Four
How long?” I asked, my words barely a whisper.
I couldn’t help but stare at the insistent, damning patch of sickness.
It was a slow-moving death sentence that reeked of putrid, feculent earth, and it would consume Seville through to her bones.
After a beat, she replaced her glamour to keep the creeping illness from infecting anyone else.
As a threadmender, I was immune, but that wasn’t the case for Vora.
If she’d broken skin while cleaning the dishes, taken the tin scrubber a little too forcefully to last night’s bakeware, and blight found its way into her bloodstream .
. . I snuck a quick look at Vora’s hands, the sharp ache of worry flaring behind my eyes.
“A few weeks now,” Seville said, returning to her chair with a heavy sigh. “Please believe me when I say that the point of my visit wasn’t to ask you to cure me.”
“Thank the gods for that,” Vora said with narrowed eyes. She’d curled her fingers around her mug, and her knuckles were bone white. “She’s done enough.”
Seville waved her off. “I wouldn’t dream of asking, unless, of course, you’ve stumbled upon some miracle cure during your recovery?”
“No. I thought I’d cured all of you.” I shook my head as I replayed the events of that day. Even when I’d woken weeks later after siphoning Fernglove Manor of blight, I hadn’t detected a single remnant of it lingering anywhere. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Seville.”
“It’s all right,” she said with a half-hearted shrug. “What about the others?”
“The others?” I asked.
“Lydia. Clesian. The girls.” Her gaze rounded on me. “Rorik.”
Vora answered before I could speak. “They’re fine. There have been no signs of sickness from anyone at the estate.”
Lie. I gave Vora a quick look, and Seville caught it. She leaned back in her chair, pointedly crossing one leg over the other before settling her hands on her knee. “Tell me, Edira.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone there.”
“Then what is it?” she probed.
I shifted in my chair, weighing my words.
Rorik had wanted me to live, to give up threadmending and enjoy the rest of my time on this earth doing whatever my heart desired.
I didn’t quite know what that was, but I knew that Rorik was family.
Not to me, but to Seville and Vora. I met Seville’s glittering stare; I had no idea if she cared about Rorik’s life.
Then I shifted my focus to Vora. Behind the fierce protectiveness lining her expression, I could see the undercurrents of fear and worry in her eyes.
She’d pledged her life to Rorik years ago.
And even though she’d followed me home, her loyalty remained with him.
I didn’t want to see her suffer through the pain of losing a loved one.
Just then, a slight jostling from my neck snared my attention.
Ywena had been incredibly still from the moment Seville had arrived, so much so that I’d nearly forgotten she was there.
But now she peered up at me, her eyes full and contemplative, and I didn’t need a series of images to know what—or whom—she was thinking about.
My heart twisted at the thought. “A few months ago, I noticed blight along our heartbond.”
Seville’s eyes went wide. “And now?”
“I haven’t seen it since.” I braided my fingers together. “Vora left that night to check on Rorik and Fernglove but found nothing.”
“No one was sick,” Vora echoed as the stiffness in her frame softened. “There was nothing for Edira to cure even if she wanted to.”
Seville studied us for a long moment. Then her gaze dropped.
One hand fell to her lap, and her fingers lightly dawdled along the side of her thigh, right where her Fernglove tattoo was hidden beneath the silken fabric of her pants.
I’d seen it for the first time on her body the night of the silver fete.
It’d been so long ago, but I knew every shape and line of that emblem, every explosion of color from the insects taking flight around the broken blade.
I knew how the ashen petals of the flowers fell around it on an invisible current.
I knew because it was a mirror to the tattoo now prickling with awareness on my inner forearm.
“I’ve never lied to you about my family.
I don’t . . . I don’t like them.” Seville’s words were soft, uncertain.
“I’d be content to roam the world until I returned to the earth.
And I wasn’t exactly the easiest person to be around all these years.
Some would venture to say I even failed as a sister. ”
Vora gave her a tired, knowing look, but I nudged her with my foot under the table.
Seville’s smile was sad, as if she were aware of just how much tongue-biting Vora was doing in that moment.
“I can’t change the past. But I can acknowledge it and strive for better.
If Rorik is sick, I know he damn well won’t ask for help.
