Page 91 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Neve,” I said, unable to move from that spot near the door. “What just happened?”

She looked up, her hands stilling. She understood, the way she always did. “It’s all right, Tamsin.”

“How is it all right?” I asked, rubbing at my throat, trying to dislodge the pain there. “We lost Olwen and now we just let Caitriona go?” “They’ll be back by morning,” she said, as if she had any way of knowing that for certain. She patted the spot on the blanket next to her. “Come here.” Seeing me hesitate, she added, “I’m not going to hug you. Unless you want a hug, in which case …” “A hug’s not going to fix anything,” I said. “It’s not supposed to,” she answered.

I sat next to her, looking to where Emrys lay prone on the floor, oblivious to all of this.

“… Do you want a hug?” I asked finally.

“Yes,” she said.

I tried my best, looping an arm around her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. Neve leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder.

“I don’t understand her,” Neve said quietly. “She’ll act like we’re strangers one moment, and the next …”

There was a faraway look to her eyes, as if she’d gone back to that moment and wanted to linger there.

“What did she say to you?” I asked. “When you came to at Rivenoak?”

Her cheeks warmed with color.

“Now you have to tell me,” I insisted.

She drew herself upright, mimicking Caitriona’s intonation. “Don’t ever do that again, I cannot bear it. What does that mean?”

Finally, something I was an expert in. “I believe that’s Emotionally Repressed for ‘I care for you and love you.’ ”

Neve groaned, pressing her face to her hands. “I thought she hated me …”

I gave her an incredulous look. “Are you serious? I have the emotional intelligence of a toddler and even I can see that when she’s not keeping a protective eye on you, she’s gazing at you with wonder. It would be sweet if we weren’t in danger of being killed by undead hunters at any given moment.”

“She doesn’t love me,” Neve whispered, more to herself than to me. “How could she love me when she doesn’t even respect who I am?”

“I think she sees you separately from the other sorceresses,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emrys’s limp hand curl against his stomach. “And as far as I can tell, hearts can be total idiots.”

“I don’t know if I can accept that,” Neve said. “I can’t change what I am any more than she can—no matter how hard she tries.”

“Something’s changed, though,” I told her. “When you were knocked out and we were surrounded, she tried to use her magic and it wouldn’t come.”

“What?” Neve gripped my arm, forcing my gaze back to hers. “When were any of you going to tell me that?”

“When we weren’t lurching from crisis to crisis,” I said. “So … now.”

Over the last few days, I’d watched the light that always seemed to radiate from her face dim, and now it was happening again. She looked troubled, but more than that, devastated.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Neve said. “Nothing good. The Goddess isn’t cruel. She wouldn’t take it from Cait the moment she needs it most, or when she’s in pain. But we call our magic from the heart, and if she can’t summon it … I’m worried about what that means. If the walls she puts up are so high that none of us can climb over them …”

She trailed off, sighing.

“I can’t stop thinking about Olwen,” she said. “The fact that we aren’t going after her right now feels like a knife to the heart. I told Madrigal what had happened to her, asking if the Council could try to find her, too, but she’s never written back. I don’t even know if she’s receiving my letters.”

I didn’t really know, but I nodded for her to continue.

“It’s just … everything is moving so fast around us, it feels wrong to stop, to be here sitting still.”

“Morning will be here soon enough,” I told her. “And we can start looking for the sword then.”

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