Page 16 of The Light Between Worlds

The main gate stands open. Inviting smells drift out to us alongwith the wood smoke—roasting herbs and something warm and gamey.

“Well, praises be,” Philippa murmurs at my side.

But we aren’t meant to have a reprieve. I barely have time to glimpse gardens laid out between the walls and the keep, with thatch-roofed shelters for livestock. A tall woman with leaf-green eyes and dappled skin that runs the gamut from golden brown to snow white hurries out of the keep and over to Hector.

“Is Cervus with you?” she asks.

Hector shakes his head. “He left us after Mira’s lighting ceremony. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Is there trouble, Alfreya?”

“The Tarsin delegation’s here,” the woman says, pushing the long braid of her auburn hair back over one shoulder. “They arrived just this morning, apparently at your request. That boy”—her mouth twists—“said he wanted a few words with the Children from Beyond before he carried on southward. I’d already heard rumors that Cervus had called between the worlds, or I’d have thought the Tarsin prince had taken leave of his senses. What shall I tell him?”

Hector looks at us, and there’s a challenge in his eyes. “Can you be ready in an hour?”

Philippa sniffs. “Half, if need be.”

For the first time that I’ve seen, Hector smiles. “An hour will do.”

When Jamie, Phil, and I have been hurried upstairs, scrubbed clean and clothed in whatever Alfreya could find that fit, we’re left alone together for the first time since coming to the Great Wood.

The room we’re in on the fourth floor of the keep is large and blissfully warm, with a roaring fire and thick rugs to cover the stone beneath our feet. Jamie stands in front of the hearth in fitted breeches and a long tunic belted at the waist. It gives me a strange sense ofnostalgia to see him this way—as if I’m recalling something that’s happened before.

Philippa and I sit on a long carven couch mounded with pillows and I lean back against her, breathing in the clean smell of her hair. I’m dressed like Jamie, in clothes I suspect came from a stonewarden, and Alfreya kindly pulled my hair back into a braid. But Philippa wears one of Alfreya’s own woolen kirtles, dyed the deep green of a pine copse in winter. Her hair hangs loose and curls at the ends as it dries and I can’t help but shift closer, until she looks down at me and smiles. She’s always been beautiful, our Philippa, but at home it was just in the usual way of pretty girls. Here there’s something different—she’s grown pensive over the last few weeks, and in spite of her head cold, once you’ve taken a look at her, it’s hard to turn away.

We’re all quiet for a while, listening to the snap and hiss of the fire and the fitful drumming of rain against the narrow windows, which are thankfully fitted with glass. Finally, Jamie speaks, his eyes fixed on the leaping flames. “This can’t be a game to us.”

I know his words are for me, and I stiffen.

“It’s not just an adventure, or a fairy story,” he says. “There’s life and death hanging in the balance here, same as at home, and if anything our choices mean more now than they did before. What we do matters.”

Pulling away from Philippa, I get up and walk over to one of the windows, watching rain trickle down its surface.

“Ev, did you hear me?” Jamie asks.

“Yes,” I tell him. “I heard you. And you don’t need to lecture.”

“Are you sure?”

I turn to face him. “Of course I’m sure. I know what a war is like, Jamie. I’ve been living through it, same as anybody.”

“Are you in this, too, Phil?” Jamie asks. I look over one shoulder and he’s facing her. “Because at first it seemed like you were unsure.”

Philippa stares down at her hands, neatly folded on her lap. “I gave my word to Cervus, Jamie, and when I do, I keep it.”

A knock sounds at the door. Jamie squares his shoulders and I take in a breath. Philippa gets to her feet.

“Right,” Jamie says. “Here we go. Time to play at being turncoats.”

11

ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, ONCE WE’VE GONE TO THElittle chapel in Hardwick and come back, I retreat to my own cathedral in the forest behind St. Agatha’s.

I found it years ago—a birch ring, gleaming white in the wooded shade. There’s no other place in this world that reminds me so strongly of home, so I lie on soft grass surrounded by the whispering birches and pretend that if I wanted to, I could wake them. I could set my book aside and run my fingers along smooth white bark only to have it turn to smoother white skin, and a birch girl step out to join me, tall and slender, with hair the color of new leaves.

Instead I turn a page, fumbling with swollen hands. When I glance up no tree spirit has appeared but Max is picking her way down the path, with a green scarf wrapped around her hair.

She drops onto the grass and peers at my book. “Dickinson. I should have guessed. What happened to your hands, Hapwell?”

“Nettles.” I shrug. “When I was weeding yesterday morning.”