Amity nods excitedly. “I told you, it’s a crossroads for illegal activity. If it’s crazy illegal, then it ends up in Sureth.”

I check the list again, my gaze transfixing on one ingredient alone.

There, written in a child’s rather neat handwriting, is the only thing that could ever convince me to let Asha go to the Rip without me.

Liquid moonlight.

CHAPTER 22

ASHA

It’s day three of being away from Kiran, and I already feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.

I thought for sure this trip wouldn’t be any worse than waiting around at Othian castle, puttering about to distract myself as we waited on a message that Kiran, Evander, and Blaise were safe.

But somehow, this feels different.

There’s a permanence about our separation that makes my bones ache, my muscles quiver.

My magic doesn’t like it. It didn’t like it when I was convincing Kiran to find his father with Fin, but I hadn’t admitted as much.

If I don’t want Blaise in the middle of our marriage, I certainly don’t want my magic in the middle of it, either.

But still.

It was a gut feeling of my magic’s that led me to sacrifice myself as a bride to Kiran in the first place—my magic’s hunch that somehow, Dinah was in danger.

It’s that same primal feeling that has my gut churning with every step closer to Charshon.

The first leg of the trip the group took together, with Kiran and Fin splitting off from us once we reached the border of Dwellen and Avelea. They’ll venture further into Avelea, while our party will skirt the coastline and venture into Charshon.

Kiran kissed me before he left, and I clung onto him longer than I should have.

This will not end well, my magic whispers to me with every step.

We take the path that cuts through the Kobii mountains, and I often find myself lost in the beauty of the forested mountainscapes—the lush greenery that lets off a cool glow, even in the summer months, the spray of the ocean that laps up against the cliffs as we reach the coast.

Since Blaise is with our party, we save most of our traveling for nighttime, which has my body all out of sorts. I’m feeling a bit disoriented all the time, but I try not to complain. It means that we rest during daylight hours, and since I struggle to sleep through them, I often find myself perched on a knobby log or up against a tree, breathing in the pleasant salt-flavored air and allowing the spray of the cool, white ocean to coax me into some semblance of peace while everyone else sleeps in their tents.

It’s during one of these moments that Amity, Marcus’s daughter, skips up to me, a handful of poorly wrapped parcels in her little grip.

When Amity first arrived, I thought her to be about ten, but Marcus quickly explained that she’s thirteen, and her tiny frame is due to malnourishment when she was younger.

He rambled on about how proud he was of her for how much weight she’d gained in the past few months, though I could tell from the creases forming at the corners of his eyes that his heart was still fraught with concern over her.

Thankfully, Amity does not seem to have the abysmal energy levels of a child who is malnourished.

In fact, she seems to have the energy to talk constantly. I feel like this probably would have annoyed a younger version of myself, but I find her gregarious, if not overly candid, nature quite refreshing.

Or perhaps I just welcome a distraction from my magic’s repetitive thoughts.

She shoves the pile of parcels into my arms, then immediately rebukes me when I drop one.

“Those are important. And fragile,” she says, looking at me with disapproval as I scrape the fallen parcel off the ground. The fabric immediately goes flitting off, grasped by the playful wind, to which the poorly tied knot gives way.

“I apologize profusely,” I say, to which Amity gives me a suspicious look before chattering on.

“You’ll find my best mixture of healing agents in there, including my most famous concoction, ressuroot paste.”

“Ooooh…what’s ressuroot paste?” I try to infuse my voice with enthusiasm, which apparently falls flat on Amity’s ears, because she frowns.

“You haven’t heard of it?”

“Uhh…” Thankfully Marcus is walking over to us, limping a bit. My eye must be screaming HELP, because he chuckles and says, “Amity here is a little genius. Saved mine and Piper’s life back at the palace in Avelea, and my sister’s, too.”

Amity’s face falls a little. “I betrayed them, but I was only pretending. And only because I had to. I hated it the entire time.”

Marcus rubs the top of Amity’s already rumpled braid, only making conditions worse, but Amity seems to soak up the attention. “It was genius.” He nods to the parcel, gesturing me to open it.

When I do, I find a vial of rather pungent paste that gives me the inclination to plug my nose, though I don’t for Amity’s sake.

“How does it work?” I ask.

Marcus opens his mouth, but Amity beats him to the explanation. He clamps his mouth shut with a smile, like he should have known better than to try.

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but it was tracked over here by the original fae. Boots are really bad about that, you know,” she says, glancing at my boots in judgment. “But I guess I can be glad about it in this one instance. Anyway, the Fates cursed the ressuroot to be poisonous, but the Fates like to be ironic—ironic means different than you’d expect—so they made it so that it’s only lethal if it’s injected anywhere else but your heart. In your heart, it’s its own antidote!”

I raise a brow. “So if you stab yourself in the heart with it…”

“It makes it look like it’s killed you, but then it heals you back,” says Amity, a proud grin planted on her face. “Helpful if you ever need to fake your death.”

I glance at Marcus, who shrugs his shoulders and places his palms sky-up. “Believe me, I was also skeptical. Until Amity managed to outsmart all of us, including the man trying to overthrow the King of Avelea.”

Amity crosses her arms. “That’s not really a compliment, since James is an idiot.”

Marcus lets out a deep, bellowing laugh, but coughs soon punctuate the pleasant sound. He excuses himself, claiming his throat is dry.

As he limps away, Amity’s eyes trace his steps.

“He’s better some days than others, but sometimes I think he’s faking being better. He used to pick me up and put me on his shoulders,” she says, little emotion in her voice. “He says I’m getting too big for it now, but I know that’s not true, because I’ve grown minimally since the last time he did it, and he only stopped after Abra poisoned him.”

My mouth grasps for a response, but what am I supposed to say to a child who’s watching her parent die slowly?

I suppose I could tell her he’s going to be fine, but Amity seems too sharp to be fooled by that. Besides, it’s always felt icky to me when people treat children like they’re undeserving of the truth. Like somehow their age and immaturity makes it okay to lie to them.

So I just settle on, “I bet if he could pick you up, he would.”

Amity gives me a long, assessing look, then nods her head in agreement.