She expected him to refute her again, to stick by his lie. But Eammon didn’t move, other than the tic of his throat as he swallowed. “It’s not quite that simple, but you’re right. Your blood can do those things.” Still soft-voiced, still calm and stoic as the trees around them. “But the price is more than I’m willing to let you pay, Redarys. If you give the Wilderwood blood, it won’t stop there. It can’t.”
The shadow-creature forming itself into Merra’s corpse, roots spilling from her ripped stomach. Gaya, dead and forest-tangled. The other Second Daughters, disappearing into the trees, called into the darkness. Tied to the Wilderwood, but in a different way than Red was. A difference Eammon wouldn’t fully explain, other than it had to do with the awful, destructive power growing in her bloodstream like a vine.
This ends in roots and bones.
Red glared at him, the hand holding the vial beginning, slightly, to tremor. “Maybe I’m willing to pay it. Maybe I’d rather bleed on your trees and face whatever the consequences are than try to use this damn magic.”
Incredulity in his tone now, but also a sadness that plucked at a chord in her middle and made her hand shake more. “You fear yourself that much?”
“You were there.” It was nearly a whisper. “You saw how terrible it made me.”
“I only saw part. I was concentrated on . . . on other things. But I know this power is volatile, especially at first. Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s not as terrible as you remember it.” A tentative step forward, a scarred hand stretching toward her. “You aren’t terrible.”
Their eyes locked across the moss-and-fog-covered ground. Finally, slowly, Red let the hand holding the vial drop to her side. Then she reached out, placed it in his outstretched palm. Her eyes stung, her breath came with a sharp sound, but the Wolf was kind enough to pretend not to notice.
His fingers brushed hers as he took the vial, scars rough against her skin. “Is that why you were so insistent on staying here? Because of that night, what happened?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to fit words into the space between them.
Eammon sighed, pocketing the vial of her blood and running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying to think of alternatives. Something else we could do, something that would—”
Bound.
A quiet rustle of underbrush, a clatter of branches shaping a word. On one of the rocks near Red’s foot, moss browned, withered.
Must be bound. Must be two. Like before.
More moss dying, curling into brittle tangles. The Wilderwood’s price for speech.
Two. Gaya and Ciaran. A Wolf and a Second Daughter, bound together.
Magic is stronger when there are two.
This came quieter, like the forest was tired. Grass died beneath Red’s feet, went brittle. Quickly, she backed away, and almost knocked into Eammon.
His hand landed on her shoulder, steadying and warm, scored by cuts that weren’t quite healed yet. Red’s feet felt clumsy as she stepped back, crossing her arms to stave off a chill.
He looked at her, eyes made dark by the shadow of his hair, mouth pressed to a line. His hand hung in the air for an abbreviated moment, still where her shoulder had been, before falling, making the mist eddy around them. The Wolf’s eyes tracked thoughtfully over her face, like an answer to some silent riddle was written on her skin.
Then he turned, striding away into the mist, leaving her alone.
Night was so judged by tiredness and the sky somewhat darkening from lavender to plum, though it seemed Red was the only one in the Keep trying to structure time by an absent sun. Lyra was patrolling again, tor on her back and vials of blood in her pockets. Fife was in the kitchen, having taken on cleanup duty after dinner.
She didn’t know where Eammon was. But she’d be going to find him soon. As soon as she worked up the nerve.
Red paced before her fireplace, thumbnail between her teeth. She still wore the dress she’d changed into before eating with Fife and Lyra, burgundy and thus far free of dirt or blood. Fife remained standoffish, but Lyra tied them together, folding them into a fragile but pleasant camaraderie. Clearly, she and Fife had known each other for untold years, and time and circumstance had born a strong connection. Red felt out of place next to them, an interloper, and found herself wondering if the other Second Daughters before her had felt the same.
Not that either of them mentioned the other Second Daughters, or sentinels, or magic threaded in blood. They never did. Still, such things gnawed at the back of Red’s mind even as Fife and Lyra talked lightly of other things.