Chapter 33

33

Arwen

We'd messaged word of the coming war to the various territory leaders of Opal and the highest priest in Pearl. We'd even sent a raven to the Jade Islands, in case the inhabitants that were fabled to live there could somehow be reached. We knew it was a long shot, but we were out of options.

Still, every day since we'd returned from our failed mission to Rose I'd checked the ravens at Shadowhold both at first light and dusk. But today, like all days, the raven house was empty of messages.

My eyes scanned up to the fading sun, melting behind the bare trees of the Shadow Woods, the sentries' towers doubled in manpower since our return.

Dinner would be served soon.

I shut the worm-holed wooden door, drowning out the flapping of wings and feathered coos in favor of my boots crunching in snow. Barney was escorting Briar back to Willowridge tomorrow to gather a few spell books before we set off for Lumera as planned with Hart. Just us, the Onyx men, and Hart's rebel army. I'd convinced Kane to let us host everyone in his private dining quarters tonight as a send-off. A goodbye dinner, of sorts.

Though I wasn't sure Mari would even join us. She'd been quiet this past week. Her father told me he'd found all her grimoires in their wastebasket. I'd tried visiting Mari bearing treats—cloverbread and her favorite romantic novels. With Kane's help I'd found her a first edition copy of Onyx's Most Foul —a Mari classic.

She'd told me she was busy.

Mari was always busy. It had never stopped her from speaking to me before.

The warmth of Shadowhold enveloped me as I strolled inside, past guards and soldiers and children. I climbed the well-worn stairs, my hand running up a banister twined in holly.

The sound the apothecary door made when I swung it open was a tonic to my anxious mind. I'd met the new healer a few days ago. Eardley told me they'd hired her from a small village outside of Sandstone. She wasn't Fae, but she did have a knack for sutures and salves. Dagan had only called her by the wrong name twice, so I knew he liked her just fine.

The familiar wood floors creaked under my feet and I inhaled lemongrass and antiseptic. Familiarity warmed my limbs and I shed my fox fur, tossing it onto a lambskin chair.

I only needed sunflower oil. It helped keep my dry hands from cracking after training with Dagan in the winter air, which I did every morning. My aching quads never ceased to remind me. I massaged one such protesting limb as I hobbled around the counter. Maybe I'd grab some arnica root as well.

My hands stilled at the movement in the infirmary around the corner. I'd thought both rooms were empty…

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Anyone there?"

Despite the rational part of my mind that knew no Fae mercenary was going to begin its pillage of Shadowhold in the infirmary's bandage drawer, a welcome rush of lighte zipped down my veins and into the tips of my fingers.

I stalked inside and a gasp shuddered through me.

"It's fine," Mari said, before I could form words. "Arwen, I'm fine."

But she wasn't. The blood was everywhere.

All over the crinkly daybed, drying brown and stiff on freshly washed sheets. Pooling in her skirts, trickling in between the cracks in the floorboards…

My hands flared with lighte as I seized her arm and ripped the plump leech from it. "Bleeding Stones, Mari, what did you do?"

"Bloodletting is supposed to help with certain abilities…" She was too pale.

But I could feel the blood she'd lost replenishing beneath my glowing fingers, and once she didn't look so woozy, I inspected the leech's entry point.

"You slashed yourself?" I twisted the arm a bit. "With a straight razor?"

"It wasn't taking enough blood…I thought I could it speed up."

I stanched the blood with a nearby rag and held tightly. "Herbalists have suggested leeches can remove toxins to help with abilities like sight or mobility . Not magic. It's more of an old wives' tale." Shaking my head, I tossed the rag to the ground and brought my lighte back to seal up her cuts. "You, of all people, didn't do your research?"

Mari didn't answer, only lifting her eyes to the wood panels of the ceiling. But tears pooled in them anyway, and her lips trembled as they spilled down her temples into her hair.

I kicked myself internally for berating her.

