Page 175 of Flame and Sparrow

I didn’t care; I’d made my own mistakes, and I would admit to them—but I was tired of being blamed for things that were not my fault.

Cillian sighed. “Just try to keep things civil between the two of you, please? For all our sakes.”

I started to walk away, determined not to even consider the idea, but I thought better of it. Glancing back over my shoulder, I said, “Fine.”

The relief rolling off him was palpable.

I left before he could say anything else—before I could give my true thoughts away.

I had no intentions of keeping things civil.

I would never forgive Andrel for what he’d done, for the things he’d kept from me, for the poison he’d fed me.

But I knew how to channel my anger into more constructive plans. If I wanted to find the answers I needed, I was going to have to play the part they wanted me to for now.

A new game had just begun, and I had every intention of winning it.

Chapter47

Four days passed,and I worked hard to appear as though I was getting used to my old home once more. I put my sister’s necklace back around my neck, and I started my days as I had for most of the past years, walking through the same familiar rooms, eating the same foods, tending to the same chores.

There were still moments when I was tempted to pretend I’d never left this life, to act as though I trulywascoming back to it. Moments when playing make-believe seemed easier than facing the changes in my heart and mind.

They never lasted long.

On the second day after my return, I’d successfully snuck off in the dead of night and found a place to hide my divine keepsakes, deep in the Nightvale Forest. I buried them close to the most potent pockets of residual magic I could find, reasoning that the energy in these places would help mask any that the divine objects might give off. The pockets weren’t as far away from the manor as I would have liked, but they were as far as I dared to go at the moment; I was being watched too closely to risk more than that.

Once the bag and all its contents were buried, my mind gradually began to feel clearer. My weakness from traveling between the realms—and from the ordeal with my human ‘saviors’—passed as well, and plans began to materialize once more in my head, though each one seemed more risky and less likely to succeed than the last.

By the time evening on the fourth day arrived, I had grown restless. I was terrified of failing, of getting more things wrong, but I couldn’t keep going through the motions of my old life any longer.

So I slipped one of Cillian’s impossibly sharp knives into a hidden sheath at my ankle, and I went to find Andrel.

I located him in the third-floor study—a longtime favorite spot of his. He was settled in one of two chairs next to a fireplace that I couldn’t recall ever being lit before.

It wasn’t lit now, either; the room was cold, drafty, darkening rapidly as the sun sank below the horizon and the last of its light slipped out of reach of the dusty windows. I convinced myself the draftiness was the reason for the shivers traveling up and down my arms as I stepped into the room.

I would not admit how afraid I was at that moment—not to myself or anyone else.

I wandered toward the nearest window, into one of the last patches of sun spilling across the weathered wood floors, and said, “Can we talk?”

Andrel closed the book he’d been reading and motioned to the chair across from him. “Of course.”

Slowly, with as much casualness and confidence as I could summon, I took my seat. The sheath at my ankle, tiny and discreet as it was, shifted against my skin, reminding me of its presence, of my purpose, of just how much had changed between me and the one I sat across from.

I hesitated too long, trying to decide where to begin.

Always eager to fill the silence with the sound of his own voice, Andrel spoke first. “Have I ever told you why I spend so much time in this room?”

I shook my head.

“This is the main room I stayed in during the months after the manor was nearly burned down,” he told me. “For a long time after that, it was the only place I felt safe, which is why I developed a habit of ending up in it, I guess. The door has multiple locks. My parents once used this space to store some of our most valuable possessions.”

He got to his feet and sauntered to the fireplace, running his hands along the stone likeness of a wolf carved into the mantlepiece. He paused at its head and gave a few precise taps against the left ear.

I watched, mesmerized, as part of the beast’s body broke away and swung inward, revealing a small room behind it.

“This is the only one that still opens,” he said, “but there were once multiple ones in this room for us to store objects—jewels, art, that sort of thing. Turns out, small children canalsofit inside the compartments. Lucky for me.” He stood for a moment with his hand braced against the stationary part of the wolf’s head, staring into the cramped and dark space.

---