It makes me want to burst into fresh tears. “Actually, no. It’s a mucking nightmare.”
“Is someone being mean to you?” Mereden asks, offense bristling through her sweet, gentle voice. It’s almost comical to think that pleasant and easygoing Mereden is determined to defend me.
“Worse. I’m being set up.”
Lark hobbles over to the far side of the table, grabs the cheese plate for herself, and gestures that I should keep talking. “Tell us everything.”
So I tell them everything. Well, most everything. I don’t tell them about Raptor, because I don’t know how things are between us and I don’t feel like having my friends hash it out. Instead, I tell them all about someone dropping an artifact into my bag to frame me and then the subsequent search of Master Jay’s nest. I tell them about the message scrawled in the books, and how the others are staking out the library to see if they can catch whoever it is.
“Why do you think they’re targeting you?” Mereden asks, worried. She steals a piece of cheese from Lark’s plate, her gaze locked on me.
“Gotta be the tits,” Lark chimes in.
Sparrow hesitates. “Truly, it can’t be just that…can it?”
“What else could it be?” Mereden asks.
I glance over at Sparrow. I’m thinking what she is—that someone might have it out for me because of my mancer ability. Is it safe to share my secret with them? She shrugs, leaving it up to me.
Do I trust Mereden and Lark with my secret…and my life? Because I’ll be killed if it gets out.
I look at my friends’ worried, earnest faces. I haven’t even told my mother about my ability because I’m afraid to write it down. Blurting it aloud feels terrifying. The only reason that Sparrow knows about what I can do is because of the situation with the corpses last year. Otherwise, I’d have kept it a dirty secret, known only to me. “I…”
The words don’t come out.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Mereden reassures me. “We’re your friends all the same.”
“Are you in trouble of some kind?” Lark pushes her fist against her flat palm. “Do I need to bust heads?”
“No one’s busting anyone’s head,” Sparrow frets, even as another cat jumps on the table. This one’s a tabby, and she gives it a quick pet before pulling it off. “Not now, Buttons.”
Mereden points a badly cut wedge of cheese at me. “Is this about your dowsing?”
I go still.
“You think?” Lark mulls the idea. “It didn’t work for anyone else. Heck, it didn’t even work for us. It kept pointing us right at dead guys. You…”
Her eyes widen.
Mereden gasps.
“That’s the problem,” I whisper, hugging Squeaker tight even as cat hair wafts into the air around me. “I think I might be a mancer. Worse, I think someone else knows that, too.”
Thirty-Four
Gwenna
Ididn’t say anything.I swear,” Sparrow says immediately, a worried expression on her face. “You know I would never speak of it. I haven’t even said anything to Hawk.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” I reassure her, but the tight clenching in my gut doesn’t go away. Perhaps I’ve been too careless. Someone’s been watching me too closely and they’ve discovered my ability and want me gone.
“It’s true?” Mereden’s mouth forms an O. “You really are a mancer?”
She and Lark exchange an uneasy look.
“I don’t know.” Squeaker jumps out of my lap, and I hug my arms tight to my chest, as if I can reassure my body somehow that everything will be all right. Strangely enough, I wish Raptor were here to hug me. He’s so big and strong and reassuring that he’d give the best sorts of hugs. I’ve never been a hugger before, but I wouldn’t mind him holding me close. I hate that Mereden and Lark are gazing at me with distrust. Like I’m something they’ve never seen before.
“We can’t say anything at all,” Sparrow reminds them gently. “Not to anyone. This is a dangerous secret.”