s something not quite right about Rivenholde.”
Her exhale was deep enough to nearly break the spell. “Jesstin?—”
“Taven was insistent you come here, and not to your mother’s people. They were already waiting for you. They knew when you’d arrive, who you’d arrive with. They had everything waiting, ready. Everything.”
