“Why would you do such a terrible thing?”
“Because I don’t want you to be hurt ever again! Because the Corruption will destroy Rowan—and everything else, too—if we don’t mend it!”
“So, it’s better that you’ve done this?” He shoves the tray onto the bedside table. Tea splashes out of the cup, and the wooden honey spoon falls to the floor. “You didn’t think to tell any of us about this connection before you called on him? You’ve seen what he can do.” He thrusts his hands toward me angrily, showing me the bandages and his blackened fingers. “But you still went to him for help.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, I just—”
“You just wanted to do everything on your own, the way you always do.” He draws up his knees and turns his eyes to the window. “Get out of my room, Leta.”
“Arien.” I try to touch him, but he pushes me away.
“Leave me alone.”
Florence gets up slowly and comes to put her arm around my shoulders. “You must know you can’t save anyone by working with the Lord Under. To even consider this is reckless.”
She and Clover look at me the same way—desperate and concerned. Fearful. But I don’t want them to be afraid. Like they think I’m not capable of this. Like they think I’ll fail.
I shrug out from beneath her arm. “Everything we’ve been doing is reckless. Why is it suddenly a problem now that I’m the one with a solution?”
I go out across the hall and into my room, slamming the door behind me. I sit down on the floor, in the corner where I first heard the Lord Under’s voice, and lean back to rest my head against the wall. I start to cry, hot, angry tears. There’s a part of me that wants to apologize to Arien, to tell him we can find another way. But I don’t.
This is my choice. To risk myself, to burn myself down, to face the darkness so they will all be safe.
Chapter Nineteen
Summersend arrives with a daylight moon, a neat, silvered shape in the still-bright sky. In my room, Clover helps me fasten the back of my dress. She stitched it for me, overworking the embroidered pattern with a new design. Tiny stars—white over white—endless, pale constellations. When she finishes the last button, she smiles at me, our faces reflected together in the mirror glass.
Distantly, I remember my mother dressing up for the bonfire, how I watched my father help her. He tied the sash at her waist, then leaned in to kiss her as she squirmed away, laughing. I touch my hair, then run my fingers lightly over the curve of my cheeks. Her hair was darker than mine, and straight, but sometimes when the light tilts against my face a certain way, I can see her eyes, the way her mouth went crooked when she smiled.
“There. You’re perfect.” Clover brushes her hands over my skirts, tidying them. “You know, the whole house has felt so different, so lived in, since you and Arien came here.”
I turn to look around the room. The window is open, the lace curtains tied back. My collection of polished stones is on the mantel, next to a vase of wildflowers. The little icon Arien painted for me is propped beside my bed. “It certainly looks different.”
Clover picks up the wreath I wove from the vines that grow near my garden. Carefully, she sets it on my unbound hair. She wears a similar one, and her hair, without the braid, falls down her back in golden-brown waves.
“Do you think Thea will be at the bonfire tonight?” she asks airily.
“Of course she will. Isn’t her father the keeper?” I raise my brows at her, grinning. “You know, if you end up together in the bonfire line, you’ll get to hold her hand.”
“Violeta, you’re such a schemer.” Clover keeps her eyes fixed to the mirror, adjusting the wreath. A reluctant smile spreads over her face. “I like her. I really like her. But how can I ask anything from her, when I spend all my time here, doing this?”
She holds her arms wide, displaying the sigils on them.
“It might work in your favor. How many other girls will she meet who can cast magic and live beside a poisoned lake?”
“Oh?” She arches a brow at me. “Is that why you like Rowan so much?”
I laugh, but my cheeks feel hot. “I mean, he made such a good impression with all that scowling and threatening.”
“You know what he called you when you first arrived?” Clover deepens her voice into an eerily accurate imitation of Rowan. “That wretched little pest. But he blushed whenever he said it.”