Chapter 36
Cairn
LYRA WILDER STANDS ON MY doorstep, cheeks flushed, crimson eyes shining in the light cast by my fire and candles.
And off to the right, I find an unfamiliar man leaning against my hut, shimmering flecks of gold in his eyes.
When I scent the cold air, I detect an odd smell coming from him. Not fully a human, then.
“That’s Raelan,” Lyra says. “He helped me get here without being spotted.”
This draws my gaze back to her. She’s bundled in a sweater and boots, the hood of her winter cloak pulled up over her red hair.
“Why are you—”
“Can we talk inside?” she asks, her breath steaming out around her lips.
I glance at Raelan again. He gives me a subtle nod, then turns away, as if to give us privacy. Does he . . . know about us?
What’s going on?
Moving back, I pull the door open wider, then try to control the rapid beating of my heart as Lyra steps inside. Raelan doesn’t move. Guess he’s staying out there.
I close the door. When I turn, Lyra is still standing in the entryway, looking like a stranger, like someone who hasn’t been here multiple times, like someone who hasn’t shared my bed and laughed with me in the bath.
It hurts more than it probably has a right to.
“These are yours.” She holds up a bundle of fabric.
I eye it. “My what?”
“Clothes, I think.” She bends to set them on a narrow bench in the entryway. “Raelan said he . . . borrowed them? I don’t know. He asked me to return them.”
My clothes. The ones that were stolen from the clothesline last year.
What an odd witch this Lyra Wilder is. And it seems she keeps odd company as well.
Not sure what that says about me.
Now she’s just standing there, staring at me. It makes my skin tingle with heat.
“Do you . . . want something to drink?” I ask.
She gives me a small smile and a quick nod of the head.
I move into the kitchen, and she follows, albeit hesitantly. She takes a seat at the table while I pour us each a cup of tea—I use the hand-painted moonflower cup for Lyra, the one that hasn’t been used since last her lips touched it.
When she sits there, does she think about the way we touched each other that night, the pleasure we experienced at each other’s hands? Because that’s what I think of. It’s the only thing I see. And it’s made eating meals at my kitchen table almost impossible.
The calming scent of lavender twirls around me as I turn and set two teacups on the table.
“Thanks,” Lyra says softly, not meeting my eyes.
This is so unlike her. I’ll admit I’ve not known her long—only a few months—but I’ve never known her to be shy or timid. She’s quite the opposite.
Sinking into the chair across from her, I sigh and decide to get on with it. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”
Lyra stares down into her cup of tea, the steam dancing around her freckled cheeks. “I overheard a couple professors talking in the hallway today,” she says. “And they . . .” Finally, her striking crimson eyes meet mine. “They were talking about us.”
Something tight snakes around my stomach and squeezes. “What did they say?”
“That I’ve been cozy with you, and someone saw me come back with you on Samhain. And then one said . . .” She hesitates, glancing away again.
“Said what? Just tell me.”
A furrow forms in her brow. “He said Moonhart hates scandals and that you’ll be toast if you’re caught.”
My stomach squeezes tighter.
Of course, I should have expected this. Especially after Samhain, after we interacted so freely in public. This shouldn’t be a surprise.
“Do they know for sure?” I ask, curling my fingers into fists upon my thighs.
Lyra tips her head, looking unsure. “It sounds like they suspect, but I don’t think they know for sure. But that’s why Raelan helped me sneak out tonight—it would be bad for anyone to see me here like this.”
I turn her words over in my head for a moment, trying to push through the stuffy cotton that my warring emotions of fear and desire are causing to cloud my thoughts.
“Why was it so important for you to tell me?” Turning my eyes toward her, I make myself stare at her, even though looking at her hurts.
“Why not wait until Saturday, when it was safe?”
Lyra’s jaw feathers. I’m not quite sure what goes through her head, but she sits up a bit straighter. “Because I know this is my fault. And I wanted to tell you. To warn you. If anything happened to you because of me . . .” The furrow deepens. “You deserved to know.”
You deserved to know.
Without meaning to, I look into the sitting room, where my job offer from the Columbine Conservatory is lying on the table beside my armchair.
She deserves to know, a voice whispers in my ear. I have to tell her, regardless of what I decide.
I push to my hooves. Lyra’s gaze follows me as I walk into the sitting room to retrieve the letter. Then I set it on the table in front of her.
She doesn’t read it. Instead, she just stares at it, at the inked script on the front of the page. Then her eyes move slowly to me.
“What’s this?”
I have to tell her.
“It’s from the conservatory. They’ve offered me the job.” I hesitate, then add, “And they want me to start in the spring.”
A flurry of emotions flashes through her eyes, then settles on something that looks like a mix of sadness and pain. “So . . . you’re leaving? Just like that?”
I hate the way her voice trembles, just a little bit. Tell her the truth, I say to myself.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She looks down at the letter again, then slides it away from her across the table. There’s a tense moment of silence. Then she says, “Well, you should. Take the job.”
My eyes narrow. “You mean that?”
She shrugs, feigning nonchalance, but she can’t hide her truth from me—not like she used to be able to. I see the tension in the skin around her mouth, the way her fingers are curled into tight fists.
“Whatever this was”—she gestures between us roughly—“we knew it had to end eventually. It was just temporary.”
I blink. My mouth opens, but the look in her eyes steals the words from my tongue.
She looks like she’s breaking, and I don’t know what to do, don’t know how to fix this.
“Lyra, I never—”
She pushes to her feet and flashes me a fake smile.
“This is probably a good thing for both of us. It’ll be better this way.
” She moves toward the door, her sweet scent trailing behind her.
As she reaches for the door handle, she says, “I’m going to talk to Moonhart, ask her to discontinue my community service so I can focus on finals.
I’m sure you’ll be busy preparing to leave.
” Her gaze quickly flicks around my little hut, then back to me.
“And a clean break would be best. So . . . goodbye, Cairn.”
The door opens, letting in a swirl of icy air that tosses Lyra’s curls around her shoulders. Then, just like that, she’s gone. The gentle click of the door closing echoes in my ears.
Should I do something? Should I chase after her? Is it foolish to want to try to make this work when so many things are trying to keep us apart?
I stand there, frozen in indecision, until I know Lyra is long gone. And then I look at her cup of lavender tea, sitting untouched on the table, and I feel lonelier and colder than I have in a very long time.