Of the two of us looking at each other over her shaking form, and then, without speaking a word, getting into bed either side of her. Of her arms wrapping around me, Lief in turn holding us both. Of the smell of my father on the pillow. By the time the sun rose his scent was gone, replaced by our tears, salty and bitter.
I walk away and wait for Silas to leave her, locking the door behind him. When I turn to him his arms are crossed, his fingers tapping them swiftly.
“What’s wrong with her?”
I take a deep breath. “After … the Sleeping Prince invaded Lormere, she … I think she went after Lief. That’s all I can think of, that she tried to get to Lormere to find him. She’d been strange since he went there, quiet and distant, but I put that down to Papa’s death, and the move here, taking their toll. I had to prompt her to eat most of the time, but she was better than she is now. She’d wash and dress herself. Then when we received word that the Sleeping Prince had taken the castle, and had… That was when she stopped. Everything. One day I went to the well to get water and when I came back she was gone. I found her in the woods. She’s been like this since.”
“And the scars, on her arm? Did she do that to herself? Is that why you give her that herbal tea?”
I shake my head. “No. She was scratched when I found her. An animal, maybe?” I try to keep my voice even, try to sound reasonable. “Thorns? Who knows? She won’t say. I cleaned them up and thankfully there was no infection, though as you saw, they scarred.”
There is a long pause, and my heart beats too hard, too fast.
“Can you not… Is there no help for her, a place she could go, a convent or the like here?”
I almost laugh. Yes, there are places; this is Tregellan. If you have the money, then your loved ones can be sent to a convalescent home by the sea. But if you don’t, then it’s the asylum, or the vagrant’s prison.
Besides, she’s not mad. She’s a beast. There is no place for that.
“No. There isn’t. Not for us.”
We both lapse back into silence, me squeezing my dress through my fingers, him staring at the door. Then he speaks again. “What else was in the tea you gave her?”
“Chamomile and valerian. Poppy. To help her rest,” I add hurriedly. “I don’t think she sleeps, not really. I don’t think she does anything other than grieve. The tea at least buys her a few hours of rest.”
“What about you?”
I turn back to him. “What about me?”
He seems to look at me, chewing his lip before he speaks. “Are you—Do you—How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
His voice is painfully kind when he next speaks. “This isn’t fine, Errin. This is far from fine. Surely you can see that?”
Suddenly I can’t stand the sight of him and I want him gone. I don’t want to think about all the ways in which this isn’t fine; of course I can see it isn’t fine, I’m not stupid. It hasn’t been fine since Papa died and it won’t be ever again.
I don’t want to think about Papa, and I certainly don’t want to think about Lief, don’t want to think about him in Lormere, in prison, or trying to fight golems, don’t want to think about them cutting him down. No. He’s alive. I feel it begin to bubble up inside me, something like a scream, or a geyser, something I can’t think about because if I do… I wrestle it back down, pushing away images of Lief’s eyes staring blankly, of wounds in his chest, of his head… His head—No, Errin. Enough.
That doesn’t stop my throat and eyes from burning, and I charge to the front door in three steps. When I throw it open in a clear gesture of dismissal, he sighs. His hood hangs low over his face and suddenly I hate it, want to rip it away. What is he hiding? Who is he?
“Leave,” I say harshly. “Leave, Silas, please. And don’t come back here.”
He seems to look at me for a long moment, chewing his lip, before he nods and walks past me, stopping on the doorstep and turning back.