Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
EMORY
“ O kay, spill,” Driscoll said from next to me.
We walked through a field of wheat stalks that reached our heads, and every time we brushed past one, it giggled.
El and Aron promised they were harmless. They walked ahead with Maverick, El signing to him as he watched intently. Apparently he knew sign language, something that didn’t surprise me. Not when it came to Maverick Von Lucas, a man of many talents.
“Spill?” I echoed, cutting a look at Driscoll.
One of the wheat stalks bent down and dipped to Driscoll’s ribs, brushing against him as he let out a shrill laugh. “Stop it, no seriously, stop it!”
He swatted it away, and it straightened, letting out its own laugh. He turned his attention on me. “It’s annoying, but I’ll take it over giant plants trying to chomp me into little pieces. And yes, spill.” He pointed to Maverick, then turned his finger on me. “What’s going on with you and Hot Professor?”
I rolled my eyes. “You love your gossip, don’t you?” I’d heard plenty of it while we followed the bone collector through Fyriad .
“Who doesn’t love gossip?” Driscoll asked. His hand brushed one of the stalks, and it shrieked in delight. “Bloody earth, this is so weird,” he mumbled.
“Nothing happened.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Oh, come on.” Driscoll’s voice took on a whine. “I gave you so much good gossip.” He ticked off his fingers. “The guy who spread that crotch fungus throughout the earth court. The servant who was stealing everyone’s underwear. The inn owner who installed peep holes in his guests’ rooms.” He shuddered. “That wasn’t actually gossip. It was illegal, and he was arrested. Pervert. I even told you about the woman caught having sex with statues. Can you imagine getting on top of one of those and riding that hard stone?—”
“Okay, Driscoll, I get it.”
“So you owe me one piece of gossip.” He pressed his hands together. “Please, I’m begging you. We could die here, and the last thing rolling through my mind will be Leoni’s words about how selfish I am.” Driscoll narrowed his eyes. “You’re a bit of a loner, aren’t you?”
I tilted my head. “How did you know that?”
“When Leoni and I dropped in on your party in Fyriad, you were the only one standing alone. Everyone around you was talking, drinking, laughing. But you just stood in the middle of the room. Until your husband grabbed you.”
I bit my lip. “I suppose loner is a good word for it.” My shoulders slumped. “It’s hard to make friends when you feel like you have to hide a piece of yourself from everyone around you.” I waved my hands in the air. “I always loved history. Since I was little, I loved examining things and learning about them. Finding little clues that could give me insight into their past.”
“How’d you get into that? When I was little I was chasing boys and making kissy faces at them.”
“My mother,” I said softly.
Driscoll’s head snapped in my direction. “But I thought your mother was the one who wouldn’t let you attend the Academy of Scholars & Historians.”
“It’s complicated. ”
Driscoll gestured to the field of giggling wheat around us, no end in sight. “We do have the time, you know.”
I sighed, thinking about my mother’s own curiosity, her obsession with libraries and museums, and how in the end, that love got crushed by the demands of society. “My mother was much like me growing up. She had a hunger for knowledge, a passion for history. But something held her back from pursuing it. Her parents were willing to pay for her to go to the Academy of Scholars & Historians, and she refused them. She’d met my father by that point, and he offered her a good life. A stable one, I suppose. She chose that stability over the unknown. Over attending an academy that couldn’t promise her a job or a future. When I was little I stumbled across her old journals, full of history and theories, stuffed away in a crate in the back of her wardrobe. I pored over them, and they ignited my own love for the subject.”
“So what happened?” Driscoll asked. “Did you ever talk to your mother about any of this?”
My biggest regret in life. I crossed my arms, hugging myself tight. “No. I was afraid she’d be angry that I was snooping. Tell me how unladylike I was. Reading those journals was like seeing a side of my mother I hadn’t even known existed. It gave me insight, but it also made me sad. She wasn’t happy in her marriage to my father. She was safe. And she wanted that same security for me, was so convinced it was the right path. No matter how much I argued.” My eyes welled with tears. “So I attended the Academy of Ladies, and three years later, they matched me with my husband. The day after I got married, I found out my mother had died. An accident in a snowstorm. She’d been in a carriage, on her way to visit me.”
“I’m really sorry,” Driscoll said.
A tear rolled down my cheek at the memory, at getting that letter in the post and being so utterly devastated. “It was heartbreaking. But it was also eye opening. My mother died never getting to live out her dream. She played it safe, and she still lost her life. I decided I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t just take the path of security and stay miserable. I would do something for myself.” I sighed. “Except I suppose I was a coward, too, because the academy matched me with my husband, and I married him. ”
“A coward?” Driscoll turned wide eyes on me. “Excuse you, Miss White Rabbit, you are not a coward. You’ve made an actual name for yourself. You are living out your dream.”
I snorted. “In secret. I didn’t go after it. Not really.”
“Well, who says you still can’t?”
