Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Elm’s voice deepened, hot with anger. “Fine. I think you’re a fool, cousin.”
Emory held his sleeve up to his mouth, smothering a laugh.
Ravyn’s voice remained characteristically smooth. “How do you figure?”
“We could have been in Spindle House today, stealing the Well Card,” the Prince declared. “But you insisted we go to Market Street because you wanted to be near her ,” he said. “Who, I might add, came this close to ruining our entire plan by flouncing about in front of Orithe bloody Willow.”
I coughed into my wine. “I practically begged you to go into Spindle House with me and find the Well!”
Elm waved a hand in my face. “I didn’t say it was a bad idea, only that it wasn’t the right moment.” He wrinkled his nose. “And I wasn’t about to give you the satisfaction of having a semi-intelligent idea, Spindle.”
I wanted to reach over and wring his long Rowan neck.
Ravyn, across the table, remained quiet.
“There will be hell to pay when we get back to Stone,” Elm said, his ire returning to his cousin.
“She maimed a Destrier. My father won’t take kindly to an assault on his guard, nor the botched arrest of an infected child.
” He paused, shooting me another unfeeling glance.
“Whatever her magic, it’s more than a penchant for spotting Providence Cards. I don’t trust her.”
“I do,” Ravyn said, folding his arms over his chest. “That should be enough for you.”
“Should it? Am I not allowed my own opinion? Or does everyone bow to the Captain of the Destriers?”
“You can have your own opinion,” Ravyn said. “But just know, without all the facts, you sound like an idiot.”
Elm’s voice grew louder. “And what facts, pray tell, am I missing?”
“I wanted us all to go to Market Day so that if the Ivys stole the Well Card from Spindle House this morning, we would all be accounted for.”
I blinked. Across the table from me, Fenir’s and Morette’s faces grew stern.
“The Ivys were in my father’s house?” I said.
Fenir nodded.
“And when were you planning on telling me this?” Elm shouted. “Whenever it suited you, I suppose.”
“I love when they argue,” Emory said into his soup. “Keeps my weak little heart beating.”
Fenir ran his hand over his beard. “I take it the Ivys didn’t find the Well Card.”
Ravyn shook his head.
“That’s probably because they didn’t know where to look,” I cried, pushing out of my seat. “I could have helped them! I tried to go inside, but Elm—”
“Twenty people would have seen you march through that gate,” Elm bit back at me. “Besides, the Captain bade we wait.”
Ravyn looked on unapologetically. “I told only those who were imperative to the task.”
“So everyone except me and the magically disturbed woman?”
“ Disturbed? ” the Nightmare and I called at once.
“We can’t afford mistakes, Elm,” Ravyn bit back. “What if we’d been seen? It’s one thing to steal a Card behind a highwayman’s mask. But entering a man’s house—stealing in the light of day—is a risk we cannot afford. Unless you think you have the stomach to stand up to an inquest.”
Elm’s frown deepened, his mouth tightening in a long, unhappy line.
The air in the library felt suddenly thin. “Would there really be an inquest?” I asked. “Even if we were not caught in the act?”
Morette lips wrinkled into a scowl. “Card theft is unforgivable. My brother places full retribution in the hands of the wronged Card owner. Anyone, no matter their station, might be interrogated.” She paused. “A Chalice Card is presented.”
Ravyn cast Elm a pointed look. “And it is very difficult to cheat a Chalice.”
Jespyr returned at nightfall. The infected boy and his parents had not been found. Linden was alive. Just. Her steps dragged, a noticeable limp in her gait. She wrapped her arms around Emory in a long, steadfast hug and bade us all good night.
Emory was next to claim sleep, Morette stationed in a large chair by his bedside, a night vigil. Fenir, Ravyn, Elm, and I moved to the parlor, Thistle popping in now and again to fill our goblets.
The wine put heat in my chest, and I stared at the fire, fighting the urge to glance at Ravyn, who sat opposite me with practiced smoothness. When I caved and looked his way, he was watching me, his gray eyes unreadable, his hand scraping over the stubble along his jaw.
I didn’t know where we stood, the Captain and I. The violence of Market Day had taken the fragile, unspoken thing budding between us and shoved it back into shadow. I held his gaze, searching for cracks in his unshaking smoothness. Longing for them.
Elm looked up from his second glassful, his green eyes flickering from Ravyn to me. “Bloody trees,” he muttered, hoisting himself out of his chair. Without a good-night, he took the flagon of wine from the table and quit the parlor.
