"Then we have terms," he says.
He looks up at the Hall one more time. At the kitchen window where Mirelle is probably sitting with her sisters, feeling nothing and politely thanking them for the soup. His handpresses against the letter beneath his coat. He smiles for the first time all night. "Where do I sleep?" he asks. “So that I don’t bump into her every day?”
Later, when I’m by myself in my chambers, I write a letter, putting everything together:
Lissy,
You asked me who you're dealing with. Now you know all of it, including me.
I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm not asking you for an answer.
I'm going to be here when you're ready to talk, however long that takes. Until then, I'll keep sending the truth for as long as you'll take delivery of it.
Caden taught me that tonight.
You'd like him.
Torgan
Then I sit backin Pa's chair. My jaw aches. Outside the window, the sky is beginning to gray toward morning.
For the first time in three days, I know what I'm doing.
25
LISSY
Grammy opens her blue door before I even knock. She’s uncanny in that way, and I didn’t realize how much I need that part of her until now.
"You've been crying," is her assessment as I come in.
I sniffle, but fight the urge to let more tears fall. "I've been on a cart for four hours."
"Carts don't do that to eyes." She steps aside to let me in, takes one look at the driver hauling Brynna's ledger chest up the path, and sighs like she’s exhausted already. "And you've brought homework. Get it inside before it rains. The kettle's on."
The kettle is always on.
The cottage smells the way it has my whole life: woodsmoke, beeswax, and tea. The fable book sits on the mantel where it has sat my whole life, and I keep my back to it while we stack Brynna's chest along the wall.
“What are you going to do with that?” Grammy asks.
“That,” I say, digging in my coin purse, “is a group project that requires everyone to be here.”
“Everyone?” Grammy repeats.
I nod, grabbing my notes that I scribbled on the way back from Oakenshade Hall, each one addressed to my friends. I go out to the street and hail down a messenger boy, who takes my four coins and runs off to deliver my messages.
By noon, everyone has arrived.
Arabella comes first with a basket of shortbread. “To help us think” she explains, before absently biting into one herself. Lyra brings June's regrets and nine years of accounts for the tavern. They’re both ready for revelations, the tension of the uncertainty about Starling Vale hanging in the balance.
Noemi comes last, her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders. But one step through the door, and she rigidly halts. Her eyes go straight over my shoulder to the mantel, and I follow her gaze to the book.
"Noemi?" I ask, turning back to her.
She seems to physically shake herself out of her pause.
"It's nothing." She unwinds her shawl slowly, still looking past me. "Your grandmother's cottage is older than I expected. That's all."
