I left him here, with his burnt coffee and his floors dusted with cedar shavings. I left him in the quiet of this place, my room empty, my bed never slept in.
Am I like her?I wonder again.
Her blood—her fire magic—burns through my veins, yet I can scarcely even recall her face. In my memories, she’s little more than a red-haired phantom, a specter moving at the edges of my awareness, the deafening click of a door closing, never to be opened again.
When I was younger, I asked Papa about her. He told me what he could despite the pain I could see in his eyes when he spoke of her, the woman who once loved him and then left him.
And for some reason, recalling this makes me think of Cairn. Will that be all I am to him? A fire witch who touched him, who wanted him, and then who left him?
No, I tell myself, sweeping with a bit more fervor, sending puffs of dust and wood shavings swirling through the afternoon light.He’s leaving me, not the other way around.
The Columbine Conservatory is on the other side of Wysteria—close enough to travel to but too far to visit regularly. Cairn working there would mean I’d only get to see him every so often, wouldn’t get to sneak down to his hut anymore or curl up with him in front of the fire after a difficult day in class.
Am I being selfish about this too?
My eyes narrow, and I sweep just a bit harder. The dust stands no chance against me and my broom.
I leave Papa, then I leave Cairn, and all the while, I’m upset thatsheleftme.
I almost want to laugh. Then I do laugh. But it quickly turns to tears. They track down my cheeks and collect along my chin before dripping off, pattering onto my sweater as I continue to sweep.
I’m not like her!I want to scream.
“Lyra?” Juniper says in a sleepy voice as she wakes from her nap. “What’s that smell?”
But I don’t listen. I just keep sweeping. And I barely even realize when smoke starts to twine up from the thick bristles of the broom.
Then the entire head of the broom bursts into bright red-orange flames, startling me enough that I drop it and jump back. The fire licks across the old, worn wood of the broom, devouring it before I can even think to try to use the water magic I’ve been learning to douse the flames.
Juniper’s squeaking like crazy. But I’m still frozen, staring at the flames as they crackle, when the back door opens and Papa calls, “Ly?”
The smoke must alert him, because he comes sprinting into the room behind me, his boots thumping loudly on the wood floor. Then he’s grabbing an old knit blanket off the back of his armchair. He throws it atop the flaming broom and starts hurriedly stomping the flames out, turning them to smoke and ash. Now I’ll need to clean that up too.
And when he’s done, I’m still standing there, tears tracking from my eyes.
“Lyra?” he says, breathing hard, chest rising and falling rapidly. He’s got wood dust in his beard. “What happened?”
What happened?
I look down at my hands. They’re warm, still tingling with magic.
“I...” I sniffle, and my eyes mist over with more tears. “I set it on fire. But I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Papa steps forward, and as his arms come around me, I start crying with more fervor. Then words start pouring out of me, unbidden.
“Why’d she leave us?” I ask between sobs. “Why’d she leaveme?”
His arms tighten around me, the way they have since I was young.
“She wanted something different, Ly,” he says. One of his hands starts stroking my curls, the other still holding me close. He smells like coffee and cedar, like home. “And we can spend the rest of our lives feeling abandoned by her. Or”—he pulls back and puts his hands on my shoulders, looking into my teary eyes—“we can accept that she left, and we can move forward. I know it’s painful. Goddess, do I know.” A look of hurt flashes through his brown eyes, and his fingers tighten slightly. “But what’s done is done. She might not be here, butweare.” He uses one thumb to wipe the tears from my cheek. “I’m so sorry she hurt you like this. But it wasn’t personal. She didn’t leave because ofyou. She left because ofher.”
“Have you,” I say between sniffles, “forgiven her?”
Papa’s eyes narrow as he stares at me. The smell of smoke still hangs in the air around us. Then his lips pull up slightly in one corner. “I think I have. But you haven’t, have you?”
I tighten my fingers into fists and give my head a small shake. “No... I’m still mad at her.”
“And you have every right to be.” He cups my face with his hand, and I lean my cheek into his palm. “But you don’t have to be. Anger is exhausting. It weighs you down, becomes a bag that’s heavier to carry with each passing day.And though what she did will never be gone from your memory, you can choose to put that bag down, Ly. Choose to leave it where it lies. Your anger, while valid, doesn’t change anything. I learned long ago that finding my joy was much more important than holding on to my hurt.”
