A Song of Faithless Shadows

32. Salvage

Gwyneth
Nesta refuses to open her mouth until the moment she is sure the boys are out of earshot- which is a devastating waiting game when you, yourself, cannot talk to fill the gnawing silence. She doesn't offer me the parchment she has tucked in her side bag, and I don't dare reach for it.

"I know I have no right. I know it." That's the first thing she says.

My brows drop in an expression of my boundless confusion.

Her eyes are glossy, but I know she won't cry. "I have no right telling you how you should react when something has been stolen from you. It wasn't taken from me, and yet, all I can seem to focus on is how I can make things right," she presses her lips together. "And damnit, Gwyn, I'm so scared. I never want anything in this world to touch you. It's not fair to you."

I cannot take it anymore. I snatch the paper from her satchel.

You're protective, Nesta, I scrawl. It's one of the things I love most about you. Don't punish yourself for it.

The presses her lips together again, that same face she's always making when she's trying not to cry. "I never want you to feel like you can't come to me," she says. "I want to be with you on every frontline, Gwyn."

I begin to wish my tear ducts had been stolen, my eyes swimming and blurring my vision of Nesta. I hardly have the sight to write, tear drops blotting the parchment.

Maybe if I had come to you, you would've talked some sense into me. Maybe if I had come to you, I wouldn't have nearly killed Azriel.

"Don't be like that," she murmurs. "You have been stolen from, and we all want it to be right. None of us want to rest until we make this right because we love you, Gwyn."

My eyes dart to Azriel. We? I don't even write the thought out, but Nesta reads it nonetheless.

"Yes, him too. Gwyn, you have this sense to you where people are unable to do anything but love you. It's a genuine impossibility. Azriel didn't just come with you apathetically. I'm not just here because I like the beach. You have people in your corner, Gwyn. You always will," she says. "And maybe you were right about Meryl. Maybe she wasn't setting you up. Maybe she wasn't immune to your charm. Maybe she's trying to keep you safe."

I wipe my eyes with the salty back of my hand.

I don't even know what I believe anymore, I write. Nesta, I was glowing.

Nesta nods, swallowing. "I know. I was hoping you might know what that's about, but you looked about as surprised as the rest of us," she also glances at Azriel. I imagine that must've been a staggering thing to see when coming too.

I look up at the cave in the distance, something cold and gnawing at me.

I've read things about proximity magic before. Sometimes, a certain place- even a certain thing, person- can coax the magic out of someone. Meryl said something about it once. How we are not the creators of magic, but rather the vessels, manifestations of it. Magic is as alive as any of us, if not more. And this place... I don't feel indifference to it.

Nesta swallows, suddenly unsettled. "I see," she helps me stand. "Rhysand!" She snaps across the beach, her brother-in-laws head snapping up, Azriel's a moment later. Slow reaction for him. We really ought to get him to a medic. "We gotta get to the library."

...

Azriel is sleeping off his head injury into the early afternoon, awaiting his Illyrian healing to restore him. Emerie, Nesta, Rhys, and I had then retreated into the library, combing through different sections of it for answers regarding what one might call someone who lights up how I did, keeping an eye out for things that might pertain to the cavern we discovered while we're at it.