Faster Alone
When Lark woke, it took her a moment to recognize what she was feeling as happiness.
Yesterday had been a good day. The archive, the discovery, the moment when Rion had pulled her into his arms and held her as if she were precious to him.
Yes, he had retreated afterward, had apologized and been carefully polite ever since, but she had felt him.
She had heard him say her name in that soft, familiar way.
And when they had walked back through the darkening streets of Springhope, there had been a current in the air between them. One that felt like possibility.
She dressed quickly and made her way to the common room, expecting to find the others at breakfast. Instead, she found only Rion, standing by the door with his cloak already on and a satchel slung over his shoulder.
He looked up when she entered, his expression almost guilty before it settled into careful aloofness.
“You’re up early,” she said.
“I want to get back to the archive. There’s more to find, I’m certain of it. The founding scholar’s complete works must be there somewhere, and if I can locate them …” He trailed off, his eye sliding away from hers. “It could take days to go through everything properly.”
“I’ll get my jacket.”
“You don’t need to come.”
The words landed like stones dropped into a dark well. Lark felt the ripples spread through her, washing away the fragile joy she had carried into the room.
“I thought I was helping,” she said. She kept her voice even, casual, as though his dismissal meant nothing. “Fetching books. Being your underpaid servant.”
“You were. You did.” He still was not looking at her. “But the initial research is done. What’s left is detailed reading, cross-referencing, the kind of work that goes faster alone. You’d be bored.”
“I don’t mind being bored.”
“Lark.” Finally, he met her eyes, and what she saw there she couldn't quite read. Regret, perhaps. Or discomfort. “I’ll be fine. Really. Take the day for yourself. Explore the city. You’ve barely seen anything of Springhope beyond the healing halls and the archive.”
She could push, insist on coming, force him either to accept her presence or explain more clearly why he didn't want it.
But the stiffness of his posture warned her off.
He was braced for resistance, prepared to defend his position.
Whatever was happening behind his circumspect expression, he wasn't ready to share it.
Besides, pushing him further would only make her look desperate. “If you’re sure,” she said.
“I’m sure.”
He left without another word, the door closing softly behind him, and Lark stood alone in the common room with the ashes of her happiness scattered at her feet.
She was still standing there when Pippa emerged into the corridor, her curls sleep-tousled and her eyes barely open. She stopped in the doorway, took one look at Lark’s face, and seemed to wake up entirely.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Lark moved to the table and sat down, reaching for the teapot that someone had left warming near the fire. “Rion went to the archive.”
“Without you?”
“He said he didn’t need me today. Detailed work. Goes faster alone.” She poured tea into a cup and watched the steam rise, not trusting herself to meet Pippa’s eyes. “It’s fine.”
Pippa crossed to the table and sat down across from Lark, her expression concerned.
“Right,” she said. “Get dressed properly. We’re going out.”
“I am dressed.”
“You’re dressed for skulking around archives and sitting in sickrooms. I mean properly dressed. For shopping.”
Lark looked up. “Shopping.”
“Yes, shopping. You’ve been in this city for nearly two weeks, and you’ve seen the healing halls, the archive, the guesthouse, and the streets between them.
That’s pathetic.” Pippa reached across the table and plucked the teacup from Lark’s hands.
“The weavers here are supposed to be exceptional. The metalwork is famous across Ianorrah. There are hot springs on the eastern terrace that I’ve been dying to visit. And you need new clothes.”
“I don’t need new clothes.”
“You need new clothes,” Pippa repeated firmly. “Everything you own is road-worn, bloodstained or worse. When was the last time you bought something just because it was nice? Just because you wanted it?”
Lark opened her mouth to answer and found she could not remember. “There’s the burgundy dress.”
“The one you left behind in Autunmcrown?”
Lark had no reply to this.
“Exactly.” Pippa stood and pulled Lark to her feet. “We’re fixing that. Today. Now go put on something that isn’t whatever you’re currently wearing and meet me back here in ten minutes.”
There was no arguing with Pippa when she got like this.
Lark had learned that much over the past turns.
