That was the goal, I supposed, looking towards the open window. If Luka were watching and I couldn’t win in front of him, I would at least show him some sort of raw determination and ability. He had spent all that time tossing lightbulbs to me to train me, after all. I had to have some control over my magic.
So long as I kept a level head, which I did for all of exactly five seconds. Magic made it hard to keep your emotions in check, especially when it was the sort of high energy magic I had.
My hand went sailing past her head and Adam dared to make a comment, low and almost indiscernible, that maybe the King really had made a mistake putting so much effort into me. Which, normally, I would have agreed with—but with an audience and an actively violent Haldian girl watching me? I didn’t feel too kind after that.
“Woah,” Adam’s hand caught my arm before I could aim too high, my body having slashed and stalked down Lindy so far that she was practically up against one of the stumps left at the edge of the yard. My fist, pulled back by Adam’s grasp, hung dangerously close to the girl’s face, a large ball of electricity densely packed around it.
I panted with the motion, my hand still hanging there as every breath shook my body. A part of me didn’t realize, another part of me didn’t care. I was supposed to be proving a point, and to Lindy’s credit, she didn’t even look the least bit concerned. Adam, though?
“Calm down there, Sparky,” he chided, knocking me back into myself. I blinked, pulling back at the stupid name. “Let’s keep a level head, huh? You showed me enough today. I don’t think our audience wants to watch you singe Lindy’s eyebrows off here, or worse.”
The light around my fist flickered as I wrenched back, my head jerking to the side to see a familiar figure leaning over his windowsill, now watching unabashedly. Suddenly, all of the electricity was gone, a flash of embarrassment overcoming me.
“I would have stopped her,” Lindy said. “I would have won.”
“I’m sure,” Adam said to Lindy to calm her. “But, alas, here we are, and I didn’t feel like seeing what you’d look like with a massive amount of static electricity in your braids.” He withdrew his hand, dropping my wrist entirely as I settled. “Let’s keep things calm, no hard feelings, right?”
“Of course there is not,” Lindy scoffed, stepping away from the stump. “She is the only fun I’ve had this week.” Noting my eyes and how they stayed focused on her, she said flippantly, “you come to me when you want to fight again, it is boring otherwise.” I don’t think she cared whether I could hear her or not, she knew that she would be asking me again anyway.
There was something about Luka that kept drawing me in. I didn’t want to look away, his face looked so remarkably strained at the moment.
“You go then,” Adam said to me exasperatedly as Lindy walked away, “have a conversation or two with him, and I’ll write my report so I can leave for the day.” I never did do a great job of hiding my interests.
I nodded curtly to him; I’d already started walking to Luka anyway. He looked almost solemn, it bothered me. But the moment I got closer, he turned away, closing the window.
I blinked at the motion, moving a little bit quicker and rushing up to the window, my hand pressing against the glass as I looked inside. I caught the tail-end of him moving, pulling his books off his desk and moving to the furthest corner of the room from the window.
Chapter Eleven
Not much happened in the few days after that.
Or, if I weren’t being particular and were instead being honest, I could say that not much that I had wanted to happen had happened. And by that I meant Luka talking to me, explaining why exactly he had acted so odd, and why occasionally he continued to do so. Every so often, he would drift off, an almost pensive look overcoming his face as he became lost in his thoughts.
It was unsettling.
Almost as unsettling as Mylene’s insistence on being around him, talking to him at every chance, growing quiet when she noticed my eyes upon them. She paid little attention to anyone else, only offering brief comments and moments of concern unbefitting a young woman tasked with watching everyone. She hardly even scolded Lindy, who had taken to pushing the limits more and more every day, throwing rocks into the trees as we waited for the go ahead from the palace to travel anywhere other than the paths Mylene had taken us down. The strange, foreign young woman with icy blue eyes was hoping to incite something, but thankfully it did not come.
