Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Thomasin had never been more afraid. But there was also relief. Edith knew about the ransom, and she was still here, staring at Thomasin with such scrutiny, it felt as though she were trying to see into the depths of her soul.
“Edith, I’m so sorry,” Thomasin said. That seemed the most important point to start out with.
Edith drew her bottom lip between her teeth.
Jay brushed past Thomasin and out of the stable.
He stopped to put a hand on Edith’s shoulder, then bent his head low to whisper something to her.
Edith’s eyes never left Thomasin. Jay cast Thomasin an almost apologetic glance before he left.
Finally, Edith spoke. “Tell me the truth. Please.”
“I sent a ransom letter to your father. You thought you hired me; really I just kidnapped you,” Thomasin said with a bitter laugh.
“He was meant to meet us at Slaughterbridge, where I was going to sell you back to him for a wagon full of gold.” Thomasin thought about stopping there, but she wanted Edith to hear the full, brutal truth.
She wanted Edith to understand just what sort of monster Thomasin was.
She didn’t want to hide anymore. “If your father didn’t show up with the money, I was going to cut your ear off and send it to him. ”
Edith flinched but was not cowed. “So why do I still have both ears?”
Thomasin dared a step closer to Edith. Her hands itched to reach out to her, but she fisted them at her sides. “I couldn’t do it. You jumped in front of that arrow for me, and you didn’t even have a good reason to do it. You just cared. And I couldn’t stomach the thought of betraying you anymore.”
Edith’s face, usually so readable, was inscrutable now. “And my father? Did he show?”
“I don’t know. I tricked you into waiting belowground while I told Worthing and Jay the new plan, and then we ran away from Slaughterbridge before your father could show.”
“Probably unnecessary. I doubt he was even planning on coming.” Edith swallowed roughly, and not for the first time, Thomasin wanted to punch Edith’s father right in the face. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth then?” Edith asked. “You didn’t want to betray me, and yet you still lied to me. Why?”
With a grimace, Thomasin admitted, “I was scared.” Three small words that Thomasin had never once uttered in her life.
To Edith, she said them simply. “I didn’t want to lose you.
I was selfish.” Against absolutely all the odds in the world, the corner of Edith’s lip twitched into the smallest smile.
Thomasin continued, “I was having—am having—more fun with you than I ever have. I didn’t want it to end, and I certainly didn’t want you to hate me.
You’re the first person who has ever seen me.
” She would bare her soul to Edith if it meant that Edith would keep smiling.
If it would help smooth away the betrayal.
“Do you still want to ransom me?” Edith asked in a small voice.
“Never.”
Edith nodded to herself, that smile widening just a hair, but then her face fell. “But you don’t believe in Arthur’s treasure?”
Thomasin laughed in disbelief. “That’s what you’re worried about? I just told you that I basically kidnapped you, and you’re worried I don’t believe in the treasure hunt?”
Edith shrugged, eyes flicking down to where the toe of her boot dug into the gravel. “When you said you would help me find all the clues, I thought that meant you believed in it.”
“I don’t believe in magic or noble quests.” Thomasin inclined her head, catching Edith’s gaze. “But I want to help you all the same. I’ll go anywhere for you. I owe you that much.”
“So it wasn’t all fake? We’re …” Edith trailed off for a moment, her cheeks reddening. After a long moment, she scrunched her nose and said, “We’re friends?”
“Yes.” Thomasin answered without hesitation, hoping that the truth of it was written plainly on her face.
A second could have passed, or maybe a century. Then Edith squared her shoulders and said, “I forgive you for kidnapping me.”
Thomasin’s posture deflated, and what was possibly a life’s worth of adrenaline collapsed inside her. When she spoke, her voice came out winded. “How? How can you forgive me so easily?”
“You didn’t know me when you sent that ransom letter.” Edith shrugged. “At Arthur’s Stone, you did the right thing when it mattered. And I understand why you didn’t tell me. I would have been scared too.”
Thomasin was in awe of her. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s easy to forgive someone when you know they didn’t want to hurt you.” Edith smiled softly at her.
Thomasin disagreed with that sentiment wholeheartedly. Forgiveness was never easy, for anyone. Edith was just something else entirely, and it was laughable how much Thomasin did not deserve her kindness.
“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit,” Thomasin said. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
Edith gave a short laugh, and there was a sudden sadness in the twist of her mouth. “I don’t know about that. I said I forgive you for the kidnapping. But you’ve really lied to me this whole time about believing in the quest?”
