She pressed her lips together, then said, “You could stay. We could speak to the healers about the curse, and you could help Oliver and me with the Guard.”

“I don’t belong here; you know that.”

“Yes, but…” I felt North’s body tense beside me as she continued. “You’ve proven yourself to be a smart, resourceful wizard. I like having you around, and I’ve missed you greatly these years. I know now it was the right choice to send you to be trained by Pascal, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regret the time we’ve lost.”

“Don’t go soft on me now,” North said. “You’ll need all of those hard edges to deal with the queen’s new policies.”

Hecate scowled. “I suppose I won’t be reappointed when the rankings come next spring. If you’d like to participate in them—”

“You know that’s not an option for me,” North said.

“Not now,” I said, “but maybe in the future?”

They both turned to me in surprise.

“I have some ideas,” I said to North. “I’m not certain they’ll work, but if you’re willing to try, I am.”

“Try, please,” Hecate said. She brought a hand up to his shoulder, and for a moment I thought she would try to embrace him. Instead, North leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Be good, Mother,” he said. “If you need me, I’ll come back. You know that.”

“I hope to see you at the summer solstice. Both of you.” As she turned back toward the doors of the castle, she lifted her hand in a small wave, and we did the same. When she finally disappeared from sight, North released the breath he had been holding. I watched his face for any sign of confusion or hurt, but I found nothing but perfect calm.

He turned to me. “What do you say we leave now?”

“You don’t want to stay for the celebrations?” I asked, surprised.

“No,” he said. “I just want some quiet.”

North stepped away, reaching down for the bags I hadn’t noticed before. He threw them both over his shoulder.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that I would make you a loom. Would you be able to describe it to me? Exactly how you want it?”

“North,” I began, but he didn’t allow me to finish.

“It would mean a lot to me,” he said. “It’s something that I want to do for you. I’d only need a little guidance and to stop in one of the towns to pick up the tools I’d need. I think Fairwell would have something I could use, don’t you?”

“North, I would love anything you made me,” I began, wrapping my arms around his warm center. “But I was hoping that you could take me home to Cliffton. I realized after talking to Henry how much I miss it, and I need to see my family and friends. Could you take me there?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” There was a strange touch of sadness to his words that I didn’t understand, but before I could say anything else, he brought the cloak I made for him up around us and we were gone.

EPILOGUE

It was nearly a month and a half before that same smile returned. Once North had twisted us out of the city, I carefully plotted our path west. We stayed on the Prima Road, the road we would have taken to Provincia if we had been able. After walking its straight path across the countryside for several weeks, I had to admit that the way we had taken before, however roundabout, had been far more interesting.

North and I stopped when we were tired, ate when we needed to, and worked when our gold ran low. It was a familiar routine, but one filled with far less fear and a lot more joy than our earlier trip. Everything had changed between us, and yet it felt as if nothing had. It was strange to me how I could go from hating everything about a person to loving even his worst faults.

As we neared the imposing barrier of the Sasinou Mountains and felt the first wave of desert heat wash over us, something in North’s demeanor changed.

“I think I can twist the rest of the way,” he said, stopping suddenly. His eyes were on the mountains, not on me.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “It looks as if it’ll be more than a mile.”

“Do you really want to try to navigate those beastly trails again?” North said. “No, thank you!”

He brought up his cloak before I could protest. I clung to his shoulders, holding him close. When our feet hit the ground, the cloak remained up around us, as if he never wanted the moment to end. I would have been perfectly happy to stay there, cocooned in darkness and his solid warmth.

But there was that scent, just a hint of it, a mere memory. Though I had experienced it only once, I recognized the way the smell of rain combined with the yellow dust and created a scent unique and beautiful.

The cloak fell down around us.

We were standing on the smooth surface of a rock, overlooking a valley of patchwork green and brown. There were roads, the old houses of stone and mud, the small schoolhouse, and the markets all still showing signs of the Saldorran attack.

I knew this view very well. That was Cliffton below us, though it was no Cliffton that I had ever known. There were patches of green dotting the valley, fields of vegetables and maybe even fruit. Not only that, but I could see the irrigation canal they had begun to dig. The lingering traces of the most recent rain shower were around us, casting the valley in unfamiliar light. Heavy gray clouds hung low over our heads, and there was the delicious scent of wet dust and something else.