“It was…for me to work out.”
“Ash.”
“Kieran—”
“You don’t have to tell me.” I catch her hand before she can pull away. Her skin is warm. It always surprises me, how warm she runs. “But don’t evade the truth with me. Not about this.”
She stares at our joined hands. At her fingers wrapped in mine.
“I dreamed about choices,” she whispers. “About paths not taken. About...” She swallows. “About what happens when you don’t show up for the people you love.”
“Ash.”
She looks up. Those hazel eyes that keep shifting greener every day. The Fae beneath the human. Waking up.
I want to kiss her.
I want to tell her that I’m terrified, too. That watching Kestra walk away feels like losing a limb. That I don’t know how to be someone’s mate when I’ve spent my whole life being someone’s weapon.
I want?—
“We need to move.” Orion’s voice cuts through the moment. Not unkind. Just necessary. “Forest won’t stay safe forever.”
Of course it does.
Ash pulls her hand from mine.
The cold rushes back in.
“Right.” She clears her throat. “Let’s go.”
“See you soon!” Whispen buzzes around us before taking off again.
But it’s Ash I watch as she walks away. Head held high and a tear rolling down her cheek.
31
Ash
“I’m just saying,”Orion’s voice carries from behind me, “if the tavern doesn’t have actual food, I’m eating Finnian.”
“You’d get indigestion,” Finnian replies without missing a beat. “Too much knowledge. Very hard to digest.”
“I’d risk it.”
“I’m touched by your commitment to cannibalism.”
“Would you two shut up about food?” Kieran’s voice is ice and exhaustion. “Some of us are trying to brood in peace.”
“You can brood and walk at the same time,” I call back. “I’ve seen you do it. Very impressive multitasking.”
“It’s a gift.”
The banter should feel normal. Should feel like us. Four people who’ve been through hell together and come out the other side speaking a language no one else understands.
But my mind isn’t here.
It’s in a bathroom in an alternate timeline, watching Lucy smile about dying. It’s on a nursery floor finding out I was about to marry my poisoner. It’s calculating the exact distance between where I’m walking and where three men are trying to love me, and how long until I disappoint them the way I’ve disappointed everyone else.
