Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(48)

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.

Slowly, slowly, I lift my hand and trace across his lips with the edge of my thumb. Sparks light from my fingers, and the lines of poison spread farther, covering his throat and creeping up over his cheeks.

Rowan catches hold of my wrist. “Stop.” His voice sounds like the wash of lake water. “Please, stop.”

“I’m sorry.” I pull away from him, and we both stand up quickly. I brush down my skirts until the gossamer layers of fabric cover my legs again.

“Don’t be sorry.” He’s so quiet. I can barely hear him. “I can’t, Leta. I just can’t.”

I nod, but I’m embarrassed. What right do I have to want this? What right do I have to ask anything from him, when he has already given and lost so much?

I reach for the ribbon around my neck and slip the silken loop over my head. I draw out the key and offer it to him on the flat of my palm. “Thank you for showing me the garden, Rowan.”

He doesn’t move for a long time, only stares down at my outstretched hand. His fingers are pressed against his throat where the darkness is still fading back under his skin.

Then he says a single word. “Anything.”

I look at him, confused, as I realize what he means. “That was your trade? You offered the Lord Under anything in exchange for your life?”

“Yes.”

The enormity of it sends a cold, terrible shiver through me. An offer like that would have meant the Lord Under could set his own terms. He could take whatever he wanted. “Oh, Rowan. I’m—”

“No.” He stops me before I can finish what I meant to say. I’m sorry. Roughly, he folds my fingers closed around the key. “I want to give this to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This.” He gestures to the trees, the brambles, the tangled beds.

“You want to give the whole garden to me?”

I look all around us, at this beautiful, forgotten place. The trees and the brambles, the crooked orchard and the wildflower lawn. The plants are half-dead and gone to seed, but it’s so much grander and larger and more than anything I’ve ever had. Mine.

“Yes. It’s yours.”

It hangs between us, unspoken, that there might be a time beyond the mud and poison and darkness. That on the next full moon the Corruption could be mended. And after that, I’ll have this piece of earth as my own. I’ll plant seeds and pick flowers. Bring this whole locked-up, too-long-asleep place back to life.

My throat still burns with salt and tears. I close my eyes and feel the faint spark of my magic. Traces. Leftover.

For just this moment, I let myself believe that it will be enough.





Chapter Fifteen


The night of the second ritual arrives in a heat wave. The midsummer sunset turns the sky to blood. The air is so heavy I can hardly breathe; sweat beads my face and trickles down the back of my neck. We stand beside the lake, at the edge of the forest. Shadows stripe between the pale trees. Arien and Clover are on either side of me. Our skin is marked with spells. The sigil is carved into the shore. We are almost ready.

The past weeks have been a blur of lessons. Days spent in the library, the table cluttered with papers and pens and ink, as I’ve practiced drawing the symbols for the spell to focus my magic. Days spent outside, the three of us circled around the jars of inky water, the sigil on the lawn now permanent: a sooty, charred mark. We’ve worked the spell so much that each night I’ve dreamed of it. My hands, their hands. The draw of power, the weave of shadows. The Corrupted water cleared and mended.

And all the while, outside, beneath the growing moon, the lake has waited for us to cast our magic. I’ve not heard or seen the Lord Under since he offered his help, but part of me is still afraid that using my magic will call him back to me. But there’s no other choice. It will work. It has to work.

Rowan comes down the path and through the garden archway. He has his cloak tucked over his arm. Florence walks behind him, carrying a lantern and a basket packed with bandages and folded cloths. When she puts the basket down beside our feet, I try not to look at it. Try to ignore the reminder that if the ritual fails, Rowan will have to cut himself and bleed into the ground, to let that angry darkness overtake him.