She went to her room and changed into the dark green dress that had been gifted to her when they arrived, and returned to find her friend waiting by the door with an expression of bright anticipation.
“Better,” Pippa said, eyeing her critically. “Not great, but better. We’ll work on it.”
They stepped out into the morning light, and Springhope spread before them like an invitation.
The weavers’ terrace was on the fifth level, a broad plaza lined with workshops and storefronts, the air filled with the soft clacking of looms and the faint smell of lanolin.
Pippa led the way with the knowledge of someone who had been studying maps and asking questions, pulling Lark from shop to shop with an enthusiasm that was difficult to resist.
The goat's wool was exceptional. Lark had to admit that much.
Soft and warm and woven into fabrics that ranged from sturdy travel-weight to a cloth so fine it felt like clouds between her fingers.
The colors were muted, mostly grays, browns, and deep greens that would blend with mountain and forest, but here and there she spotted brighter hues.
A deep blue like midnight water. A rich burgundy that reminded her of autumn leaves.
“This one,” Pippa said, pulling a cloak from a display. It was dove-gray, hooded and lined with a softer, charcoal cashmere. “Try it on.”
“I have a cloak.”
“You have a cloak that’s been through a battle, a rescue mission, and a mountain crossing. It has bloodstains on the hem and a tear in the shoulder that you’ve been pretending not to notice.” Pippa thrust the gray cloak into her hands. “Try it on.”
The wool settled around her shoulders like an embrace, cozy without being heavy, the hood falling perfectly to frame her face.
She looked at herself in the small mirror the shopkeeper provided and saw a stranger.
A woman who might have lived a normal life.
Who might have bought cloaks in mountain towns and worried about nothing more pressing than the weather.
“You're getting it,” Pippa said.
“It’s too expensive.”
“It’s not. And even if it were, you have money. I know you do. You’ve barely spent anything since we left Autumncrown.”
This was true. Lark had lived frugally for so long that spending money on anything beyond necessities felt foreign. Decadent. As though she did not deserve nice things.
“One cloak,” she said finally. “That’s all.”
By the time they left the weavers’ terrace, she had acquired the cloak, two new shirts in fabrics softer than anything she had owned in years, a pair of trousers that fit properly instead of being slightly too large, and a knitted scarf in the deep blue she had admired earlier.
Pippa had somehow convinced her that these were necessities.
“See?” Pippa said as they climbed toward the next terrace. “That wasn’t so painful.”
“My purse disagrees.”
“Your purse will recover. Your wardrobe is finally looking like it belongs to a person instead of a fugitive.” She linked her arm through Lark’s, a casual gesture of affection that still startled Lark every time it happened.
“Now. Food. I saw a place on the third terrace that smelled incredible, and I’m starving. ”
The place on the third terrace was a small establishment carved into the mountainside, its tables arranged on a broad stone balcony that overlooked the lower part of the city.
They ordered tea and a hot and savory dish that the server called a mountain pie, and settled into chairs warmed by the midday sun.
For a while they ate in comfortable silence, watching the life of Springhope unfold below them. Goats being herded along narrow streets. Children chasing each other between buildings. A pair of witches practicing a conjuration that sent small sparks of light dancing through the air.
“So,” Pippa said eventually, in the tone of someone who had been waiting for the right moment. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
Lark took a bite of the mountain pie. It was good. Meat and vegetables in a flaky crust, seasoned with rosemary and thyme. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this morning. The look on your face when I found you. The way you said ‘it’s fine’ like it was anything but.” Pippa leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Something happened. Before today, that made his rejection this morning hit harder than it should have.”
Lark set down her fork. She hadn't intended to talk about this or to share the fragile, confusing tangle of emotions that the archive had stirred up. But Pippa was looking at her with those patient hazel eyes, and she was tired of carrying everything alone.
“Yesterday,” she said slowly. “In the archive. We found important evidence that dark aetheria can be transmuted, returned to its neutral state. Rion was so excited when he understood what it meant. What it could mean for the war, for everything.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? It sounds like good news.”
“It is. It was.” Lark stared at the mountains in the distance, their peaks white with snow against the late spring sky. “He hugged me.”
Pippa went still. “He what?”