Teagan and Cress were quiet as they walked home from Maradin’s place. Maradin’s words haunted the space between them. I’m not sure how much more time you have. It echoed in her mind, beating out a steady rhythm of you will die soon. Teagan felt like she was crawling in her own skin, and she didn’t want to think about this. She couldn’t.
“I need your help making a sleeping draught when we get home,” she said, her voice sounding hollow even to herself.
Cress didn’t seem surprised, and she nodded. “All right.”
If Teagan could shut her mind down for a little while, if she could distance herself from this, she could force it from her consciousness. She could forget about it. And she needed to be able to do that so desperately she didn’t even stop to take her shoes off at the door before she went to the kitchen and started pulling ingredients from the shelves.
“Teagan, slow down.”
“I can’t slow down, Cress. I don’t have time.”
Cress didn’t respond; she grabbed her spellbook from the table and opened it to the right page. Cress had told Teagan she’d first made this potion to help her sister sleep after the death of her beloved horse. Cress helped Teagan with it now. They measured the ingredients and put a pot on the fire. They crushed herbs and chopped flowers. They worked in what would have been comfortable silence before today; they’d always worked well together. But now Teagan felt like she couldn’t breathe in this small space, felt that Cress was in the way. Twice she’d snapped, and twice Cress had snapped back. “If you don’t want me here, you shouldn’t have asked for my help!”
“No, I do want you here. You’re the best at potions,” Teagan grumbled.
“Then stop acting as if I’m a nuisance to you. Please.” She spat out the last word.
Teagan apologized, but the anger wouldn’t go away even as Cress stirred the draught and announced that it was done. Teagan watched with impatience as Cress poured it all into a cup, set it on a small plate so as not to burn her hands, and held it out to her. When Teagan’s fingers curled around it, they brushed Cress’s, but Cress pulled away quickly. Well, that was fine then. Teagan didn’t want to stay awake in this day any longer.
As she walked down the hallway to their room, Teagan realized where her anger came from. The longer Cress spent on this foolish quest, the more Teagan grew frustrated and bitter. Instead of spending her time with the woman she loved, the woman who was dying, Cress was reading texts and returning from inns at all hours of the morning, smelling of dust and old books. She’d crawl into bed and wrap her arms around Teagan and whisper that she was getting close. Close to the Shadow Princess and the cure. Close to saving her.
But they’d run out of time, hadn’t they? And they hadn’t found the princess.
Teagan downed the potion in one swallow to stop thinking about it and slid under the covers of their four-poster bed with the gossamer-like blush-pink canopy above. She didn’t stir when Cress joined her late in the night.
* * *
The next morning, Teagan woke with a pounding headache, as if she’d tossed back one too many glasses of wine. Cress’s side of the bed was empty and cold. After she’d made a stop in the washroom, she found Cress at her desk in the den, papers strewn all around her.
“I’m almost there, Teagan. I promise. There’s just one little thing I need to make sure of before we set out for the Shadow Realm.”
“Cress, just stop. Please.”
Cress didn’t look up from the old book she had open. “We’re so close I can taste it.”
“Would you please look at me?” Cress finally pulled her gaze away from her research, expression more guarded than usual.
“I’m not even sure this is worth it,” Teagan said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Going to the Shadow Princess. Everything about her suggests she’s not going to give us what we want, so why should we risk it?”
“You’re not serious.” Cress’s tone was cold.
“I’m dead serious.” Cress didn’t laugh, but Teagan hadn’t exactly been being funny. This was life-or-death for her. “How do we know this is going to work?”
“Because she’ll honor a deal.”
“What if she doesn’t? What if she doesn’t even want to make a deal with us?”
Cress shook her head and went back to the book. “This is your only chance, Teagan, and I’m not going to lose it.”
“And I don’t want to lose you!” Teagan’s outburst seemed to take Cress by surprise, but she didn’t stop—couldn’t stop. “If we go, and you get hurt or you die, what happens then?”
Cress finally rose from the desk chair and came to stand in front of Teagan. “Love, I have so much faith in us. We’ll make it through the Shadow Realm and back home, and we’ll both live long, long years.”
“I don’t want your death on my conscience,” Teagan whispered, letting her fear show itself fully.
“And what of my conscience? What of my life?” Cress stepped away and ran her hands through her hair. “Why do you get to make this decision as if you’re the only one who’ll have to live with it?”
“Because I am too scared to lose you!”
Cress opened her mouth, and then closed it. When she finally spoke, her voice broke. “Please don’t ask me to let you go.” It was as if all the fight went out of Cress as she sank onto the sofa, head in her hands. “Not after you saved me that day in the forest, Teagan. It should have been me.”
“I’d do it again. I’d do anything for you.”
“And I would do anything for you.”
They were at an impasse, then. Teagan knew she was being stubborn, even more stubborn than Cress, but she couldn’t imagine losing her, especially at the expense of saving Teagan’s life. Maybe it wasn’t exactly fair, given how they’d gotten to this point in the first place, given that she’d risked her life to save Cress from the monster. Teagan knew Cress was just trying to do the same for her. But Teagan didn’t want to carry this kind of responsibility, this burden.
She couldn’t bear the grief. Not again.
While it definitely wasn’t fair to make Cress bear it after she was gone, Teagan knew she would be okay without her. Cress was resilient and so much stronger than Teagan was; she’d live on.
“This is my wish,” Teagan said resolutely.
Cress looked away, her jaw clenched tight. She didn’t say anything for several moments, and when she did, Teagan didn’t feel any better. “I’m not sure I can respect it, I’m sorry. I need to go for a walk.”
While Cress was gone, Teagan lay in bed with their cats curled up next to her and decided on a course of action. She’d go to the Shadow Realm on her own. That way, if she didn’t make it, she wouldn’t also have Cress’s death on her hands. If this was to be her last chance, her last hope, she’d do it because she didn’t want to leave Cress alone, the way her mother had left her. Teagan just had to put her faith and trust in Cress’s inquisitive, brilliant mind. If she followed everything in Cress’s notebook, she was sure she’d be fine.
Teagan wasn’t going to be the reason Cress died too.
When Cress came back, the moon had risen in the sky and Teagan was already half-asleep. She heard the sounds of clothes dropping to the floor, felt the covers being pulled back and the bed shifting under the weight of another person. She didn’t move or turn toward Cress, but Cress still snuggled in close, draping an arm around Teagan’s body.
As Teagan’s eyes drifted closed, she thought she felt something warm and wet hit the back of her neck and slide down her nightdress, but she was too sleepy to twist around.