I tapped my chin. “Oh, I don’t know, probably the frost queen, who thinks I murdered my husband and who also abhors the white rabbit.”
“Well, you didn’t murder him. And we’ll get that all sorted out.” He nudged me. “Especially now that you’re taking steaming baths with Hot Professor. Keep doing whatever you did to make him moan your name like that last night, and he’ll confess to murdering Lord Growley himself before letting you take the blame.”
I laughed and nudged Driscoll back. “Leoni was wrong, you know. You’re not selfish. I see the way you talk to Aron, help him fill in the gaps at times when he’s not sure if someone is being sarcastic or angry or silly. The way you just reminded me I still have time. The way you made me laugh to make me forget what I was sad about in the first place. You’re a good man, Driscoll.”
“Yeah, well, Leoni knows me a lot better than you do.” He looked at his feet.
“Leoni was hurt, so she hurt you. I don’t think she really believed what she was saying. I think she just felt blindsided that you were so ready to leave her, to give up on your mission.”
Up ahead, the path curved, finally opening up to what looked like an old village, the silver-brick houses in disrepair with broken windows, caved-in thatch roofs, busted-open doors. This must’ve been a village in Shiraeth that had been destroyed by Spirit Shadow. My body was already tingling at the prospect of getting to walk through it.
He sighed. “That’s because Leoni’s a hero like the rest of you. I’m not. I mean I can be.” He shot me a side-eyed look. “You have no idea how many times I’ve saved everyone’s asses. But the point is, I don’t want to be a hero. Honestly, I don’t know what I want to be. I thought maybe I could be a sidekick, but this journey is showing me I don’t really want to be that either. I already failed out of school. I hate being the earth court ambassador, mainly because the only reason I got it is Queen Liliath and the fact that I’m one of her best friends. Also, I’m terrible at diplomacy.” He threw out his arms. “Maybe I am selfish. I run from place to place, from person to person, never putting down roots, never sticking to anything. Disappointing everyone.”
“You don’t disappoint me,” a voice said, and both Driscoll and I jumped.
Aron stood there while Maverick and El walked ahead, El still signing as Maverick watched her and spoke in a low voice.
“I barely know you.” Driscoll eyes shifted back and forth like he wasn’t sure who Aron was speaking to.
Aron didn’t look offended or put off. “True, but in the short time I have known you, I appreciate your bluntness. You always tell the truth. No matter how harsh that may be. I like that about you. Most don’t have the courage to be so honest.”
Driscoll’s eyes widened, and I had to hide a smile at how Aron had caught him off-guard.
“Oh,” he said. “I mean, normally that’s what people dislike about me, but wow. Well, um.” He shuffled his feet, and my smile grew wider.
I hadn’t known Driscoll very long, but I got the sense he was rarely rendered speechless by anyone, and definitely not reduced to this bumbling person in front of me.
“Um,” he said again, his brain not connecting with his mouth. “What I mean is...”
“Are you trying to say thank you?” I prodded, looking between him and Aron.
“Yes. Those are the words I was looking for.” He touched his head. “Just couldn’t think of them.”
“You’re welcome,” Aron said, again not seeming phased by any of this. “I just wanted to let you two know that Maverick requested to stop in this village and take a look around before we continue on.” He tilted his head toward El, who had her arms crossed, tapping her foot on the ground. “El’s not so happy about it, though.”
They were such an odd pair, this El and Aron. “How did you two become friends?” I asked.
Aron’s lips quirked. “Ah, well, shortly after the Shadow War, I met El in my human form and invited her to the sad excuse of a cave that I called home. I told her I’d make her dinner, that we could talk and maybe find a new friend in this lonely place. When she arrived, she was expecting a man. Instead, she found a wolf. I almost ate her, but she somehow kept me calm in my wolf form until I shifted back. That’s how we became friends.”
“Right,” Driscoll said. “You almost ate her, and then she thought, hey, why not befriend this guy? Totally normal.”
“It is if you know El.” A faint smile lined Arons’ lips. “Anyway, we’re going to stop here so you can dig around a little bit. See if you find anything interesting.”
“Oh, thank the bloody spirits.” I surged forward, excited to explore.
“Nerd,” Driscoll muttered.
I spun around. “I don’t think I’m the only one who needs to spill.”
I looked meaningfully toward Aron, who was marching away.
Driscoll sputtered. “What? Him? Wolf Man?”
“You were enjoying Wolf Man plenty when he was naked.” I waggled my eyebrows, and Driscoll scowled.
“Yes because I have eyes. As do you. Who wouldn’t have enjoyed that view?”
“I’m just saying”—I held up my hands—“you seemed a little flustered right there.”
“Because he’s so...” Driscoll threw out an arm. “Blunt and literally not phased by anything that comes out of my mouth.”
“Like someone else I know?”
He shoved past me. “You know, you should stick to history because matchmaking is not your forte.”
He marched ahead, mumbling to himself, but I couldn’t help but notice the way his gaze kept sneaking to Aron.