So This Is Ever After, page 11
Matt brushed past Sionna, knocking her aside and skidding into the room along the dusty stone from where the rug had curled away during my stumble. Once he crossed the threshold, the door creaked and slammed behind him, right in Sionna’s face. A thud resonated and a quiet ow followed.
“Oh shit!” Matt stalled, head whipping between the closed door and my sprawled self.
Sionna pounded on the other side. “Matt! Arek!” The door rattled in the frame.
I waved off Matt’s concern and hoisted myself upright, then promptly pitched to the side and ended up curled on the floor. The back of my head pounded in time with the beats of Sionna’s fists against the door.
“Sionna,” Matt called. His gaze was trained on me, but he kept his voice calm. “It’s okay. Just find Lila and see if she can pick the lock.” He grimaced as he said it, like he tasted bad milk.
“Is Arek okay?” The handle twitched. “He surprised me. I didn’t mean to knock him so hard.”
“He’s fine,” Matt said quickly. “He’s hit his head, but I don’t see any blood.”
Reaching back, I touched the quickly growing knot. My fingertips came away red, and again, Matt made a face. Good thing Sionna couldn’t see him. He really was the worst liar.
The lock rattled again. “Why can’t I open it?”
“It’s locked.”
“You broke the lock, remember? When we first came to the tower.”
“Magic, then,” Matt said, lips twisting into a wry smile. “There’s probably a spell. Hopefully Lila will be able to finesse what’s left of the lock, or maybe Bethany can charm it open.”
I tilted my head and mouthed, “Really?”
Matt shook his head. He raised both hands in the quintessential oops gesture, and that’s when I realized he didn’t have his staff.
Awesome. We really were stuck.
There was another loud thud on the other side, and Matt looked toward the ceiling, hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“Sionna,” he said in his best Matt voice, flat and patient yet tinged with annoyance, “you’ll only hurt your shoulder if you continue.”
There was a short pause followed by a pained grunt. “Can you open it from in there?”
“Nope.” Matt popped the p. “Dropped my staff. Can you take care of it? I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”
“Can I use—”
“No!”
“Fine.”
“Find Lila. I think I last saw her in the dungeon.” Again, he squished his features. Horrible liar. The worst. No wonder we’d almost been killed in that tavern. Between my mouth and his inability to bluff, we were doomed from the beginning. “And Bethany was walking around the grounds. At the very least, maybe you and Rion together can break the door open.”
“I’ll be back soon. We’ll get you out.”
“We’ll be fine.”
Matt waited by the door until the sound of Sionna’s footsteps disappeared.
Once I was sure she was gone, I wet my lips, my mouth dry. “I take it that Lila won’t be able to pick that lock.”
Snorting, Matt crossed the room and sank down by my side. “No. I spelled the door to close once two people crossed the threshold and only to open after several hours.”
“And she’s not in the dungeon.”
“Yeah. I have no clue where she is. I thought sending Sionna on a wild goose chase for the others would be better than trying to explain this whole situation when Lila fails to pick the lock.”
“Good call.”
“Are you okay?”
With his help, I managed to sit up. My head spun, but focusing on Matt’s face seemed to help center me.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Good. We can’t have a concussed king.”
Raising my eyebrow, I took in Matt’s expression. Despite his calm countenance when speaking with Sionna through the door, he appeared unsettled.
“Are you okay?” I waved my hand. “You look distressed.”
“Huh? Oh well.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, over the part in the back that stuck up from a cowlick. “I just watched my friend be vaulted through a door and heard a crash. Sionna is strong. I thought she’d really hurt you.”
“Oh, Matt.” I placed my hands over my heart, only half joking. “You do care.”
He shoved me in the arm. “Yeah, whatever. It would have been a shame to keep you alive for nine months just for you to meet your demise at the hands of your newly appointed general.”
Truth. That would’ve sucked.
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, I only came up here because my trap hadn’t been triggered, and I wanted to make sure being stuck with someone was still part of your brilliant plan.”
Slumping forward, I propped my elbows on my knees. “Yeah, about that. As much as it pains me to say this, I should’ve just asked her on a picnic.”
“Wait, what?” He cupped his hand behind his ear. “Did I hear that correctly? Did you say that I was right?”
“Yes. Don’t gloat. I have a horrible headache.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Yours!” Matt ducked, narrowly dodging my flailing arms. “And on top of that, you were almost on the receiving end of Sionna’s dagger. Things may have been relatively calm here in the past week, but we’re all still on high alert.”
