Chapter Twenty

I walked around the camp twice, testing my theory about Signey. Maybe it was my paranoia, but she was definitely following me. I went to pet the horses. She was there. I went to check on Tyr’s rash. Watching me. Trying Kaspar’s special tea? She wasn’t far behind.

I dumped the rest of the tea into a bush. Vold tea had a rancid smokiness. It tasted like I’d eaten a fire pit, and now I needed to find some peppermint to fix my mouth.

I skirted the corner and ran into Erik.

“Sorry.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Didn’t see you.” No Signey. Okay. Maybe I was being paranoid. “If you see your sister, tell her I went, um…that way.” I pointed my thumb in the opposite direction.

Erik nodded and went to step around me. His shoulders sagged, his hands hung limp. “Yeah, sure.”

I studied him—the way his shirt was rumpled, the few strands of hair that clung to his forehead. The color had leached from his cheeks, leaving his skin glassy and pale.

Maybe it was the fact that I knew what it was like to feel exhausted and gutted because my stomach squeezed. “Wait,” I called. “You…okay?”

Waves crested. Pearlescent shadows scattered the sand, a lick of froth brushing the shore.

“I’m fine.” His voice was a hollow echo.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eye. “Went through worse in Lundar.”

Lundar. “What happened? Kaspar said Bo nearly died.” And Kadlin did die .

His eyes narrowed. “What’s with all the personal questions?”

“I haven’t been asking personal questions.”

He lifted a hand. “Was your father always the general?” He ticked a finger. “Do crows and cornflowers mean anything?” Another finger. “What happened in Lundar?” A third finger. “Personal questions.”

“I’m trying to get to know you,” I replied. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Something flickered across his face so fast, I nearly missed it. Confusion? He swallowed and touched the back of his neck. “Okay, um, Vilmar was anchoring Bo, and I was anchoring Bo’s sister, Kadlin. Vilmar and Kadlin died, and Bo…” He let out a shaky breath. “I messed Bo up pretty bad.”

“Oh.”

A weak smile. “Yeah. Nothing like accidentally killing your best friend’s sister.”

“Kaspar said there was nothing you could have done.”

His hand dropped to his side. “I could have Sent.”

He stepped around me. The ocean sucked and the sky stretched. Stars freckled the night.

I thought of Hans. In the apothecary, on the bluffs. The flush of his curls, the brush of his hand.

You found a poppy.

Erik turned, a flash of cheek, a curve of mouth, and for a moment, he wasn’t second-in-command, the general’s son, but a boy who’d been lost and hurt and broken. Didn’t I know what it felt like to live with ghosts?

“Can I show you something?” I asked, offering my hand.

He glanced at it. “Isabel, I—”

I gave him my warmest smile. “Come on. I won’t bite.”

He threaded his hand through mine and I felt his heartbeat through his fingertips, quick, a little unsteady.

I pulled him through the tents, past waves that broke along the shore. Mist flecked our faces, our hair, and maybe I should woo him, should lower my eyes and my voice and come at him with swinging hips.

I could get back to that tomorrow.

I pulled him past puffins and up hills. Twin fires glittered, sheltered from the wind—ours, the bandits. They watched like baleful eyes.

“Stand here,” I said, leading him to the bluff’s edge. Cliffs dropped, sheer and fantastic. “Hold up your arms.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Wind tangled his hair, tossed the strands like spun gold. “I’ll look crazy.”

“You won’t.” I lifted each of his arms like a bird. “Now scream.”

“What?”

The last time I’d done this had been with Katrina and Hans. Tears pricked my eyes, and standing here, at the edge of the blustering world, I wanted to laugh. “Scream!”

“The bandits—”

“The sound goes backward, not out. Watch.” I leaned forward and my skirt snapped my legs. “I hate Buttercup! I don’t know how to set up a tent!”

Tnet a pu tes , said the echo.

He gave me a quizzical look. “This feels like a bad idea.”

“Bad ideas are the best. Here, I’ll answer your questions. One, I don’t know why it happens. Two, it only works on the bluffs. Three, the sound doesn’t carry that far behind—we’ve run tests.” I flashed a grin. “Now scream.”

His jaw tensed. In his eyes, a war, a wall. They burned with a siege. Then—

“Can you hear me?” The gusts caught the sound and ripped it back.

Em raeh , said the echo.

His hands balled to fists. “The stars are pretty! The camp is small!”

I nudged him with my elbow. “You’re supposed to scream secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“Yeah, like things you want to get off your chest.” I turned back to the sea. It caught the stars. “I peed in the corner of my tent! Erik is a pain in my ass! Your turn.”

He squinted over the horizon, fists tightening. “I stole Bo’s favorite cup! And, uh… Sometimes my men drive me crazy!”

In truth, I was surprised he screamed an actual secret, the second-in-command, so stormy and austere.

He touched his lips, his eyes widening, almost as if he was surprised, too…

A beat passed, then another. And then we were yipping and shouting. The cacophony ripped away, ripped back.

“I’m feeding your men ginger tea! I don’t feel bad about it!”

“Sometimes I pretend I can’t hear Kaspar!”

“I still don’t know how to ride a horse!”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and I knew, knew, what he was feeling.

“Signey deserved to be Second!”

“I wish Stefan would quit!”

“I hate my father!”

I let out a laugh and swiped the tears from my eyes. “I hate my father, too!” I leaned forward and shouted even louder. “And I’m going to prove him wrong!”

His brow arched. “Oh? You’re going to prove him wrong?”

“Yeah. I’m going to BEAT STEFAN! ”

“Well, I want my father to ACTUALLY CARE! And I don’t want Signey to hate me! And… And… I WANT TO BE MORE THAN MY MAGIC! ”

Wind howled and tossed, and for a second, it was just the two of us, a boy and a girl standing at the edge of a salt-spewed cliff.

I caught the edge of his cheek, the stormy shape of his mouth. Moonlight ruffled his jacket, dragged fingers through his hair and, for a moment, he looked so…alone.

Our eyes locked.

Wanting to be more.

I knew how that felt, too.