Page 57

Back in the Barren, we had been together for nearly six months. He used to sneak into my boarding house room or into one of the small safe rooms. It was fast, hungry, and desperate. Stolen moments under the cover of night.

Now he was towering over me, his gaze heated. “Last night… It wasn’t what you think. The Riders are not what anyone thinks.”

I turned my head away. “I know very well what they are. I saw it with my own eyes. Go away.”

“No.” He climbed on top of me then, pressing his weight down on me, and my whole body remembered what happened in the spring. His arms caged me in, and his nose ran along my cheek. “I am oath-bound to silence, or I would tell you everything there is to know. If you joined the Ruckus…”

“That will never happen.” But instead of pushing him away, like I should have, I reached up and pulled his lips to mine.

He claimed my mouth, and then flipped us over so that I was on top of him. His need for me pressed hard between us, and everything lit up inside me.

“Gods… we don’t have time.” He was talking into the skin on my shoulder. “They’ve agreed that you can stay here, but you’ve got to start. I already got rid of them once.”

“Oh, yes, please talk about those fucking Riders in my bed.”

I pushed off him, my bare feet hitting ice-cold stone, and headed to the springs to wash. As I opened the door, my shoulder heated, and I turned back. Aster stood watching me, but all I could see were the swirling Celtic designs which claimed the space above his heart.

“From one workshop to another.”

“This one has benefits, I promise.” He tried to smile. “Surely this mending thing is fast?”

I gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “We shouldn’t have shown them… us.”

“I understand that you’ll never trust them. But I have good reason to. They won’t betray us… Well, unless…” He grimaced, then shuddered in pain. There was an oath stopping his words.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

As I reached the first step, he called after me, “You’re my weakness. Everything else I do has a reason. You believe that, don’t you?”

I wanted to turn around and say no, but I didn’t.

The faster I worked, the sooner I would be able to read both books and then be free of the Riders and Bronwen.

***

The workshop smelled of leather, gum, and old paper. I pulled the codex free, the oilskin wrap warm against my hands, and the moment it touched open air, its pulse sharpened, as if it had been waiting.

The codex settled into a dull hum as it was placed on the table. Beautifully embossed leather with gold painted on top and a gold clasp with a lock that had broken long ago. Perhaps someone had forced it open. I ran my fingers over the cracked leather and felt the familiar heat rising from the book.

“Let’s start,” I whispered.

The cover shifted under my hand, and then the entire room buzzed as if the magic were seeking to return to the pages.

“Wren.” Aster stood by the door, just beyond the edge of the light, shadows cutting across him. His body was somehow more powerful here. His hair was damp, telling me he’d been back in the springs. He reached up and rested his arm on the door frame, as if he was truly at home in the mountains. Was he moulded by them when he was a prisoner in the mines or was this were he had found freedom?

“I’ve told them they have to leave you to work, but…” he said, stepping closer. “They’re impatient…”

“No time. I get it.” But there were unanswered questions about the curse. “What’s the rush? I mean, I know they want to break the curse by the end of Yule, but it’s been in place for a generation or more. Why this year? And what if the codex doesn’t have the answer?”

“It’s getting worse. Those who are Lost… They’re falling into sleeps that last for months. Some have even…”

Died? Is that what he wasn’t telling me?

“And Lex? Did those Riders tell you…”

“He is being held where all the Lost Riders are. He woke up some weeks back, but if he falls asleep again… Well…” He leaned against the doorframe, not eager to enter—perhaps he felt the heightened magic in the room too.

“But if no one breaks it this year, then they can try again next year?”