Chapter 30

It was a moment before the words came unstuck in my throat.

"What are you doing here?" Alive. Whole. In Lyonesse.

Just then, though, he only had eyes for the flames dancing in the hearth. "Oh, thank the gods you got a fire started."

He pulled off his snowy coat and stamped the clinging ice and mud from his boots. Kneeling, he tugged off his soaking boots and socks to reveal distinctly blue-tinged toes.

"This is my sheltering spot," I said. "There are a dozen other fairy mounds, get your own."

"But I like this one," Emrys said. He let out a sigh of pleasure as he pulled off his gloves and set them beside his socks on the hearthstones. Warming his hands and wind-burned face, he shut his eyes, his expression relaxing into one of pure bliss.

"This is the best damn hovel I've ever inhabited," he declared. "Truly, the greatest ever in any world."

"Spoken like someone who's never laid eyes on an actual hovel," I said, indignant on its past occupants' behalf. "This is a perfectly nice home."

I finally released my grip on Dyrnwyn and sat back on my heels, crossing my arms over my chest. Goose bumps that had nothing to do with the cold crept over my bare arms, spreading under my thin T-shirt, over my whole body .

The initial wave of disbelief gave way to a slow-growing elation that I was quick to stamp out. As my mind quieted, a single question rose like a trail of candle smoke.

How?

Emrys cracked an eye open and had started to turn back toward me when he noticed my drying coat. He raked his gaze over it and my dripping-wet sweater—over the dark blood still staining both. Fear sharpened his features as he swung around toward me, reaching out with both hands to gently grip my arms as he frantically looked me over.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice still scratchy from disuse. "Are you hurt?"

His hands were so warm, the calluses on his palms sparking a friction that made my stomach tighten and my pulse speed. I had to remind myself to pull away.

Don't touch me, he'd said. Don't touch me.

Now he was acting like he'd never said it? That he was content to touch me, as long as I didn't do the same to him?

"I'm fine— Emrys. " He finally looked up at my face, hearing me as I repeated, "I'm fine."

"All that blood—" he began.

"—belongs to the poor, unfortunate Cath Palug," I said.

Emrys pulled back, his brows rising. An unmistakable interest brightened his eyes. "Cath Palug? I thought Arthur killed it… ."

"Yeah, well, it turns out that men taking credit for things they didn't actually do has been an ongoing theme throughout history," I said.

"We are but creatures of fragile ego and beastly pride," Emrys said. "Do we need to worry about it tracking us back here?"

"Not unless it can reattach its head to its body, or it has little Cath Palug offspring to avenge it," I grumbled. Which, frankly, would be just my luck. "And we don't need to do anything. What the hell are you doing here, anyway? "

He sat back, swiping a hand over his rueful face. "Isn't it obvious?"

I hated the warm frisson his words sent down my spine.

"Last time I checked, you were half dead and unconscious," I said. "So no, it's not actually obvious."

"Wait," he said, holding up his hands. "Can we go back for a second to the part where you apparently beheaded a legendary monster?"

Emrys looked at me with something akin to wonder. I glowered back.

"No," I said. "We're staying on the topic of how you possibly tracked me here, to Lyonesse."

"Are you asking because you were worried I wouldn't recover, or because you didn't believe me when I said I wanted to make amends?" His voice was deceptively light.

My jaw clenched so hard that I was afraid I'd locked it in place. His eyes were soft as he watched me, and it was maddening and bewildering and painful, because I had wanted him to look at me like that. In Avalon, when he'd come back. Instead, I'd gotten harsh words and cold rejections, as if he'd been the wronged one. He'd pushed me away, before I could do the same to him. The confusion had to be the point—to keep me off-balance, to keep me guessing.

"I don't care if you die," I told him. "Or if you make amends."

"Well, that was a lie," he said, unimpressed. The edges of his lips curled—not that I was staring at them. "You have a tell, you know."

