of the time before the curse. Steam from the coffee tickled my fingers. “You two were always fighting, back when he first came to the bakery. I remember that part.” It had been ugly, now that I thought about it. Ugly for both of them. I recalled Ella’s red, painful-looking injury from the bomb, and Weslan’s tired, bloodshot eyes always tracking her as she stormed around the bakery.
“He hated my scar back then.” Ella brushed the pale, raised skin that ran from her temple to her jaw. “Not because it was hard to look at but because of all it represented. The failure of the system he’d benefited from all his life. The prejudice of the terrorists who’d attacked defenseless students in the middle of our final exam. The cruelty of the mages who’d refused to heal me.”
Tavar shook his head. “If it represents all that, why doesn’t he want it to disappear now?”
“Because those awful things worked together for an astounding amount of good, of course! Imagine.” Ella shifted, bringing her knees up under her and moving baby Nikolai to her other shoulder. “Because of this scar, I took up the fight for freedom for Asylian mages——a life of freedom for Bri and Albs and Mom, and Weslan, too. Not to mention the scar brought the two of us together, because how would we ever have got to know each other if I’d continued down the path I’d always planned, toward a government apprenticeship and all that came with it? And most of all, this scar changed him—from a man who thought only of his own comfort to a man who would give his very life for me.” She kissed Nikolai’s cheek. “For us.”
I found myself nodding slowly. “Weslan doesn’t want to forget.”
Ella turned her head to the side and bent forward, showing Nikolai her scar. The dimpled five-month-old grinned, drool spilling out of his toothless mouth, and reached for the scar with his chubby fingers. “I suppose I don’t want to forget either,” Ella said, laughing as the baby patted her face. “And isn’t that what scars do? Remind us of the things we might otherwise forget?”
Nikolai squealed his agreement. He was a handsome little thing—golden skin, green eyes, and dark hair, little wisps of it, the glossy strands shining even in the dim, rainy morning light.
I took another sip of my coffee, then set it on the table beside the couch and held out my arms. “I need more baby kisses.”
Ella passed him to me, then sat back, stretched out her legs, and reached for her own cup of coffee. “It’s a good idea.” She spoke to her coffee, not to us, but I knew exactly what was on her mind—the topic I’d been avoiding ever since announcing it to the family the previous week.
We’d told Grandfather Silvio first, after getting the final approval from the prince to move forward with the plan, and then we’d gone straight to my parents’ villa for a family meeting. It hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, but they seemed to be more accepting now that a week had passed.
“It is a good idea,” Ella repeated, as though trying to convince herself. “But I don't like the thought of you and Tavar doing it, and I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.”
I’d known she’d say that, which was exactly why I’d been trying to avoid this conversation. I bounced Nikolai on my knee. “What do you mean not worth the risk? All those people—”
“The plague began almost twenty years ago! You know how quickly it spread. What if there's no one left to save? What if they’re already lost?”
“Actually …” Now it was my turn to avoid her gaze. “Chloe checked in the mirror.”
“I thought we weren’t allowed to use alchemy anymore.”
“The prince made an exception. She looked before the mirror was destroyed.”
“And what did she find?” Ella sounded wary.
“Survivors,” I said, my throat tight at the memory of the thin, miserable people we’d seen in the mirror. “Not many, but some.”
“But how can they live? With the plague spreading, and no cure, no healers—”
“They keep the sick quarantined, keep to themselves,” Tavar said. He tickled Nikolai’s back, making him smile.
“They’re still dying.” My voice was hoarse, even as I smiled back at Nikolai. “Just slowly. Painfully.”
“Then we have to do something.” Nikolai reached for Ella, so she took him from me and drew him close. He gurgled, nuzzling her neck, and gripped her hair with his tiny, dimpled fists.