I think she was trying to rile me too, since she had taken to following me, commenting on things in her blunt way—but I did not give in. I did not wish to duel with her, not with how little I knew of her powers.
Even Nikolas seemed bored, at least from the little I saw of him. I had practically made hiding from him in the small house and on the few feet of grounds we were allowed into an artform, my eyes always peering back to Luka’s bedroom window, where he spent most of his day.
The only relief was Mylene leaving to go to the market and the news that in a few hours Adam would be visiting. His letter reassured us that, eventually, Winry and Kristin would also visit—but Kristin had declined to stay with him.
I could have torn my hair out, a part of me almost feeling like this was the punishment Theo had intended rather than death by the Unseelie. Of course, things only continued to get worse.
“There you are,” Nikolas said, spotting me as I kneeled beside the woodpile, discovering another one of my hiding spaces. A shame, since this one had protected me from Lindy as well. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Of course you have,” I said, leaning back into the wall behind me. I’d been watching the trees, my main hobby as of late, thinking about what Luka had said. I was sure he still wanted to leave.
“I wanted to talk to you a few nights ago, actually,” he began to prattle. “But Mylene was so strict in her ruling that we all rest that I didn’t feel like I could. And then these past few days, it’s been getting harder to find you… I was beginning to get worried.”
He could not take a hint for the life of him, and yet… I groaned, letting my head fall back, the bottom of Luka’s windowsill just above me. Luka had not talked to me either.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“You’ve been apologizing a lot lately,” I said.
“Yes, well, I have to admit that I’ve been struggling a bit,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t have to see you two together before, and I…” He grimaced, looking from me to the space beside me, asking, “could I sit beside you?”
There was no way out of it then.
I fought the urge to recoil, scooting aside to let him sit by me. Truthfully, he was not that bad. Once I had even entertained myself with the idea of loving him. It was just that, after everything that had happened, I had changed so much that to be around him felt strange. Nikolas seemed to want me to be the Wren Laurent of the past, one who, for a short amount of time, concerned herself with romance and ballgowns.
“I miss the way that we were,” Nikolas said, sliding down beside me. I didn’t know if Luka could hear us, but a small, petty part of me hoped that he could.
“When I would dance silently beside you?” I could barely remember those days, just the pressing need for every song to end as quickly as possible.
“When you would actually talk to me,” Nikolas said. “That span of time where you would grin at me and tell me too much. When you practically bit me.”
“You can’t miss someone that you knew for only a few days, Nikolas.”
“You can when they’ve been beside you the whole time, and you finally realized that that’s who they really are,” he replied.
I laughed, pulling my knees up to my chest. “You still don’t really know me.”
“I still wish that I did.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “you don’t.” Not really, not if it meant every ugly detestable part of me. I don’t think Nikolas would have liked me so much if he knew what I thought.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” Nikolas repeated.
“Stop saying that,” I demanded.
“I love you,” Nikolas said, and I shot him a look because we both knew he didn’t really mean it. Or at least I hoped he didn’t mean it.
“Stop,” I insisted.
“I do,” Nikolas doubled down. “Or, I think I do.”
“Nikolas,” I warned.
“Wren,” he repeated, it felt like a test, like he was just trying to see how I’d react.
I wasn’t doing that great at it. I could only smile, halfway humored, and look away, into the trees where things also didn’t seem real.
“Does he love you?” Nikolas dared to ask, and the smile slid right off my face. “Does he say it?”
“No,” I replied, my eyes still on the trees. “But I know he does.” Suddenly the rustling of branches seemed more interesting than the conversation was.
“Then why doesn’t he say it,” Nikolas asked. “You know, we fae can’t lie.”
My eyes stayed trained on the movement, the briefest sound faintly hitting the air and ringing in my ears. I kept watching, almost wanting something to come—no, waiting. Knowing.
“There’s something in there,” I said finally, not the response he was waiting for.
“Wren, it’s the woods, we know there’s something in there,” Nikolas began, dismissing my concern.
