“It is hard for her to understand what walls are.” She held up both hands and reenacted Rainbow running headfirst into a board. “Thunk.Every time.” She chuckled; then her smile faded, her hand rubbing at her temple.
“You okay?” I asked, worry tightening my throat. Edith gave me a sudden bright smile.
“Fine, my dearest one.” As we cleaned up our empty bowls, she asked, “How was the tavern tonight?”
I gave her a grin. “Good. Quinn was there keeping an eye out. And I made double my coin from last week—lowest-rank magic and all.” I set the small coin purse on the table. “Dancing suits me just fine.”
I could hear the defensiveness in my words. If I had more magic, I might have been able to do more to help Edith, help us. If I knew who I was, maybe I’d…I didn’t know what.
Edith reached out and laid her hand, long-fingered and delicate despite its calluses, on the jade bracelet that I’d been wearing when she found me. The bracelet was now too small to remove. “You know I love you because of who you are, not for what you can do. I love you no matter what, Rubi.”
I gave her hand a squeeze. “I wish I could remember.”
The words were whispered, broken and painful, wrenched from my mouth without warning.
Edith looked stricken. “Just because you don’t have your memories doesn’t mean you don’t have a past, Rubi. It’s in your bones. It’s part of your soul.”
“I’m sorry. Thank you.”
Her eyes were filled with quiet understanding. “It is your nature. To ask you not to question, not to desire your past, is to ask the fire to stop burning.”
Couscous bumped her head against my leg, purring. She was orange and cream, with a white snout tipped in apricot, as if she’dbeen caught stealing jam. Her fur was soft and dense, and she seemed to glow brighter than any other cat on the street. A foreigner, just like us.
I picked the cat up, and she settled in my lap.
“It was hell on earth, you were running for your life, and you tucked a kitten in your bag?”
Edith smiled softly and reached over to pet her warm fur. “She was very small then. Barely weighed anything, so she was easy to carry in my satchel.”
“Why did you pick her?”
She was the runt of the litter. The other cats would have been mean to her. And she led me right to you on that boat.” Her eyes were gentle. She was too tactful to remind me how I’d clutched Couscous to my chest, tears running down my cheeks.
I smiled back and leaned to kiss Edith’s cheek, embracing her as a pang of longing hit.
I’d asked Edith before if she knew anything of me or where I might’ve come from. But she’d never seen me before she drew me into her arms.
For a moment, I let myself imagine it. A life that had never been torn apart. A past unbroken. A dominion where the air was warm, where a tropical paradise stretched beneath a bright blue sky. Where I was not an orphan, nor outcast, nor a girl with too little magic to matter. I was a daughter, a sister, a piece of something whole. I leaned back and shivered, glancing at the low fire. “We don’t have enough wood. I’ll get more.”
Edith nodded.
I stepped into my boots, strapped on my belt, and grabbed the lantern, its dim light throwing pale rings across the floor. The night air bit at my skin as I pushed open the door. Couscous followed me out into the snow.
My arms were full of firewood as I turned, the lantern swingingfrom my elbow to light the way back inside, when Couscous hissed.
I stalled. Couscousneverhissed. Her amber eyes were enormous. Her ears pricked. Her back arched. Then she darted away, her long striped tail tucked low.
I looked down at my feet and froze.
There was a paw print in the snow. Similar to my cat’s small ones. Only much,muchbigger.
I was still staring at the deep indentation when a low growl slid through the air. I blinked up to see a monster standing paces away, between me and the door.
4
A tyger.
There was an enormoustygerbetween me and the door, eyes illuminated in the darkened night. My firewood and lantern clattered to the ground.
