A Change of Heart, page 6
“Yes! I’ve always liked goofing around with the kids. What do you like to do with them?” I tilt my head to see if she likes this question more than the last. She wants us to talk about ourselves, and this question is about her instead of her brother.
“Oh.” She frowns for a moment and looks down to the table. “I like to take them out to the gardens. We collect little flowers and stones and then throw them all into the river.” She almost smiles and I lean forward more. “I don’t know why we started doing this, but it is very fun.” She looks up at me, and I give her a smile. It’s not as genuine as I wish it were, but I feel as though I’m on the edge of a knife, about to fall one way or the other.
“It sounds like it would be fun. I didn’t have any siblings growing up, and I don’t normally have any kids to play with, but throwing rocks into the river sounds like it’d be a good time. Maybe I could go to the gardens with you all one day before they leave.”
She sits up straighter and nods. “Yes. Of course. That would be nice.” Platitudes. She might mean what she’s saying, but I can tell that she wishes I wouldn’t have asked.
We sit in the tea shop for quite a while, and we never fall into an easy flow of conversation. It feels like I’m pulling out her teeth one by one instead of trying to get more than a short answer from her about anything I bring up. She doesn’t ask me anything, so I offer up whatever I think she would be interested in. I get no direction or clues from her expression, and I feel like I’ve failed something important by the time I help her into her carriage that will take her back to the castle.
I stand at the edge of the street and watch as her carriage pulls away, my hands limp at my sides and that panicky feeling that’s been haunting me since I returned to the capital intensifies.
This is wrong. It all feels wrong.
“Out of the road!” Someone calls out from behind me, and I’m not standing in the road, but I take a step backwards anyway. A wagon being pulled by two smaller horses passes me, and I take note of only one thing in the wagon.
It’s a head of blond curls that look golden in the sunlight.
She’s not facing me, but I catch a glimpse of her profile and I recognize her immediately. It’s Catherine.
Her cheeks are pink and she’s smiling. The panic in me subsides for just a moment, and then the buzzing of my magic starts up behind my ears. It’s much more comfortable than the panic, but I push back at it all the same. I can’t start making flowers sprout along the side of the main road in the capital of Cadelion. This place is not a friend to those that wield magic.
But the buzzing grows as the wagon continues down the road. I stand where I am, frozen to the spot. Wishing for her to turn and catch my eye, and wishing for her to disappear, a trick of the light, a wishful thought.
But none of that happens. She continues to smile with her gaze turned elsewhere, and the wagon continues to roll down the road.
I take a small step toward the street so I can watch her as long as possible before the wagon turns out of sight, and then Kohl’s hand is on my shoulder.
“What is it, Em?” He asks.
I snap my gaze over to him and then shake my head. I look around the ground to make sure that I haven’t done anything. I see one small vine creeping out between the pave stones, and I take a deep ragged breath.
“Nothing.” I try and get my mind back where it should be. Jaya. The tea. How horribly it went. How stiff she is. “Nothing at all.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Why did she want to have a private meeting surrounded by people who would hear everything we said? What is the point of that?” I run my hand through my hair. I can’t tell him that I just saw Catherine. He already knowns that I’ve been out of sorts since we’ve arrived home, and if I tell him that I just saw her, he’s most likely to think that I’m imagining things and he’ll just worry more. “She gave me nothing at all.”
He frowns and then shrugs. “I don’t know. You’re usually much more charming than you were.”
I raise my brow at him. “You think this is my fault?”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “You haven’t been acting yourself since we got back here. A month ago, you would have been able to charm the pants off of Princess Jaya, or anyone else, in half that time.”
My gaze turns back toward the end of the road and luckily Jaya’s carriage traveled in the same direction. “I’m still charming.” I say. “She’s just immune.”
“Fate would find it funny to stick you with someone immune to your charm.”
“I don’t find it funny.” I say. “I can’t spend my entire life having conversations like that.” I say this quietly, and I feel the vine tickle at my ankle. I lift my foot and stomp down on the vine as discretely as I can manage.
“You won’t.” Kohl says. “You’ll figure her out and have her charmed in no time. I’m sure. You’re just going to have to work for it.”
I take a deep breath, pushing the buzzing back, only for the panic to take over again. I clench my hands at my sides. “You know I’m always up for a challenge.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “If there’s something else going on, you can tell me.”
“I’m fine.” I say quickly. “Has my mother been talking to you?”
He lifts a brow. “No. Should I go and talk to her? Are you keeping things from me?”
I huff and shake my head. I turn and start walking down the street to the stable that Kohl and I boarded our horses for the morning. “There’s a lot going on right now. But I’m working through it.”
“That’s not a ‘no.’” Kohl says, quickly catching up to walk at my side. “Is this about Jaya?”
“I’m fine.” I try again, knowing that he’s not going to drop it.
“Is it about Jaya?” He repeats.