Matt drew his knees to his chest and crossed his arms atop them, mirroring my pose. “Yeah. Sometimes I flinch at sounds in the library, especially when I’m alone. And I hate it when the servants sneak up behind me. I’m terrified I’m going to accidentally blast one with my staff!”
“That would be unfortunate. That Melody makes a very nice tea.”
Nudging me with the toe of his boot, Matt gave me his disapproving face. “Can’t you ever be serious?”
“I can’t sleep,” I confessed, quickly, quietly, as honest as I ever was. “I just stare at the canopy over the bed until I’m so exhausted, I pass out.”
Matt’s expression softened; then he nodded. “I think we’re all dealing with a posttraumatic stress response. We did spend nine months on the run. We should probably check in with the others and see how they’re coping.”
“That’s a good idea.”
He looked away, stared at the stone. “So what happened?”
“I fell and hit my head.”
“No.” His exasperation was a familiar, reassuring sound. “With Sionna.” He cleared his throat. “You didn’t enter the tower.”
“Yeah. Sionna ended up opening up to me without much prompting. I think the trapped-together scenario is more for people who aren’t willing to share their feelings readily and may need proximity and long silences to encourage conversation.”
Matt shifted on the ground. He stood suddenly and picked up the dying torch from the corner where the flame licked at the stone walls. He held it up, and the flickering flames cast weird shadows along the walls.
“We should look around and see if there really is anything in this tower.”
“There’s not.”
Matt flipped back the ratty blanket that was on the small bed tucked into the corner. “Are you sure?”
“Lila has already removed everything of value. I asked her to do it the day after I became king.” Sitting on the bare stone was startingly uncomfortable. I crawled to the carpet that had tripped me and sprawled across the thick plush. My head pounded, and I tucked my arm beneath it as a pillow, careful not to press on the wound.
“No offense to our friend, but she doesn’t consider things to be valuable unless they’re shiny.”
“That’s not entirely true. She was spot-on about the journal.”
“Yeah?” Matt said, tugging on the wooden bed frame to peek behind the bed. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Don’t be a dick to me right now. I’m in pain.”
“Silence it is, then.”
Eyes narrowed, I craned my neck to stare at him and pouted. Matt ignored me and hummed as he continued his search. He went through the wardrobe in the corner, then moved to the heavy curtains. I closed my eyes to the sounds of opening drawers and furniture being moved. After several minutes, I heard a heavy sigh from Matt and a series of creaks as he presumably flopped onto the ancient mattress. A puff of dust escaped into the air, and I sneezed.
“Spirits bless you,” Matt mumbled.
I wiped my sleeve under my nose. “Thanks.”
Lapsing back into silence, I kept my eyes closed and let my thoughts wander. My relationship with Matt was typically full of easy banter that could fill spaces and didn’t leave much room for silence. I’d always thought it comfortable and familiar, a habit to slip into each time I saw him, but sitting in the quiet, I wondered if it was just that, a habit, a way to avoid tougher subjects. Of course we’d had serious conversations, the weighty ones you can have with friends about life and existential dread, and when we were on the road with the others, we kept close in the beginning when our trust in the newcomers was thin at best. But as the journey went on, there’d been less and less time for drawn-out discussions. And even though my attempt yesterday to delve into something deeper hadn’t gone quite the way I’d hoped, maybe I could still use this tower scenario to my advantage.
“Why did you not want to help me with this?”
Matt sucked in a quick, surprised breath. “What?”
“The wooing. You help me with everything, all the time. Even when we were kids. You’ve been by my side since the start.” My forehead wrinkled as I tugged at the blood-sticky hair at the back of my head. “Why not this piece?”
It might be unreasonable to hope that maybe I’d misinterpreted something, that he might be holding back for some reason. But if there ever was a time to push the envelope, it was now. Matt didn’t respond right away. I kept my mouth shut and gave him time. The longer he waited to speak, the more I wished I’d swallowed the question.
“Nevermi—”
“I didn’t want to be involved.”
The words came in a rush, slurring together so that it took me a beat to comprehend them. I pushed myself to sitting, then faced him.
The pink of his mouth turned down at the corners, and I could have sworn I saw a glisten in his dark eyes.
“You what?”
