Lee’s trials

Needing moonlight

*Thalia*

For a few seconds, he does not speak. His thumb turns the tin lid round and round.

"I was sixteen. He had been away for two days, meeting somebody near the western boundary. He said it was trade business. Grandfather had a council dinner, Fileas had invited half the important people in the kingdom, and I was meant to stand beside them and look like I enjoyed it."

"You probably did."

"I was brilliant. I said the right things. I danced with Councilor Vaelis's granddaughter. I laughed when someone made a joke about my father's boots."

His voice goes flat.

"When I went to find him afterward, he was gone. His horse was found at the river road. No body. No message. Just his cloak caught in the reeds."

"You were sixteen," I say.

"I was old enough to know he was worried."

"That does not mean you could have stopped him."

"I could have gone looking."

"At sixteen. Alone?"

"Maybe I would have seen something."

The shed creaks in the wind.

I understand this kind of thought. It grows slowly. One bad day, one missed call, one moment when you choose sleep or school or a stupid party, and afterward your mind builds a whole alternate world where you made the right choice and no one got hurt.

Roots wait, my mother used to say when I came home furious after another meeting about Maplebridge Park. Roots wait, and then they find a c***k.

But waiting does not return what has been taken.

I reach across the space between us and take the salve tin from his hand.

"You were a kid at a dinner," I say. "You did not make your father disappear."

He shuts his eyes.

"He left a message in the compass for me."

"Yes."

"And I did not find it for five years."

"You were not supposed to be searching inside gifts from your dad for hidden instructions about a crown conspiracy."

His eyes open.

"That is a very specific sentence."

"It is a very specific problem."

I set the tin beside me, then take his hands. His fingers are cold and stiff.

"We find him," I say. "We get answers. After that, we decide what comes next."

He watches me for a long moment.

"You keep saying we."

"Because I am here."

"I know."

"Do you?"

His thumb brushes the back of my hand.

"I am trying to."

A distant sound cuts through the rain.

Not a horn.

A horse.

Lee rises at once, all softness gone from his body. He crosses to the broken wall and peers through the gap.

I stand beside him.

A lantern moves along the far bank, yellow-white between the trees. Then another. Riders, following the old road toward the mill bridge.

"They found the crossing," he whispers.

"How far?"

"Too close."

The shed suddenly seems like the worst hiding place in the entire forest.

Lee moves fast. He takes the dry oats, the honey, the tea, the blankets. He opens the small boat locker beneath the overturned hull and swears under his breath.

"What?"

"The boat's gone."

I look at him, "Was there supposed to be one?"

"Yes. A narrow skiff. It would have taken us downriver past the patrol line."

"Maybe the gardeners borrowed it."

"At midnight, during a city alarm?"

"Fine. Maybe somebody else escaping a royal family emergency borrowed it."

He looks toward the riders again. "We can't take the river now. The patrols will be watching it."

"Then we walk."

"To New York?"

I shrug, "I have walked farther for less reasonable reasons."

"That is true, but I would prefer not to cross several hundred miles of forest with no food and my uncle's guards behind us."

A third lantern appears.

Lee turns back to the locker. His hands move through its contents, quicker now. Beneath a coil of rotten rope, he finds a small brass whistle and a flat round mirror wrapped in cloth.

He stares at the mirror.

"What is that?" I ask.

"A sending mirror."

"Can it contact Ari?"

"It might. It needs moonlight."

I glance at the roof. "We have rain."

"Yes. Brilliantly unhelpful rain."

He grips the mirror in one hand. His face tightens as another sound reaches us, closer this time. Hooves striking wet earth. Men calling to each other across the bridge.

"Thalia," he says. "We need to split up."

"No." I shake my head almost violently.

"If they catch both of us, the compass goes back to Fileas."

"If they catch you alone, they get the compass and you."

He makes an almost pained face, "I can draw them away."

"That is exactly the sort of heroic nonsense Nessa warned me about."

He steps closer. "I am serious."

"So am I."

"They are looking for me."

"They are looking for both of us. I broke a palace floor and escaped through a river tunnel."

