“Nessa needs you more,” I say, and he eases to the door that connects mine to the one Nessa claimed as her “proper maid’s quarters.” When he opens it just enough to enter, her desperate screams fly out to meet me.
“Shhh, Ness, shh,” Garrigan’s calming voice tries.
I roll onto my side, eyes shut, hands around my head, motionless in the dark. Over Nessa’s continued weeping, Garrigan talks. But it isn’t more reassurances—it’s a song, one that pins me to the mattress.
“Lay your head upon the snow,”he sings, uncertain at first, but with more confidence as he loses himself in the lyrics.“Lay sorrow in the ice. For all that once was calm, sweet child, will belong to youtonight. Lay your heart upon the snow. Lay your tears in the ice. For allthat once was still, sweet child, will belong to you tonight.”
I gasp when silence rushes in. Pure silence—not even a whimper from Nessa. After a few long moments of that delicate peace, the door opens again and I roll upright to face Garrigan.
He stops when he sees me, his body going stiff. “My queen?”
His concern catches me awkwardly before I feel warmth dripping down my cheeks. I’m crying and I don’t know why, lured by Garrigan’s gruff singing.
“Where did you learn that?”
He steps forward, his shoulders slackening a bit. “Deborah found the sheet music in the rubble of the palace and played it one day, and—” He chuckles, a quiet, hushed sound so as not to wake Nessa again. “I remembered it. I think our mother used to sing it.”
An image hits me. Something urged by the remnants of Garrigan’s song on the air; something I see every time I look at him or Conall or Nessa, but can never admit.
Garrigan’s life, how it should have been. Him singing that song to his child, raising a family alongside Conall’s and Nessa’s. And their parents, alive and happy.
“Do you . . .” My question wavers. “Do you regret who this war made you?”
Garrigan’s face flashes with first wonder, then hurt. “No, my queen. Do you?”
“I . . . never mind.” I shake my head. “Good night.”
Garrigan hesitates, but he doesn’t press it. “Good night, my queen. If . . . Nessa has more nightmares, I’ll be just outside.”
I hear the words he doesn’t say:if you have nightmares, I’ll protect you just the same.
I smile, something true and simple, and he leaves with a bow. I’m left alone in perfect, unbroken stillness, even the magic in my chest blissfully quiet.
Garrigan doesn’t regret who he is now. Sir doesn’t; Dendera doesn’t; Nessa, Conall, Alysson, Theron—they’re all hurt by what happened to us, but none of them seem at all anxious to do anything but move forward. Find the keys, open the chasm, create a new world.
I prod at the magic. It doesn’t flare up at my gentle curiosity, maybe because I’m so exhausted.
Once, this would have been something I’d talk about to Hannah. She would have helped with this—or given me cryptic, maddening advice that I’d only figure out at the precipice of our destruction. But she was still someone I could lean on, someone resilient and strong.
Like Mather.
I ease back onto my bed, curling tight against the darkness.
No. I’m strong enough on my own,I tell myself.I’ll find the Order and win allies for Winter—all as Queen Meira. This is menow. And if I keep trying, someday I won’t have to fight so hard to be queen. It’ll just be a part of me. It won’t hurt.
Someday.
Four days later, the palace is a flurry of departures.
The Autumnians prepare to return to their kingdom while Noam oversees the preparation of a caravan to take his son, myself, and an amalgamation of Cordellan and Winterian escorts around the world. He already sent word to Summer, Yakim, and Ventralli to expect us, still holding strong our guise of meeting the world for Winter’s benefit. He has made no mention of Theron’s new plan, which eases only a small part of my anxiety as I descend the steps that bright morning, dressed in a starchy travel gown of wool and layered skirts. Dendera’s idea.
People pack the area in front of the palace, a mix of workers rebuilding and the departing groups at the end of the yard. Winterians gather too, those who will be staying in my stead—Sir, Alysson, Deborah, Finn, and Greer. Horses and wagons stand before them on the dirt road, the snow cleared into piles as more flakes drop from the clouds. I quicken my steps down the narrow path, my body thrumming with a need to get this journey started.
Theron swings down off his horse when I approach. “I have—”
A cry of delight cracks the air. I glance over my shoulderin time to see a few Winterian workers grunt in shock as they fall out of the way of an unseen force carving a path from the back of the courtyard to us.
The source of the cry flops out from under one unlucky worker’s legs, moments ahead of a rather flustered maid. The whirlwind doesn’t pause to see who she might be barreling for next. She leaps through the snow, launches herself at me, and once her short arms lock around both of my legs, she gapes up, all brown eyes and flopping green fabric and a large, gummy grin.