"Mari." I softened my tone. "Why are you being so hard on yourself? We've all told you…Nobody blames you for what happened with Ethera . "

"I couldn't help when you needed me," she snapped, wounded eyes on mine, voice raw. "And you suffered because of it. Griffin suffered."

I shook my head emphatically. "You made a mistake. "

Mari used the heel of her other hand to wipe her dripping eyes, and I opened the infirmary window to let the fat little leech out onto the roof tiles. A soft winter night swam inside and cold air brushed across my face.

When I turned, Mari was wiping down the floors.

"Let me do that."

"Don't even think about it. Yet another one of my literal messes you have to clean up."

"Right," I said, dropping to the floor with a rag to help her. "As if you've never had to do the same for me."

"It's different."

"Why?" I sat back on my heels. "Because you decided at some point that your value to people is how perfect you are?"

Mari said nothing as she scrubbed.

"It's not your job to protect us. Or to be the smartest, or the best witch. You didn't even know you could do magic six months ago."

"You don't get it. You can't imagine the pressure—you had the blessed luck of being the last person anyone expected greatness from."

I frowned at her.

"You know what I mean."

"You've put all these expectations on yourself for so long and I have no idea why. Who made you feel like you couldn't make mistakes?" It was something about Mari I'd never understood. Her father adored Mari more than the moon and the stars, and told her often.

"I don't know, nobody did."

"The boys who bullied you growing up? Maybe you felt like you had to prove something to them? I want to understand. Did someone—"

"I lived and she didn't, Arwen."

My heart constricted at the words.

Her mother. Who had died giving birth to her. Who by all accounts had been the most talented, warmhearted, lovely woman and witch. Who had been rendered perfect by the pedestal she inhabited in everyone's memories.

"That has to be worth something," Mari murmured. " I have to be worth something."

"You are worth everything , Mar."

"So you think. But one day, people will realize that I'm not as talented, or clever, or…That I'm not anything special. I'll disappoint all of you."

I swallowed the emotion in my throat. I had no idea how to explain to the smartest person I knew how wrong she was.

"It was the worst moment of my life," she whispered. "Watching you all struggle in that parlor."

"What even was that spell?"

"They're called Delusions. Briar told me they were difficult to master but I didn't know what else to do. We needed the manpower."

I tried to replay the situation in my mind. "But they went after you. "

"I know. You think I haven't pored over the exact sequence of events a dozen times?" Mari rolled her wet eyes and sniffed. "I can't control it, Arwen. Sometimes my magic wants to hurt everything. Even me."

" Maybe there's something in my lineage that shouldn't be touched. " That's what she'd said when her powers had disappeared. And then, in Revue, she'd told me her magic had a mind of its own.

I was terrified to ask the question, and yet I found myself doing so anyway. "What do you think is wrong with them? Your powers?"

Mari's brows knit inward. "I have these dreams. Horrible, horrible dreams. I can't even tell you—" She shuddered. "I think I'm from something tremendously bad . My lineage. My coven…"

It wasn't the winter air that set my very bones on edge.

"And then, even worse than being unskilled or being unstable, I'm too scared to practice. So I'm a failure and a coward ."

"No, no," I said, though I knew it was terribly unhelpful. I crawled across the floor and looped my arms around her neck, pulling her close.

"And I can't tell Briar," she said through her tears into my shoulder. "Because it's her coven, too. I know she already knows. She's holding back in our lessons. I can feel it."

I didn't know what to say that would help her. How to offer guidance on a system of beliefs she'd had about herself since childhood. Or what advice to offer on her magic and its origin, ominous or otherwise. "Will you please join us for dinner?" I said in the end. "I don't think isolation is helping anything."

"Really?" she sniffed. "I think it's doing wonders."

My lips twitched with a weak smile as I pulled Mari closer, feeling her tears slide down the back of my shirt, quiet as a prayer in the dead of night.