Her heart sank as an idea struck.
The king would never expect it.
She couldn't believe she was even considering it.
But there was no other way, and after tonight, with the image burned into her mind of Rafe and the queen standing in the flames as ash fell like snow all around them, Brighty knew this was bigger than the demons of her past. It had been years since they'd last seen each other, years since the heartache and the pain, though the thought of her still brought a throbbing that even time couldn't quite heal. Maybe it would be a good thing to finally face her.
Before she had time to question, Brighty stopped outside the home she knew better than any other in the city—its towering façade glimmering in the night, four stories of wood decorated with elaborate metal statues only magic could produce, starbursts and twisting rails, dragons and gargoyles, though her favorite had always been the climbing roses. The ferro'kine in charge of the city's elaborate plumbing system lived in this house, or at least he had. Brighty heard the man died two years ago, at which point his daughter moved back into her childhood home with her ferro'kine husband who took up the family business.
Brighty didn't expect her to sleep in the same room she once had, but she tried their old signal, just in case, and shot a beam of light into the third-story window on the left. After a moment, the curtain shifted just enough for her to catch a flash of pale fingers. With her heart in her throat, Brighty pulled her magic back beneath her skin and carried Rafe the rest of the way to the door. The latch unbolted. Her pulse raced. And just like that, she was looking at a face she swore she'd never see again, every detail just the same as she remembered. Her brown eyes were soft with sleepiness, the edges downturned and the lashes long. A delicate array of freckles covered the rosy skin of her rounded cheeks and button nose. Her auburn hair was pinned neatly atop her head and her elegant neck was covered mostly by her dressing gown, which had been pinned just below her chin.
"Thalyia?" she asked, shock making the word airy. It still managed to send a shiver all the way down Brighty's spine.
"Hi, Effie." She swallowed the knot in her throat, trying to fight the rush of emotions as her first love took her in, those eyes scanning every inch of her face before widening at the sight of the man draped across her back. "Can I come in?"
"Thalyia, what—"
"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't an emergency."
Effie bit her plush lower lip, then nodded and stepped back, opening the door to let Brighty inside. If the house weren't so full of fineries, she would have dropped Rafe the second she passed the threshold—he was heavy and her shoulder was starting to burn—but the last thing she wanted to do was light the pretty rug beneath her feet on fire.
"My ship is docked in the western edge of the city, near the gambling halls, and I need a boat—" Brighty stopped short as she took notice of the bundle wrapped securely in Effie's arms. Slack-jawed, she darted her gaze between the small angelic face visible within the folds of fabric and the feminine face watching her worriedly. "You have a baby."
Effie's lips twisted into a grin Brighty recognized. "I do."
Of course she did.
It was all she'd ever wanted.
I can't go with you, Thalyia. The words were imprinted like a brand across her chest. Brighty remembered every intonation, every lilt, every moment as they'd fallen like knives against her skin. I'm going to marry him, I'm sorry. I can't go with you.
Don’t let your father win, she'd pleaded, taking the soft hands that had never known a day's work into her own callused ones, rough from a life of begging and stealing on the street. We can go to another city. We can go somewhere he'll never find us.
It’s not about him, she'd said, her face tilting to the side as an auburn wave fell over her eyes. Effie had brought their clasped hands to her lips, then kissed Brighty's fingers once before dropping them. It's about me. I want a family. I want children of my own, and I want them to live as comfortably as I do. I want stability. I don’t want to run.
It was the one thing Brighty never could have given her—a child. Oh, there were ways of course, men who could be hired, men who were willing to make arrangements, but that wasn't what Effie wanted. She'd wanted what she had right now, a mansion in the right part of town, a baby in her arms, a husband in her bed, a life with no surprises and no troubles. Brighty had been her brief stint of teenage rebellion, though it had taken her a long time to realize that when at the time Effie had been her whole world.
"I'm happy for you," Brighty said, surprised to find the words were true as she pushed the memories to the back of her mind.
Warmth entered Effie's dark eyes. "And I'm worried for you. What's going on, Thalyia? Who is this? Why are you here?"
"I don't want to get you involved. I just need a boat. You can say someone stole it, or that it somehow got loose, but I need to get this man to safety. If you ever trusted me at all, please trust me now when I tell you it's important."
Indecision played across Effie's features, but it was over faster than Brighty expected. Perhaps their time together had meant something to her after all. "Follow me."
Effie led her down the hall and toward the back door of the house, stopping only once along the way to toss her a blanket made of metal mesh. "It'll stifle the fire," was all she said, and then they were outside. The gardens were just as she remembered, every bush carefully trimmed, every flower carefully ordered, the patterns intricately designed to be viewed from the home above. She should have known all along Effie would never run wild and free, not when this was her oasis. Brighty used to spend hours in the dark shadows of these groves. She'd use a borrowed boat to sneak in by the dock, where the gate was left unlocked. Effie would spin her agro'kine magic—nothing very fancy, she was just a low-level mage—and Brighty would shine her light along the petals to help them bloom. Sometimes they'd lose themselves, crushing the flower beds just to grow them again.
Those nights had been rare moments of peace in a life that had been anything but calm, all but the final night. Effie's father had caught them rolling around beneath the roses and demanded Brighty be exiled from the city. She ran, of course, positive she'd be able to avoid the authorities the way she'd done most of her life already. And it had worked, too, until the day of Effie's wedding. Like any imbecile in the throes of heartbreak, Brighty had gotten piss drunk and decided to use her magic to blast apart whatever metal structures she came upon, hitting four water main lines and two fountains before the final fatal blow. A young boy had been playing on the other side of the third fountain, out of sight while he leaned low over his marbles. She hadn't seen him until it was too late and he was little more than a body among the wreckage. A situation like that sobers one quickly. After scooping up his frail body, she’d sprinted for the castle and begged to meet with the king. Photo'kines were valuable, the only reason she was granted an audience. He offered her a choice right there—her life in exchange for the boy's. A few days later, she was handed over to Captain Rokaro and given a new home on The Wanderer.
Sometimes, such as now while she hefted Rafe through the metal gate and down the wet wooden steps to the dock, nearly falling on her ass in the process, she thought about that little boy whose name she didn’t even know to remind herself the sacrifice had been worth it.