Chapter Sixteen Vina #3
“We’ll also need to sleep,” Vina pointed out. “And neither of us have the strength left to keep watch.”
“I can keep watch,” said Vaughan.
Both of them ignored him.
“When we’re ready to rest, I’ll set traps in the ground,” said Simran. “Those have worked for us so far.”
Vina watched, when night fell again, as Simran traced a wide circle with the branch of a yew tree into the ground.
She’d soaked its edge in ash from a short-lived fire—and as expected, a speck of her own blood.
As she worked, Vina kneeled in the center of the circle and watched her. And built a proper campfire.
“I’ve done my best,” said Simran. She sounded exhausted. The magic had clearly drained something from her. “We’ll be fine.”
All three of them lay on the ground, the fire crackling. As the sky darkened further, Vaughan quietly began to snore.
Vina was lying flat on her back. She turned her head. Simran was looking back at her. In the firelight, her skin was warm honey, her hair bronze-flecked and black, a dark halo around her face. This was the most alone they’d been in days.
“You’re looking at me,” said Vina.
“No,” said Simran, even though she absolutely was. “You’re the one looking at me.”
“How can I not?” Vina whispered back. “We kissed.”
Reckless, to say it. Simran had rejected her when they’d both been themselves, without enthrallment or their tale driving them to kiss.
Simran hadn’t spoken of it since. And yet she saw Simran’s gaze flick to her mouth, then back to her eyes again, a slow, inexorable look. She knew Simran was thinking of it too.
Her stomach ached with warmth.
“I kissed you for a purpose,” said Simran.
“I know you did. And I’m thankful.”
“I wish you’d stop talking about it,” said Simran. “And stop looking at me.”
“As you desire,” said Vina, who’d perfected the art of being a little shit while also obeying orders long ago. She rolled onto her back, stretching as she did so, arching her back, then lowering it. She stared up at the tree canopy.
One heartbeat. Two. Three.
Four.
“I can feel you thinking about me,” Simran whispered, viperous. “Stop it.”
“I’m not thinking of anything,” lied Vina.
A huff of breath. She heard the rustle of Simran’s skirts. Then suddenly her vision was full of the sight of Simran. Simran threw one leg over her, straddling her, hands pressing to each side of Vina’s head. Vina’s heart started pounding.
Simran leaned down—and gave Vina a brief, dry kiss. Simran raised her head back up. Vina’s lips tingled.
“See,” said Simran. “The kiss before was an aberration. There’s no need to think of it anymore.”
Vina craned her neck up and pressed her mouth to Simran’s. This time the kiss was no quick brush of mouths. It was shallow, still; a slow brush of lips, deliberate and teasing. Vina let her lips part; an invitation. Take me, darling, she urged. Go on.
Simran pressed Vina down, kissing her intently, deeply.
Simran knew how to kiss, and she did it as she did everything else—with impatient, nearly violent intensity.
Vina breathed with the kiss, reaching up, brushing her knuckles along Simran’s earlobe, the angle of her jaw, the sleek sharpness of her face.
She felt Simran shiver—then wrench back with a gasp.
Simran’s eyes were blown dark, her lips red.
Vina smiled.
“Consider the old kiss forgotten,” she said breathlessly. “This is the one I’ll remember.”
Simran rose up abruptly onto her knees, then stood and strode back over to the dry patch of ground where she’d been sleeping. She lay back down with a thump.
Vina closed her eyes, still smiling, and slept.
They kept walking toward the deepest shadows of the wood.
When they weren’t sure of themselves, Vaughan led the way, lightly moving ahead of them. He had a canny ability to sense where the darkness was deepest and move toward it. Vina tried to wheedle information from him, but he always avoided answering, scampering ahead of them.
Vina and Simran moved after him, walking side by side.
“Leave him be,” murmured Simran. “If you scare him and he runs off, we’ll have no chance of finding the library.”
“Scare him? Me? When you’re here?”
“I’m not frightening,” Simran said after a beat, but she sounded more pleased than enraged.
Simran’s shoulder brushed her own—one small butterfly wing of contact. Vina hadn’t considered how closely they were walking together until that moment. They’d done it as naturally as breathing.
The trees began to grow sparser. The air was cool, but not with the weight of ghosts—instead, with darkness, untouched by the heat of sunlight.
“Stop,” a voice said. “No farther.”
“Listen to them,” said Simran, voice low and tense at her side. “I can feel witchcraft.” She shifted her foot, drawing it back—and exposing a gouged line in the wet dirt, hidden beneath a cover of leaves.
A figure appeared. Red hair, in curls, clasped in a bun at the nape of a neck. Freckled skin, a scowling and wary face.
One of the witches from the hunt. Vina tensed.
“Cora,” said Vaughan, smiling.
“Vaughan,” she said back. Relief in her voice. “You’re finally here.”
“You were there to save him?” said Simran.
“I was,” said Cora. “He’s my family.”
“She’s also a librarian,” said Vaughan quickly. “We both are.”
Vina’s mental image of a librarian was quite at odds with the scowling red-haired witch and lanky antlered boy in front of her, but she sensibly held her tongue.
“Sharing what you are is forbidden, Vaughan,” Cora said sharply. “You can’t just bring strangers here.”
“Simran has a compass,” Vaughan said earnestly to her. “I saw it. And she’s an incarnate, and she saved me, even though she didn’t know it would do her any good. Please, Cora. We have to help her.”
Simran stepped forward, expression suddenly blazing with hope.
“Cora. We’re looking for a library. Your library.” She held out the broken compass. “I was sent by cunning folk from London. One of their own was killed. I need answers the library might be able to give. Can you help?”
Cora was silent. Her mouth was thin, her eyes wary.
“I helped you once,” Cora said. “And you got Vaughan free, though you marked him. That’s worth something, and I thank you. It doesn’t mean I have to help you again.”
“Please,” said Vaughan. “Cora. We do owe them. I owe them. I’d like to pay my debt.”
Cora hesitated. Then spoke.
“I can’t promise you entry into the library. That will be up to powers greater than me. But I suppose you can follow me.”