His voice was low and gentle, and he reached his hand to brush a thumb against her throat, a faint smile on his face as he lived for a moment in his memories. But before he could touch her, Mina flinched and turned away from him. She couldn’t bear to see the earnest look in his eye or hear the conviction in his voice. Nothing that he said was a reflection of her anymore. He had moved beyond her reach.
His fingers grazed her arm. “Mina—”
“Stop it,” she said, turning to face him. “Do you think you’re capable of love when I’m not? Do you imagine yourself more human than I am?”
He looked at her with concern and pity, and her chest ached. She’d made a man out of glass, had made him to worship her, and yet at this moment he was more flesh than she was. And she hated him for it.
“And what will happen when I grow old, while you remain as you are? Will you still love me then? Will you still want to hold me in your arms? Or will you find a new queen to serve? Maybe that’s why you couldn’t bring yourself to kill Lynet. Because you found a prettier face than mine, a new face to adore.”
He put his arms around her, and even though she wanted to push him away, she clung to him instead. “You’re wrong,” he said, and she heard the rumble of his voice in his chest. “I don’t think I’m more human than you. I think we are the same, and I think you give us both too little credit.”
“I can’t trust you anymore,” she said, even as she held on to him. “You’ve lied to me. You’ve kept secrets. You’ve become … more than what I intended you to be.”
“And yet I still love you.”
“Exactly,” Mina said. She reached up and took his face in her hands. “And why do you think that is? You think you love me for my charms, for my sweet nature? That girl with the peach is dead, Felix. And one day you’ll realize it, and I’ll look into your eyes and see nothing there but contempt and pity.” It was painful enough when it happened with Lynet, she thought but did not say. She could prevent it, though—with one thought, she could turn Felix back to glass, shatter him where he stood. She had almost done it once, and only his growing humanity had saved him. What would save him from her now? What would save Lynet?
Felix placed his hands gently over hers. “Mina—”
“No,” she said, drawing away. She was horrified of her own thoughts, of her urge to destroy anyone who came too close to her. She suddenly found the crypt suffocating. “Don’t follow me,” she said, and she moved around Felix to get away, half expecting him to reach out and stop her.
But he didn’t, and when Mina stepped out of the crypt back into the open air, she thought of what she had almost done to him, and she hoped for his sake that he would never reach out to her again.
28
LYNET
As soon as the sun had risen, Lynet and Nadia set out on foot along the road north. Even after pooling their money together, they were reluctant to spend it until it was necessary, since Lynet didn’t want to use her powers again until they crossed the Frost Line, where she hoped the snow would revive her.
Lynet didn’t know if she should be sad to leave the South or excited to go home. Home. She had never had the chance to miss Whitespring before, to think of it as anything but the only place in the world. But now it was home—it was hers—and she already felt the pull of the snow calling her back.
Several times she noticed the wonder on Nadia’s face as she took in the color and light of the South. Lynet remembered that Nadia’s father had been southern, and she thought of what it must mean to Nadia to walk under these trees, knowing that her father might have once done the same. She had waited so long to come so far, and now she was leaving it all behind for Lynet’s sake. Did Nadia resent her for it at all, or did she feel she owed this to Lynet, after giving her secrets to Gregory?
Lynet kept reminding herself of that betrayal, reopening a wound that was threatening to close. But when Nadia took her hand to help her climb over a fallen tree, or made excuses to stop and rest when she noticed Lynet’s labored breathing, it was too easy for Lynet to let her guard down again, to remember only the sweetness of the friendship they had shared without the bitter taste underneath it. And yet, she knew Nadia never forgot the deal she had made with Gregory—Lynet could always see it in the shadows around her eyes, in the corners of her hesitant smile.
When night fell, they stopped to rest under the drooping leaves of a willow. Lynet laid her cloak out beneath her and looked up through the leaves at the visible patches of sky—a deep blue rather than a cloudy gray like at home—marveling at all the stars. Nadia settled beside her, both of them leaning against the wide trunk.
They’d only exchanged a few impersonal words between them since leaving the city. It hadn’t been too noticeable when they were walking, but now, with the two of them sitting side by side, their shoulders barely touching, the silence surrounded them as completely as the willow leaves.
“Can I ask you something?”
The timidity in Nadia’s voice was a sharp point pressing at Lynet’s heart. This rift between them gave her no satisfaction, not when all she had ever wanted was to know Nadia better, to talk to her freely. She felt a fresh surge of resentment toward Gregory for having ruined their friendship before it had even begun.
“Ask me.”
“Are you scared to go back?”
Scared? She had never wanted to admit when she was scared. Mina was never scared, or so she had believed. “I’m only scared it won’t work,” Lynet said, her throat dry from having been silent for so long. She stared straight ahead at the outlines of the dangling willow leaves. I’m scared I won’t be enough. “I’m scared that some wounds can’t be healed.”
“Some wounds never heal,” Nadia said. She shyly reached for Lynet’s right hand, turning it over so her palm was facing up. “But many do.” Nadia’s fingers ran over the scars that striped Lynet’s palm where the dagger’s handle had burned her. Her hands were soft, her touch soothing, so Lynet didn’t move her hand away.
“How can you tell which can be healed and which can’t?” Lynet asked in a whisper. And she knew they both heard the other question that hung unasked between them: Which one are we?
“Practice,” Nadia said. “Experience.” She hesitated and began to draw her hand away, but then she said, “Hold up your hand.”
“What?”
“Hold up your hand, like this.” Nadia held her hand up, palm facing outward. Lynet did the same, and Nadia pressed their fingertips together. “Now wait.”
Lynet fidgeted, her earlier confession making her feel exposed, restless. But she waited until the only sensation was their twin heartbeats, Lynet’s quick and jumping, Nadia’s solid and even. Soon, Lynet’s heart began to slow, and she couldn’t tell whose pulse was whose anymore.
“My mother used to do this with me when I was a child, whenever I was afraid,” Nadia said. Her voice layered over the beating of their hearts sounded like a song. “She said that if my heart was racing too quickly, I could borrow hers for a while, until my own was calm again.”
Lulled by the rhythm, Lynet’s thoughts turned to Mina. She could still remember the moment in the chapel when Mina had made Lynet feel her lack of a pulse, and Lynet wished she could return to that night and respond differently—to reach out to her instead of silently shrinking away.