Chapter 3
have a problem.
In the beginning, I took every precaution with Finn.
His hands and feet stay tied to the bed.
I allow him up only three times a day to attend to his needs.
These trips are taken under supervision, and with a weapon at his back.
He makes countless attempts at conversation, but I stonewall the camaraderie with a stoic and, hopefully, menacing persona.
My problem is that the whole stoic-and-menacing thing becomes increasingly difficult to maintain because Finn turns out to be charming.
Extremely, annoyingly charming.
“I’m beginning to think you’ve got a streak of voyeurism,” he informs me one morning, three days after awakening.
Finn walks ahead on his way to the outhouse, limping slightly, and I follow with a crossbow.
On this, our ninth trip to the outhouse, I’m starting to question my resolve about the whole arrangement. “What do you mean?”
“The whole frog-marching to the privy thing. I think you get off on it.”
“I get what?” I ask.
“Get off?” Finn grins over his shoulder. “Meaning you find it sexy? It stirs something within you?”
I try not to look as confused as I feel. “Nothing’s…stirring.”
“I wouldn’t judge you,” Finn teases. “It’s good when a lady knows what she wants.”
“The only thing I want is for you to shut up.”
“I’m just saying.” He shrugs. “The whole arrangement is suspiciously kinky.”
Kinky? My face flames. Though I might not be familiar with the term, his smirk makes the insinuation clear. But I refuse to reveal my ignorance. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a pain in the ass?”
“Plenty. Who told you to be so afraid of people?”
“My mother,” I snap. “Didn’t yours?”
Finn considers. “If my mother should have warned me about anything, it’s small women with rope.”
“And the Moragorion.”
He winks. “That too.”
I wait outside the privy while he finishes his business. The sun is bright overhead, and when Finn emerges, his face glistens with sweat. He keeps smiling as I steer him back to the cottage. His gait has significantly improved. I think in a few more days, he’ll be ready to travel.
He watches while I retie the restraints on his sickbed. Then he asks, “Are your parents hard on you?”
I look up from my knots, surprised by the question. “Why would you think that?”
“I dunno. You’re obviously independent.” Finn gestures around him the best he can with his hands tied, alluding to the hanging flowers, the bottles of tinctures, the pots bubbling on the stove.
“All this healing stuff is beyond me. I thought my parents pushed me, but based on what you’ve accomplished at this age…
” He shrugs. “I guess I just imagined they might be hard on you, too.”
I’m still for a long moment as I consider his question.
“My dad isn’t in the picture,” I finally admit. “He died shortly after I was born.” My heart pounds as I wait for Finn’s response.
“Forgive me.” His entire demeanor softens in sympathy. “I didn’t realize….”
My shoulders jerk in something like a shrug. “I never knew him.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” he says firmly.
“No. It doesn’t.” I rub a knot on my neck.
“So, it’s just you and your mother?”
“Yeah. And…she is a little hard on me,” I admit. I recall her expression when I asked to accompany her, my heart jerking at the memory.
Silence falls. I finish cooking and help Finn with his portion. When I settle down at the table to eat mine, he tries again. “So, no father in the picture. But your mother is a Healer, you’re her apprentice, you live out here alone…and ?”
I stare at him blankly. “And that’s all correct.”
“Come on, give me something,” he prods. “At least a little lore!”
I roll my eyes. “What lore?”
“Where you’re from…how you got here…”
This is dangerous terrain and way too close to my unshareable truths. “No.”
“Please?”
“It’s too long a story.”
Finn jokingly tugs against his restraints. “Fortunately, you’ve got a captive audience.”
I have to suppress a smile, but my skin prickles.
I hate lying. I want so badly to be honest with someone, the confession threatens to climb out of my throat.
I can’t imagine how good it would feel to come clean about all of it—my Talent, my mother, her absurd paranoia and insistence on my incompetence—but the truth is dangerous.
I settle for another half-truth. “My mother had some…problems in her old life.” Not quite a lie, but not the whole story, either.
His eyebrows rise, but he is quiet, waiting for me to go on.