He never did. Not with my father. Not with Orin.
” Seville’s lips pursed in distaste. “I want to help him now because I didn’t back then. Then I can die like I’m supposed to.”
I’d never been so still in my entire life.
Seville was so unbelievably vulnerable. Her half-lidded eyes stared at nothing, the aimless procession of her fingers unending.
There was a lifetime of hurt, disgust, and shame wrapped up in her words.
She’d been taught to hate Rorik from the moment she was born.
I could only imagine the things she’d done, the pain she’d inflicted, in the name of her father.
And later, Orin. A shiver trickled down my spine.
Vora sank farther into her chair and tilted her chin, considering Seville. “You don’t need an excuse to apologize to him.”
“I know that,” Seville snapped. The action chased away the sadness clinging to her frame, and she settled back into her safe, familiar state of haughty superiority. She drilled her sharp fingers against the wood of the table. “He’s such a liar.”
“He’s not sick, Seville,” I said quietly.
She bit out a harsh laugh. “What makes you think he’s healthy? Because Vora went and found no evidence of blight? Rorik is powerful.” Seville shook her head once and sighed. “You must know that. If he discovered even a hint of sickness, he’d do everything to hide it from you.”
“What? Why?” But even as I asked, a sense of dread filled me to the brim.
The currents of Rorik’s and my heartbond were always moving, twining together like restless snakes.
It had never occurred to me that he could bury the truth beneath those layers of gold.
But he already hid everything behind expertly wielded glamour. Why not shroud our bond as well?
Ywena chittered on my shoulder, a quiet sound of discontent at Rorik for hiding something so important.
“I would see it,” I said, trying to convince myself more than anyone else. “I have his power now, too. I should be able to see beneath glamours, I . . .” A hard lump formed in my throat. I hadn’t seen Seville’s blight. I hadn’t pierced her glamour. She removed it.
Seville frowned. “And? Yes, you have his power. When you accepted the bond, the influx of magic between you both was enough to bring Orin to his knees. Thank fuck. But beyond that, have you done anything?”
I tilted my chin toward Ywena. “I can see what she sees now.”
“That’s largely because of Ywena, though, is it not?” Seville asked. I nodded, and an annoyed huff of air escaped her lips. “You did very little in that scenario. She tapped into an existing power latent in your body, thanks to Rorik. But what have you done?”
I glared at her. “Should I be carelessly threadmending whomever I see?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, of course not. But you haven’t used his magic.
Because he hasn’t taught you. No one has.
If someone were to waltz into your kitchen right now and proclaim they could make a healing tonic as well as you simply because the ingredients are already hanging from the walls, would you believe them? ”
“No.”
“Of course not. It’s the same with glamour, with any of our magic. We can see beneath each other’s veils because we know how to wield the magic to strip them away. You don’t.”
“But why hide this from me?” I asked as my brows pinched together.
“Because you told him to go, and he kept his promise.” Seville settled deeper into her chair, recrossing one leg over the other.
“But more than that, I think he fears what you would do if you thought something was wrong. You pushed yourself to the brink of death last time you dealt with blight. Would you go to such lengths again? It’s likely a risk he wouldn’t take. ”
“He would’ve told me,” Vora said as she sat straighter in her chair.
Seville raised a brow. “Would he?”
At that, silence crept through the room.
Rorik was sick. He had to be. Seville, too.
Which meant that it was only a matter of time before the rest of the Ferngloves started to show symptoms again.
I’d wasted precious months thinking he was fine, avoiding the maelstrom of emotions that came with the mere mention of his name and sitting safely on that fucking couch.
I couldn’t help but glare at it through the stair rails.
“There’s so much you don’t know about our magic. About your magic. It’s as much a part of you now as it is a part of him,” she said softly. “To our knowledge, no Ever has ever bonded with a threadmender. We saw what happened when you harnessed that combined power for just a few minutes.”
Orin. His death. The manifestation of my threads.
“If we could teach you how to use that power to its full potential, maybe you could eliminate the blight more wholly—without harming yourself, of course.” She looked at me then with such fierceness and conviction that my retort died in my throat.
“I promise, Edira, no one wants you to push yourself to the brink. Not again.”