Page 121 of In Violent Waves

Lyra leaned against the door and stared out the window as the carriage bumbled along the uneven path between the hills. Wilder looked with her, beyond the hills and to the looming smudge of the swamp.

“Why would you want to canoe through a swamp?” she muttered.

Wilder cracked an eye open to see her trying to puzzle out his desires.

“The swamps are some of the oldest parts of our land.”

“Okay.”

There was a slight hesitation in her answer.

He stared at her, waiting for what would undoubtedly come next.

She cast her eyes from the window to him and pursed her lips. Any second now, the deluge of questions would burst from her. He felt it.

He needed only to wait.

Her shoulders rose and fell, and she twisted her fingers into her gauzy pink skirts.

His eyes slid closed, and he rested his head against the coach wall.

“But what’s the point?”

He couldn’t fight the chuckle that slipped through his lips.

“Who says there has to be a point?”

“Well—no one, but why do you want to go to the oldest part of your lands?”

“Because that’s where magic is the strongest.”

“Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Is that true?”

He shrugged again. A stinging slap on his knee had his eyes flying open and falling upon a very disgruntled-looking Lyra.

“Are you incapable of having a civilized conversation today?” she seethed. There was a faint glow in her eyes as the rage flowed through her veins.

“Are you incapable of going five seconds without asking a multitude of questions?”

She shrugged, and it was so irritating. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why the oldest parts have the most magic. All I know is that it sings to my blood, and I crave it. I rarely, if ever, get time to myself, and for just a few days, I will have the freedom that I so greatly desire. So, please, for once in your miserable life, can you try to be pleasant? Please?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and the mounds of her breasts squeezed almost completely out of the top of her dress.

“I was being pleasant. You were being an ass.”

He rolled his eyes, placed an ankle on the opposite knee, and rested an elbow on the window opening. The picture of arrogance and nonchalance.

“My apologies, Legs. I will absolutely endeavor to answer every single question that pops into that inquisitive mind of yours, even if I am trying to rest.”

She fluffed out her skirts and raised her chin.

“Thank you for apologizing,” she said. Completely dismissing any wrongdoing on her part.