“No,” I said, slowly rising to my feet, not daring to look away. “It’s coming.”
I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I could feel it as certainly as I felt the beat of my heart in my chest. Something was there, something was watching—it was drawing closer.
“Wren, we know there’s something out there. It’s probably a lesser Unseelie—” He began.
I shook my head, my eyes narrowing as I strained to see.
“Wren,” Nikolas repeated, standing up quickly to grab my wrist. “Listen to me.”
I could hear it. Louder now, closer.
Breathing, that all-consuming breathing. Not Nikolas or I, not Lindy or Luka—Something else. Someone else.
There was a familiarity, a sound that I’d once heard long ago but could not place. It was the second time I’d heard it in the past week.
I flicked my wrist and blue sparks flared to life on my skin.
“We should go inside,” Nikolas continued, his hand on the holster strapped to his side, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his gun was still loaded or if, since it had been so quiet lately, he’d unloaded it.
“It’s there,” I said, my fingers tensing.
I don’t remember when I made the choice, but I heard his voice call my name frantically behind me, his feet clunking against the ground as he practically stumbled, trying to load his gun at the same time. “Wren,” he yelled it loudly, the birds at the top of the trees scattering. “Wren!”
But it was no use, I was already gone.
“Wren,” I heard Nikolas scream as I entered the forest, the world around me immediately changing from the harsh, dry light of the sun to the cool, misty dimness created by the densely packed trees. All around me, the world seemed to burst into sound, hisses and crunches filling the air, the breaking of leaves beneath my feet.
My breath escaped in a thin, foggy cloud that hung in the air for a moment. It was cold, far colder than I’d expected, and the trees seemed to leer towards me in all directions, their trunks bent at strange, grotesque angles. A heavy mist clung to the air, one that took the once vivid treetops and turned them grey.
I heard a crunch from behind me and looked back to realize that I was deeper in the forest than I’d initially assumed, the sound of Nikolas’s voice left me along with the sight of the cabin. Yet it felt like I’d only just entered the forest.
In fact, I could have sworn I’d only just stepped a foot or two in.
I blinked, my lips pulling into a tight, straight line as I took a silent step back, unnerved.
“Wren.” I jerked around again, my breath catching in my throat. It wasn’t Nikolas.
“Wren,” another voice spoke lightly, this one far closer. I spun to face it, my eyes widening as I found the space empty once more.
“Wren,” another voice breathed, and I almost fell from trying to pull away, swearing that it was just over my shoulder. But all around me, the forest stayed the same—empty.
“Wren,” another voice whispered again, and I spun once more, taking a step in its direction. It was almost familiar.
“Hello?” I tried, and I knew that if Adam, Winry, or anyone was there I would have known. My voice carried through the forest, echoing amongst the trees, likely alerting any stray Unseelie. “Is someone there,” I pressed, taking another step towards the last voice.
The forest around me merely continued to exist, producing its soft, familiar sounds. Noises it would make if it were truly empty.
I knew better, I had to remember that. My mother once told me that the forest played tricks on you. “I know you’re here,” I called, “come out, come out, wherever you are!”
A soft, scratching noise responded to me. I looked back to see a squirrel.
Not dissuaded, I kept walking.
“Wren,” the voice in front of me made my head shoot up and my footsteps quicken.
“Luka?” I asked, straining to try and see him in the distance, to see the orange light of the cabin. I must have turned around completely then. I should have been thankful for that; the cabin was far safer. I felt the sparks slip from my fingertips as I thought about it.
It was a foolish thing to enter the forest to begin with.
“Wren,” he spoke again, not a call, but just his voice. He was close. I couldn’t begin to describe my relief, but then he spoke again, this time more concerned, “Wren?”
“Luka,” I called his name back loud enough that he could hear me, ignoring the movement in my peripheral as I nearly tripped and struggled to keep pushing through the woods as the trees grew further apart and their roots lifted up from the ground. “Luka, I’m over here,” I called, barely noting how the trees grew even wider in distance, curving over me like archways.
