I can’t look away from his outstretched arm. The scars, the cuts. Before I can stop myself, I reach toward him, the movement almost unconscious. My hand brushes over his skin. He flinches, but lets me touch him.
“How many times have you done this?”
“Clover came here about a year ago with her spell for the ritual. She and I have worked together for twelve moons, more or less.”
“More or less?”
“Before she came, I tried on my own.”
I picture the same ruthless motion from the ritual—knife, skin, cut—made over and over again, moon by moon. So many times that he’s lost count. “How did all of this even start?”
His eyes lower, his lashes veiling his gaze. He stays quiet for a long time. “It started because I did something terrible.”
“Do you mean what happened to your family?”
“Yes.” There’s no apology in his voice, none at all. “That, and many other things besides.”
“You really drowned them, didn’t you?”
“I told you already. Everything they say about me is true.”
My heart starts to beat faster. I blink, and all I can see is dark water. The water at the lake, the water that filled my room when I dreamed. The lake claimed their lives, and now the water, the shore, the earth is poisoned and ruined.
“So this is all your fault. And now you want Arien to fix it.”
“Yes.”
My hand is still on his arm. I press my fingers tighter, fixing my gaze on the scar just above his wrist, long healed and faded pale. He takes a sharp breath.
“You may have spent twelve moons and more hurting yourself this way”—I lift my eyes to his—“but I won’t let you do the same to him.”
A strange expression crosses Rowan’s face. It’s the same way he looked in the woods, when he was wounded and I was about to run away. The same way he looked in the firelight, when I caught him listening to my story.
“Arien wants to stay, and he wants to help. But—” I pull my hand away. “Don’t ever threaten him again. If you want something else from Arien, you’ll make time to tell the truth.”
“I will.”
I go back toward the trunk, kneel down, and open the lid. Part of me still wants to refuse Rowan’s gift, but my hand reaches inside, unbidden, to unfold the scraps of tissue paper. Silk and cotton and ribbons dance under my fingertips.
The dresses are finer than anything I’ve ever owned. Than I’ve ever touched. They’re the colors of sky, of sunset: peach and sage and lilac. Skirts full of lace. Sleeves lined with delicate embroidery.
And I want them. I want them so badly that when I touch them, I half expect the feverish longing in my hands to scorch through the fabric. I take out a dress. Pale cream cotton with a pattern of tiny crescent moons embroidered around the collar.
I hold it against my chest and stroke the delicate fabric. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
Rowan turns, his hand on the door, about to leave. He looks from the dress to me. “You’re welcome.”
“Will you wait?” He stops, startled. “I need to get dressed, but I want you to show me to the library after I’m done. I’ll never find it otherwise. Your wretched house is too big.”
He raises a brow. “Did you want me to draw you a map?”
“Here, I’ll start one for you.” I sketch out an imagined shape in the air, then point at the spaces to indicate rooms. “Locked, locked, locked, library.”
He smiles faintly and shakes his head at me. “I’ll wait outside your room.”
We’ve spent almost a week together. I know what he is and now I know for sure what he’s done. And it feels strange, to tease him like this. More strange for how easily it comes.
I collect a few more things from the trunk—a camisole, lace-hemmed undergarments, and a handful of hairpins—then walk to the corner, where a screen divides the washstand from the rest of the room. I hold my new dress up before the window. Light shimmers over it, and the gossamer layers of fabric glow as they catch the sun. It’s beautiful.
I undress quickly, feeling embarrassed to be doing this while Rowan is just outside the room, even though he can’t see me. I’m embarrassed, too, when I put on the new undergarments, knowing that they were a gift. I scowl at my flushed cheeks in the mirror above the washstand, then slip the dress over my head.
There’s a long, ribboned sash at the waist. A row of tiny, pearlescent buttons all along the back. I knot the sash. The buttons are awkward to reach, but I manage to fasten most of them. Then I sweep my hair into a haphazard braid and wind it into a crown, pinned around my head. My feet are bare, since I left my mud-caked boots down in the kitchen. The skirts wash about my legs like mist.