“No.” I shake my head. “The situation with the princess is disappointing, but I know that I can figure it out given enough time. Like you said, I’m charming. I know how to charm just about anyone. I’m not really worried about her too much.”
“Is this about the girl from the tavern?” I stumble a bit and look over at him.
“I knew her for one night. I’m not a fool, Kohl.”
“That’s debatable. And you were quite smitten with her as we were leaving. Could you not be idealizing her because of your disappointment in other situations?”
The goings on of my heart all seem so trivial to the growing danger I am in every day my magic goes unchecked. But Catherine is involved somehow. My magic had responded to her in the tavern and even though I knew that I should walk away, I couldn’t overcome the temptation to be with her.
My magic reacted to her again when I just saw her.
“Kohl, you’re my oldest friend.” I say, looking over at him as we both weave through the small crowd of people standing outside of a bakery window display. “Have you ever known me to fall stupid for a girl before?”
“No.” He shrugs. “But there’s something going on with you and it’s been worse since we left that tavern.”
He’s not wrong. But I can’t tell him.
This problem is mine to work out.
12
The capital city is fairly small compared to other kingdom capitals I’ve been to, but it is both beautiful and artfully constructed. Things are built to be sturdy and well maintained, but they are also built to look whimsical. Roofs slope and curve and are an array of colors, there or windows of all different shapes, the streets are all covered in pave stones that are also different colors. Plants spill out of decorative boxes along the roads.
There is no magic here, but it looks like a place where magic would feel at home.
The sun is beginning to fall down toward the horizon by the time the wagon stops.
I give Bet and the kids a hug, thank her again, and then start on my way before she can ask where I’m going or what my plan is or offer me any more help.
I need to be on my own to test out my magic, and that means I need to find somewhere deserted.
I also need to find a way to get my hands on enough money to eat and sleep somewhere safely before my body weakens from a lack of either.
I saved half of my pie from Gert, and I haven’t eaten my cookie yet. I know I’ll be hungry tonight, so I’m saving them. And it’s not so cold that I can’t sleep outside if I need to, but just because it’s not raining tonight, doesn’t mean it’s not going to rain tomorrow.
I pull my cloak around me and start walking.
I hum to myself as I walk the street, looking over all the little details on all the buildings and stopping to inspect the plants that decorate the sides of the road. It’s a beautiful place that looks to be quite prosperous. They have to have some kind of boarding house that would let me spend the night and work in the kitchens for my supper or something.
I look off toward the western part of the city, feeling a pull in my gut to go in this direction, and without a plan to contradict me, I heed it.
As I continue walking, the buildings get further and further apart until I can see further outside of the city. I seem to be walking toward the estates of the nobility and I pause to look around. I do intend to find Emery, but I don’t think I’m going to find him by going around and knocking on the doors of the nobles.
My gut isn’t really telling me anything as I stand here in the middle of the road, so I sigh and look up to see where the sun is. I’ve been walking around for quite a while now and I still don’t have anywhere to stay for the night.
I reach into my pocket and as my fingers touch the cookie, I hear horse hooves hitting the pave stones.
I don’t know what makes me look up, the sound of horse hooves on the stones is no different from all the other horses making their way about the city. Perhaps they’re moving a bit faster, but there’s no real reason for the sound to have caught my attention.
But when I look up at the man on top of the horse, I almost laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
Emery and I both stare at one another for a moment and then he frowns and looks over his shoulder. He huffs out a sigh and slides off the side of his horse.
“I need to speak with you.” He says.
“Yes. Well, I need to speak with you as well.” I say, pulling the cookie out of my pocket and breaking off a small piece. I take a bite and look around the road. “I don’t think this is where we should speak though.”
“No.” He agrees and walks his horse over to me. “No, this is not the place to speak.” He frowns at me again and I raise my brows. “What do you have to speak to me about?”
“Don’t do that.” I say quietly. “The smell of vanilla, the spices, the flowers, don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
His face pales and he shakes his head. “Alright.” He reaches out to me and before I know what he’s doing, his hands are on my hips and he’s putting me on his horse. He pulls himself up behind me on the saddle and then grips the reigns and gets the beast moving.
For as large as Emery is, his horse needs to be larger than a normal horse, and I’ve never been this high up and moving this fast before. I remember the sharp stab of pain from when I sliced open my hand on the metal table, and I grip tightly to the saddle, suddenly terrified of falling off the horse and seeing my blood again.
He put me on sideways, because of my skirts, and he has his knee tucked under both of mine, and his other knee is resting against my backside. I feel secure, but the fear of falling off is still there.
We reach a deserted road, and he kicks at the horse to make it go faster. He veers off the main road and we’re racing across a field of bright yellow flowers. I smell vanilla again and find myself relaxing. Falling off in the field wouldn’t be as bad as falling on the road.
The entire time we’re riding, Emery is a stonewall around me.
He finally slows his horse as we reach a wooded area behind a large estate. A small stone cottage appears after a few minutes, and it looks to be abandoned.
