Page 144 of Ash and Feather

She sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. “You know I’m right.”

“Maybe. But things were easier for you when you hated me yourself, now weren’t they?”

“…Easiermight be a stretch,” she said, wrapping her arm around mine and leaning closer. “But simpler, I suppose. I do miss those days, sometimes.”

I gave another humorless chuckle. “Yes, you’ve said that before.”

“Several times.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“No. Because I don’t hate you, you fool.” She hesitated. Took a deep breath. “I love you so much it terrifies me. Sometimes it feels like we’re one of those glass figures you created…like I’m holding us so tightly we’re going to shatter and the shards are going to cut deeper than I can stand. But I can’t let go. I don’twantto let go. Even if it means broken and bloody hands.”

She squeezed my arm, burrowing her face more fully into my shoulder.

“Wildfire,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head, “we are made of something much stronger than glass.”

She breathed out a content, soft little sound, some of the tension slipping from her hold on me.

“If Idogo back to Fallon,” I said after a moment, “it won’t be for a family reunion.”

She lifted her head, curiosity sparking in her eyes.

“Something he said right before we parted has been eating away at me,” I explained.

“What was it?”

“He told me to find you and bring you back to this realm. To leave him to his plans and not look back or interfere in mortal affairs. Tempting, but…”

“But we can’t ignore what’s happening below. Andrel spoke as though he was preparing to unleash another part of their plans, too…agrand ending, he called it.”

“You spoke with him over these past days?”

A tremble went through her—an answer in itself.

Of course she spoke with him.

“He was partly responsible for trapping you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

The way the mere mention of him caused her body to tremble and her pulse to race faster—a reaction of fear, however short-lived it was—made me physically ill.

“What else did he do?” I demanded.

How else did he hurt you because I failed to kill him in Mindoth?

The fingers she had around my arm dug deeper.

Gently, I brushed a hand across her cheek and turned her face toward me.

“I don’t want to talk about him.” She looked me directly in the eyes, her gaze full of fire and fierceness. “I only want to talk about what we’re going to do about all these threats we’re facing.”

I blinked away the fire blurring my own vision. Forced the rage in my blood to settle.

“I don’t know whatplansFallon has,” I said, once I could manage a calm, rational voice, “but I worry he’s underestimating the forces he’s up against.”

She untangled herself from me and hopped down from the wall. “I’m worried about my sister, too. About the cost of her helping me escape and…” She trailed off with a frustrated sound and returned to her pacing, her forehead creased in thought and her lips moving with silent calculations.

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