Page 77 of In Her Own Rite

I do eatat Em’sfikarigthat evening, in spite of my wariness about who else may still be lurking on the island. It’s just me and the elders tonight—Viggo, Dagmar, Saga, and Seb’s mom Isolde. Since Gabe isn’t home to cook, I bring takeout from Hilde’s, the seafood restaurant on Saroe’s south shore.

“Heij,jenge,” Viggo says as I walk through the front door. The house feels strange without Em and the others—the scent is different, and I can tell from a faint mustiness that no one’s been here for the last few weeks.

“Hey, Viggo. Good to see you.”

He pulls me into him, clapping me on the back.

“Well done at the plaza this morning,” he says. “It’s good to have you back to defend the islands.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Oh, is that Kieran?” asks Dagmar, walking into the hall, holding silverware. “Good. We’ve already set the table. Come in.”

I follow her into the dining room and set the bags with our dinner down. Isolde comes in and begins unpacking, and Saga takes a seat. We divide up the dishes, and once everyone’s plate is full, Viggo lifts a glass.

“Kututkuk. To the restoration of peace, and our children coming home soon.”

“Kututkuk,” we say in unison, and the others begin to eat.

“Viggo,” I say, putting my glass down. “I wanted to talk about that. I don’t feel right about Em and the others coming back until we’re sure we have the whole group detained. Caspar told me you’re involved with the search crew. Did you learn anything about where they were hiding?”

“No, nothing,” he says. “And the ones we’ve caught have given nothing up. But we should be able to get it out of them soon enough.” He raises his eyebrows and gives a jovial look to Isolde, who sits still, stoic as ever.

“Did Saga tell you what I told her, about the black she-wolf?” I ask.

“Ah, yes, she said. She wants to make us a deal.”

“It might be worth it to get what information she has, if it means finding the rest of their group.”

“But what will she ask of us?” Dagmar says, wiping her mouth with her napkin. “Surely we can’t give her a place on the islands if she came here as a terrorist.”

“Besides, who knows whether her information is even valuable?” says Isolde. “She may send us on a wild goose chase just to secure herself a place on the islands.”

“We should find out, at least,” I say.

“We would need a council vote on any negotiation,” Saga says, shaking her head. “We can’t decide to negotiate without raising it to a vote.”

“Can I at least get permission to talk to her? See what she wants, before we bring it to the council?”

“Iija,‘ts kut,” Saga says, waving a hand.Yes, that’s fine. “Now, please, let’s enjoy dinner.”

After the meal,I climb the stairs to Em’s room. As soon as I open the door, the scent of her hits my nostrils, and my wolf registers it happily. I take in the familiar sights: her bed, fitted with white cotton sheets. The healer’s training book sitting on her bedside table. The watercolors she’s pinned up on the walls.

I walk around the room, looking at them. She swaps them out every few weeks with new one’s she’s made, the older ones returning to a pile on her desk. When we used to sleep here together, I’d notice them change from time to time but didn’t think much of it. Now that we’re barely talking, I feel the need to really take them in—to hang on to any piece of her.

I look at the ones above her desk: hydrangeas in a glass vase by the window. Saga’s blue-and-white Fakari coffee pot. Dagmar’s hands stirring honey into her tea. On the wall over her bed are the ones of us: Seb and Gabe in the lake. The five of us running through the woods—Seb, Gabe, Maren, and me in our wolf forms, with Em riding on my back. Her and me in the garden, lying on our backs next to the bushes of deep purple flowers. She has one in her hair, and the sight feels vaguely familiar.

I walk to her desk to look at the painting I framed for her, still lying face up in its wooden frame. As I pick it up, I see a stack of older paintings underneath, bound together with red string. I’ve never seen these before, but in the top one I see my own face, partially obscured by the knot. I pick up the stack, trying to suppress the feeling that I’m invading on something private.

Sitting on her bed, I carefully untie the string.

The first painting is me, asleep. My face is partially obscured by my hand, curled up near my head, and I can see her knee and long blonde hair in the bottom corner of the illustration. I pick it up and put it at the back of the stack. The next is us in the lake, her facing me with her arms around my neck. But the one after that surprises me. For a second, I think it’s Em, bent over in the garden, planting the purple flowers we have behind thefikarig. But the clothes don’t feel like her, and the hair is a touch too dark. I look down in the bottom corner to see, in Em’s slanted, loopy handwriting: “Mom in the garden.” And suddenly, I remember that it was Em who insisted we plant these same purple flowers behind this house.

I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and slip it out. My inner wolf yips happily to see it’s her calling.

“Heij,” I say as I pick up, trying to hide the desperation in my voice. “How are you?”

“HeijKier.” Her voice feels firmer than I want it to be. “You asked Gabe to talk?”

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