When the horse stops, he gets down immediately and then he pulls me down as well.
“You can’t tell anyone.” He says immediately. “No one here knows, and it has to stay that way.”
I brush at my skirts and try to regain my bearings. “I don’t want to tell anyone.” I say. “I came here to find you though.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” I nod and then straighten to look him in the eye. “What the hell did you do to me?”
He looks very confused, and I’m impressed by how believable it is, but I’ve looked at this from every angle and I know that he has to be involved in what happened to me. There’s no way that it’s just a coincidence.
His hand goes to his hair, and he shifts from one foot to the other. “Are you talking about… are you talking about what we did that night?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “No, Emery. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about your magic, and what it did to me.”
He looks over his shoulder, shushing me.
“We’re in the middle of the woods. No one can hear us.” I remind him. “You have magic, and it did something to me, and I don’t know how.”
Both of his hands go through his hair. “What did it do?” He asks quietly.
I frown at him. He’s not denying that he did something, and his shock seems real. “You don’t know?”
He lets out a heavy breath and shakes his head. “No. I saw you earlier today and I came back into the city to find you because I need to talk to you. My magic reacts to you, and I don’t know why. I can’t control it as it is, but around you- well, it has a mind of its own.” He motions around us, and I turn to see little plants sprouting up from the ground.
I’ve seen uncontrolled magic before, and it’s usually much more harmful than this. This is beautiful.
I rub at my wrists, where I have to thin bands, one from each of my sisters. I take a deep breath and let it out. “You’ve only recently discovered your magic, haven’t you?”
He nods. “And I don’t know how I have any at all.”
13
My magic did something to her.
My mind is racing in a hundred different directions as I look at her and try and work out if I hurt her. It’s been almost two weeks since I saw her, that’s enough time to heal from a small wound, but what if there was something inside, something that I can’t see just from looking over her face and her hands. Every other part of her is covered by her dress and her cloak.
Her hair is hanging down around her shoulders, some parts tucked behind her ears, and it looks tousled from the ride to the estate, but she still looks as beautiful as she had that night in the tavern. And just like that night, I can feel my magic reaching out toward her.
I take a step back and look down at the ground. Maybe if I’m not looking directly at her then the magic will subside, it will let me push it back, it will let me have control again.
It doesn’t work and she takes a step toward me and the buzzing behind my ears grows.
“Don’t come closer.” I say quietly. “I don’t know what I did to you, and I don’t want to do it again, but I can’t control it.” I cover my face with my hands and shake my head. “I should have left the tavern as soon as I felt my magic pushing to get out. I put you in danger-“
“You didn’t hurt me.” Her voice is soft and quiet, meant to be soothing, but I don’t want her to soothe me, I did something to her, I let myself drink too much and forget to be careful and my magic did something to her.
“What did I do?” I ask, dropping my hands and looking back at her face. Her expression is unreadable, but I’m surprised at what I don’t see. There’s no anger, there’s no fear, there’s no malice. She is standing before me and she’s not afraid of what is happening around us.
“It wasn’t bad.” She says and then looks away from me, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully. “I don’t know how you did it, but it wasn’t bad. It might have been good even.” She reaches up and puts a hand over her chest, right over where her heart is.
“You’re not afraid of magic?”
She smiles at this and looks around us. We’re now standing in the middle of an assortment of all different kinds of plants. Flowering blooms, climbing vines, prickling thorns. “No.” She says softly. “I’m not afraid of magic.”
I blink at her and then remember something that Kohl told me.
“The men at the tavern thought you were fae.”
Her eyes widen for a moment and then she lets out a small laugh. “I’m not fae. You might be though.” She points a finger at me and her smile curls playfully.
“I’m not fae. I can’t be. My parents aren’t fae.”
She shrugs. “If you’re trying to hide it, why can’t one of them be hiding it.”
“Fae are immortal, ageless, beasts. I’d know if my parents were one. I’d know if I were one.”
“A quick glamor would make it quite difficult for you to tell if anyone around you were fae. And if no one told you, then how would you know? When did you get your magic?”
“My last birthday.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-Eight.”
She hums.
“What did my magic do to you?”
“Well.” She crosses her arms over her chest and sighs. “I’m not sure what to tell you. You seem sufficiently freaked out about what’s happening to you, and I don’t want to add the burden of what I’m going through.”
“If I did something to you, then I need to help make it right. Tell me.”
She considers me for a moment. “I suppose I could use some help, and that’s not easy for me to admit. I’ve been on my own for a long time. I was good at taking care of myself before.”
“Before…”
“Before I met you.” She reaches out and pokes me in the chest. I see tendrils of vines race up the trees around us. She looks over and watches them reach higher. “How did you manage to keep this from me before? I thought you might have magic as soon as you walked in, but I didn’t even sense it on you.” She looks back at me. “How did you hide it?”
