Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
The hinges squeak in protest as I push the door of Thorley’s practice open and step over the threshold.
I haven’t been here since the day I saw Dahlia. I promised myself I would find a solution for her and help her, but I was too late.
It’s in these moments that I miss Finnick the most. He always knew the right thing to say, the right thing to do to help me in any situation.
My feet meet the floor quietly as I look around the empty kitchen, a sweet smell invading my nostrils.
Ever since Silas told me he liked seeing me in that plum-stained dress last week, I have been wearing more proper dresses than ever before.
My newfound interest in dressing up doesn’t have anything to do with thoughts of how Rylan would react. Definitely not. Yet I can’t stop thinking about the way his eyes had perused my figure.
When he left my house yesterday, I fought to rid myself of the feeling he left on my skin.
Extraordinary.
It’s one word. One word that was tumbling around my mind as I slept last night. It’s absurd. He is absurd, nothing more than a distraction when I should be focused on more important things. Things like my safety and the safety of my friends, things like Mayor Hawthorne, things like Silas.
I shake my head as I pick up the skirts of my dress, the hem now painted with dirt from the forest. They are pretty, but they become slightly inconvenient when one lives in the middle of the woods and has to step over toadstools every other moment.
I place my basket down on the table and move to put the kettle on. Thorley has her own hibiscus brew here that I can’t replicate no matter how hard I try, so I often steal a cup of tea when I am here if I can.
“Everleigh.” A delicate voice I only just recognise speaks my name from across the room.
I turn around to see Elara standing on the other side of the kitchen. “Elara, what are you doing here?”
She brushes her hands down her blue linen skirts, and her luminous hair falls in front of her face. “Hazel and I came to help Mrs. Thorley with setting a broken shoulder.” She tucks her hair back behind her ears as her eyes meet mine.
“Oh,” I say, pulling the kettle from the stovetop as it begins to whistle. “How did the patient break their shoulder?”
“Apparently, he fell off his horse. Thorley said with the injuries to his ribs, he is lucky he didn’t die on the ground right where he fell.”
My mind flashes with the images of two distressed horses rearing back. A cart flipped on its head, a wheel discarded on the side of the path, and two figures pinned beneath the broken cart, blood everywhere and a scream curdling through the empty space.
I’ll never know what it really looked like, but that is how I have always imagined it—the accident that killed my parents.
“He’s okay now,” Elara says, her eyes worried as she catches my attention again.
I just nod. “Good, that’s good,” I say before I turn my back to her, hiding the tears that prick at the back of my eyes.
“Are you all right?” Elara asks when the room stays silent. I struggle to come up with light conversation as the image of my dead parents forms in my head.
I nod, looking over my shoulder at her. “Yes, of course. I’m fine.
” I pour the hot water into a teapot, mixing in the hibiscus tea that is sitting in a jar on the benchtop settled between an assortment of herbal remedies and baking ingredients.
“I just came to drop off some remedies I thought Thorley might need topping up,” I say simply.
Voices murmur from down the hall, and then Mrs. Thorley appears in the kitchen along with Hazel, whose arm is linked in the crook of Thorley’s elbow.
“Everleigh,” they both say at once before Hazel unhooks herself from Thorley to wrap me in a tight embrace. “How are you getting on?” she asks when she pulls away.
I tip my head from side to side. “I’m getting on. You?”
She raises her brows an inch before meeting my gaze and I see the same resignation in them that I feel. “The same.”
“I am glad you are here,” Thorley says before scurrying over to open the oven, and when she does, a sweet smell invades the room—the smell of cinnamon and pastry, like a warm hug on a cold winter's day. “When was the last time you girls ate something, hmm?”
Hazel and I catch each other's gaze, and that resignation has quickly flipped to hunger. I can’t remember the last proper meal I had.
I think I had the last of the peaches yesterday, but that’s all.
I’ve been too distracted by everything that has been going on to fix myself something to eat. I can imagine Hazel has been the same.
My mind wanders to Cedar, wondering how things have been for her. I haven’t seen her since before the execution. I’m glad she wasn’t there. At least one of us was spared from seeing what we saw.
The three of us sit down at the table as Thorley pulls a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven, letting them cool as she comes to rest a hand on my shoulder.
“And how are you doing?” I ask, resting my hand atop hers.
“I’m okay, darling. You spend enough years alive and you hear of some terrible horrors. I’m only sorry you two were there to witness it.”
“I am glad we were there,” Hazel says. “I’m glad we got to witness that man and his posse firsthand.”
Her voice holds venom, like a poison spreading through her veins more with every passing day. Hatred of the system we are forced to endure festers beneath her skin like a wound left untreated. I don’t disagree, but all I can do is watch.
King Wyndbrook is infecting Nameria with fear through unjust trials and cruel executions carried out by his men. Mayor Hawthorne himself is just as cruel. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came straight from the castle.
