“No. He was kind. He told me Arien wasn’t quite gone, but if we stayed in the cold for much longer, he would be. So I asked him to show us the way out of the forest. He picked up Arien and carried him, and he held my hand. He was… gentle. We walked for the whole night through the Vair Woods. Then, in the morning, we came to the road. He laid Arien down. He took my magic. And then—”
I blink hard against the burn and blur of tears as they rise. Rowan reaches out, his fingers brush over my wrist, and the sigil gives a single, muted throb. “You can tell me, Violeta.”
“After the woods, my magic was gone, but that wasn’t all. What I did that night, the bargain I made, it changed something in Arien. His magic. The darkness he has. What he is, and everything that happened to him afterward because of it—it’s all my fault.”
“You were a child.” He hesitates, then goes on. “There’s nofaultin what you did when you were afraid.”
A laugh catches in my throat. “If I’d not done it, then we’d never have been able to help you. But what if using my power now will bring the Lord Under back to take Arien away?”
“You made your bargain; you freely gave up your magic to him. I don’t think that can be unmade. As for your help, do you really think that’s all I care about?”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” Rowan wipes his thumb across my cheek. “It isn’t.”
I shake myself free of his touch. “I wish Arien hadn’t been the one to wear the wounds made by my choices.”
“You were hurt by it, too.”
He looks toward my arms, his eyes filled with emotion. I think of that day in the cottage when he saw my bruises. How his hands trembled above my wrists. The bruises are long healed now. But all I can think is that it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep Arien safe then, or now.
“It was my fault. All of it. Mother, however much she hurt me, I deserved it. It was my fault she was afraid of Arien.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Rowan says fiercely. He’s angry—but not at me.
“I was afraid of him, too. Of the darkness and his shadows.” Roughly, I grab the hem of my dress and pull it up. Between my crumpled skirts and my ribboned socks, my knees are bare. The scars where Clover healed me are snagged across my skin in fierce, deep lines. Rowan breathes in sharply when he sees them.“I deserved it.”
I didn’t cry then, even as the glass cut deep. How could I cry when all of it—Mother’s fear, Arien’s dark-tinged power—was because of me? But now I let the tears come.
I curl forward, folding in on myself. Rowan puts his arms around me. “Violeta. You made a terrible, desperate choice. And youneverdeserved to be hurt like this.”
I bury my face against his shoulder. Now that I’ve started to cry, I’m not sure I can ever stop. Sobs catch in my throat, and hot tears spill down my cheeks. He runs his hand over my hair,murmuring against my ear. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t, it wasn’t.”
Then slowly, hesitantly, he touches the scars on my knees. He is so gentle. He doesn’t say anything else. He just sits with me and lets me cry until, finally, I shudder into stillness.
The light begins to fade, and the garden turns to velvet in the dusk. Between the branches above there’s a bare space of sky where a few bright stars encircle the new moon. The whole world is quiet.
I wipe my face with my sleeve. “Please don’t tell Arien about what I did. He spent so much time thinking he was dark and ruined and wrong. He’s only just begun to see that it’s not true.”
“I understand. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. I won’t even demand a book for my silence.”
“You have enough books. But I could probably grow you some more blackberries.”
He laughs, and I lean against his chest. His skin is warm beneath his shirt, and the fabric is stuck to him where he sweat from cutting the wood. And though he held me before, when I cried… this feels different. My magic starts to stir awake; I feel it spun loosely within me. I like the weight of him, close, and how my cheek fits against his shoulder.
“Leta.” He speaks my name in a low, tender breath. “Leta.”
His hands are still on my knees, stroking gently back and forth over my scars. I start to think of him moving higher, how it might feel if his fingers pressed into the backs of my thighs. A throb begins in my throat. It flutters alongside my pulse,then travels lower, through my chest to my stomach. Then lower still. Heat pools within me, aching and tender.
I reach up and trail my fingers along the line of his jaw. He tenses. I can hear the slither and hiss of the Corruption as he breathes. Rivulets of darkness vein the edges of his throat as the shadows uncoil beneath his skin. Magic rises from my hands in a faint, warm glow.
One breath passes, then another. My face is a pale heart reflected in the depths of his gaze. There is only the barest space between us. It would be so easy for me to lean forward, to close that distance.
Scars brush the side of his mouth. How would it feel, that place, if I kissed him?
Rough.
Soft.
