Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(23)

Florence sweeps into the room. She’s smeared with mud from where Rowan leaned against her, and there’s a streak of blood across one shoulder of her dress. She looks us over, rakes a hand through the ends of her hair and sighs.

“Well.” She sighs again. “You all need a bath, and dinner, and about ten years of sleep. Sit down.”

She starts to clear off the table, going in and out of the room with a brush of skirts. She shoves the bandages back into a basket, then takes the bowl with its revolting contents and puts it outside. Arien sways beside me for a moment then staggers forward and slumps into a chair.

I sit down beside him. “This is a terrible idea.”

“I don’t know,” Clover puts in. “I liked the part about dinner.”

I close my eyes and circle my fingers against my temples. My head aches. My dress is stuck against my knees in two dark patches where the cuts have bled through.

All my fright and panic from before has faded into cold shock, and I’ve started to shiver. Everything I’ve seen tonight has the feel of a terrible dream. My rush to the lake, the blackened ground, the way it tore open to that horrible, depthless wound. It doesn’t seem real.

It doesn’t seem real that we’re going to stay here, either. That we’re going to help the monster as he fights the darkness.

The kettle begins to hum. Florence sets out a new bowl and gives us each a clean, folded cloth. She fills the bowl with hot water and tips in dried herbs, followed by a handful of salt. The water steams. Bitterness fills the air as the herbs steep and the salt dissolves.

Clover unbuttons the sleeves of her embroidered dress and rolls them back. Once the water has cooled enough, she takes a cloth, soaks it in the bowl, and starts to scrub away the mud. Then Arien folds back his sleeves and cleans his hands with a fresh cloth.

When he’s finished, I soak my cloth in the water. I’m filthy, but I do my best to wash the mud from my hands and arms. Beneath, my skin is tender. Like a blister, a burn. I look at Arien. His hands are the same. Reddened and sore where the mud touched him.

I think of Rowan, bent low over the ground. The way the strands of darkness hungrily covered his arms, his face. If just these small traces of Corruption hurt us like this, then how did he feel? I grip the smooth edge of the kitchen table and try to hold back a shudder.

“How many more times will you have to do this?” I ask Arien. “Is all of this really worth it?”

Florence sets a plate in front of me. “Rowan isn’t doing this for fun, Violeta. He isn’t asking anyone to risk more than what he faces himself.”

I sigh and pick up my fork. My stomach unknots long enough to grumble hungrily when I see the meal. Nettle greens and sugar peas, wild strawberries, tomatoes cut into crescents and sprinkled with salt. Summer food. We’d eat this in the cottage when it was too hot for a stove fire.

Then tea. Clover tips more vials of the green liquid into the cups. It hisses and steams.

“You know, that tastes disgusting,” I tell her.

She looks offended. “It’s medicine!”

Arien stifles a laugh with the edge of his wrist. “Leta’s right. How can something that smells so nice taste so bad?”

“It’s not supposed to taste good. Anyway, you won’t need it for much longer. The more you use your magic, the more you learn to control it, the less you’ll dream.”

I turn the cup around in my hands. “Why did you give it to me, then? I don’t have magic.”

“It will still help you sleep. That’s why Rowan drinks it.”

“I don’t think it works. I had terrible dreams last night.” I drink the tea quickly, trying to ignore the bitter flavor. Arien swallows his with a grimace.

“The ritual will get easier,” Clover offers. “We have until the next full moon before we can try again. We have time to prepare. This attempt—”

“Was a disaster.”

“Leta, I don’t want to argue about it.” Arien picks at the edge of his shirt where his cuffs are caked with mud. “They need me.”

“You should let Rowan fight his own darkness,” I say.

Florence sits down and leans her elbows against the table. She gives me a level look. “Whatever you’ve heard about Rowan—those stories—they aren’t true.”

“You mean he didn’t murder his whole family?”

Her mouth draws tight.

“He’s not cruel, Violeta,” Clover says quietly. “He wants to help your brother, not harm him. Yes, we need Arien’s magic for my spell, but in return I’ll teach him alchemy. Don’t you want him to learn?”

A lump rises in my throat. I look down at Arien’s fingers, stained dark from the shadows. The marks remind me of when he was small and Mother gave us a scrap of dough to make into a tiny loaf of bread. I told Arien to watch the stove, then came back from the garden to find him watching it as smoke curled out from the drafts and the bread burned. We ate it anyway. Put honey over the blackened edges. It was sweet and wonderful.

That burned-black bread with drips of honey … Arien’s gentle hands casting dark magic … All this time I’ve wanted to keep him safe from the darkness. But now it seems that the only way for him to be—if not safe, then happy—is to call the shadows in rather than chase them away.