He sighs, "You were helping me."

"Yes. I was. I still am."

The look he gives me is desperate enough to hurt.

"I cannot lose you because of my family," he says.

Anger rises in me, hot and immediate. Under it is fear, worse because it is shared.

"You do not get to decide that leaving me in a collapsing boat shed is safer," I say. "You do not get to make me a thing you protect while you run toward every disaster yourself."

His jaw works.

Outside, a rider calls, "Check the mill."

We both freeze.

Lee looks toward the rear wall, where alder roots have shoved through the broken boards. A narrow dark space opens behind them, half-hidden by weeds.

"Can you cover us?" he asks.

"Maybe."

He raises a brow, "Maybe?"

"I am tired, wet, and my shoulder hurts. You are asking me to camouflage two people from trained guards in somebody else's forest."

"Can you?"

I look at the alder roots.

They are old. Their bark is pale and slick with rain. The tree has watched the river change around it. It has watched boats come and go. It has survived axes, floodwater, and the slow forgetting of this place.

I press my palm to the wall.

Hello, I think.

The alder answers with a tired, wary pulse.

Please.

Green light flickers beneath my skin.

The roots shift.

Boards groan as thick roots push farther into the shed, lifting one edge of the fallen wall. Wet leaves spill through. Vines crawl across the opening, fast enough to make my vision blur. They wrap around the broken planks, knotting themselves into a messy screen of bark and shadow.

Lee grabs the blankets and pulls me into the space behind the roots.

We crouch in mud and old leaves, shoulder to shoulder.

The riders reach the shed.

"Search it," someone says.

A boot hits the door.

Lee's hand closes around mine in the dark. The other grips the sending mirror so tightly his knuckles pale.

I feel the alder strain around us. My magic is slipping. Every breath I take trembles through the leaves.

The door opens.

Light spills through the cracks.

Two guards step inside.

I recognize neither voice.

"Nothing here," says one.

"Check the lockers."

Wood scrapes. Metal clinks.

Lee does not move.

I can feel the pulse in his wrist. Fast. Hard.

The guard near the lockers curses. "Somebody's been here."

"How long?"

"Dry clothes missing. Food too."

The second guard turns slowly.

His boots come closer.

The alder root pressed against my back shivers.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.

"Prince Lyrian," the guard calls. "The Regent has ordered you returned unharmed."

Lee's fingers tighten over mine.

"Your grandfather worsened after you fled," the guard continues. "Lady Edris is asking for you."

The words hit like a blow.

I turn toward Lee.

His face disappears in shadow, but I feel him go still.

The guard waits.

Then another voice comes from outside, sharper and more urgent.

"Captain. We found this."

Boots retreat.

A moment later, someone says, "It is a palace sending mirror."

Lee looks down at the mirror in his hand.

His breath catches.

The guards have found the wrapper, not the mirror itself. A strip of moon-white cloth left near the locker.

"Destroy it," the captain says.

"No," says the first guard. "The Regent's order said to bring back any magical objects."

Silence.

Then the captain says, "Fine. Bring it."

The boots move away. The door bangs shut.

We stay where we are.

Rain slips through the leaves and runs down the back of my neck. My legs have begun to cramp. The alder roots press close on every side.

"They said Fealor worsened," I whisper.

"I heard."

"Do you think it is true?"

"I don't know." His voice is empty.

For several seconds, I am afraid he will stand up and walk straight out of the roots. Go back to the palace because Fileas has found the one thing that can still pull him by the throat.

Instead, he lifts the sending mirror.

A thin strip of cloud breaks overhead.

Moonlight spills through the hole in the roof.

The mirror flashes silver.

Lee turns it toward the light and whispers, "Ariella Moonsong. Please."

At first, nothing happens.

Then the surface clouds over.

A pale face appears in the glass, blurred by rain and distance. Ari's hair is loose around her shoulders. She looks as though we have dragged her out of bed.

"Lee?" she says.

Her eyes sharpen.

Behind her, somebody growls, "What is it?"

Kieran.

Lee swallows.

"We need you in New York," he says. "Now."