She had only her two left wings, one larger than the other, both stained mauve. They were iridescent in the strange cave light, strung with intricate filaments like the wings of a dragonfly. Both hung limp and tattered behind her, resting on the cave floor.
“I’ve come here to help you,” Adaira said. “I saw you fall from the clouds,” she added as she began to step forward.
Again, the spirit motioned her to stay back, a warning flash in her eyes.
“I don’t want to harm you,” Adaira whispered, stung by the spirit’s coldness. “Please, let me help you.”
The spirit’s face softened.
She recognizes me, Adaira thought. She continued to study the spirit and realized that she must have been present the day Jack summoned the four winds. The day when Adaira had stood face-to-face with Bane and he had taunted her.
The spirit parted her lips to speak, but no sound emerged. Devastation stole across her lacerated face. She laid her hand to her throat, as if a hook hid within it, anchoring her voice.
“You can’t speak?” Adaira surmised, sadly.
The spirit nodded. The loss of her voice seemed as fresh to her as the wound in her thigh.
“Will you let me tend to you?” Adaira brought her provision pack forward. But she patiently waited and was surprised when the spirit nodded and came to her. There was no fear in the spirit’s limping gait, no hesitation. Why, then, had she held Adaira at bay at first?
The spirit must have read her thoughts. She pointed to the strange fire, then back at Adaira. She made other urgent motions.
Don’t look directly at this light.
“I understand,” Adaira said. They were standing in between realms. A dangerous, uncertain place, neither mortal nor spirit.
The spirit eased herself down, away from the enchanted light, and Adaira knelt beside her. She opened her satchel and brought out her supplies, wishing that she had learned more from Sidra when she had had the chance.
She gently reached out and touched the spirit’s knee. The moment their skin met—warm and cold—Adaira’s mind was flooded with a dizzying array of images.
There was a hall in the clouds, tall pillars that melted into a night sky. Stars burning in braziers. The rustling of hundreds of wings. And Bane, sitting on a throne with his lance of lightning.
Kae . . . why have you kept me waiting?
Adaira flinched at the sound of the northern king’s voice. She jerked her hand away, and as soon as the contact was broken, the images melted from her mind. Her breath hitched when she met the spirit’s eyes, beholding the same shock within her.
“I was seeing your memories, wasn’t I?” Adaira whispered. “Your name is Kae.”
The spirit nodded. She seemed both troubled and relieved. The king had torn off her wings and stolen her voice, but he hadn’t thought to restrict her memories.
Kae held out her lean, sharp-nailed hand.
Adaira took it, their palms aligning. She closed her eyes and sank into the memory again, feeling threads of emotion. Defiance, regret, longing, anger, sadness. Kae’s emotions, she realized. By the time Kae’s wings had been severed and she was falling, Adaira’s heart was pounding so hard that she had to break the contact between them.
She took a moment to steady herself, then met Kae’s gaze again.
“Bane was asking about Jack,” Adaira said, swallowing the fear that was rising within her. “Is my . . . is he in trouble?”
Kae moved her hands, but Adaira couldn’t draw meaning from her elegant motions.
“Can you show me the last time you saw him?” Adaira rasped, hoping it wasn’t too much to ask.
Kae turned pensive, as if she were thinking, sorting through her memories. But she held out her hand again, and Adaira took it.
She tumbled into a flashing, disorienting string of memories. They were limned in gold, and Adaira realized she was flying, soaring over the isle.
She saw Jack kneeling in Mirin’s kail yard, staring into the distance. His face was downcast with despair—an expression Adaira had never seen on him before—and her heart wrenched. I’ve hurt him, far more than I realized, she thought with a flare of guilt. He knelt there for a while, unmoving, until he heard Mirin call for him, and he began to uproot carrots from the soil.
He was walking Frae to school, holding her hand, listening to her talk.
He was sitting on the hillside in the dark, playing his song for Adaira. The harp strings glinted in the starlight as he coaxed sweetened notes from them.
She wanted to linger with him there for a hundred years. She soaked in the sight of him, her blood coursing, but the vision suddenly shifted. Adaira’s consciousness reeled in response, but she clung to Kae’s hand, remembering this was the spirit’s memory. Kae had left Jack on the hillside to chase after an eastern spirit. A golden-haired faerie with clawed wings who was carrying Jack’s notes in her taloned hands.