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“We think someone poisoned you while you were visiting the princes. It’s a slow acting poison, but we’re going to get you through this. Just hang on … bestie.” Her thin shoulders shook with silent sobs.

“It’s all right, Lyric. I’m not afraid.” The truth was I was too weak and sick to care what happened.

Lyric squeezed my hand hard. “Bullshit. I didn’t sit on a fucking shelf for years just to watch you die in the back of a wagon.” Her tears rolled faster now. I gathered enough strength to reach up and wipe away one of the rolling tears.

“You were the best protector a girl could have.” I shivered as the night air became damper and colder. The stars had disappeared, curtained by a thick canopy of trees. “I don’t understand, where are we going? Where is Raina?”

Lyric’s face looked small and pale as she peered down at me with a look so sorrowful it assured me I was dying. “Shh, save your strength. You’ll see soon enough.”

My strength was already at its end. I felt as weak as a newly hatched fledgling. I took her advice and closed my eyes. Maybe this was all for the best. My life had been doused in bad luck right from the start, and that same bad luck had followed me right to Norvale.

I woke to the sensation again that I was floating in space, but then I realized I was in Revel’s arms. Maybe I’d earned a place in heaven, and my reward was to be carried around all day by the beautiful Valian warrior. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend eternity.

Every movement made my head and body sting with sharp pains. I moved my face away from the protection of his chest just long enough to take in my surroundings. We were deep in a forest of some kind. The air was thick with a greenish scent, and that same natural scent mingled with aromatic smoke. It was a chore keeping my eyes open. We headed toward a small cottage that looked ancient.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

Revel brought me closer to his body. “You’ll see. Just hang on, Whisper. I’m not going to lose you.” His voice was strained and tight with emotion.

I nestled closer to his warmth. “If I die, I want to be right here in these arms.”

A flood of warmth washed over me, and suddenly, I was inside a room. I could feel the heat of a fire on the side of my face. Every small sensation seemed to be intensified exponentially by whatever was happening to me. I lifted my head again at the sound of a voice, a voice that stirred me from my near stupor. An old woman, hunched and gray and withered by age, appeared in the room. I should have shuddered, or at the very least flinched, at the sight of her. Instead, I felt something deep inside turn over, like a kid tumbling somersaults. I stared at her, wondering if she was part of a hallucination. I’d been right. She was a fever-driven vision. The wrinkles, deep-set eyes and grayish skin melted away, and another face appeared—a beautiful, incredible, breathtaking face … with violet-blue eyes. Violet-blue eyes that were filled with tears.

I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to break apart the image. “Mom?” I whispered hoarsely. “Am I dead?”

Tears streamed from those same violet-blue eyes, and her hand came up to cradle my cheek. “No, my punkin, you’re not dead. You’ll be fine. You’re with me now.”

I closed my eyes and fell through my last shreds of consciousness.

Thirty-One

“Drink, sweetie.” There it was again. I’d heard it hundreds of times in my dreams. It was a voice I’d longed to hear since that dreadful day when Revel took her away. Something cold hit my lips. They were chapped and bleeding. The cool liquid felt good and tasted even better. It slid down my throat like cool water on a hot day, but it had a distinct flavor to it. Something sweet with a sour edge. The liquid helped free me from the heavy drowsiness that kept pulling me back to unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes slowly, hoping that the voice I heard was connected to something real and not just a dream. It was her. I reached up, and her hand took hold of mine. She pressed it against her cheek. Her skin was just like I remembered, glowing and silky soft.

“Mom, you’re really here.”

“I am. Oh baby, I have so much to tell you, and our time together is short.”

“So, I am dying? Lyric said I’d been poisoned?” It figured that my usual bad luck would take me from my mom just as I’d found her again.

Her pink lips spread in a faint smile. “No, Rafi, you’re not dying. Revel and Lyric got you here just in time.”

I struggled to sit up. Mom helped me, and I shifted back to rest against a pillow. I had a million questions, and they were all too important to ask lying down. The room spun. I reached to her for support, and she was there to provide it. My heart ached thinking about how many times I’d needed that support in the last few decades. She’d hardly aged, and everything about her, even the smell of her skin, was familiar, as if no time had passed without each other.

“My beautiful Raphael, how I missed you.” I was weak and shaky, but I lunged forward into her arms. We both sobbed and held each other as if letting go was never going to be an option.

We finally managed to collect ourselves, mostly out of necessity. I was still so weak that sitting for that long took all of the wind out of me. I rested back on the pillow. The room had gray stone walls, and the ceiling was crisscrossed with roughly hewn timber. It was a medieval, dark place, but I could see Mom’s touches throughout. One wall was covered with framed photos of me and some of the two of us. I recognized all of them.

“You took the photos with you,” I said, my throat still tight with emotion.

“Yes, I was warned not to, but I couldn’t leave without them.”

As my eyes scanned the photos, something deep inside knotted, and a dark, sickening feeling washed over me. I looked up at her, and I could see the unhappiness behind her glowing expression. “Mom,” I said hesitantly, “I was out of it, and everything is a blur, but I think—” My words fell off, and I couldn’t bring myself to say them out loud. “Is it true?” More tears fell. These were not ones of an emotional reunion. I could still hear the man down below in the gulley yell out “Number 32.” “Is Raina⁠—”

Mom’s shoulders sank and then wobbled. “Yes,” she sobbed. “Raina is gone.” I pushed myself up and into her arms again. We cried again. To have two such emotional things—a reunion with the mother I considered gone forever, and the reality that the person I counted as my second mom was truly lost forever—was such a cruel twist of irony that I felt sick.

The sob scenes had taken what little energy I had. I cried myself back to sleep. A few hours later Mom woke me again. She was holding a crudely made clay bowl with a fragrant steam rolling from it. “I made some broth. And there’s fry bread at the table. We need to build up your strength.” My limbs were heavy from the blanket of grief weighing me down. Mom moved slower, too. We’d never been together, the three of us, but Raina had been such an important person to each of us in our own way. It would be impossible to fill the void.