Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,93
her voice pulled taut, on the edge of cracking. “I trusted him when I shouldn’t have, and I ruined everything.”
Nahteran pulls back from me, looking pained. He shakes his head slightly. “I’m the one who should apologize.” He takes a deep breath and looks down at his hands. “I worked for the Prince for years. I trusted him. I almost gave him the armor—”
“But you didn’t,” I cut in. I grab Nahteran’s shoulder so he’s forced to look up at me. “You were a kid.” I turn my gaze to Mom. “And you fought the soul trade. You dedicated your life to fighting it. One mistake doesn’t undo that.” Tears are welling up inside me, but they aren’t tears of sadness, not precisely. Still …
I glance at Mom, who was watching Nahteran like a hawk for hours before I fell asleep. Even though Mom is almost entirely still, even bruised and battered and her face lined and heavy with grief—even so, she looks more alive than I’ve seen her in ten years.
“No more apologies,” I manage to get out. “No one’s ruined anything. We’re all here, we’re alive. That’s what matters.”
I know it can’t stay like this, the three of us here in peaceful stillness. When the Silver Prince’s lackeys broke into Sterling Correctional and kidnapped Mom, they obviously didn’t do her the courtesy of covering his tracks. She’s still a fugitive, still wanted, still on death row. We’ll have to help her go into hiding, or figure something else out. But at least she’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s going to stay that way.
As it turns out, yesterday was the last day of the summit. I’d completely lost track of the time. Willow supervised the exodus of the delegates through the doorways this morning while Marcus was with us in the infirmary. Somehow, miraculously, the commotion from the ballroom this morning didn’t wake the delegates, and the exit proceeded as planned.
By the time I’m feeling well enough to venture out to the kitchen with Marcus at my side, the hallways of Havenfall are shockingly empty and so quiet that I almost think I can hear the yellow sun streaming through the windows. Usually, the end of the summer and the delegates leaving makes me melancholic, the final ritual before I have to climb on the bus back to Sterling and go back to my life. To being Murder Girl again, to being alone every day, to a world empty of magic.
But I don’t feel sad this year. Mostly because when I was dozing in the infirmary, eyes closed but not quite asleep, I caught a little of the quiet conversation between Mom and Marcus. I overheard words like tutors and homeschooling and possibly SATs. And keep the kids together.
Nahteran and Mom can’t go back into the real world, at least not yet. Nahteran is thought to be dead, and Mom’s a fugitive. So I have a feeling that Marcus won’t make me go back to Sterling. After what happened, he’ll probably never let me out of his sight again. And given the choice, I’ll always choose Havenfall.
“I’ve been thinking,” Marcus tells me in the kitchen, then trails off. I’m at the worktable, wolfing down a bowl of cereal as fast as I can without my bruised face hurting. My uncle’s at the counter, chopping vegetables for dinner. His favorite thing about the end of the summit, every year, is that with all the staff gone, he gets to start cooking again. I look up—thinking, at first, that his voice has just been lost in the loud drone of the window AC unit that he’s cranked up. But I see him looking thoughtful, eyes in the middle distance.
“Thinking about what?” I prompt.
Marcus takes a deep breath. “I think we should call off next summer’s peace summit.”
I stiffen, a half-chewed bite of cereal lodging in my throat. I swallow it down painfully and then stare at Marcus like he’s lost his mind. “Cancel it? Why?”
“Not cancel,” Marcus says. He tips the cutting board to the side, pushing a pile of carrot slices into a bowl with the blade of the chef’s knife. “Postpone it, I suppose.” He looks up, meets my eyes. “And instead, call a few people we trust from all the Realms to spend the year here with us. And work together to root out the rest of the soul trade here in Haven, and even in the other realms, since we have the phoenix flame armor. What do