CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I stopped, shocked.

“What are you doing?” Miranda shouted. “The nets won’t last forever!”

I shook off my stupor. She was right; there was no time to waste. We ran as quickly as we could after the lizard, which led us toward the canyon wall. At first I saw nothing but stone. Then the lizard scuttled sideways and disappeared, and I realized that what I had taken for a shadow was in truth a small passage burrowed into the wall. We filed into the passage.

I heard movement in the darkness, and a moment later a blue light flared to life over Miranda’s open palm. She ran ahead, and we followed her, not stopping until the passage widened and we came to a small cavern.

“Are you all right?” Alaric asked, his voice rough with pain.

“I’m fine,” I said. Fine enough, anyway. “You?”

He shook his head, waving off the question.

I stared at Miranda in the dim light. A flash of relief rushed through me, followed quickly by anger. She had lied to me. But I was still glad to see her, and not only because she had just saved us from the ravens. She was alive. I hadn’t realized how much that mattered to me until now, and I didn’t know how to make sense of it.

She stared back at me. Then she turned her head and stared at Alaric. Her gaze fell to our clasped hands.

My cheeks flushed. I dropped Alaric’s hand. “I—”

“We need to move,” Alaric cut in. “As she said, the nets will not last forever. We need to be clear of the canyons when they disappear.”

“Then let’s go,” Miranda said impatiently.

“I can’t,” I said. “I hurt my ankle.”

Miranda pressed her lips together and looked at Alaric. “Can I trust you not to cut my head off if I heal her?”

Alaric rolled his eyes but stepped back.

I lowered myself to the ground, wincing. Miranda knelt next to me and gently removed my boot. Then she used her knife to make a small cut on the back of her arm. I held my sock away from my ankle as she let blood drip down onto the wound. A few seconds later the pain began to ease.

“It’s not perfect. We don’t have time for that,” Miranda said, her voice fatigued.

“As long as I can walk,” I said. “Thank you.” I pushed myself up and shifted my weight tentatively. The pain had lessened to a dull ache—good enough for a while, at least.

We proceeded in silence. The air cooled, and I could hear the soft dripping of water somewhere in the dark. Miranda held her light high as we followed the lizard. I was hurting everywhere. Gods, I needed a hot bath. And a soft bed to fall into for days—I never wanted to see a raven again.

I peeked at Miranda out of the corner of my eye. “Were you following us all along?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I spent a few days recovering,” she said. “He could have killed me.” She glared at Alaric.

“So dramatic,” Alaric scoffed. “If I’d intended to kill you, you would be dead.”

Miranda ignored him and continued. “Then I had to get some help to track you. But I couldn’t get past the ravens—I was waiting for you to come back.”

I bit my lip. We likely wouldn’t have made it out of the canyon without her. “Why?”

She glanced at Alaric again. “I’d rather not say in front of him.”

“Then don’t,” Alaric said wearily. “You’re still a liar. I doubt that has changed since we last saw you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Miranda snapped.

Alaric’s jaw set, and he reached for his sword. I raised my hands up, putting myself between them.

“Stop it! Can’t we agree to let this go, at least until we get out of here? At the very least, you must admit that Miranda helped us back there, and she didn’t have to,” I said, addressing Alaric.

“Fine,” he said.

I looked at Miranda, who scowled, but shrugged in acquiescence.

“Good,” I said.

A while later, the passage brightened and we emerged, blinking, into the forest once more. And there before us were the glimmering white stones that marked a safe path.

The lizard waited on the path, unblinking.

“You must pay him,” Alaric said.

Of course. I’d forgotten that I’d pocketed the acorn back in the canyon. I knelt down and offered it to the lizard. It came up to me, peered at my hand—and then sank sharp teeth into the meat of my palm.

I hissed in pain and jerked back, dropping the acorn. The lizard’s teeth were clearly imprinted upon my skin. As I watched, pinprick drops of blood welled up from the wound and spilled to the ground.

