Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
O ver the next few days, Helena and I take to spending long hours together, chatting amicably about nothing and everything.
It’s a novel experience, because, for most of my life, female friendship has escaped me. Not out of choice. More because the one close friend I had in childhood, Holly Hendricks, turned out to not be my friend at all. When I was twelve, I overheard her confessing to our classmates that she didn’t care for me all that much. She just loved how lucky she became when we were together.
I was fortunate, of course, to have found out. But the experience altered something in me. Like a broken bone that never set quite right, my faith in friendship was bent askew that day. Which was probably why I delved so enthusiastically into books, afterward.
Helena is no Holly, though. She doesn’t want anything from me. I can’t pinpoint which quality of hers makes me so certain—maybe it’s her no-nonsense attitude, or her quiet aura of self-assuredness. Maybe it’s both of those things .
Either way, when I’m with her, I sometimes forget I’m a Charm.
It’s remarkably freeing.
I ask Helena every question I can think of. I learn that she has no children and lives in Hearthsgill, a three-day carriage journey from Pine’s End. It’s the same place Weston is from. The same place his whole family still lives.
The place he left when he was fifteen.
Helena asks me about my family, too, which prompts me to wonder, probably much too late, what my brother must think of my disappearance.
Does Brendan know I’m okay? That Weston is with me? Or...not with me, really, but lurking around the fringes of my life, more savior than jailer?
He must, because Weston and I vanished at the same time.
There aren’t many potential explanations for that, except the truth, and the realization grips me in cold claws. But Brendan must not know about this place. If he did, he’d have shown up already, demanding I do my duty and marry Alverton.
My gut sours. I can’t imagine how this all will end. At some point, I’ll have to return to Pine’s End, but when I do, I’ll need to ensure Brendan doesn’t blame his best friend for this.
Weston has taken such enormous risks for my sake. Even if he won’t talk to me.
On the day Helena departs, she wraps me in a hug. She looks hale and healthy, now. The shadows beneath her eyes have faded, and no rasp taints her breathing, even when she gathers a lungful of autumn air.
She holds me close and murmurs in my ear. “Don’t let him shut you out, okay? ”
I cling to her, wishing she would stay. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.” She pulls back and taps my Mark with a bare forefinger. I nearly lose my breath at how casually she does it. Given that she shares blood with Weston, such a cavalier touch seems almost illicit, somehow. “This thing only dictates your life if you let it.”
I swallow, the sentiment rendering me mute for a moment, and nod.
Helena winks. “Bold as brass, remember?”
Heat prickles at my eyes. I do remember.
“And see if you can convince him to visit us, all right?” She grins and backs away. “Or me, at least. Once he’s able.”
My brows pull together. “What do you mean, once he’s able?”
She laughs and spins on a heel, then heads for the forest, waving once without turning around. A loaded pack weights her shoulders, and I imagine Weston must be somewhere out of view, waiting to see her off.
“Once he’s able,” I murmur to myself. “Once he’s able?”
I sigh. Apparently, Helena has more faith in me than I do.
But I can’t shake her words, even when night falls and I install myself in the armchair, where I stare into the crackling fire.
Once he’s able.
Bold as brass.
The words swoop and dive at me, trailing me to bed and tunneling through my dreams. Hours later, they’re still fizzling in the back of my mind when I wake in the darkness to the heavy drone of rain.
I bolt upright, alarm tightening my stomach. It’s pouring outside. Rain hits the roof like never-ending scattershot. A chill blankets the room, gnawing at my fingers and toes.
Fortuna, Weston must be freezing.
I jump from bed. Within minutes, I’ve revived the fire, and the ease with which I do so tells me he hasn’t taken refuge in the other room. The moment the flames gain a foothold, I turn from the hearth and sail out the door.
Enough of this. I haven’t seen him in over two weeks, and I can’t stand it anymore. I won’t. I refuse to leave him out there in misery.
Bold as brass .
Outside, night engulfs me, a roar of rain and darkness. I wonder what time it is, how long I have until sunrise—and potential discovery—then decide it doesn’t matter. Weston’s going to spend the rest of the night inside, my canceled luck be damned. The duke’s men won’t be out in weather like this, anyway.
“Weston!” I cry, but my holler gets lost the moment it leaves my mouth. I set out across the clearing, then stop and look up.
I should be wet. Only I’m not. Goosebumps prickle on my arms and frigid air eddies beneath my nightgown, chilling me in uncomfortable places, but not a single raindrop touches me. Falling water batters the grass around me, but I stand amid an oasis of stormlessness.
I take a step left. So does the dry spot.
I step right. Same thing.
I sigh and drag my hands down my face, hating that I’m dry when Weston is undoubtedly soaked, but then it hits me.
I can find him this way. I only have to wander until I get wet. Then I’ll know he’s mere feet away, nullifying my luck .
I set out into the pitch-dark forest. The scent of wet pine stings my nose while springy bracken dampens my bare soles, but I keep dry. Cold and half-lost, maybe, but dry.
A dozen times, I shout Weston’s name. Nothing answers but the fury of the storm. Occasional lightning flashes in the distance, but by the time the resultant thunder reaches me, it’s more vibration than sound.
And then...
Plop. A bead of ice hits my skin. Then another. Plop. Plop.
I peer around. The cabin’s window has shrunk to a watery pinpoint behind me. In every direction, rain sheets off pine boughs. Nothing distinguishes this place from any other. “Weston?”
No reply. The rain bellows.
I take another step, and suddenly, I’m drenched. The rain hits me like an assault, a shower of icy bullets fired from above. My nightgown soaks through in an instant.
I barely register the shock of cold, except to note that Weston has been enduring this for hours. At the realization, my desperation grows. I shout his name again. Nothing.
Then I spot a shape in the darkness ahead, huddled against the trunk of a pine.
My heart seizes.
It’s him. It has to be.