et's

on the floor of my narrow room with the pages spread around my knees and read every line twice,

ollect me there, and I was to bring one suitcase and one identification card and nothing else that tied me to the pack. I confirmed the

s kit my grandmother had given me, with its tiny silver scissors and neat rows of dried yarrow and willow bark.

leaned into the doorway wi

l," he said. "Come down and help Mother with

d, folding a sweater

h. "Fine. While you are at it, pack Sera's school trunk too. S

d me piggyback through a blizzard when I was seven when I had twisted my an

d quietly. "And Corvin, there is s

n my room for two years, because his own was too cluttered and I had ne

is t

and the garden schedule, and Father's medicine reminders. I have kept all of it running sinc

are really committed to this performance, aren't you? Go on and

nt," I said. "It

and I listened to his footsteps

g joints and labeled every jar in the pantry and hung the spare keys on a hook with a neat paper tag. When I finished, I stood in the kitch

Nobody had asked

ay, wearing the soft, coaxing smile she s

s your study notes along to Sera? Her academic foundation is so

trap of my satchel, where my note

" I said. "I

at? You will be at a combat academy.

They are the only thing I own that i

t that future work was, and why her own daughter was carryi

m the way she would soothe a nervous mare. "You always do

loral arrangements, and I stood alone in the lamplig

e long oak table, and Seraphine pushed her roasted

oonvale," she murmured to no one in particula

e, and he glared at me across the candlelight. "Linnet s

rk with a heavy clink. "Right now. You are spoiling her first c

kin and set it beside my plate. When I spoke, my voice c

ending the dinner

rse you

g tomorrow evening at seve

hope, truly hope, that someone would finally a

s?" Corvin asked, turning away. "Because if

Mother gasped. "Morax, we must s

you like to include?" Father

the briefest moment. In them glittered something small and sharp which

blinking sweetly at Father and

ood something with terrible clarity. They were not ignoring me out of cruelty, or e

the sink, and not one of them asked where I was

ver my trembling hands, I whispered a promise t

ait for anyone