Page 12 of Anchor

Taland wasn’t there.

My eyes closed and my ears started to behave like I was underwater again. The doors opened and I was pretty sure Fiona came through with a tray full of food, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from that screen where they’d posted my name and called meThe Winner.

As if anybody could win in the Iris Roe. As if the price at the end was worth what I went through, who I became while in that playground.

Goddess, I couldn’t stand who I’d become.

Then there was food.

Poppy made me eat. She took the laptop away, and I was too weak to chase her,makeher give it back. She said she’d tell me everythingthat had happened after the game if I agreed to eat because the Whitefire healers who’d taken care of me had insisted that I eat within the first hour of waking up.

“The food won’t hurt your stomach—they made sure of that. You really,reallyneed to eat,” Poppy said, a bowl of some sort of soup in her hands, and she held up the spoon as she came for me.

In that moment, a new wave of tears wanted to crash against me and take me down. I had the urge to hug Poppy like I neverhad before in my life. I had the urge to ask her again why she was bothering, but good thing I lacked the energy.

Instead, when she brought that spoon to my lips, I opened them.

It was delicious, the soup—or maybe it just had an okay taste, something that food Vuvu had served me had lacked. Now when I thought about it, it had been absolutely disgusting, yet back then I hadn’t minded. I’d been starving, so I’d eaten everything he’d brought me without question. Had even thought,they’re not so bad,but they were. They’d been really,reallybad, my memories said.

This soup, and the baked vegetables, and the meat and bread Poppy made me eat were heaven in comparison. And just like she said, nothing hurt my stomach—on the contrary. The more I ate, the more I felt how absolutely flawlessly whatever spell was used on me had worked. The more I ate the more I experienced the full effects of the Whitefire magic they’d healed me with.

Magic.Something I never thought I could actually live without, and then I’d gone and completed almost an entire magical game without it.

Almost—but I wouldn’t have without Taland. Without Taland’s magic. Without Taland’s protection.

Every muscle in my body clenched—I was starting to think clearly now, too, with food in my system. I was starting to not just panic and want to pull my hair out of my skull, but to think about what had actually happened. To put the pieces together in a way that it made sense.

Talandhadbeen inside the game with me simply because without him, I couldn’t have possibly won. Without his magic, I could have never done the necromancy spell to get my Blackfire key from the body of that crow. Without him, I could have never drained the colors of the Rainbow.

I could have never won the Iris Roe without him and his magic.

Thatwas the undeniable truth and the undeniable proof.

“They’ve posted footage.”

Everything came to a halt again when Poppy turned to me with a smile on her face—she was really happy that I’d eaten. She was just returning from taking the tray back to Fiona waiting in the hallway, and she was smiling ear to ear now as she made her way to my bed, and something came over me just like that. Something foreign and something very familiar at the same time, but now I could actually move my body, had energy to spare, and my limbs didn’t weigh a thousand pounds each. That’s why when I made to stand up from the bed, I could. When I made to wrap my arms around her before she had the chance to even ask what I was doing, I could.

I was hugging Poppy of my own free will without being forced to do so, but simply because I wanted to. Because I was thankful for her. Because despite our differences, I loved her. She was the only person I considered family.

Poppy hugged me back, her face against my shoulder. “I was so, so scared…” she told me, and I thought, maybe, despite our differences, she loved me, too.

And the thought made me smile.

“Thank you, Poppy.” For staying with me when I was Mud, for not being disgusted by me like everyone else. For bathing me and feeding me and just being here right now so that I didn’t have to face the world completely alone. “Thank you for everything.”

She laughed, but when I let go and leaned back, I found she was crying, too.

“Please don’t say that, Rora. Don’t thank me. I amawful!” Bringing her hand to her lips that were stretched to look like shewas smiling, she cried and cried and shook her head, as if those words had slipped her by accident.

“You’re not. Come on, you’re?—”

“I am,” she cut me off. “I always saw. I always knew, and I never did anything. Ialways saw.”

Here I thought Poppy sucked at pretending.

The joke was on me because she’d done a hell of a job pretending about this.

I knew what she was talking about—Madeline. Her precious grandmother. Poppy always spoke like she thought the two of us just misunderstood each other, Madeline and I. Always spoke like she was sure we’d get over it eventually, and that she really believed that Madeline was good and kind and everything she actually really was—to her.

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