“And neither could you,” she said, knowing it was true. It emboldened her to move closer, to reach for his chin and tilt his gaze to hers. “It’s notsafer, Ger. He needs you here, looking out for him.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Of course you can.”
He wrenched his face from her grip, shallow creases carving into his smooth blond brow.
“Ican’t. I’ve never been able to work up that kind of courage, and you know it. I’m a fucking coward, Ade.”
Adeline could not help the swell of bitter anger that bled through her at that; couldn’t stop herself from aiming a sharp flick at Ger’s arm.
“Ouch,” he hissed. “What the fuck?”
“Stop that,” she said sternly. “You have more courage in your baby toe than Benan could hope to find in his entire mountain of a body. Being scared doesn’t make you a coward, Ger, it makes you human. It makes you brave, because that fear means something different to you than it does to most, and you still get up and fight your way through it every day.”
He dropped her gaze, shoulders sagging.
“I’m tired of fighting.”
Hesoundedtired. He sounded utterly defeated, looked it too—and that gutted her more than his talk of leaving ever could.
“I know.” It came out on a whisper, and she swallowed back the sudden tightness in her throat. She did know; she was tired too, they all were. “I know you are, but we’re so close. It’s almost over.”
At that, Ger looked up.
“What if it isn’t?” His face was slack, nearly drained of emotion, but the strain in his voice tightened every word, forcing him to speak faster and louder, racing against his own body.“I was there at the Laune today, they’re movingquickly. What if the Merrow can’t keep up? What if they don’t make it? What if Avette gets there first? How thefuckare we supposed to stop her?”
Adeline threw a look at the door as his voice rose to near hysterics, hands reaching out to hush him.
“I’m working on that.”
“How?”
Adeline hesitated, but Ger’s panic pressed down on her like a physical weight, stirring an urgency in her chest. Like a calland response, the ancient thing in her pocket gave a quick, cool pulse.
Alright,she told it, and could have sworn she felt it shiver with delight. Ger watched her wordless exchange with his brow furrowed, eyes wary on the hand she slipped into her pocket. The moment the seaglass met her palm, it sent a current through her skin. She welcomed that charge, let it sing through her, a breeze through the branches of her veins. Ger’s focus was still on her concealed hand—so when she reached out her other hand to him, he did not notice right away. Not until her fingers unfurled, the bright pink nycta bud mirroring her gesture with its petals. It spilt open, bright pink and so vivid in the stark frost all around them that Ger’s eyes moved like magnets.
And he froze.
Ger was rarely unreadable, not to her at least. His emotions came too readily, and in this moment, he was a puppet to his own shock. It tugged at his brow, his eyes, his jaw, even twitching in his fingers as he reached, tentatively, for the nycta. Its roots were still buried just beneath her palm, and she felt the brush of his touch over the petals before she released the bloom from the tangle of her own nerves and let it tumble into his hand.
“Was that,” he whispered uncertainly, “under yourskin?”
She nodded; then withdrew her other hand, the seaglass pendant gleaming just enough to cast green over Ger’s blue gaze.
“That’s Kai’s,” he said at once. “Imogen had it.”
Adeline nodded again.
“She’s been teaching me. I found out what I could do in Dhalias, and Imogen—well, she found out too. I’m—I’m not verygood yet, but if all else fails, the very least we can hope for is the element of surprise.”
Ger’s face was still soft and slack with shock; his gaze slid to the flower in his hand, fingers curling up to form a cradle around it.
“This is what you were keeping from me,” he said. He sounded more thoughtful than annoyed, but Adeline’s stomach still pinched with guilt.
“Yes. I knew you’d be worried and—and you’ve beensoworried already, Ger. You’ve had so much on your shoulders.”
He just nodded; didn’t try to deny it or laugh it off like he might have just a few months ago. Avette, and all she’d put him through, had hollowed him, nearly gutted him of the light that had once been her beacon.Nearly.Because as bleak as the winter around them had become, that flame within her friend was not yet doused; she’d seen it burning feverishly when he’d first stormed in here. Something had kept it alight, tended to it all this time. Or more likely, she now knew, someone.