The earth shifted below me—for a moment I thought it was just dizziness, but then Alaric and Miranda staggered as well. I fell back as a sapling shot up from the ground. In an instant it was higher than my waist, then my head, unfurling with a flourish. Bloodred flowers bloomed before my eyes, and unfamiliar fruit the color of rich cider burst into being.

I stared at it, dumbfounded.

This is but a taste of what could be, the voice of the Silence purred.

An intoxicating, sweet scent wafted toward me, and I took a step forward.

Alaric grabbed my arm. “Don’t,” he said harshly. He pulled me back, leading us down the path until the tree was out of sight.

“What—what was that?” Miranda said.

“That is not for me to say, but no good would have come from it,” Alaric said. He looked up at the sky, which was approaching sunset. “We cannot tarry.”

“You need to get back,” I said.

He shook his head. “I can’t leave you here. You’re not safe.”

I drew him away from Miranda. Lowering my voice, I said, “Can you fly?”

He nodded slowly. “I can… but I can’t carry you. I’m too weak.”

I swallowed. “Then you must go.”

“I can’t leave you with her.”

“You don’t have a choice,” I said, lacing my fingers through his. “I can take care of myself.”

He sighed. “There is a woman you can stay with until I return. Fallyne. She has a house near the west entrance to the Gather. Take care with what you say to her, but she is as safe a person as you will meet in the Silence.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “Is she a blood mage?”

“She’s a…” Alaric searched for a word and seemed to come up short. “A hedgewife? The humans have different words for her. In truth, she is a healer. She cares for those who have fallen out of favor with the Gather—or anyone who needs her.”

“How will I find her?”

Alaric turned to Miranda and raised his voice. “You know the way to Fallyne’s house?”

Miranda glared back at him, but nodded.

“If you do not deliver her safely there tonight, I will kill you,” he said. There was no malice in his voice. It was a simple statement of fact.

Miranda paled, and she nodded again.

Alaric looked back at me and bent to whisper in my ear. “Be careful with her. She will try to win you back. And… if I don’t return, don’t come looking for me.”

He spared one last withering look for Miranda. Then he launched up in the air and left us behind.

“So…,” I said, after Alaric had gone.

“So,” Miranda replied. “Do you want to explain what that was back there? Or what you’ve been doing with Alaric in the first place?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why should I explain anything to you? You lied to me. I can’t trust you.”

She opened her mouth to reply, then paused. “I suppose that’s fair,” she said finally. For a moment we just looked at each other. Then she pointed. “The path that goes closest to Fallyne’s house is that way. If you want to arrive tonight, we’d better get moving.”

“All right,” I said.

Her eyes fell on my hands once more, and I realized I wasn’t wearing my gloves—that in fact, I hadn’t thought about them in some time. Now I dug them out of my pocket and put them on.

We started down the path.

“Can I just explain—”

“What’s there to explain?” I interrupted.

Miranda fidgeted. “Yes, I lied. But I worried when Alaric took you. I still tried to help you. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. Being near her again, everything I had felt for her came rushing back to the surface. It confused me. I didn’t trust myself.

She frowned, frustrated. “I’m on your side! How can I make you believe that?”

“Well,” I said, crossing my arms. “You could start by telling me the truth. About Callie and about that medallion.”

“Oh, Lena.” Miranda sighed. “The truth is, I’m not… I’m not a good person. I tried to be, once. But the Gather, it rips it out of you, the instinct to do right by other people. I came here with my best friend, the only person to stand by my side. When she was taken from me, I became desperate enough to do anything. Anything at all, just to free her.”

“So you said.”

“But I didn’t tell you everything,” she said. “Alaric was right, and so were the people at Haven. I was a loyal member of the king’s court. That’s why I have the medallion. But Callie… she’s very ill with blood plague, and she refuses to leave. I went to petition the king for her freedom. And he told me that all I had to do was go to the castle of briars… and kill the princess sleeping inside.”

Kill the princess? She’d told me she meant to save her.

