had just gone through, it was one of the worst moments she had experienced: to witness her mother behold Halcyon’s poor state of health.
“Lydia?” Phaedra said, serene although her hands were shaking. “Will you go fetch my pot of salve and one of my old chitons? We can shred it into new bandages.”
Lydia moved at once, slipping from the room. And Evadne noticed that Maia was trying her best not to weep as she stared at Halcyon, her face crumpling. Evadne took her cousin’s arm. “Can you bring down a fresh set of clothes for Halcyon?”
Maia nodded and was gone, and it was only Phaedra, Evadne, and Halcyon.
Quietly, they bathed her, minding Halcyon’s raw forearms. Evadne could see the countless questions in her mother’s gaze, but she held them captive.
Halcyon’s eyes fluttered open. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, shallow and wet.
“I know, I look terrible . . .” she rasped.
“You are beautiful, Halcyon. So beautiful.” Phaedra stroked Halcyon’s face again.
Evadne sensed that she should leave. They needed a moment alone.
She departed the chamber, closing the twin doors behind her only to discover her father in the corridor. He stood against the wall, arms crossed, waiting.
“Father?”
“I need to know everything, Pupa,” Gregor murmured. “Did you sneak Halcyon from the quarry? Are you fugitives? How did your sister come to be so ill? Was it Lord Straton? I will kill that man if he ever steps foot on my lands again.”
Evadne hesitated. What could she possibly say to her father? She could not tell him everything. Not yet. She would have to tell him bits and pieces.
She reached out to touch Gregor’s arm. “Father . . . I . . .”
She noticed Uncle Ozias from the corner of her eye, tentatively approaching.
“Uncle Ozias,” she breathed, and when he held out his arms, she went to him.
He embraced her, holding her tight for a moment. He was just as she remembered him being, save for the long scar on the right side of his face. His chiton smelled of sun and smoke, and she wondered where he had been for the past ten years. Why he had stayed away so long. She felt Kirkos’s relic beneath her tunic, and she stiffened, hoping he could not feel it.
“How you have grown, Evadne! The last time I saw you, you did not even reach my elbow,” Ozias said, pulling back so he could study her. “Gregor said you favored him, and yet I could not imagine it. But now I see . . . he was right.”
Gregor was still overwhelmed, trying not to cry. Evadne glanced to her father, watched him run his hand through his messy hair.
“Yes,” Evadne said, looking back to her uncle. “I am happy you have returned home.”
There was an awkward beat of silence. Ozias cleared his throat and said, “I know, I have been away for too long. But when I heard the news of Halcyon and how you had left Isaura to take a portion of her sentence . . . I wanted to come home. To see my brothers.”
Evadne’s heart warmed, and she was opening her mouth to say more when Lydia and Maia returned to the corridor, bearing fresh clothes and bandages and warm tea for Halcyon.
“I will tell you everything soon, Father,” Evadne promised Gregor. She began to follow her aunt and cousin into the common room when Ozias took a gentle hold of her arm.
“Wait, Evadne.”
She paused, expectant as she looked at her uncle.
Ozias glanced down the corridor, where Uncle Nico and Lysander stood, curious. “I told Nico not to ride for the healer.”
“Why?” A flash of anger coursed through Evadne.
Ozias’s eyes shifted nervously. From Gregor’s scowl to Evadne’s anger to Nico’s and Lysander’s confusion. “When you have finished dressing Halcyon, will you invite us back into the chamber? There is something I need to say to her, and I would like the entire family to be present.”
Evadne did not like his request, and she found that she did not wholly trust Ozias. But she only nodded and slipped into the common room, leaving the men in the shadows of the corridor.
Aunt Lydia and Phaedra were making swift work of cleaning and rebandaging Halcyon’s wounds and cuts. Soon, they had Halcyon dressed in a clean chiton, and Maia was helping Halcyon sip the tea.
“Where is the healer, I wonder?” Phaedra asked, rising and gathering the soiled linens.
“Uncle Ozias has something to say to Halcyon,” Evadne said. “Before the healer arrives.”
Her mother and