“At a certain point, it wasn’t safe for us to keep living in my father’s hometown,” I continue, choosing each word carefully. “She took me and fled. We’ve been living here for as long as I can remember.”
“Here? In this cottage?”
I nod. “Or others like it. There are lots of empty places like this around the Ironwoods, left by families who moved when the wall went up.” I shift my weight. “What about you? You’re inwall?”
Finn smiles like I’ve made a joke, and only he knows the punchline. “My family’s about as inwall as it gets.”
“Did you grow up in town?”
“In the capital.”
“Really? Wow.” Illustrations of Crown City from books rise to memory: huge spiraling towers and gleaming cathedrals. “I’ve never been. Is it as beautiful as they say?”
“You get used to it.”
“I guess.” I fear some of the wistfulness clutching my chest has leaked into my tone, so I hurry to change the subject. “What about your family?”
“Well, there are five of us, including my parents. Plus cousins and aunts, but who counts them, right?”
I marvel at the idea of so many relatives. “What’s it like having siblings?”
Finn leans back. “Well, Damien, my younger brother, he’s…generally sort of a dick. But he’s not too bad most of the time, and he’s my favorite person to ride with or go hunting with. And then Sebastian, our older brother…he’s the best of us. Everyone would agree with that, too.”
“The best of us? What does that mean?”
He snorts softly. “In my parents’ eyes or mine?”
“Whichever one matters.”
“Hmm. I like your questions.” He considers. “They both matter. I’d say it’s because Sebastian knows what he’s supposed to do with his life and he does it. My parents would say it’s because he’s the most responsible.”
“What would Damien say?”
“He’d say he’s the best.”
I laugh. “And you? Damien’s the worst, Sebastian’s the best, so you’re…”
“I’m the fun one,” he says with a waggle of his brows.
“And what does that mean?” I ask, still laughing.
“What I said.” He smirks. “I’m the one you’d want to have fun with.”
“Is that what you tell the girls in Crown City?”
“Oh, I don’t have to tell them,” Finn says with a wink. “My reputation precedes me.”
I roll my eyes again. “Does the arrogant, smirking thing work on them, too?”
“Depends on the girl.” His eyes suddenly flash. “What about you? You’ve got trouble written all over you. What sort of mischief do you get up to in the Ironwoods?”
I sigh. Little does he know, carrying on this exact conversation is probably the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done. “Let’s just say nobody would call me the fun one. It’s only ever really been my mother and me.”
“Really?” asks Finn. At my nod, he continues. “How would she describe you?”
“She’d say…” I take a deep breath. “I think she’d say I have a lot to learn.” I draw my knees toward my chest, resting my chin on them.
“That’s all? Give me something else.”
What else? A thousand little criticisms flash through my mind. “She’d say that we’re opposites. According to her, I’m too focused on the big picture. She’s all about the details. She’d say I need to think before I act. And slow down.” I swallow.
“Well, if we’re focusing on critiques, my mother would say that I’m foolhardy,” Finn counters. “My father would say I’ve got dog shit for brains, but he’s said a lot of worse things about better people, so…” He shrugs. “That’s taken with a grain of salt.”
“Your father sounds lovely.”
“He’s difficult.”
We finish our food, and I clean up. It’s quiet while I get ready for bed, latching both locks on the doors and braiding my hair. When I climb into my bed, I still clearly hear his breathing. Every inhale, every exhale. I’m oddly attuned to the sound.
I speak to the darkness, loud enough so I know he’ll hear me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you have dog shit for brains.”
After a long moment, Finn answers, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you act fast.”
It is a long time before either of us sleeps.
I try and maintain stoicism—I really do.
But as the days go by, resistance to his charm begins to feel futile.
I still escort him to the privy, but with my crossbow slung casually across my arms. When he’s tied down, the restraints are loose.
And when Finn starts to open up about his universe, I can’t contain my curiosity.
Questions tumble out in a landslide. Have you ever been outside of Verdinae?
Is it true they have indoor plumbing in Crown City?
Do you fight with your brothers? Did you go to school with other children?