He dropped a kiss on her forehead. She smiled.
“Here’s another one, from Elkyrath.” She tapped the letter on the table. “All they sent were condolences for Neve’s death.”
It still sounded so strange to say out loud. In the end, though, it’d been the easiest lie to tell. Neve had died, after all. And when she left the Keep, days after coming back to life, it’s what she’d told them to tell the nobles.
Raffe had woken early, that morning. Two days after everything happened, and all of them were still at the Keep—some of them because they didn’t know where else to go, some of them because they wanted to stay close to others.
That was why he’d stayed. To stay close to Neve. Things were different between them now, but he still wanted to make sure she was safe. That she was as well as she could be.
So when he was walking to the kitchen and heard her and Red talking quietly in the foyer, he’d followed their voices.
Neve was dressed for traveling. A long cloak, leggings, and a too-large tunic that she’d undoubtedly borrowed from Red, a pack slung over her shoulder.
“I need to,” she’d said, murmuring as if she didn’t want to wake anyone.
“I understand, really, I do.” Red’s tone and the look on her face made the statement a lie. “But why can’t you stay here, just for a little bit? Or let someone go with you—”
“No.” Neve shook her head. “I need to go alone, Red. I just… I just need some space. Away from here. Away from…”
“Everything?” Red’s voice edged to a break.
Raffe stepped forward then, not caring that he was interrupting, his immediate need for coffee upon waking forgotten. “You’re leaving?”
Neve sighed. Nodded, lips pressed to a thin line.
Clearly, she expected resistance, for Raffe to form a united front with Red. But instead, Raffe nodded. He’d probably do the same thing, if he’d been through what she had. The desire for space, for distance between herself and the place where her life had reached such a definitive closing point, made perfect sense to him.
He’d thought Red would rage at that, but instead she almost mirrored her sister’s stance, arms crossed, mouth tightly closed. Her eyes shone, and Raffe thought fleetingly that the past two days was the most he’d ever seen the Valedren sisters cry. “Please be careful,” she said quietly. “And please come back.”
“I always will,” Neve whispered.
“Good morning!”
Arick. He stood halfway down the stairs, dark hair tousled, sunny grin on his face, and still looked at them all as if he had no idea who they were. His green eyes went from bright to concerned when he saw Red. “Or not good?”
“Everything is fine, Arick.” She waved a hand, wiped at her eyes.
He didn’t look convinced—even without his memories, Arick still seemed uniquely attuned to Red’s emotional state, a fact that bemused Eammon—but he nodded. “I’m going to get breakfast. I can’t remember much, but I do seem to recall a recipe for pancakes.” He looked closer at Neve. “Oh. You’re leaving.”
She bit her lip. Nodded.
Arick met them at the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment Raffe was stricken by the synchronicity of it—the four of them, together again, the bonds between them so altered they were nearly unrecognizable.
“What should I tell them?” Raffe asked. “I mean, the lie has been that you’re sick.”
“Tell them I died, then.” Neve snorted. “It won’t even be a lie, not really.”
“There’s something, at least.” Raffe ran a hand over his close-shorn hair. “I was getting too good at lying for my own comfort.”
Arick’s lips twisted. “I look forward to recovering my memories. It seems you all have had quite an adventure.”
“You could say that,” Red murmured.
Another bout of silence. Then Arick moved toward the kitchen archway. “Goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye,” Neve whispered.
Then she slipped out the door, into the woods. Into the world she’d saved. Red and Raffe had stood there a long time, staring and silent.
“If you’re willing to share, I’ll take some wine. I don’t even mind that you drank from the bottle.”
Arick’s voice startled Raffe from reverie as he strode into the queen’s suite as if he owned it. He was dressed like his old self now, a doublet and breeches rather than the white, flowing garments he’d been wearing when he came back from the dead. Or almost the dead. Red had tried to explain it to Raffe, and he’d never quite grasped it. Certainly not enough to tell Arick about it.