Page 76 of Wilds of Wonder
“Who doesn’t love gossip?” Driscoll asked. His hand brushed one of the stalks, and it shrieked in delight. “Bloody earth, this is so weird,” he mumbled.
“Nothing happened.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Oh, come on.” Driscoll’s voice took on a whine. “I gave you so much good gossip.” He ticked off his fingers. “The guy who spread that crotch fungus throughout the earth court. The servant who was stealing everyone’s underwear. The inn owner who installed peep holes in his guests’ rooms.” He shuddered. “That wasn’t actually gossip. It was illegal, and he was arrested. Pervert. I even told you about the woman caught having sex with statues. Can you imagine getting on top of one of those and riding that hard stone?—”
“Okay, Driscoll, I get it.”
“So you owe me one piece of gossip.” He pressed his hands together. “Please, I’m begging you. We could die here, and the last thing rolling through my mind will be Leoni’s words about how selfish I am.” Driscoll narrowed his eyes. “You’re a bit of a loner, aren’t you?”
I tilted my head. “How did you know that?”
“When Leoni and I dropped in on your party in Fyriad, you were the only one standing alone. Everyone around you was talking, drinking, laughing. But you just stood in the middle of the room. Until your husband grabbed you.”
I bit my lip. “I suppose loner is a good word for it.” My shoulders slumped. “It’s hard to make friends when you feel like you have to hide a piece of yourself from everyone around you.” I waved my hands in the air. “I always loved history. Since I was little, I loved examining things and learning about them. Finding little clues that could give me insight into their past.”
“How’d you get into that? When I was little I was chasing boys and making kissy faces at them.”
“My mother,” I said softly.
Driscoll’s head snapped in my direction. “But I thought your mother was the one who wouldn’t let you attend the Academy of Scholars & Historians.”
“It’s complicated.”
Driscoll gestured to the field of giggling wheat around us, no end in sight. “We do have the time, you know.”
I sighed, thinking about my mother’s own curiosity, her obsession with libraries and museums, and how in the end, that love got crushed by the demands of society. “My mother was much like me growing up. She had a hunger for knowledge, a passion for history. But something held her back from pursuing it. Her parents were willing to pay for her to go to the Academy of Scholars & Historians, and she refused them. She’d met my father by that point, and he offered her a good life. A stable one, I suppose. She chose that stability over the unknown. Over attending an academy that couldn’t promise her a job or a future. When I was little I stumbled across her old journals, full of history and theories, stuffed away in a crate in the back of her wardrobe. I pored over them, and they ignited my own love for the subject.”
“So what happened?” Driscoll asked. “Did you ever talk to your mother about any of this?”
My biggest regret in life. I crossed my arms, hugging myself tight. “No. I was afraid she’d be angry that I was snooping. Tell me how unladylike I was. Reading those journals was like seeing a side of my mother I hadn’t even known existed. It gave me insight, but it also made me sad. She wasn’t happy in her marriage to my father. She was safe. And she wanted that same security for me, was so convinced it was the right path. No matter how much I argued.” My eyes welled with tears. “So I attended the Academy of Ladies, and three years later, they matched me with my husband. The day after I got married, I found out my mother had died. An accident in a snowstorm. She’d been in a carriage, on her way to visit me.”
“I’m really sorry,” Driscoll said.
A tear rolled down my cheek at the memory, at getting that letter in the post and being so utterly devastated. “It was heartbreaking. But it was also eye opening. My mother died never getting to live out her dream. She played it safe, and she still lost her life. I decided I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t just take the path of security and stay miserable. I would do something for myself.” I sighed. “Except I suppose I was a coward, too, because the academy matched me with my husband, and I married him.”
“A coward?” Driscoll turned wide eyes on me. “Excuse you, Miss White Rabbit, you are not a coward. You’ve made an actual name for yourself. You are living out your dream.”
I snorted. “In secret. I didn’t go after it. Not really.”
“Well, who says you still can’t?”
I tapped my chin. “Oh, I don’t know, probably the frost queen, who thinks I murdered my husband and who also abhors the white rabbit.”
“Well, you didn’t murder him. And we’ll get that all sorted out.” He nudged me. “Especially now that you’re taking steaming baths with Hot Professor. Keep doing whatever you did to make him moan your name like that last night, and he’ll confess to murdering Lord Growley himself before letting you take the blame.”
I laughed and nudged Driscoll back. “Leoni was wrong, you know. You’re not selfish. I see the way you talk to Aron, help him fill in the gaps at times when he’s not sure if someone is being sarcastic or angry or silly. The way you just reminded me I still have time. The way you made me laugh to make me forget what I was sad about in the first place. You’re a good man, Driscoll.”
“Yeah, well, Leoni knows me a lot better than you do.” He looked at his feet.
“Leoni was hurt, so she hurt you. I don’t think she really believed what she was saying. I think she just felt blindsided that you were so ready to leave her, to give up on your mission.”
Up ahead, the path curved, finally opening up to what looked like an old village, the silver-brick houses in disrepair with broken windows, caved-in thatch roofs, busted-open doors. This must’ve been a village in Shiraeth that had been destroyed by Spirit Shadow. My body was already tingling at the prospect of getting to walk through it.
He sighed. “That’s because Leoni’s a hero like the rest of you. I’m not. I mean I can be.” He shot me a side-eyed look. “You have no idea how many times I’ve saved everyone’s asses. But the point is, I don’t want to be a hero. Honestly, I don’t know what I want to be. I thought maybe I could be a sidekick, but this journey is showing me I don’t really want to be that either. I already failed out of school. I hate being the earth court ambassador, mainly because the only reason I got it is Queen Liliath and the fact that I’m one of her best friends. Also, I’mterrible at diplomacy.” He threw out his arms. “Maybe I am selfish. I run from place to place, from person to person, never putting down roots, never sticking to anything. Disappointing everyone.”
“You don’t disappoint me,” a voice said, and both Driscoll and I jumped.
Aron stood there while Maverick and El walked ahead, El still signing as Maverick watched her and spoke in a low voice.