"I don't have a tell," I protested. My lying face had earned me a steady income through the Mystic Maven. It remained unquestioned and undefeated, even in card games.

"I'm sorry to break it to you, but you do," Emrys said. "It's subtle, though."

"What is it, then?" I demanded.

He smirked, revealing nothing.

"You are impossible, " I growled. "Tell me!"

"And give up the only advantage I have over you?" he said. "Not a chance. "

I blew out a hard breath through my nose. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" he asked, with all the innocence of someone who knew exactly what I meant.

"This," I said, unable to check the ache in that word. "Why are you doing this? This— game you keep playing, where you act like nothing happened one minute, then you turn around and cut me the next like I'm nothing and no one. If you won't tell me what's going on with you, then just … stop. "

I didn't care anymore if he saw me upset. I could admit he'd won, because this was killing me more than the betrayal ever had.

His gaze lowered with his voice. "All right. I hear you."

The wind was stirring again outside, wheezing and whistling as it moved past the fairy mounds. With the darkness of night now firmly in place, it would be hours before it was safe to go out and look for the others.

"What the hell is that, anyway?" I asked, pointing to his enormous fur coat.

"That was the last coat the Bonecutter had available for purchase," Emrys said, scratching the back of his neck. "At least, that's what she claimed. I mostly just think she wanted me to look like the idiot I am."

"And you're …" I gestured toward his chest, where the jagged wounds were hidden beneath layers of cloth.

"Healed?" he finished. "Mostly. Bran's a jack-of-all-trades. Bird, bartender, stalker of enemies, occasional healer." He stretched an arm across his chest, only to wince. "Force-fed me some concoction that gave me the weirdest dreams about sailing on a leaf over the ocean, but the wounds are already starting to scar. Still not quite back up to full steam, though."

I picked at a hangnail, trying not to look relieved. He didn't deserve that.

"What happened while I was out?" he said, brows drawing down as he watched me. "I didn't have enough to trade the Bonecutter for the information. "

"Mayhem, hungry primordial deities, your father and the others burning the library—it was a veritable bonanza of terror," I said.

"They burned the library?" Emrys stilled, horror sweeping over him. "What about Librarian?"

I said nothing. I didn't have to.

He swore. "I'm sorry, Tamsin. What else happened while I was down for the count?"

"Wyrm took Olwen," I whispered.

"What?" Emrys turned his back to the fire and faced me fully. "Why?"

I could only shrug. "We don't know. We don't know where she is, or if she's gotten away, or if she's—"

"Don't say it," Emrys interrupted. "She's not."

"You don't know that," I said.

"I do, because it wouldn't make sense," Emrys said. "Even if Wyrm brought her to Lord Death, he has other uses for her. She knows our plans."

I looked up at him, aghast. "Is the idea of him torturing her supposed to make me feel better?"

"No—yes—I mean—" Emrys breathed in deeply, finally collecting his thoughts. "I just mean that Olwen is extremely clever, and she'll find a way to stay alive until we can help her."

"We," I repeated. "There's that word again."

"Yes, we, " he said firmly. "Please. Let me help you."

My frustration crested and broke over me.

"Why?" I asked. " Why? You've given us information. You saved my life at Rivenoak. Why can't you be done? What was the point of you following us here, still pale as a ghost—you said yourself you're not back up to full strength! So why?"

"Because," he said, with an almost fatalistic laugh. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I would follow you anywhere."

"Don't," I warned, my breath hitching, "say that."

Don't give me hope and take it away again .

Emrys let his head fall back against the wall beside the hearth. He drew his knees up, resting his arms over them, watching me through a heavy-lidded gaze.

"I didn't ask you to come."

"You didn't have to," he said simply. "I meant what I said. I would follow you anywhere. Through dusty library stacks … into cursed woods … across drowned kingdoms … You've become the map of my life. There will never be any adventure worth having, any prize worth finding, that's greater than you."

My heart sped, even as the shadowy world around me slowed.

