“No more boats after this.”
He nodded. “No more boats.”
Red put her head on his shoulder, frowning as she thought back over Kiri’s ravings. “Kiri called Neve the Shadow Queen and me the Golden-Veined. Isn’t that what Valdrek said the Sisters constellation was called, in some of the old languages?”
“I think so,” Eammon murmured. “But what would that mean?”
“Maybe nothing.” She burrowed farther into his shoulder, suddenly exhausted though she’d spent the last few hours asleep. “At the very least, it means this is bigger than us. This is something that was always going to happen.”
He went quiet, thoughtful. “It’s my fault, then.”
“No.” She sat up, turned, crouched over him with his waist caged by her arms. “Don’t you start that martyring shit again. I already warned you.”
A slight smile, but the worry stayed in his eyes. “You’ve become far more wolflike than I ever was.”
“And don’t forget it.” She sat back on her heels, still straddling his waist. After a moment, she picked up his hand, traced his scars with a light finger as she talked. “I think when I chose to become the Wilderwood, it… started something. Set something into motion. The roles were waiting, the pieces already set, and we just made the game begin. In that case, it’s just as much my fault as it is yours. And Neve’s, too.” She sighed. “We all made the choices that led us here. They just had further-reaching consequences than we knew.”
Silence, both of them sitting with the weight of the idea. “Well,” Eammon said finally, “I should be sorry, probably. But I’m not.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Making you fall in love with me and thus setting all this in motion.” A mischievous smile twisted his mouth, made his eyes glimmer like autumn sunshine through leaves. “I should have tried to temper my raw appeal.”
She tugged on his hair. “I feel like I was the one who had to make you fall in love with me. You were infuriatingly noble about the whole thing.”
“I started falling in love with you the moment you crashed into my library,” Eammon said, matter-of-fact. “I was just very good at hiding it.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes that felt stolen. Red leaned forward and rested her cheek on his chest, listening to Eammon’s heartbeat, the thud of it cushioned with leaf and branch. He loosely wrapped his arms around her waist, his breath warm against her neck.
The key lay on the table next to her half-drunk glass of water; she reached over and grabbed it, sitting back and holding it on her palm between them. It still glowed, still felt warm to the touch. She could still feel the faintest thud of a heartbeat.
Eammon eyed it warily. “You were right all along. What you did in the clearing, trying to get to Neve. That’s what gave you the key, made the Heart Tree able to pull you to it when Neve arrived.”
“I had to give up something for her,” Red murmured, turning the key over in her hands. “She went into the underworld for me. I had to prove I was willing to do the same for her. That’s how it works, I think. The same kinds of love, whether they’re pretty or not.”
Deep within her, the Wilderwood bloomed, pushing new shoots through her marrow. Agreement, acknowledgment that she was right.
Her Wolf’s hands tightened on her thighs, his wary look at the key almost becoming a glare. “As long as it doesn’t ask you for anything else,” he said, low and fierce.
Red pulled her lip between her teeth. She didn’t respond.
Finally, she clambered off him, stretching. “I need to wash my face and get out of this room.”
He swung long legs over the side of the bed and stood. “Fife found a library while he was looking for the kitchen, said it was well stocked and had some volumes that weren’t at the Keep or the Valleydan capital. Might be worth investigating.”
“Somehow, you always find the books.” Red gently pulled the ends of his hair until he bent far enough forward for her to drop a kiss on his forehead, right between the points of his nascent antlers. “Go leave me for reading, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m not above punching a priestess if the need arises.”
Eammon nodded, kissed her one more time before heading toward the door. “The library is on the other side of the amphitheater, if you need me.”
She nodded, and the door closed behind him.