Every line in his body tensed.
“And it chased me here. The Wilderwood did, I mean.” To say it aloud sounded ridiculous. Red’s cheeks heated, making the cut seep anew.
The Wolf stood then, slowly reaching his full height and covering her in his shadow. When he spoke, his tone was measured, belying all that worry in his gaze. “Is that all?”
“Yes. All it did was chase me.” Incredulity sharpened her answer. “If that wasn’t supposed to happen, perhaps you should keep better control of your damn trees.”
Eammon’s brow arched, but relief was in his suddenly slackened shoulders. “My apologies.” He held out his hand, tentatively gesturing to her cheek. “Allow me to make it up to you.”
Red eyed his hand, lip between her teeth. Something about it looked . . . familiar, almost. It pricked at the back of her mind but wouldn’t commit to the solid form of a memory.
She nodded.
His skin was warm. The crosshatched scars on his fingers were rough against her cheek as the Wolf laid his forefinger carefully along the cut. His eyes closed.
Something stirred in the air between them, a gust of warmth, scented with leaves and loam. Red’s vision bloomed golden, the Mark on her arm thrumming again. In her center, the splinter of her magic teased open, a flower feeling spring on winter’s sharpened edge.
A fraction of a second, then the sting of the cut was gone. Red didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until she opened them again.
There, on the Wolf’s cheekbone, a wound the mirror image of hers. She lifted her fingers disbelievingly to her face. Still tacky with blood, but the skin was whole.
The Wolf knelt quickly, ducking his head to gather his books again, but not quite fast enough to hide his eyes. The whites of them were threaded with green, a verdant corona blooming around the amber-brown irises.
“The benefits of being bound to the Wilderwood are few.” Books in hand, Eammon rose, turning to stride back into the stacks. He seemed taller than before, quite the feat when his previous height was already considerable. There was a strange quality to his voice, too— a slight echo, a resonance that reminded her of leaves caught in the wind. “That’s one of them.”
For a moment Red stood still, fingers resting against her unmarked skin. Then she started after him. Thank you hovered in the back of her throat, but something about the set of his shoulders said he neither needed nor wanted it.
“The rules here are simple.” Eammon shoved a book into its place on the shelf. “The first: Don’t go beyond the gate.”
The odd, echoing quality was gone from his voice now— the Wolf sounded only gruff and tired, with no echo of falling leaves.
“Easily done,” Red muttered. “Your forest is less than hospitable.”
His frown deepened at that. “Second rule.” Another book slammed home. “The Wilderwood wants blood, especially yours. Don’t bleed where the trees can taste it, or they’ll come for you.”
Her fingers curled, still copper-scented with blood. “Is that what happened to Gaya and the other Second Daughters?”
The Wolf froze, another book halfway pushed into place, expression stricken. It took Red a moment for her mind to catch up with what she’d said, and when it did, she wanted to sink into the floor. Reminding him of his mother’s death. What a wonderful way to start their cohabitation.
But Eammon recovered without comment, though he pushed the book the rest of the way onto the shelf with perhaps more force than necessary. “More or less, yes.”
Arms now emptied, Eammon stalked to the library door. When he reached it, he turned, peering at her down his crooked nose. “Third rule.” The new cut on his face leaked too-dark blood, deep crimson with a thread of green that looked almost like a root tendril, but his eyes were normal again, no longer haloed emerald. “Stay out of my way.”
Red tightened her crossed arms over her chest like they could be a shield. “Understood.”
“There’s a room you can use in the corridor.” Eammon pushed open the door and gestured her out. “Welcome to the Black Keep, Redarys.”
The door shut behind her, and Red was alone.
It wasn’t until she sank onto the bottom step that she realized where she’d seen his hands, why their shape and scarring looked so familiar.
The night of her sixteenth birthday, when Red had cut her hand on a rock and accidentally bled in the forest— when the Wilderwood splintered its damning magic into her bloodstream by way of her cut palm— she’d seen something, painted on the canvas of her closed eyes. A vision. Hands that weren’t her own, large and scarred and thrust into the dirt, just as hers were. A sense of rushing, blinding fear that mirrored hers but wasn’t hers.