Chapter 70
Chapter Seventy
Evelyn
The next day, Evelyn leaned against the doorway in Mirella’s infirmary.
At the farthest bedside, Belle lay motionless in a cot, wool blankets brought to her chin.
Her eyes remained closed, the one indication she slept the slow rise and fall of her chest. Todd sat at her bedside, holding her hand like a lifeline.
“She’ll be fine, Todd.” Kade gave his teammate’s shoulder a squeeze.
“You don’t know that,” Todd whispered. “We have no idea the cost Evelyn had to pay.”
Evelyn stilled. She hated seeing Belle unconscious, stuck in some magical sleep state, but she had no feelings on the matter.
Her insides were vacant of anything. Evelyn tried and tried to reach for something, anything to say to Todd to make matters better before they left for Callum.
“Evelyn,” a small voice said from behind.
She whirled. Aster, wrapped in shawls and shivering from the city’s cold, approached at arm’s length. Her bare feet slapped against the teal tile of the infirmary’s hall.
“Aster,” she whispered. “You’re not dressed to travel.”
“I’m not going,” she said, tired and sad. There wasn’t an ounce of her friend left. No bubbliness or brightness. No small quip to lighten the mood.
“You’re from Callum. It’s your home.” Evelyn reached for Aster’s hand, but her friend recoiled. “Your parents—”
“I don’t remember them—I mean—” Aster shut her eyes, gripping her shawls tighter around her small frame. “I’m not ready to face them or . . . this . . . yet.”
This, as in coming back to life. Words turned to ash on Evelyn’s tongue, but at least she managed, “I’m so sorry, Aster.”
The kernel of power she’d stolen from the Sun Goddess reared to life. It eclipsed the empathy brimming in Evelyn’s soul. She clamped her mouth shut, trying to fight the callousness reaching forth.
Aster blinked. Swallowed. Stared at her with those wide russet eyes that had brought her so much joy and hope in the past, twinkling with nothing but lostness.
“I believe this is where we say goodbye, Evelyn Carson.”
Something pierced Evelyn’s heart, but the pain was gone as quickly as it came. The flame in her soul scorched it away, and by the time she recovered, Aster had already retreated down the hall, disappearing into the infirmary’s next wing.
She blinked back tears that never came. Fucking flames, this was Aster. Someone she loved. Why did she feel nothing? What was happening to her?
A faint cackle tunneled down the hallway, as if they Sun Goddess sneered at her from above. Goose bumps pricked up Evelyn’s arms, and she shivered, trying to rally her resolve.
Could she at least make it right with Todd? Say her goodbyes to Belle? She turned, ready to march into her friend’s room when movement caught her attention, and Maxie followed the wall as she scurried with ears flicked back.
Evelyn crouched to her familiar’s level, but Maxie stopped. Her hackles rose like orange spikes down her spine and hissed.
Evelyn reared back. Why was her familiar acting so strange? Their familiar-to-witch bond still existed like a thread connected their souls, but much like with Kade, it was distant, as if something infected the connection.
“Maxie, its alright,” Evelyn whispered. She reached out—
Her familiar swiped, clawing the back of her hand. Beads of blood bloomed across her skin.
“Gods damn it.” Heat scorched through her. Fiery. Angry.
Maxie’s stare narrowed, and with her tail low and quivering, she darted into Belle’s room, finding her spot in between Kade’s legs.
He sighed, a deep kind that Evelyn hadn’t witnessed before. He caught her in the doorway and stiffened. He turned his attention back to his friend.
“We’ll visit upon our return,” Kade said.
“Don’t bother,” Todd muttered. “I don’t want to see her, not until Belle wakes up. I can’t, Kade. My wolf . . .”
Kade’s frown reached his eyes. “Okay.”
Evelyn fell back into the hall and retreated, not daring to let Todd catch sight of her.
Kade caught up to her before she made it out of the infirmary, the city blustering with a harsh winter cold.
