Somehow I had fallen back several steps, allowing him to take one long stride into the room. I tried to tell him to get out, but he spoke first.
“You said you heard us talking. What exactly did you hear?”
“I heard enough,” I said stubbornly. “I thought you were my friend—that you noticed me when no one else did. But you were searching for my ability from the beginning.”
“No, I wasn’t!” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “If you heard our conversation—our whole conversation—you would have heard my shock at what my mother said. She never told me about you, Cadence. I swear it. She told me I was going to Tartora to find out more about power mages. She never said anything about meeting one.”
As his anger grew, my own faded, replaced with shame. How quick I had been to assume the worst without even staying to hear his response. Annora’s words had confirmed all my own fears, and I had closed my eyes to everything except what seemed to back them up. I had been all too fast to forget Zeke’s many moments of true friendship toward me.
“I can’t believe her!” he cried when the storm cloud had consumed his face. “She knew that if she suggested any such thing to me, I would have rejected it outright. So she sent me to Tartora, knowing I would be fascinated by any power mage I met, and hoping events might fall in her favor. It’s outrageous.”
“So you didn’t know I was a power mage when we first met?” I asked in a small voice.
He shook his head. “I heard there was an impossible new apprentice on the way, and curiosity sent me out to the courtyard to watch for your arrival. And then when I saw you climb out of the carriage, looking charmingly confused, I couldn’t resist speaking to you.”
“And this…” I gestured between us. “This has nothing to do with your mother’s plans?”
He stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “Everything I’ve said to you and felt for you has been real, Cadie. I couldn’t care less what my mother thinks on this topic.”
I swallowed. “But at the beginning, you always seemed more interested in Airlie.”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck, looking shamefaced. “I was always interested in you for you, Cadence. But it was more than that as well. I guessed there might be more to your ability than initially seemed obvious. Especially after that test. I was afraid that if I made my interest in you too obvious, it might draw other, less friendly attention in your direction. Everyone was focused on Airlie, so I let it seem like I was, too. I was trying to protect you, in a roundabout way.” He paused. “And in the interests of total honesty, I was also serving my own curiosity. I didn’t want anyone else to discover your secrets before I could.”
“Oh.” I let out a shaky breath. “I suppose I can forgive that if you can forgive me for assuming the worst tonight.”
He stepped forward again and took both my hands. “After what my mother did? Of course I don’t blame you. You have every right to be furious. I certainly am.” He gave a low, reluctant chuckle. “The worst of it is that she’s getting exactly what she wants.”
“She is?” I whispered, shaken by what I saw in his face as he looked down at me.
“She hoped the rumored power mage would fall in love with me,” he said in soft tones. “But instead I fell in love with you. And now—no matter how much I want to disoblige my mother—I will never stop trying to win you over.”
“You don’t have to try,” I said. “I’ve been a little in love with you ever since that first morning when Airlie walked away, and you stayed behind.”
“Just a little?” he breathed, leaning down toward me.
“On that first day,” I whispered. “And a little more every day since.”
With a satisfied sigh, he pressed his lips down against mine, letting go of my hands so he could sweep me into his arms and crush me against his chest. I leaned into the kiss, wrapping my arms around his neck and plunging my fingers into his hair.
Warmth and light exploded inside me, the weight that had worn me down for months gone. At any moment I would lift into the air and float away, I felt so light.
But when I deepened the kiss, he groaned, pulling back.
“So does this mean you’ll come to visit my tribe with me? Or has my mother scared you away?”
His eyes jumped to the pack on the bed beside me, as if he’d forgotten it for a moment. A crease appeared between his eyes, and I did what I’d wanted to do for so long and smoothed it with my fingertip.
He laughed, capturing my finger and dropping a kiss on it. Delightful shivers chased down my hand, but his next question brought the weights that usually resided on my shoulders crashing back down.
“Where are you going?”
I sucked in a breath. How could I have forgotten Airlie? What sort of flighty sister was I?
“I’m going after my sister.” I made my voice strong and certain. “I have reason to think the raiders are somewhere near Lake Aterra, and I’m going to find Airlie.”
“On your own?” Fear sounded beneath Zeke’s horrified words.
I turned away, fiddling with the bag, although it was already packed and closed.
“Evermund said he’d come only if there were no other attacks. But then the raiders drugged our food, so…”
“And what about me?” he asked.
I turned, putting my hands on my hips. “I was angry with you up until ten minutes ago, remember? I was hardly going to invite you to run away with me.”
His arm whipped out and caught me around the waist, pulling me close, a smile on his lips.
“Is that an invitation? I would enjoy running away with you, Cadence of Calista.”
“Hush!” I pulled back, batting at him and eyeing the open door. “I’m not running away—I’m running to Airlie. It isn’t the same.”
“No.” He sighed disconsolately. “It does sound a lot less fun.”
I gave him an unimpressed look, and he turned serious.
“Of course I’m coming, whether I’m invited or not. I’m not letting you go on your own.”
I gave him a measuring look. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“Of course not. She’s your sister. I couldn’t be more enraged with my mother right now, but I would still go after her if someone abducted her. And good luck to anyone who tried to stop me.”
I bit my lip. “It might be dangerous.”
“Might?” He gave me a disbelieving look. “You’re off to tackle a settlement of raiders, on your own, in their home territory—which just so happens to be a cursed wasteland—and you’re warning me that it might be dangerous?”
“Sounds like my kind of trip,” Gia said from the doorway. “When do we leave?”
“Right now, if Cadie’s packed bag is any indication,” Zeke said without missing a beat.
“And you were going to leave without us?” Nikolas asked, completely deadpan. “How could you?”
“Nobody asked you to come,” I shot back at him.
“Excellent,” he said promptly. “Come on, Gia. We aren’t wanted here.”
She ignored him, surging into the room and looking between Zeke and me with interest. “Were you really going to go off just the two of you?”