Matt puffed up, straightened his posture, as if bracing himself to face down an enemy instead of a friend. It hurt, in a strange way, that Matt needed to bolster his resolve to talk to me. Me! The person who stayed beside him when his mother died. The person who defended him from the other village children. He was the reason I’d thrown my first-ever punch when an older boy had pushed him. I’d hurt my hand and then endured a lecture from my father; not about the punching—he’d agreed with that bit—but how to throw a punch that would inflict damage and not damage me.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough luck. We’re stuck. There’s nothing else for us to do. We’re talking about it.”
“I’m not Sionna.” His face went red, the flush working up his cheeks and down the column of his throat. “I don’t want to be a tick mark on your to-woo list.”
Ouch. Well, those words sealed it that Matt was not interested in being my soul mate. A little tact would’ve been nice. Tears pricked at my eyes that weren’t a result of the head wound. I felt the hurt flare up again, and suddenly I was mad. Mad at the Vile One for being such a jerk that someone had to usurp him, mad at the wizard for sending me here in the first place, and mad at myself for thinking Matt would ever want to be with me.
“No, you’re not Sionna. You’re Matt. My best friend. And for some reason, you didn’t want to help me not die.”
He refused to look me in the eye. He stared at a point above my head and across the room. “It doesn’t matter. I’m helping you now.” And now I was pissed. I was sick of the evasiveness. If he really didn’t want me, I wanted to hear him say it. I needed to hear him say it.
“It does matter. It matters to me. Now, answer the question.”
“Is that a command?”
I flinched. “What? No.”
“Then screw you, sire.”
“Wow. Fine. Whatever. Be a prick.”
His gaze shot to mine as quick as a flash of lightning. “Fine. You want an argument? Is that what you want?”
Despite my headache, I sat up straighter. I didn’t like that Matt loomed above me on the bed. But I didn’t trust my legs with making it over to the chair, and spirits be damned I’d ask him for help.
“Your plan is absurd.” He crossed his arms in response and glared. Damn, was he stubborn. If I wasn’t so mad, I would have teased him about it.
“Yeah, my plan might be absurd, but it’s all I have right now. Unless you want me to die. Which I guess you do, since you initially refused to help me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why are you stuck on it? I’m helping! I set up this stupid trap for you like you asked.”
“Because I want to know.”
“Because I don’t understand the magic!” Matt exploded with sound and movement, throwing his arms out to the side. “Okay? I don’t know a thing about magic succession laws or soulbonds. And I don’t have any experience with romance!” He spat out the last word like it tasted bad. “Is that what you want to hear? I’m not skilled enough in either realm to help you. I want to, but I…” He clenched his hands into fists. “I can’t. I don’t know how to help you with this, Arek.”
That brought me up short. “What?”
Matt shot me one of his classic annoyed glares. “I’ve never… You know this. I don’t know why I have to explain. You grew up with me, and you know the other villagers weren’t knocking down my door to be my friend, much less a significant other. I was the weird kid who was run out of their previous village because of a rumor of magic. I didn’t have any friends other than you. I don’t know how to help you with relationships or with flirting.” Matt flopped dramatically backward on the mattress, and another wave of motes erupted from the bedding, twirling in the weak sunlight.
And just like that, my anger dissipated and was replaced again by that stubborn little flame of hope. “That’s it?”
“That’s it? That’s it? Oh right, I forgot who I was talking to, the King of Flippancy. It shouldn’t be King Arek the Kind—”
“On that we agree.”
“It should be King Arek the Asshole!”
“Hey!”
“You have no idea what it’s like not being able to help with the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”
“Matt. You do a million amazing things a day with magic. You can clean up spilled wine and blast open doors.” He gave me an exasperated look. “Okay, so maybe those aren’t the grandest examples of your magic. But you’re the only person I would trust to help with this.” I paused. “Wait, can you do those things without the staff?”
“Of course I can. The staff focuses my power and makes me stronger, but I’ve always been able to… do things with magic.”
“Huh. I just realized… I always wondered how you were able to complete your chores so quickly.”
Matt’s mouth twitched into a smirk.
“And you never helped with mine? All those years and we could’ve had so much free time!”
He raised a finger. “Exhibit one as to why I didn’t tell you when we were kids. I did not want to be subjected to your whims. I was an impressionable youth, and you would’ve coerced me into playing pranks on the farmers.”
