Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(24)

“I’m sorry.” I squeeze his hand. “I love you.”

His eyes shimmer in the firelight, filled with tears. “I love you too, Leta. And I know you’re worried about me, but I want to do this.” He draws himself up. “If I can learn how to use the shadows, how to control them, I won’t have to be afraid anymore. I want to learn how to be an alchemist.”

Tiredly, I bend down to unlace my boots. My dress is ruined, the hem torn from where I ripped it in the woods, the rest of the fabric filthy with blackened mud. I fold back my skirts and peel down my stockings. The cloths tied around my knees have dried stiff and dark. My hands shake as I unwrap them. The cuts look terrible. My skin is angry red beneath the crusted blood.

Clover draws in a sharp breath when she sees, and exchanges a horrified look with Florence.

“I could—” Clover eyes me nervously. “I could mend them for you.”

“Mend them?” I stare at her, confused. Mend. It’s the same word she used to describe what they’re trying to do with the Corruption. Strange to think that with magic, both the earth and my skin can be put back together like a torn sheet.

She goes into the stillroom beside the kitchen and comes back with a case made from pale wood. Deftly, she flips it open. There’s a proud gleam in her eyes as she shows me the contents. The case is divided into compartments, treasures nestled inside each one. Rows of tiny stoppered jars, polished stones, a bundle of slender beeswax candles. Folded papers, a pearl-handled pen, a bottle of bright blue ink.

Arien peers at the case, eager and curious. His face reminds me of the way I’d feel in Greymere when I saw jars of sweets in the store window.

“Will you let her?” He looks up at me, teeth pressed into his lip.

This moment feels like a chance. A way for me to tell Arien all the things I can’t find words for. I’m sorry. I was afraid of your shadows—your magic—but never you. I nod slowly. “You can mend me.”

Clover crouches down on the floor. “I have to touch your skin to check what I’ll need for the spell,” she says softly. “May I?”

I nod again. She puts her hands against my knees. Closes her eyes. Then she sits back and touches her fingers together as she counts under her breath, like she’s calculating a sum. “It will leave scars as payment.”

I don’t quite understand what she means. But she’s gentle as she wets a cloth and washes away the blood. It stings. She takes a small jar from her case, filled with sweet-smelling salve, and wipes it over the cuts. With her pen she sketches a quick symbol on her wrist. Then she leans closer, her eyes focused with concentration. I watch, fascinated, as they change color. Not black like Arien’s but pale gold. Her skin is hot when she puts her palms flat against my knees.

I wince at her touch, and my eyes scrunch closed.

A press, a whisper. My skin tingling warm. And then I am mended.

I open one eye slowly, then the other.

“What’s the matter?” Clover raises a brow. “Worried I’d turn you into a frog?”

“Of course not.”

She shows me her hand. On her open palm, like an offering, are tiny pieces of glass. They were still there, buried under my skin. The cuts bled as my body tried to heal around those hidden shards. I get up and take them from her. I open the stove and flick the pieces of glass into the coals.

Florence comes over to stand beside me and hesitantly puts her hand on my shoulder. I remember how Rowan turned away from her at the wayside. Maybe each time she reaches out, she expects to be refused. But I let her touch me. I let her comb her fingers gently through my hair.

“I’m glad you decided to stay, Violeta.”

Her fingers work carefully, unfurling knots into curls. Her touch, the firelight, the way the kitchen smells of stove ash and burned sugar—it pulls at me. For just a moment I could almost feel safe. But no amount of kindness will take away the reality of what lies outside, beyond the house.

Because the lake is there. Waiting and wanting.





Chapter Eight


I trail back upstairs to the room that is now mine. In the flicker of candlelight, it looks much the same as before. An unmade bed. Cloth-draped furniture. Dust and neglect and a window open to the hot summer night.

I pace a restless circle from bed to window to dresser. Wrench loose each cloth until they’re all strewn across the floor and the air is a haze of motes. With everything uncovered, the room looks more alive, more awake, than it did last night. But it still doesn’t feel like mine.

When I pictured where we might go, that day in the village when Arien said we should run away, it was never somewhere like this. Yet here we are, in this strange, haunted place. I turn the thought over as I move through the room. This is mine now. And Lakesedge will be my home.

There are folded sheets inside the dresser. They smell of camphor, and creases lattice the fabric. I make the bed, then take off my torn, stained dress. I shove it into the hearth of the unlit fire, because I want it as far from me as possible.

I put on my nightdress and lie down on the fresh sheets.

My mouth tastes bitter, and I’m so tired that everything looks blurred, like I’m underwater. I trace my fingers back and forth over the creases in the quilt. Think of Arien, in his own room, already asleep. Tomorrow he’ll begin to learn how to use his magic.

He’s in my dreams when I drift slowly into a scattered, restless sleep. We’re in the Vair Woods. Our family is dead, our village lost to fever, our cottage turned to flames. Trees rise around us like sentinels beneath the frost. My frightened breath makes clouds in the air. Arien is in my arms, and he’s so heavy I can barely keep hold of him. We go deeper into the forest. Into the cold, still night. Shadows start to lengthen across the icy ground.