Fenir did not miss the cue. He cleared his throat. “Well, that about does it for me,” he said, shuffling out of the room, leaving me and the Captain of the Destriers alone together.
Ravyn’s eyes did not leave my face. But I could not read them.
And it hurt, somewhere between my lungs and my sternum, knowing he was guarded around me once more.
My fingers shook along the stem of my goblet.
“Did you mean what you said?” I asked, matching his gaze.
“You trust me? Or were you just making a show for your cousin?”
Ravyn thumbed the rim of his goblet. “What makes you think I was making a show?”
“No—don’t do that,” I said. Something burned behind my eyes. I pushed it away. “Don’t answer a question with a question. I’m tired of that.”
He cocked his brow, leaning forward in his chair. “How would you have us talk, Elspeth?”
I looked away, a lump rising in my throat. The muscles above my brow straining, holding everything I had not yet told him at bay. “I want us to be honest,” I whispered. I pressed my hand to my face, but it was too late; he’d seen the tears in my eyes—the upturn of my brow. The fear.
The Nightmare slithered out of the darkness, his voice caressing my ear. You needn’t be afraid. His voice was slick with oil. Magic comes for us all.
Go away! I cried.
You cannot undo what already begins. He paused, his voice serpentine as it flickered past my ears. You cannot erase the salt from the din. But if you won’t let me out… you must let him in.
I closed my eyes. “I’m degenerating, Ravyn.”
I heard his sharp inhale, then the clang of silver as his goblet hit the tray. He was out of his seat and kneeling beside me in a breath, one hand on the arm of the chair, the other on my knee. “Tell me,” he said.
“It’s why I attacked the Destrier—why Elm doesn’t trust me. I’m changing. Not the way you are, and not the way Emory is, but just as sure.” I felt for the Nightmare, but he had gone eerily quiet. “And I’m running out of time.”
“Have you told Filick?”
“There’s nothing he can do, Ravyn. Nothing anyone can do.”
His hand on my knee tightened. “What kind of degeneration, Elspeth?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never spoken about it,” I said. I covered my eyes with my hand. “I can’t.”
A hot tear slid down my cheek, dipping into the crease of my mouth.
Ravyn wiped it away with his thumb. He leaned closer.
“We all have secrets we’re forced to keep, Elspeth,” he murmured.
He lifted my chin. When I opened my eyes, his gaze poured into mine.
“I trust you. You’re safe with me. Magic—or something else—is pulling us together.
Only two more Cards,” he said, the tips of our noses grazing. “And then you’ll be free.”
I wanted to believe him—to feel safe, like I had in his arms earlier that day.
I wanted him to blot out the entire world, shielding me from everything and anyone who might do me harm.
Still, even the vastness of Ravyn Yew’s arms, the heat on his skin, the muscles beneath his clothes, could not keep me safe from myself.
But I was more than willing to lose myself to his touch, just to be certain.
I reached for him, my hand cupping the nape of his neck, pulling his mouth to mine. He let out a breath that slipped into a growl. The hand on my chin lowered to my neck, his thumb pressing lightly against the hollow of my throat.
The chair creaked in complaint as Ravyn pushed into me, our kiss almost frantic. His other hand traveled up my leg, his fingers digging into the fabric of my dress. When he gripped the soft skin of my thigh, I let out a gasp.
He pulled back, pupils wide, mouth swollen. “Is this—Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I said claiming his mouth again. Wine and firelight and the desperate need to escape my own fate blended in a heady draft. It struck a fire in me I had never tended, wild, unfettered.
I wanted it to burn me to pieces—for him to burn me to pieces.
A loud clatter sounded somewhere outside the parlor door, followed by the echo of rapid footfall, close, then far. Thistle, no doubt coming to refill our wine, scurried away in a hurry.
Ravyn swore under his breath. He gripped my hips, pulling me out of the chair. When we stood, he adjusted his jerkin, his voice a low rumble. “Come with me.”
His room was at the end of the same corridor as mine, unlocked. He pushed it open and ushered me in, his hand grazing the small of my back.
The smell of clove and cedar and paper and leather reached for me.
His room was a flood of scent—drying herbs, shelves filled with books, freshly cut wood for the hearth, cedarwood in various forms scattered across the floor, some half carved, others whittled to perfection.
Clothes were thrown without aim, crumpled in corners and flung over furniture spines.
His bed was large and unmade, its heavy quilt shoved to the foot of the mattress, as if kicked there.
Messy, warm—a gentle chaos. The kind of chaos that lived in stark contrast to the stony, controlled Captain of the Destriers.
And he was showing it to me.