I let out an embarrassed laugh. “And then I tread the course of many adolescent women and entrust my heart to a male, only to find him less than prepared to take care of it. You would think having gone through it several times, I would learn. But they almost always decide I’m mad. Even the ones I’m convinced will believe me.”

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“That’s not all that comforting.”

He feigns offense. “And why not?”

“Because you’re crazier than I am?”

He plucks a root from the ground beneath him, twirling it in his hands. “Who knows, Wanderer. Maybe you’ve been looking in the wrong places for affection. Maybe crazy is just what you need.”

He holds my stare for a while, and his cocky grin softens somewhat.

I’m the first to break the stare, unable to help the embarrassment climbing my cheeks.

Bad.

This is definitely bad.

CHAPTER 78

ELLIE

After the attack, I spend the mornings in the infirmaries. We’ve never had many in Othian. Only the one within the castle walls, and the public infirmary close to the town’s square.

Tented field infirmaries popped up all over town after the attack. Peck often mutters that none of them contain proper healers, but he spends his off-time volunteering at them, so I try not to scold him for placing so much judgment on those who are just trying to help.

The infirmaries themselves are dismal. The one Other that attacked the nursery had been the only one to penetrate the castle’s inner defenses. It had been cut off from the rest, and still it killed two dozen guards before it was finally put down.

The city was not so lucky.

Half of the establishments in the commerce quarter are destroyed. Forcier’s bakery is gone, though he made it out alive and spends his days using the kitchens of friends to bake goods for the injured and bereaved.

Madame Lefleur’s is gone, too.

Thankfully, my parents’ house was spared, though the workshop took some damage. Even though Evander is dealing with his new role as king, he still finds time every day to come by the workshop and help my father with the repairs.

Overall, there’s a grief that hangs over the city, one as palpable as the thick air of Charshon.

Life as we knew it, the kind we had settled into, is gone.

This is our life now—working endless hours getting supplies to and from the makeshift infirmaries, trying to keep the injured from dying of simple things like dehydration. The infirmaries are overrun and understaffed, and the burns from the Others’ venom lick away at the moisture in their victims’ bodies.

I take Cecilia along with me, strapped to my back. My mother keeps offering to watch her, and it probably makes more sense than suffering the knots that develop in my shoulders and neck from carrying her, but I just can’t bear to leave her.

Not when any day now, those creatures might return.

Not when we are helpless.

Helpless.

Wasn’t that why I told Evander I wanted to go with him to the Rip? Because I’d felt useless, helpless?

It occurs to me I didn’t know the definition of those words until now.

My hands ache to do something, anything. So I do what I can, and though that mostly means lugging pails of water from the castle water reserves to the infirmaries where the healers can distribute them to patients, it’s at least something. Something that leaves my palms with the calluses of doing.

I don’t see much of Evander in the days following the attack. While I’m out lugging pails of water around, he’s stuck in meetings with the nobles who escaped death or major injury. There aren’t many of them, but they all have opinions, opinions that seem to contradict. Each of them feels Evander is unqualified to rule, which apparently they make evident at each meeting.

When he isn’t coming up with a plan for rebuilding the kingdom or rallying allies or funding the research of weapons that could actually defend against the Others, he’s busy around town. He’s rebuilding cottages and helping children find their way back to their parents. Holding their hands and finding them homes when there are no parents to be found.

He’s put several of them up at the palace.

Too many of them to be practical, but it isn’t as if anyone is going to say anything.

Even Evander’s cousin knows better than that.

Sometimes I feel a hand brush mine at the wells, catch a faint glimpse of my husband flashing me a smile when we find ourselves drawing water for the infirmaries at the same time.

We almost always arrive home at different times, one of us always discovering the other already passed out in bed.

I can hardly remember the last time we had a full conversation without either of us falling asleep.

But still. Evander leads. And Evander learns. And Evander serves. And I can hardly think about any of it without a lump forming in my throat.

One day, we find ourselves fortunate enough to be at my parents’ at the same time. Mama convinced me I need sleep, and that she was perfectly capable of taking care of Cecilia for a few hours while I got some rest in my old bedroom.

I do feel better, more clearheaded, once I awake from a deathlike slumber. Part of me feels guilty though, like there are people out in the city who might have died of dehydration while I’ve been curled up in my old bed, succumbed to the blissful oblivion of sleep.

My mother doesn’t tolerate me admitting as much, and after I feed Cecilia, she sends me out to see to my father, who she claims is equally dreadful about allowing himself rest.

Indeed, I find him in his workshop, hammering away at a loose board that came off during the attack.

He looks at me and smiles faintly. I don’t say anything as I pick up a hammer and get to work alongside him.

Evander shows up not long after, placing a kiss on my forehead before grabbing a hammer and joining us.

It doesn’t take long being in the workshop for me to transition back to helping my father with his tasks.

As we work, he asks Evander what must be an overwhelming amount of questions about what is being done about Azrael and the Others.

“Papa,” I say, “Evander sits through meetings about this all day. And when he’s not in meetings, he’s out helping like the rest of us.”

Evander rubs my shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s a citizen here, too. He has a right to know what’s being done.”

So Evander tells him. He tells him of rallying support from the other kingdoms and the troubling news of Naenden being overtaken.

My heart lurches for Asha, the idea of her being trapped in a marriage with Azrael, her nightmares coming true.