Flurries twisted on the wind, a rare sight in Nūa, leaving the street emptier than usual.
The once crimson-and-copper trees were bare, and the potted marigolds wilted with frost.
Kade took Evelyn’s hand, making her pause on the street. “He’s scared, that’s all. You can’t take it personally.”
“But I should,” Evelyn whispered. “The Sun Goddess is punishing me for bringing back Aster. Not only does she barely remember who I am, I’ve lost Belle to who knows what.”
“Our time in the Otherworld was tense,” Kade said, running his thumb across her knuckles absently. “You were trying to protect someone you love.”
Love. Why did the word feel and sound so foreign? Yet, Evelyn searched the gold rivets in Kade’s amber eyes. She loved this man, and no matter the foreign feeling festering in her heart, she believed that to her core.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” he whispered.
Evelyn’s insides backflipped. “I . . . don’t need to talk right now, but instead a distraction. Let me show you this city. A proper tour this time.”
Kade studied her, a thousand words warring in his stare. As if to support his objection, wanted posters flapped in the wind.
It technically still wasn’t safe to wander the city without their names officially cleared, but Evelyn was tired of hiding in a place she’d once called home. These were her streets as much as they were any other witch’s.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, love,” Kade said.
Evelyn’s chest tightened. “Please. I’ll take us a way that leads straight to the harbor, and we’ll keep our hoods up.”
Kade sighed. “Evelyn, what are you frightened of? What are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing.” She marched past him, but Kade grabbed her wrist.
“Ev, don’t be angry with me—”
“I’m not.” She tugged her hand free of his grasp, throwing her hands into the air. “I’m angry that I fight for this city, and yet, I can’t even enjoy it. I have a price over my head, despite everything I’ve endured. How, in the fucking flames, is that fair?”
“It’s not,” Kade said in a hushed tone. “But you’re quite accustomed to the injustices of this world. Moons, you don’t sound like yourself—”
“I damn well don’t feel like it either!” Evelyn roared.
Kade’s eyes widened. “Talk to me.”
He’ll never understand. The thought came and went like a hit to the back of Evelyn’s knees.
No.
Kade understood her more than anyone else. They’d promised one another, no matter what they faced, they’d face it together.
She swallowed. “Aster said goodbye, Maxie won’t come near me, Belle might be gone, and you’re . . . distant. The mating bond didn’t weave back together—”
“Our love is more than the bond, Ev,” he said. “What is it that you’re so frightened of? You’re holding back from me. I can feel it.”
Lie, a voice whispered, one embedded deep like it wasn’t in the crevices of her mind but embedded in her soul.
Like the Goddess’s power.
Evelyn ignored it, refusing to let it control her. “I thought I’d come back whole again; but I feel less like myself than when I didn’t have my magic. My soul’s repaired, and yet, I’m not . . . me.”
Wind barreled down the street, howling in the wake of Evelyn’s words. The trees groaned as their trunks bent, and the branches clattered against one another.
Kade reached her in two longs strides, grabbing hold of her wrists. “Before we met in the Sun Goddess’s palace, what did you encounter in the Otherworld?”
Evelyn blinked, trying to remember. Oh. “Memories. Not of things I necessarily regret, but difficult decisions I made.”
“Like?”
She swallowed, words thick. “One of them was when I sent you away after learning you weren’t actually Cyrus.”
Kade’s eyes softened. “You faced those memories as a test.”
Evelyn shook her head, shutting her eyes. “I know, and in the moment, I accepted my choices and efforts, but now I’ve hurt two people I love, Kade. What do I do now?”
He nodded, understanding rippling across his face. He placed a hand over her heart. “We trust in what’s here. We travel to Callum, stay the course of the prophecy, and when we return, you’ll make right by your friends.”
Your actions define you.
Evelyn tried to remind herself of that as she and Kade hurried to Nūa’s harbor.
But how could that bring her any comfort when her late actions hurt not only herself, but those around her?