He probably lived in the king’s pockets, holding hands under the dinner table as they deliberated how to control the continent. I feel sick just thinking about it.
“I am simply glad we could lay them to rest,” I say, even though doing so made my heart feel heavy. I could never have expected what was coming our way.
“I am glad for that too, dear,” Thorley says before giving my shoulder a squeeze and walking back to the benchtop to pour herself a cup of tea.
“I actually came to replenish some of your medicines,” I say, taking the cover off my basket and mindlessly placing the dagger that I put in there this morning down on the tabletop so I can pull out the small jars of medicine.
“What is this?” Hazel says as she picks up the dagger. A worn leather sheath covers the blade but leaves the detailed hilt exposed.
She turns it over in her hands, running her fingertips over the stone at the pommel. “Where did you get this?” she asks, Elara leaning to look over her shoulder.
“Rylan gave it to me,” I say with a wave of my hand as I continue rifling through my basket.
Hazel’s gaze cuts to mine across the table. “Who in the gods in Rylan, and why have I never heard of him before?”
“Uh…” It slipped my mind that I haven’t quite had time to talk to anyone about Rylan since I met him. Not that I am sure what I would say in any case.
He is a blacksmith but knows an absurd amount about herbal remedies, and he kind of just appears wherever I am, and he loves horses. Oh, and he’s seen me in nothing but my shift, but I’m still quite sure he wasn’t looking.
“He’s the new blacksmith,” is all I say.
Hazel hands the dagger to Elara. “The new, young, and fine-looking blacksmith gave you a dagger?”
“I wouldn’t say fine-looking,” I say, avoiding my friend's inquisitive gaze. More like dangerously attractive, but she doesn’t need to know that.
A sharp gasp interrupts Hazel’s interrogation, and we all turn to see Thorley staring at the dagger that now lies on the table between us.
Hazel and I lock eyes in a what is happening right now kind of manner before we both look back to where Thorley is mindlessly placing the tray of cinnamon rolls on the table. Despite the mouthwatering smell, no one moves to eat.
“I never saw that dagger outside of the confines of that room,” Thorley says on a breath, shaking her head in disbelief.
Hazel and I meet eyes again. “What room?” we ask in unison, both of our voices wary.
“Your mother kept everything so close to her. That dagger was precious, as were the books.” My stomach drops.
“My mother?” I ask. “Esther?” My skin feels as if it has gone numb, as if all the blood cells beneath my skin have stopped moving, as if everything inside of me is still, waiting for the pin to drop.
My mother knew everyone in this town, including Thorley, but I don’t recall them ever being more than acquaintances. Is Thorley mistaking this dagger for something else? Or mistaking my mother for someone else?
But Thorley just nods with a look in her eyes as if she’s in a dream-like state, and she has that soft edge to her voice that she gets when she starts to forget things. Except this time, it seems as though she’s remembering something. Something about my mother.
“What books?” Elara asks.
“They’re probably still there, you know,” she continues, as if she didn’t hear Elara’s soft-spoken question. “Unless they cleared the place out when you and dear Finnick left that house. But it was well hidden. Your mother never wanted to risk it.”
“Risk what?” I ask, my heartbeat frantic in my chest.
A deep groan comes from down the hall, and Thorley turns to leave the room to attend to her patient.
“Thorley?” Hazel calls.
I stand up from my chair, my gaze stuck on her retreating form. “Risk what, Mrs. Thorley?” But it’s like she doesn’t even hear me. She just walks down the hall and back to her work.
I sink back down into my seat, my body too tired to hold me up any longer.
What does this dagger have to do with my mother, or with my old house? I had never seen it until yesterday, until Rylan gave it to me. Does he know anything about all of this? Why would he give it to me otherwise?
But how could he know? He is from a place far from here, a place my mother never would have gone to, so how did it land in his hands?
“Well, that was alarming,” Hazel says, but I barely register it. My mind is running at a thousand miles per hour, thinking up every possibility, but none of it makes any sense.
I can feel the delicate hairs on my arms raising, gooseflesh tickling my skin as if a chill just came in through an open window.
My mind is replaying my interaction with Rylan last evening. He must know something about this dagger, something about where his mother got it from.
I scold myself for falling for his charm, for not questioning why he was handing me a dagger that belonged to his mother. There must be some reason why he doesn’t want something that is tied to her.
Yet nothing about last night felt false. Nothing he said felt like a lie. But maybe that is simply my naivety speaking.
“We ought to go to your parents’ house,” Hazel says.
Elara stands. “I’ll stay here with Mrs. Thorley. You go, do whatever you need to do.”
I force my racing thoughts to slow down so I can process what she is saying. “Are you sure?” I ask.
“Of course, I’ll be fine. Go. Figure out if that meant anything.” And then she disappears down the hall after the old woman.
“We need to find Cedar,” I say, picking up my basket again and heading for the door.
Hazel stands up, snatching two cinnamon rolls from the table and handing one to me. “So when did you meet the blacksmith?”