I look at Rowan. He frowns, avoiding my gaze. My book sits on the table between us, the price that I teasingly demanded from him for my secrecy about the tithes. Clover and Florence don’t know about how much it will cost him to wait all that time longer.
“If we could wait, I know I could do it!” Arien chews at his lip. His face is all hope and nervousness. “It worked today. Leta, you saw me! I could—”
“Tell them.” Rowan looks at my hands. He means that I should tell them about my magic. I shake my head no. “Tell them.”
I can’t accept the Lord Under’s offer. I can’t tell the truth about my magic. I can’t let Arien go unprepared to the ritual, but we don’t have more time. And then there’s Rowan … it will cost him to wait. It will cost him to fail. It will cost everything with his death.
I’m here, fighting like I have a choice. None of us have a choice.
I shake my head again and whisper, “I can’t.”
Rowan gets abruptly to his feet. His chair bumps against the table, making all the plates and cutlery and cups of tea rattle. Florence looks at him, startled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He shoves his plate and spoon roughly into the dishpan. “We need more wood for the stove.”
He grabs the lantern, snatches up the kindling basket and disappears out into the garden. Silence passes. After a while, the steady, rhythmic thud of the ax echoes back from the woodshed behind the house.
“What did he mean?” Arien asks, confused. “Tell them? Tell us what?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. We argued earlier, that’s all.”
“You really need to stop picking fights with him.”
Clover laughs. “No, don’t. It’s very entertaining to watch. You’ve really gotten him worked up. I thought he was finally going to stand up and confess how ardently he admires you.” She waves a hand in protest when Florence gives her a stern look. “You should be pleased! By the time he’s finished out there, we’ll have enough kindling to last until Summersend, at least.”
Chapter Thirteen
After dinner, we go out into the garden for observance. The beginnings of the long midsummer sunset have bled through the sky in streaks of crimson. We walk to the altar, careful to step around the sigil on the lawn, and kneel down on the flower-stippled grass. Clover reaches to the candles on the shelf beneath the icon. She touches her fingers to the wick of each one, and they flare alight with her magic. I fold my own hands closed.
Tell them.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of smoke and wax and honey. This is the first observance since we’ve come to Lakesedge. The last, we were in Greymere on tithe day, when everything changed. I press my shaking hands against my knees. The smoke, the candlelight, the altar … It’s all so familiar. These are the candles that Mother lit to burn Arien’s hands. This is the scent that drifted over me as I knelt on the shards of glass.
A sound escapes me, anxious, wordless. Clover gives me a concerned look.
“I—It’s just—” I blink hard. “I just—”
Arien stares at the candles fixedly, twisting his hands in the ends of his sleeves. Since we came here, I’ve seen him light candles at the kitchen altar and dip his fingers into the dish of salt, just like we did back in the cottage. But now, as we kneel in the candlelight, his face is set into a hard, determined expression. He reaches out and runs his blackened fingers through the bank of flames in a swift, abrupt motion.
“She wanted to raze me, like I was the blighted field.” He bites his lip. “Like I was ruined. Like I needed to be mended.”
I take his hand. His skin is still hot from the flames. “Well, you’re not. And you don’t.”
“I know.” He looks at the candles. “It’s not the same, Leta. It’s not.”
Florence comes across the lawn. She kneels down and puts her arm around Arien. “No one will hurt you here. Either of you.”
I put my forehead against Arien’s shoulder and take a slow breath. “I know it’s not the same.”
I can hear the rustle of leaves in the jacaranda tree. The far-off sound of Rowan in the woodshed, the steady rhythm of his ax biting into kindling wood. This isn’t the Greymere altar, with Arien trying to hide his uncontrolled magic. This isn’t the kitchen at our cottage, with Mother afraid and Arien hurt.
I place my hands against the ground, then work my fingers through the grass until I feel the sun-warmed earth below. Leaves and petals and dirt. We all begin to chant the summer litany. Our voices weave together like the strands of shadows that Arien has spent the past weeks trying so desperately to control.