I didn't know what to say to that. It didn't make sense—nothing did. His words. Him being here. The way he kept looking at me like he used to. The fact that he was still so beautiful, his profile perfectly sculpted. He ruined all of my thoughts, threw all of my plans into disarray just by being here.

"I know I don't deserve it," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. "But if you'll let me stay beside you, just a little longer … just to make it right …"

His words faded in my silence. The knot tightening in my throat made speaking impossible. I'd felt he was keeping something from the rest of us, but this …

"Tamsin," Emrys said, his voice rough, "are we even now? Can we please be even?"

I didn't know how I found my voice again to speak.

"I thought you were done keeping score," I whispered.

"Yeah," he answered. "But you aren't."

I settled back against the wall behind me, staring at him across the narrow mound. My throat worked, as if trying to summon a denial, but it wouldn't come. Maybe I had been keeping score, but he was the one who kept changing the rules of the game.

"Is that why you did it?" I asked, that moment rising again in my memory to slash me to the quick. "Why you pushed me out of the way at Rivenoak? You wanted to be even? "

"I did it because if you die, there's no point to any of it," he said. "Not for me."

The words moved through me like lightning, shocking me into stillness.

"Gods, Tamsin," he said, pressing his fists to his temples. His words turned tortured. "I should never have left. I know why I did it. I can try to justify it a thousand different ways. But all of this … everyone who died …"

Every now and then, I felt the phantom weight of the bodies I'd carried to be cleaned and burned, as if it weren't just enough to have the memory of their dead faces, but my body needed to remember the trauma of it too.

Emrys drew in a deep breath. "I never should have left you."

"You …" The word felt like shards of glass in my throat, cutting me up from the inside.

"I can't take it back," he said. "Any of it. If I could give you the ring, I would. I'd let you kill me for it. It would be less of a punishment than your hatred."

"I don't hate you because you took the ring," I said, something tearing open inside me.

"If not that, then what?" he asked.

My fingers curled tightly against the dark air, trying to find anything to steady myself with. "You hurt me so badly because … it was different … it was different between us, and you broke whatever we could have been. And maybe none of it was ever real to you, but it was real to me, all right? It was, so congratulations, you really did win—you got that one over on me."

"Tamsin …"

"I don't need you," I told him. "I don't. But every time something's happened … every time I've felt lost … I wanted to be able to talk to you about it, the way we used to."

He looked shocked by my words, and I was terrified for a moment that my tone had revealed more than I'd meant to .

"I want that too," he said. "I want all of it, and all of you."

My whole body warmed at his words.

"You don't, " I said, fighting back the burn in my eyes and throat. "You said horrible things to me—you told me not to even touch you, like I'm something disgusting to you—"

"No!" he said sharply, pressing his fist to his forehead again. " Damn it, no—that's not why."

"Then tell me what's going on," I pleaded. "Tell me why you've been acting like this."

He had a tell too, whether he recognized it or not. His gaze always shifted down before he was about to retreat, or lie. I could have screamed with frustration when I saw him do it again.

"Don't you dare lie to me again," I told him. "I understand why you took the ring. What I don't get is why you keep pushing me away. So why? Why did you leave?"

Emrys rubbed at his chest, wincing as he hit his wounds.

"The truth," I told him sharply.

His hand stilled over his chest, pressing against the place where his heart was thrumming beneath his skin and bones. Drops of sweat had broken out over his face, and for a moment, I thought he was going to be sick.

But still, he said nothing.

"We may be even now," I told him, feeling that familiar coldness settle in my chest. "But this is why it can't be what it was."

He barked out another humorless laugh, struggling to master his expression. There was something panicked in his eyes, like a cornered animal. "If I tell you … it definitely won't."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

Emrys hesitated again. "I'm not … right. My father ensured that."

My eyes never left his face, even as my pulse leapt. I tried to understand. "Because he abused you … ?"

"No." Emrys drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes. "He didn't just hurt me, Tamsin. He killed me."