I think of my mother placing her cloak around my shoulders before I boarded the ship, and a lump forms in my throat. It was identical to this one. I thought her favorite cloak was just a cold-weather version of the silk ones she usually wore, but now I see the gesture for what it was—she gave me her old training cloak. She was sending me on a journey with a little piece of herself.
And I barely spoke to her before I left.
I pull the cloak around my shoulders and finger the thick fabric. There’s no going back now. I didn’t want to be bound to magic, but like most things in my life, fate didn’t care about my plans. And if I want to keep the people around me safe, I have to learn to control my abilities. No matter how impossible it might seem.
It’s the only path I have left.
Saskia
The Tutor
Declan is waiting on my front steps, a bouquet of purple blossoms clutched in one fist, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. For the entire year before the kenning, he’d done nothing but shamelessly flirt with me, but now that we’re matched, he looks like a nervous schoolboy every time we’re together.
I can’t help but smile.
As I walk across the grass toward the house, I shift my basket under one arm to conceal the contents. I’ve just made my weekly trip to the bone house to get more crushed fragments for the nutrient solution, and even though there’s nothing about the pouch that would incriminate me, I’d like to avoid questions.
“Hello there,” I say.
Declan grins and thrusts the lilies toward me.
“They’re beautiful.” I take them and hold them under my nose. They give off a delicate fragrance reminiscent of honey. “Thank you.”
“I was afraid I’d missed you,” he says. “Where have you been hiding?” His tone is playful, but it still needles me. Maybe I wouldn’t be so sensitive if I didn’t have something to hide.
“Boring errands,” I say lightly. And then, to change the subject: “How is the training going?” The topic is like sand poured into a jar of shells. It flows through every conversation in the weeks after the kenning, filling the gaps and squeezing into the pauses.
“As well as can be expected,” he says. “Though I’d underestimated how much wealthy people will pay for rare items they don’t need.” Declan is apprenticed as a trader, and he’s training with a man who deals in rare artifacts. He’s been traveling from village to village, procuring items for collectors. “Present company aside, of course.”
I frown. “We’re not wealthy.”
“You’re not spoiled,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
I make a noncommittal noise. Another topic I’d rather not discuss.
“What do you have there?” Declan makes a grab for the basket, and I move it out of his reach. He gets a mischievous glint in his eye and lunges toward me, trying to pry it from my fingers.
“Stop,” I say.
He doesn’t.
I yank the basket away and put a hand on his chest. “Declan! Stop it now!”
He freezes and his face falls. I drop my hand to my side. My breathing is ragged.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I was just playing around. I didn’t mean to be intrusive.”
My flowers fell on the ground during the scuffle and now they’re scattered at our feet, trampled. We both bend to gather them at the same moment.
“I overreacted,” I say finally. I’m crouched on the ground next to him, our faces so close that I can feel his breath against my cheek. I tip the basket toward him so he can see inside. “It’s just something from the bone house,” I say. “For my mother.”
He barely glances at the basket. “I’m just trying to be part of your life,” he says. “But I’m not doing it very well.”
His crestfallen expression tugs at a tendril of sympathy inside me. I long to confide in him, to let him pull me into his arms like he has done so many times before, and assure me that everything will turn out perfectly for both of us. But I’m afraid telling him the truth would only make things worse. How can I possibly explain the seed of doubt the kenning has planted in my heart? I don’t know what the bones showed about my future. Did my mother match me with Declan in both realities? And if not Declan, then who?
The naked vulnerability in his eyes thaws what remains of my anger. I touch the back of his hand. “I know. I want to be part of your life, too.”
He threads his fingers through mine. “Next time you go to the bone house, can I come along?”
I want to say no. I nearly do. But we’re bone-matched—at some point I’m going to have to stop second-guessing myself, and act like it.
I take a deep breath. “Yes, of course.”
He tucks a flower behind my ear. “I can’t wait.”
Ami and I sit on the bank of the Shard, our feet dangling in the water. It’s the first truly warm day of spring and my last day of freedom before I begin my tutoring duties.
Since we were children, it’s been our favorite warm-weather tradition—packing a basket full of food and eating it on the grassy riverbank, throwing bits of bread to the ducks, depositing tiny boats made from hastily folded scraps of paper in the river and then placing bets about where they’ll end up.
The sun on the back of my neck is decadent. It’s nice to get a respite from home, where my mother’s gaze is perpetually fixed on the broken bone, as if she can force it to mend with her will alone.
“So,” Ami says, raising her eyebrow suggestively. “How are things going with you and Declan?”
“It’s fine,” I tell her.
“It’s fine? That’s not very romantic for a match sanctioned by fate.”
The secret feels like a bubble in my chest on the verge of bursting. But I can’t tell her that I’m not sure if the match was sanctioned by fate or not.
I twirl one of Ami’s glossy black braids between my fingers and then tuck it behind her ear. “You’re the romantic, not me.”
She smiles. “My parents couldn’t afford a matchmaking reading and, apparently, whoever my soul mate is, he isn’t rich enough to afford one either. Humor me.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sometimes he’s great and then sometimes …” I tell her about him trying to steal the basket from me a few days ago.
Her mouth twists into a disapproving frown. “You need to have an honest conversation with him, Sas. Do you remember when we were children and his parents asked him to gather wood for the fire? And he thought it would be funny to lie down and play dead next to the ax. When his mother found him, she screamed so loud that the whole town came running. She was ready to kill him—for real—but Declan had actually thought she’d be impressed with his joke. He always tried to make a game out of everything, but sometimes he goes overboard.”
Ami is right. Declan was always the one challenging friends to impromptu races. Planning practical jokes. Making everyone laugh with his easygoing approach. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always been drawn to him. Because the only risks he ever takes are playful ones. He only likes danger that ends in laughter.
She drags a toe slowly through the water. “Is it possible you’re finding flaws because you’re scared?”