Rowan ignores her and eats silently, his eyes fixed on his plate. When he’s finished, Florence brings out dessert: sour cherry cake, the top dusted with sugar.
“Is that from the tithe?” I ask Clover.
“Yes.” She makes a face. “I never want to lift another basket again. I love sour cherries, but I’m not sure it’s worth a whole day in the village being bossed around by Keeper Harkness and his annoying daughter.”
Florence starts to cut the cake into squares. “I thought you liked Thea?”
Clover tugs at the end of her braid, and doesn’t answer. Now it’s my turn to hide my smile.
“I think I made those cherries.” I laugh softly as I reach over and pick up a square of cake, feeling bittersweet as I remember all the time I spent in the orchard picking fruit, the days at the stove, and the endless stirring.
But my laughter dims as I recall the night in the kitchen when the air smelled like syrup, when I knelt with the shardsof glass in my knees. Then, all I wanted was to keep Arien safe no matter how much it might have hurt me.
I can still feel the faint tug from the thread of magic that was tied between us when he cast the spell today. I look across the table at him. He’s been quiet for most of the meal.
He picks at his dessert, scatters crumbs across the table. “What happens if I can’t control my magic by the full moon? What happens if I can’t help Clover cast the spell?”
“Then you’ll wait,” Florence says gently. “You’ll try again on the next moon.”
I look at Rowan. He frowns, avoiding my gaze. My book sits on the table between us, the price that I teasingly demanded from him for my secrecy about the tithes. Clover and Florence don’t know about how much it will cost him to wait all that time longer.
“If we could wait, I know I could do it!” Arien chews at his lip. His face is all hope and nervousness. “It worked today. Leta, you saw me! I could—”
“Tell them.” Rowan looks at my hands. He means that I should tell them about my magic. I shake my head no.“Tell them.”
I can’t accept the Lord Under’s offer. I can’t tell the truth about my magic. I can’t let Arien go unprepared to the ritual, but we don’t have more time. And then there’s Rowan… it will cost him to wait. It will cost him to fail. It will costeverythingwith his death.
I’m here, fighting like I have a choice. None of us have a choice.
I shake my head again and whisper, “I can’t.”
Rowan gets abruptly to his feet. His chair bumps against the table, making all the plates and cutlery and cups of tea rattle. Florence looks at him, startled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He shoves his plate and spoon roughly into the dishpan. “We need more wood for the stove.”
He grabs the lantern, snatches up the kindling basket and disappears out into the garden. Silence passes. After a while, the steady, rhythmic thud of the ax echoes back from the woodshed behind the house.
“What did he mean?” Arien asks, confused. “Tell them?Tell us what?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. We argued earlier, that’s all.”
“You really need to stop picking fights with him.”
Clover laughs. “No, don’t. It’s very entertaining to watch. You’ve really gotten him worked up. I thought he was finally going to stand up and confess how ardently headmiresyou.” She waves a hand in protest when Florence gives her a stern look. “You should be pleased! By the time he’s finished out there, we’ll have enough kindling to last until Summersend, at least.”
Chapter Thirteen
After dinner, we go out into the garden for observance. The beginnings of the long midsummer sunset have bled through the sky in streaks of crimson. We walk to the altar, careful to step around the sigil on the lawn, and kneel down on the flower-stippled grass. Clover reaches to the candles on the shelf beneath the icon. She touches her fingers to the wick of each one, and they flare alight with her magic. I fold my own hands closed.
Tell them.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of smoke and wax and honey. This is the first observance since we’ve come to Lakesedge. The last, we were in Greymere on tithe day, when everything changed. I press my shaking hands against my knees. The smoke, the candlelight, the altar… It’s all sofamiliar. These are the candles that Mother lit to burn Arien’shands. This is the scent that drifted over me as I knelt on the shards of glass.
A sound escapes me, anxious, wordless. Clover gives me a concerned look.
“I—It’s just—” I blink hard. “I just—”
Arien stares at the candles fixedly, twisting his hands in the ends of his sleeves. Since we came here, I’ve seen him light candles at the kitchen altar and dip his fingers into the dish of salt, just like we did back in the cottage. But now, as we kneel in the candlelight, his face is set into a hard, determined expression. He reaches out and runs his blackened fingers through the bank of flames in a swift, abrupt motion.