There was still no light.
“Kinsley?” I asked, all relief fading.
“Wren!” A harsh, furious voice called, screaming so loud that it bounced off of every tree. Adam. “Wren! Where are you?!”
The sound dulled immediately.
I don’t know when, but I’d entered a sort of clearing, a place where the trees stood in a wide circle, forming a canopy above. A place where only the smallest slivers of light peaked through the gaps between the leaves. A place that I immediately wanted to leave.
I tried to place where Adam’s voice had come from, turning back towards the trees. I didn’t know how I would do it, but maybe if I just walked back the way I came and kept going that way, I would find the edge of the forest—maybe. It was worth a shot.
But then my body stopped entirely.
“There you are,” a low voice hummed, and I forgot everything else. “I’ve been looking for you.” His footsteps were soft but growing nearer.
“Luka,” I said his name, relieved, closing my eyes as I let out a long exhale. I felt his arms on my waist, his head tucked over my shoulder. Relief flooded through me.
Home, I was home.
“Wren,” he said, his lips brushing against my neck as his arms tightened around me. “My love,” he whispered yet again, his teeth scraping my neck as he spoke without an ounce of sarcasm.
My eyes opened and I felt my blood pressure spike.
Chapter Twelve
“Calm down,” his voice commanded, and I immediately felt my body slacken, swallowing down the hint of a sob caught in my throat as all of me sank into him without a second thought.
“Please!” I could hear Adam scream again, his voice gone hoarse in the distance as he continued to search for me, growing desperate. “Wren, say something!” But I couldn’t respond.
I felt slack in my own body, like at any moment
I might slip out of it and the hands that held me, Luka’s hands, would have to catch me.
“Look at me,” his voice demanded.
It’s not him, I reminded myself as my head rolled to the side, unable to stop from moving. It couldn’t be him.
But once I saw him, I didn’t want to look away. Every part of me wanted to step closer, to be closer, to have his skin on mine. Beautiful, he was so beautiful; I felt every ounce of resistance leave me.
Sharp black eyes, gentle lips, his defined cheekbones and jawline. I saw the gentle wave of his black hair, the almost blue tone it gave when it caught the light. His face, always looking like he was trying to figure me out and succeeding. His body, lean but muscular, firm when touched. The look of a scholar, one who was not made to fight but could if made to—that was how I would describe Luka’s appearance.
But there was a difference, one large, glaring flaw.
Long, pointed ears. Ones that had long since been cut.
This is not Luka, my mind repeated, yet my body gave in all the same. I was more mystified than I had ever been in my life. I wanted him. I wanted him more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. I didn’t wish to argue or fight him, I only wanted his eyes on me, to have him know who I was.
“You are cute,” he said as I turned to him, his thumb brushing my bottom lip as he examined me. He seemed almost amused. “There’s no need to worry, I won’t harm you,” he said, as if I could feel any fear at all when looking at him, “though I must admit, I am quite hungry. It almost pains me not to eat you, I am the predator after all, and you the prey.”
“Loud girl!” I heard Lindy yell in the distance as I gave the softest whine, shuffling closer.
“You take so well to being charmed,” he said. “No one’s ever prepared you against it.”
“I was a maid,” I inexplicably admitted, still calm, still unable to shake it. “They didn’t think such skills practical.”
“Obedience is treasured,” he said, finally letting go of my face. “I must say that you interest me, I often take the form of what will entice a human the most, but this?” He grinned in a way that was decidedly not like Luka, stepping back to gesture to himself, “this is shameless. There’s even a hint of a wish in here, a want for him before his current appearance, like you would have wanted to have him earlier. I’ve never seen a human girl desire anything even slightly Unseelie before, not on her own. But you? How long have you wanted this?”
Quill and Cobweb (The Chronicles of Whynne Book 2) Page 10