“But I thought you opposed Shale?” I said faintly. “Killing the princess would end all the hopes for an uprising, wouldn’t it?”

“I know,” she said, looking away from me. “It’s a common punishment, actually, for people that displease him. Because the castle does not want anyone coming inside. It’s protected by its own kind of magic. Countless people have tried to get through only to die on the briars. But the tyrant can’t be disobeyed. So either you kill the princess or die trying.”

“So you were lying to me from the very beginning. You must have known about the Hand of Mora,” I said. “You knew from the start, when I told you about my curse.”

She had the grace to look ashamed. “I did.”

“And you were going to make me kill the princess?”

Her eyes slid away from mine, and I realized that the truth was far worse.

“No…,” I said, finally putting the pieces together. “You failed. You were as good as dead. You should have stayed in the Mundane; it was safer than the Silence. And yet you went back. With me. Because you knew I would be a good bargaining chip. You intended to sell me to Shale—or to Katen.”

“I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness,” Miranda said miserably. “I know I don’t deserve it. I only wanted to explain. I failed. I couldn’t save Callie. So yes, I thought that if I could deliver you to the Gather, the king might see his way to granting her freedom regardless.”

“You really were using me,” I said.

“And you were using me!” Miranda countered. “Admit it! You wanted to come into the Silence to break your curse, not because you wanted to help me.”

She said it hotly, but the truth was, as much as I had entered the Silence to break the curse… I had walked into the forest because of her.

“That wasn’t all there was to it,” I said, looking away. “There was—you.”

Her voice softened. “When Alaric took you, I realized I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t stand the thought of him handing you over to Katen. And then, when I realized he hadn’t, I thought there was still a chance to make things right.”

“And what about Callie?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “Callie will never leave the Gather. I should have accepted that a long time ago. I just—she was closer to me than my own sisters. I never thought I would have to say goodbye to her.”

“How do I know you’re not still telling tales?”

“Not everyone is an evil mastermind, Lena!” Miranda snapped. “If I still wanted to betray you, I would have returned to the Gather by now and told the king that you were with Alaric. But I didn’t. I came after you instead. Because I am done with the Gather—done with all of them. Yes, I lied and took advantage of you, and there’s no excuse for that. But there’s nothing I can do but apologize and do better going forward.”

I was surprised to see tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. “You should know,” she said, her voice catching, “I felt the same way too. About you. It… it scared me.”

A surprised tug of desire moved through me as she walked away, but my anger still nipped at me. She had betrayed me. She had intended to sell me. She didn’t care about me at all.

And yet… would she have told me the truth or apologized, if that were the case?

I hated this tangle of conflicting emotions. With Alaric I felt I knew where I stood—we were caged creatures, offering each other what little comfort we could in the fleeting time we had. With Miranda… With Miranda I felt the urge to dream again. She could break my heart, if I let her. And I wasn’t ready to let myself be vulnerable in that way.

Ahead of me, Miranda stopped. “We’re here,” she said as I caught up, pointing to a house standing in a cluster of trees. “Do you still want to go?”

I hesitated.

“It is safe,” she added grudgingly. “He was right to direct us here.”

“All right,” I said.

The door of the house opened, and an older woman stepped outside, the last rays of the setting sun falling on her silvery hair. She raised a hand in greeting.

“I thought I heard someone causing a commotion,” she said.

Miranda and I approached her cautiously.

“Are you Fallyne?” I asked. “I was told that you could help us.”

She looked me over with a critical eye. “Have you left the Gather? I can sense there’s blood magic in you.”

I ducked my head. Alaric had said nothing about the hedgewife being able to see inside me. I felt exposed under her scrutiny.

But then she laughed, and it was such a kind sound. “Not to worry, dearie. What’s your name?”

I hesitated. “Edina,” I said, after a moment.

Fallyne nodded and looked past me, addressing Miranda. “And you?”

“Miranda.”

“Well, come in then,” Fallyne said, gesturing for us to come inside. “We’re all just sitting down to supper.”