“What the hell is going on here?” Nick demands.
My breath falters at the look in Nick’s eyes. In them is the small beginning of some strong, sharp emotion, straining outward like a blade against cloth. “I need to go home.” I make as if to move around him, and he catches me around my good elbow before I take two steps.
“What—why?” He looks between me and Sel’s stoic expression, directs the blade of his anger at his Kingsmage. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do this,” Sel says wearily. “Not that you’ll believe me.”
“He didn’t—didn’t do anything,” I confirm, and slip out of Nick’s grip. I push between him and Russ and move down the stairs.
Nick follows me. “Then why are you crying?”
I whirl around. “I need to go home. I can’t be here right now.” I catch Felicity’s eye. “Can you please drive me home, Felicity?”
“I can drive you home,” Nick insists.
I can’t look at him. “Felicity? Please?”
She glances between Nick and me, back to Sel, then to Russ. “Russy, can you get my car?” Russ doesn’t hesitate. He jogs down the stone steps toward the Lodge garage.
“Bree!”
“Let her go, Nick,” Sel says from the doorway, and Nick and I both freeze. “Nick.” Not Nicholas. Sel’s eyes find mine. Our eyes meet—for half a heartbeat, so quick—but Nick catches it. In that split second, he sees something new between me and his Kingsmage. Something I can’t explain right now, not even to myself. When Nick turns back to me, the raw confusion and hurt in his eyes crushes my heart.
I stammer, try to start several sentences, but none of them take hold in my mouth. The words are caught in a jumble, and I don’t know where to start. I stare at him without an answer. Finally, I utter the only thing that could make him understand, my voice cracking on every word.
“It was just an accident.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Nick takes a step closer, his voice soft and pained. “What was just an accident, B?” He doesn’t know I mean my mother. He thinks I mean the something with Sel.
Oh God. No. That’s not—
There’s movement inside the Lodge. Behind Sel, I see Tor and Sar, both in pajamas. A crowd is gathering. They’ll all know. They’ll all see me like this.
I tear my eyes away and back to Nick, take a shaky breath, and try again, because he needs to understand. “The car,” I whisper, fresh tears burning at my eyes. “That night. The hospital. No one… just… an accident.”
As understanding passes through him, the blood drains from his face. The devastation I see there is all for me, all for my pain. But if I accept it, if it touches me, I’ll shatter. I know I will. He reaches for me, but I raise both palms, and his hand falls. That simple gesture—pushing him away—looks like it breaks him as much as it breaks me.
“How? How did you—” He stops. Turns again to the Lodge doorway where Sel is watching us, his face unreadable. This time when Nick faces me, his eyes hold stony accusation. “With him?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, walking backward on the lawn. “This was all a mistake.”
Tires over gravel. Russ pulling up behind me in Felicity’s Jeep. Nick shaking his head no.
The car idles, loud enough that the Legendborn in the foyer can’t hear me. But Nick can… and so can Sel. “I can’t be here anymore.”
The air leaves Nick’s chest in a broken rush. He knows I don’t mean tonight. He knows I mean forever.
“No, wait!” He shakes his head, desperation making his eyes bright. “Please. I need you. You have to know I’d choose you. I want you, Bree. If Camlann is coming, I want you.”
The lead in my stomach turns hot, melting into all of my limbs. The words feel heavy and thick at the back of my throat, but I say them anyway.
“No. You don’t.”
I climb into the car and leave him behind, standing alone in the gravel as we drive away.
PART FOUR SPLINTER
41
MY PHONE DINGS so many times that day and the next, that, after a while, I just block Nick’s number.
Then Sar tries. William. Greer. Whitty. I block all of them, one at a time. It hurts, but the pain feels right. Necessary. Like I deserve it for wasting their time.
I’d taken Nick’s necklace off as soon as I got home and buried the chain and coin under some socks in my drawer.
I’d thought myself brave for facing the Order. For chasing down the truth. But every time I close my eyes, all I see are the faces of the people I’ve lied to in order to find it.
My mother didn’t pursue the Order and its war.
My mother didn’t share her Rootcraft. Not with me and not with anyone else.
The least I can do, after defying her in so many ways, is finally follow in her footsteps.
* * *
The next days pass in a blur because I force them to. I focus only on what’s in front of me.
Classes, studying in the library, meals with Alice, sleepless nights. Repeat.
I take the sling off in public, so no one asks questions. Alice asks questions anyway. I tell her I fell during initiation.
Patricia made good on her promise to call my father and tell him we weren’t a good fit, that she wishes me well. I know she said that last part because he calls me to ask if I’d like to talk about it. I say no.
I walk the campus half expecting Nick or Greer or even Sel to jump out at me from behind a line of students or a tree. Not that they ever have; I think it’s a Legendborn rule to avoid one another on campus. But they could find me… if they wanted. It makes it much easier on me that they don’t.
I can do what my mother did, I think. Live oblivious in the world the way that everyone else does. Maybe our paths were different, but my mother and I came to the same conclusion.
I have to forget them, because remembering is too dangerous.
* * *
“… Maybe after class?”
“Mm.” I chew absentmindedly on my blueberry jam–smothered biscuit as I read the DTH. I didn’t even know until this week that Carolina had a school newspaper.
“Bree.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re making a mess.”
“What?”
Alice points at my lap where three warm pools of butter have expanded into lakes that stretch from the horoscope section to an article on student body elections. A biscuit crumb falls from my hand into the center of a butter lake and promptly drowns. “Damn.” I push the paper away while she covers a laugh behind her coffee cup.
I’d let Alice drag me out of bed earlier than was strictly necessary, at least by my own standards. “So we can actually eat breakfast” is the type of reasoning that only sounds reasonable if you’re Alice. Alice, whose parents get her up at six thirty a.m. even on weekends.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“No…?”
She puts her cup down and gives me a long stare. A clunk-clunk-c-c-clunk reaches us from across the dining hall, where students are dumping used and empty food trays onto a conveyor belt with varying degrees of care. “You’ve been weird all week.”