Chapter 28
28
I dreamed about Anya.
She was laughing at me, her hair shining like some rare metal in the sun, her smile so infectious it made me laugh, too.
When I woke in the middle of the night, the sound of her laughter remained.
No, not laughter. Crying.
I knocked softly on Lara’s door before opening it.
She sat up in bed, hastily wiping her tears away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked softly.
She sniffled. “I’m afraid.”
How far we had come, that she could admit that to me without hesitation. I sat beside her and stroked her hair. “Of the trial?”
“I don’t want to be hunted. What if they find me? What if Garrick kills me?”
“I won’t let him.”
“But even if I live, what if I don’t do well enough and the Shards decide I’m not worthy? I don’t want to lose my power. I don’t want to die.” Her voice broke on the words.
“You won’t die,” I said. “You’ve been doing well in the trials. And Princess Oriana would still love you if you didn’t have your power.”
She shook her head, and the tail of her long braid whispered against the sheets. “You don’t understand. The Noble Fae hate weakness. No one who loses their powers has ever been welcomed back.”
“Truly?” How awful. “Your mother is different, though. She’s not as cruel as the others.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed. “I want to go for a walk. Come with me?”
I nodded and grabbed my cloak, fastening it over my nightgown before sliding my feet into warm slippers.
Lara led me to the end of the hallway, but rather than descending the stairs, she pressed a knot in the wood. A hidden panel slid open, and I followed her into a stairwell. When the door shut behind us, it was pitch black. I followed her upward, keeping my hand against the cool stone wall. Eventually faint light filtered down, and I could see Lara standing just below a flat, glass-like ceiling.
“Stay right next to me.” She touched the ceiling, which slid away to reveal more steps. They were wet, as were the smooth walls on either side when my hands brushed over them—a boundary of water, just like the corridor leading into the house.
“Can anyone from Earth House get up here?” I asked.
“No, only the ruling family and whoever we allow. The magic knows.”
We soon reached the lake’s surface, where the stairs ended at a series of flat rocks that formed a path to a tiny tree-dotted island.
Earth House had a secret back entrance—just like Blood House. I shivered at the thought of King Osric finding his way inside.
On the island, we sat on the grass and looked up. The moon was bright, almost full, and the stars shone like ice and crystal. There was simply no substitute for the night sky, no matter how much magic the Fae used to recreate it.
“I come here when I’m sad,” Lara said. “Selwyn does, too. Oriana forbade us from doing it, but sometimes we just have to.”
“Do you come here a lot?”
“No. If I came here more often…I don’t know.” She grabbed a small stone and tossed it into the lake, watching the ripples spread. “I worry it would stop being special. Or that it would become so important to me that I’d never be able to enjoy anything underground again.”
“I think I understand.” The bog had been that way for me, though I’d seized every possible moment to walk its hidden paths. I’d felt free there, no longer constrained by the miserable facts of my life outside its borders. It had brought me to Mistei and stolen Anya, too, but that was the way of things. You could love something and still have it hurt you.
I told her about the bog then: the rich, earthy scent, the feel of peat moss beneath my toes, the collection of mundane but well-loved objects taken from beneath its murky waters.
She looked at me with compassion. “I’m sorry you lost your collection.”
My eyes prickled. “Thank you.” Of everything I’d lost, that seemed the most trivial, but I missed it all the same.
The darkened night, whispering wind, and isolation seemed to invite secrets. Maybe if Mistei changed, Lara could come here without fearing that the freedom would make her life underground even less tolerable in comparison.
“Do you ever wish things were different?” I asked.
Lara laughed. “Only constantly. I can’t wait for the trials to be over.”
“Not like that.” I bit my lip. “Like, really different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you ever wish the borders were open, or that someone else was in charge?” The words were risky, skirting on treason, but Lara was my friend. Besides, what use was I to the rebellion if I wasn’t willing to put my safety on the line?
She looked around as if checking to see if anyone was eavesdropping, then lowered her voice. “Don’t say things like that.”
“There’s no one here. I’m just curious. What if there was a better version of Mistei where everyone was free and happy?”
She huffed. “You sound like Selwyn.”
“I do?”
“He’s always going on about how much he wants to change things.” She plucked a piece of grass, splitting it with a fingernail. “Honestly, it worries me. If he talks like that outside Earth House, he won’t live long.”
Her matter-of-fact tone pained me. “It shouldn’t be like that. People should be allowed to say what they feel.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I do. Or at least, I see what it’s like for all of you. What if Earth House stopped being neutral, though? What if you stood up for yourselves?”
“Hush!” She clapped a hand over my mouth. “We’re within Earth territory, but still—never, ever say something like that out loud again.” She removed her hand gingerly, as if afraid I’d start screaming treason at the top of my lungs.
“Help me understand,” I begged. “Tell me why neutrality is so important.”
“Earth House’s power comes from its neutrality. We were advisors to queens and kings and arbiters of disputes. Everyone respected us.”
“It’s not like that now, though.”
She shredded another piece of grass. “No. But if Earth House stays neutral, it doesn’t matter how much the others mock us. We’ll survive no matter what.”
Maybe their current neutrality was in the name of safety…or maybe they never took a stand because they never wanted to be on the wrong side of history. Either way it felt cowardly, but I didn’t dare say that. I wouldn’t push her any further tonight. “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “There’s so much I still don’t understand about your world.”
We talked about other things then: our childhoods, our dreams, the people we’d known. Hours later when we rose to go in, she held out her closed fist. “Here, take this.” She dropped something into my cupped palm.
It was one of the ornamental buttons from her dressing gown, an emerald pine tree with a golden trunk. There was a broken thread where it had been ripped free. “Did you tear it on something?” I asked.
“It’s for you.”
I looked up, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
Lara smiled, radiant as the moon. “It’s the first item in your new collection.”