Page 129 of A Promise of Peridot
arwen
The throne room was so swamped with soldiers and generals, so packed with commotion as they awaited the return of their king, I could hardly hear over the din. I gripped Mari by her elbow and tugged her into a shadowed alcove. The wrought-iron candelabra above us cast her curled hair and soft freckles in quiet illumination.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it really.”
“That’s very disturbing, coming from you.”
Mari didn’t smile—also alarming—but took a shuddering inhale. “I can’t seem to do magic anymore.”
The chatter and clanging of armor that bloated the throne room fell away to the single pinprick of Mari’s words. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” The fiery retort relaxed me some. That was the Mari I was used to. “I haven’t been able to since I woke up.”
“Did you tell Briar?”
She shook her head. I should have known. Mari was not one to ask for help readily.
“Mari, do you think—”
“That I was right? That the amulet was the only reason I could do anything and now I’m back to being a magicless witch like I was before we stole it from Kane’s study? Yes, I do.”
“You knew it was helping you all along.” I shook my head. “I never should have doubted you.”
Mari offered me a begrudging smile. “So you believe me now... What changed?”
“Briar said you rigged the amulet magically to bolster your power. I knew you hadn’t, though. Which means the only way it could have given you power, and made you ill, was if you were from her lineage, and able to use it becauseshecrafted it. Kane said her coven hasn’t been seen or heard from in hundreds of years, but maybe... somehow...”
“My mother...”
“Did you tell anyone else?”
Mari made a face. “No, but...”
“But what?”
“You’re going to laugh.”
“For some reason I doubt that.”
“I was going to tell Griffin. I thought that he might be able to help. Or just listen, I don’t know.”
“But?”
“Buthe has been such a prick to me since I awoke. Ignoring me, walking away mid-sentence when I ask him to please put his pack next to the other ones in order of weight and not height because clearly that makes no sense, how does ordering them byheightmakeanythingeasier—”
“Mari.”
“Sorry.” She sighed. “I just thought, back in Peridot, that we were becoming friends. Good friends. Or maybe even something more than that... And that’s hard for me. I never had a lot of luck in that arena growing up in Shadowhold. Mostly, the boys here were really cruel. But Griffin... Well, it’s pointless now, isn’t it? I guess helping me walk down a single flight of stairs at Briar’s was enough to make him hate me all over again. Stones forbid he do one damned thing for someone else.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Arwen, he practically dropped me like a lit match as soon as he could.”
“Griffin sat by your bedside for days on end without eating or drinking. He read to you.Sleptbeside you. He let Kane travel to Crag’s Hollow without him so he could stay with you.”
“So he’s loyal, like a good dog.”
I missed her so much and also I was going to strangle her. “He couldn’t bear to leave your side! He couldn’t hold you as you walked down some stairs probably because he wasthisclose to vomiting out the wordsI love you, please order me around for the rest of eternity.And it scares him almost as much as it scares you.”
Mari’s eyes widened. “I do not order people around!”