I flailed my hands. “Of course I would have!”
Matt shook his head, smiling, then sobered, leveling me with a hard look when he remembered he was supposed to be mad at me.
“And come on,” I continued. “You had plenty of chances at relationships. You were the one who was aloof.” I did not allow one hint of bitterness to seep into my tone. “It’s not my fault you didn’t branch out beyond me.”
Matt shot to his feet and pointed his finger into my face. “You don’t get it! Barthly had already reigned for over twenty years when you and I were born. He’d destroyed our realm. He’d destroyed our neighboring kingdoms. He had waged war. He’d killed thousands of people. And he’d done it with magic.”
Oh, I was not for this lecture or for the height difference. Planting my hand on the edge of the table, I hauled myself to my feet. My world spun, and my vision darkened at the edges, but at least this way I was taller. At least I could handle Matt’s righteous anger from this angle.
“I’m aware, thank you. I may be flippant, but I’m not ignorant. What does that have to do with anything?”
Matt laughed, a cruel, biting sound. He took a shaky breath, and his hand trembled when he pushed it into my chest. His touch burned through my tunic.
“For an entire generation, Barthly was all the villagers knew of magic. Not the hedge witches who brewed healing potions that he had rounded up and killed in the first years of his reign. Not the pixies and other magical creatures of the forest who hid from his wrath. Not even the storytellers like Bethany who disappeared because they wove magic into their songs. No. Our people only knew of the Vile One and everything he’d done and everything he planned to do. And no matter how good I was or how innocent or kind, my magic would be associated with him. It didn’t matter if I used it for the benefit of the village. They’d only see the same power flowing through my veins as it did his. I’d be lucky to only be run out of town.”
My temples pounded, but physical pain was inconsequential to the anger and hurt that throbbed in my middle. “Oh.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want relationships. It was that I couldn’t have them. I couldn’t allow anyone to get close.” Matt shrugged. “Except you. You didn’t give me a chance to push you away.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Well, I wanted to be friends with the weird kid even if he didn’t trust me with his biggest secret.”
“I couldn’t trust you. Not when we first met. And not later when I didn’t know if you could keep it to yourself and not blab it to any pretty person who batted their eyelashes at you.”
“That’s not fair.” It was totally fair.
Matt scrunched his face and shook his head. “Even now, it’s all about you. And not about me and what I was feeling.”
“Oh shit!” Matt stalled, head whipping between the closed door and my sprawled self.
Sionna pounded on the other side. “Matt! Arek!” The door rattled in the frame.
I waved off Matt’s concern and hoisted myself upright, then promptly pitched to the side and ended up curled on the floor. The back of my head pounded in time with the beats of Sionna’s fists against the door.
“Sionna,” Matt called. His gaze was trained on me, but he kept his voice calm. “It’s okay. Just find Lila and see if she can pick the lock.” He grimaced as he said it, like he tasted bad milk.
“Is Arek okay?” The handle twitched. “He surprised me. I didn’t mean to knock him so hard.”
“He’s fine,” Matt said quickly. “He’s hit his head, but I don’t see any blood.”
Reaching back, I touched the quickly growing knot. My fingertips came away red, and again, Matt made a face. Good thing Sionna couldn’t see him. He really was the worst liar.
The lock rattled again. “Why can’t I open it?”
“It’s locked.”
“You broke the lock, remember? When we first came to the tower.”
“Magic, then,” Matt said, lips twisting into a wry smile. “There’s probably a spell. Hopefully Lila will be able to finesse what’s left of the lock, or maybe Bethany can charm it open.”
I tilted my head and mouthed, “Really?”
Matt shook his head. He raised both hands in the quintessential oops gesture, and that’s when I realized he didn’t have his staff.
Awesome. We really were stuck.
There was another loud thud on the other side, and Matt looked toward the ceiling, hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“Sionna,” he said in his best Matt voice, flat and patient yet tinged with annoyance, “you’ll only hurt your shoulder if you continue.”
There was a short pause followed by a pained grunt. “Can you open it from in there?”
“Nope.” Matt popped the p. “Dropped my staff. Can you take care of it? I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”
“Can I use—”
“No!”
“Fine.”
“Find Lila. I think I last saw her in the dungeon.” Again, he squished his features. Horrible liar. The worst. No wonder we’d almost been killed in that tavern. Between my mouth and his inability to bluff, we were doomed from the beginning. “And Bethany was walking around the grounds. At the very least, maybe you and Rion together can break the door open.”