There was no argument Thomasin could make. Edith deserved nothing but truth. “I believe in you, and I want to go on the quest with you. But I won’t lie and say that I think there’ll be a magic sword at the end of the road.”
A deep sigh fell from Edith’s lips. “I can live with that for now.” Her mouth scrunched up to the side, the way it always did when she was being supremely stubborn. “But I will prove you wrong.”
Thomasin’s face broke into a wide grin, and she slung an arm over Edith’s shoulder, pulling Edith into her side. “I expect nothing less.”
They walked out of the stables and back to Edith’s room together. When Edith reached for the doorknob, Thomasin caught her wrist. “If there’s anything I can do to make all this up to you, earn your forgiveness, you’ll tell me.” She made sure it was an order, not a request.
Edith smiled, and that spark of chaos Thomasin loved so much was finally back in her eyes. “I can think of a few things.”
Thomasin groaned, but she didn’t think she’d ever felt lighter.
Days later, camped out in a dense forest, she had to admit she was slightly regretting her offer of anything.
“Stay still,” Edith scolded.
“It tickles,” Thomasin grumbled. She was lying on her bedroll, with Edith’s rolled up underneath her head to prop her neck and shoulders up. She peeked one eye open, then immediately closed it when she was met with the sharp point of a charcoal pencil mere inches away from her cornea.
“Don’t be such a baby.” Edith’s thumb pressed into Thomasin’s cheekbone, and her fingers rested along the outer edge of Thomasin’s cheek. She sat criss-cross on the ground, leaning over Thomasin’s upper torso to get the right angle.
Thomasin felt the charcoal trace across her eyelid, right along the lash line. Her eye twitched of its own volition.
“Just relax! If you keep moving, the liner won’t be straight.” Edith’s voice had taken on a huffy edge. They had been at this for a while.
She felt Edith’s forefinger at the outer corner of her eye, pulling her lid taut. Thomasin took a deep breath and held it as Edith worked.
“There!” she said triumphantly.
“Is it done?” Thomasin opened her eyes.
“That was only the first step,” Edith said with a barely contained smile.
“You do this every single day?”
“C’mon, you have to admit this is better than punching each other.”
“You’re the one who wanted to learn self-defense.” Thomasin crossed her arms over her chest, hand accidentally brushing Edith’s hip.
“And you’re the one who wanted to learn how to apply cosmetics.”
“I was high.”
“So was I,” Edith retorted, jabbing the pencil in Thomasin’s face.
“Good point.”
“May I continue?”
Thomasin relented, closing her eyes and screwing up her face in anticipation. “Be gentle with me.”
Almost an hour later, Thomasin examined her face in a silver compact mirror as Edith bounced on her toes behind her.
The effect of the cosmetics was not one of delicate femininity like when Edith did her own makeup.
That had been what Thomasin was expecting, for Edith to do exactly what she did to her own face to Thomasin’s.
Instead, Edith had crafted a look for her that felt like Thomasin, only amplified.
Where Edith’s eye makeup was reminiscent of dew-encrusted flower petals, gentle pinks and shimmery soft edges that blurred into her skin, Thomasin’s eyes spoke of blood-drenched daggers under a moonlit sky.
The charcoal was a dramatic slash of black along her lashes that swept out into a dangerously sharp point.
Her eyelids were painted with a bloodred pigment that was as beautiful as it was sinister.
There was a dusting of silver sparkles traced along her lower lash line.
Like the sparks that flew from a blade when you sharpened it. Or stars in a night sky.
“Do you like it?”
“I—” Thomasin was having a hard time dragging her gaze away from the reflection.
Her lips were a shade somewhere between black and red.
She had never thought she could look like this, never would have tried on her own.
She always thought that if she put effort into her appearance, acted like she was capable of being the kind of beautiful that other women were, she’d just end up making a fool of herself. But Edith had made a wonder of her.
“It’s okay if you don’t! We can try something else.”
Thomasin reached out blindly to take Edith’s hand. The other woman’s fingers interlocked with hers.
“I love it,” she said.
“Really?” Edith’s voice tipped into the highest of pitches. The way it only did when she was really, properly excited about something. Which happened quite a lot, actually. Usually at least a couple times a day.
Thomasin finally looked at Edith, hoping she would be able to see how much it meant to her that Edith always saw her in ways that no one else did. “Really. It’s perfect.”