“I’ll be back soon. We’ll get you out.”
“We’ll be fine.”
Matt waited by the door until the sound of Sionna’s footsteps disappeared.
Once I was sure she was gone, I wet my lips, my mouth dry. “I take it that Lila won’t be able to pick that lock.”
Snorting, Matt crossed the room and sank down by my side. “No. I spelled the door to close once two people crossed the threshold and only to open after several hours.”
“And she’s not in the dungeon.”
“Yeah. I have no clue where she is. I thought sending Sionna on a wild goose chase for the others would be better than trying to explain this whole situation when Lila fails to pick the lock.”
“Good call.”
“Are you okay?”
With his help, I managed to sit up. My head spun, but focusing on Matt’s face seemed to help center me.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Good. We can’t have a concussed king.”
Raising my eyebrow, I took in Matt’s expression. Despite his calm countenance when speaking with Sionna through the door, he appeared unsettled.
“Are you okay?” I waved my hand. “You look distressed.”
“Huh? Oh well.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, over the part in the back that stuck up from a cowlick. “I just watched my friend be vaulted through a door and heard a crash. Sionna is strong. I thought she’d really hurt you.”
“Oh, Matt.” I placed my hands over my heart, only half joking. “You do care.”
He shoved me in the arm. “Yeah, whatever. It would have been a shame to keep you alive for nine months just for you to meet your demise at the hands of your newly appointed general.”
Truth. That would’ve sucked.
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, I only came up here because my trap hadn’t been triggered, and I wanted to make sure being stuck with someone was still part of your brilliant plan.”
Slumping forward, I propped my elbows on my knees. “Yeah, about that. As much as it pains me to say this, I should’ve just asked her on a picnic.”
“Wait, what?” He cupped his hand behind his ear. “Did I hear that correctly? Did you say that I was right?”
“Yes. Don’t gloat. I have a horrible headache.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Yours!” Matt ducked, narrowly dodging my flailing arms. “And on top of that, you were almost on the receiving end of Sionna’s dagger. Things may have been relatively calm here in the past week, but we’re all still on high alert.”
Matt drew his knees to his chest and crossed his arms atop them, mirroring my pose. “Yeah. Sometimes I flinch at sounds in the library, especially when I’m alone. And I hate it when the servants sneak up behind me. I’m terrified I’m going to accidentally blast one with my staff!”
“That would be unfortunate. That Melody makes a very nice tea.”
Nudging me with the toe of his boot, Matt gave me his disapproving face. “Can’t you ever be serious?”
“I can’t sleep,” I confessed, quickly, quietly, as honest as I ever was. “I just stare at the canopy over the bed until I’m so exhausted, I pass out.”
Matt’s expression softened; then he nodded. “I think we’re all dealing with a posttraumatic stress response. We did spend nine months on the run. We should probably check in with the others and see how they’re coping.”
“That’s a good idea.”
He looked away, stared at the stone. “So what happened?”
“I fell and hit my head.”
“No.” His exasperation was a familiar, reassuring sound. “With Sionna.” He cleared his throat. “You didn’t enter the tower.”
“Yeah. Sionna ended up opening up to me without much prompting. I think the trapped-together scenario is more for people who aren’t willing to share their feelings readily and may need proximity and long silences to encourage conversation.”
Matt shifted on the ground. He stood suddenly and picked up the dying torch from the corner where the flame licked at the stone walls. He held it up, and the flickering flames cast weird shadows along the walls.
“We should look around and see if there really is anything in this tower.”
“There’s not.”
Matt flipped back the ratty blanket that was on the small bed tucked into the corner. “Are you sure?”
“Lila has already removed everything of value. I asked her to do it the day after I became king.” Sitting on the bare stone was startingly uncomfortable. I crawled to the carpet that had tripped me and sprawled across the thick plush. My head pounded, and I tucked my arm beneath it as a pillow, careful not to press on the wound.
“No offense to our friend, but she doesn’t consider things to be valuable unless they’re shiny.”
“That’s not entirely true. She was spot-on about the journal.”
“Yeah?” Matt said, tugging on the wooden bed frame to peek behind the bed. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Don’t be a dick to me right now. I’m in pain.”
“Silence it is, then.”
Eyes narrowed, I craned my neck to stare at him and pouted. Matt ignored me and hummed as he continued his search. He went through the wardrobe in the corner, then moved to the heavy curtains. I closed my eyes to the sounds of opening drawers and furniture being moved. After several minutes, I heard a heavy sigh from Matt and a series of creaks as he presumably flopped onto the ancient mattress. A puff of dust escaped into the air, and I sneezed.
“Spirits bless you,” Matt mumbled.
I wiped my sleeve under my nose. “Thanks.”
Lapsing back into silence, I kept my eyes closed and let my thoughts wander. My relationship with Matt was typically full of easy banter that could fill spaces and didn’t leave much room for silence. I’d always thought it comfortable and familiar, a habit to slip into each time I saw him, but sitting in the quiet, I wondered if it was just that, a habit, a way to avoid tougher subjects. Of course we’d had serious conversations, the weighty ones you can have with friends about life and existential dread, and when we were on the road with the others, we kept close in the beginning when our trust in the newcomers was thin at best. But as the journey went on, there’d been less and less time for drawn-out discussions. And even though my attempt yesterday to delve into something deeper hadn’t gone quite the way I’d hoped, maybe I could still use this tower scenario to my advantage.
“Why did you not want to help me with this?”
Matt sucked in a quick, surprised breath. “What?”
“The wooing. You help me with everything, all the time. Even when we were kids. You’ve been by my side since the start.” My forehead wrinkled as I tugged at the blood-sticky hair at the back of my head. “Why not this piece?”
It might be unreasonable to hope that maybe I’d misinterpreted something, that he might be holding back for some reason. But if there ever was a time to push the envelope, it was now. Matt didn’t respond right away. I kept my mouth shut and gave him time. The longer he waited to speak, the more I wished I’d swallowed the question.
“Nevermi—”
“I didn’t want to be involved.”
The words came in a rush, slurring together so that it took me a beat to comprehend them. I pushed myself to sitting, then faced him.
The pink of his mouth turned down at the corners, and I could have sworn I saw a glisten in his dark eyes.
“You what?”
Matt puffed up, straightened his posture, as if bracing himself to face down an enemy instead of a friend. It hurt, in a strange way, that Matt needed to bolster his resolve to talk to me. Me! The person who stayed beside him when his mother died. The person who defended him from the other village children. He was the reason I’d thrown my first-ever punch when an older boy had pushed him. I’d hurt my hand and then endured a lecture from my father; not about the punching—he’d agreed with that bit—but how to throw a punch that would inflict damage and not damage me.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough luck. We’re stuck. There’s nothing else for us to do. We’re talking about it.”
“I’m not Sionna.” His face went red, the flush working up his cheeks and down the column of his throat. “I don’t want to be a tick mark on your to-woo list.”
Ouch. Well, those words sealed it that Matt was not interested in being my soul mate. A little tact would’ve been nice. Tears pricked at my eyes that weren’t a result of the head wound. I felt the hurt flare up again, and suddenly I was mad. Mad at the Vile One for being such a jerk that someone had to usurp him, mad at the wizard for sending me here in the first place, and mad at myself for thinking Matt would ever want to be with me.
“No, you’re not Sionna. You’re Matt. My best friend. And for some reason, you didn’t want to help me not die.”
He refused to look me in the eye. He stared at a point above my head and across the room. “It doesn’t matter. I’m helping you now.” And now I was pissed. I was sick of the evasiveness. If he really didn’t want me, I wanted to hear him say it. I needed to hear him say it.
“It does matter. It matters to me. Now, answer the question.”
“Is that a command?”
I flinched. “What? No.”
“Then screw you, sire.”
“Wow. Fine. Whatever. Be a prick.”
His gaze shot to mine as quick as a flash of lightning. “Fine. You want an argument? Is that what you want?”
Despite my headache, I sat up straighter. I didn’t like that Matt loomed above me on the bed. But I didn’t trust my legs with making it over to the chair, and spirits be damned I’d ask him for help.
“Your plan is absurd.” He crossed his arms in response and glared. Damn, was he stubborn. If I wasn’t so mad, I would have teased him about it.
“Yeah, my plan might be absurd, but it’s all I have right now. Unless you want me to die. Which I guess you do, since you initially refused to help me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why are you stuck on it? I’m helping! I set up this stupid trap for you like you asked.”
“Because I want to know.”
“Because I don’t understand the magic!” Matt exploded with sound and movement, throwing his arms out to the side. “Okay? I don’t know a thing about magic succession laws or soulbonds. And I don’t have any experience with romance!” He spat out the last word like it tasted bad. “Is that what you want to hear? I’m not skilled enough in either realm to help you. I want to, but I…” He clenched his hands into fists. “I can’t. I don’t know how to help you with this, Arek.”
That brought me up short. “What?”
Matt shot me one of his classic annoyed glares. “I’ve never… You know this. I don’t know why I have to explain. You grew up with me, and you know the other villagers weren’t knocking down my door to be my friend, much less a significant other. I was the weird kid who was run out of their previous village because of a rumor of magic. I didn’t have any friends other than you. I don’t know how to help you with relationships or with flirting.” Matt flopped dramatically backward on the mattress, and another wave of motes erupted from the bedding, twirling in the weak sunlight.
And just like that, my anger dissipated and was replaced again by that stubborn little flame of hope. “That’s it?”
“That’s it? That’s it? Oh right, I forgot who I was talking to, the King of Flippancy. It shouldn’t be King Arek the Kind—”
“On that we agree.”
“It should be King Arek the Asshole!”
“Hey!”
“You have no idea what it’s like not being able to help with the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”
“Matt. You do a million amazing things a day with magic. You can clean up spilled wine and blast open doors.” He gave me an exasperated look. “Okay, so maybe those aren’t the grandest examples of your magic. But you’re the only person I would trust to help with this.” I paused. “Wait, can you do those things without the staff?”
“Of course I can. The staff focuses my power and makes me stronger, but I’ve always been able to… do things with magic.”
“Huh. I just realized… I always wondered how you were able to complete your chores so quickly.”
Matt’s mouth twitched into a smirk.
“And you never helped with mine? All those years and we could’ve had so much free time!”
He raised a finger. “Exhibit one as to why I didn’t tell you when we were kids. I did not want to be subjected to your whims. I was an impressionable youth, and you would’ve coerced me into playing pranks on the farmers.”
I flailed my hands. “Of course I would have!”
Matt shook his head, smiling, then sobered, leveling me with a hard look when he remembered he was supposed to be mad at me.
“And come on,” I continued. “You had plenty of chances at relationships. You were the one who was aloof.” I did not allow one hint of bitterness to seep into my tone. “It’s not my fault you didn’t branch out beyond me.”
Matt shot to his feet and pointed his finger into my face. “You don’t get it! Barthly had already reigned for over twenty years when you and I were born. He’d destroyed our realm. He’d destroyed our neighboring kingdoms. He had waged war. He’d killed thousands of people. And he’d done it with magic.”
Oh, I was not for this lecture or for the height difference. Planting my hand on the edge of the table, I hauled myself to my feet. My world spun, and my vision darkened at the edges, but at least this way I was taller. At least I could handle Matt’s righteous anger from this angle.
“I’m aware, thank you. I may be flippant, but I’m not ignorant. What does that have to do with anything?”
Matt laughed, a cruel, biting sound. He took a shaky breath, and his hand trembled when he pushed it into my chest. His touch burned through my tunic.
“For an entire generation, Barthly was all the villagers knew of magic. Not the hedge witches who brewed healing potions that he had rounded up and killed in the first years of his reign. Not the pixies and other magical creatures of the forest who hid from his wrath. Not even the storytellers like Bethany who disappeared because they wove magic into their songs. No. Our people only knew of the Vile One and everything he’d done and everything he planned to do. And no matter how good I was or how innocent or kind, my magic would be associated with him. It didn’t matter if I used it for the benefit of the village. They’d only see the same power flowing through my veins as it did his. I’d be lucky to only be run out of town.”
My temples pounded, but physical pain was inconsequential to the anger and hurt that throbbed in my middle. “Oh.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want relationships. It was that I couldn’t have them. I couldn’t allow anyone to get close.” Matt shrugged. “Except you. You didn’t give me a chance to push you away.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Well, I wanted to be friends with the weird kid even if he didn’t trust me with his biggest secret.”
“I couldn’t trust you. Not when we first met. And not later when I didn’t know if you could keep it to yourself and not blab it to any pretty person who batted their eyelashes at you.”
“That’s not fair.” It was totally fair.
Matt scrunched his face and shook his head. “Even now, it’s all about you. And not about me and what I was feeling.”
