An Affinity For Fire

25. Clover

After having three separate guards ask her what she was doing out of her room so early in the morning, Clover decided it would be best to just wait in her room until Leo was done talking with Fitteia. It would be easier for him to find her there, anyway, and the sooner she heard whatever the aderach had said, the happier she would be.

Remaining in her room, however, was proving to be tedious. She was too nervous to sleep and no amount of pacing, reading, making the bed, reorganising her travel pack or counting the embroidered flowers on the curtain could take her mind off the consuming dread she felt.

The one effective distraction she could find was her bedside candle. She'd spent half the night obsessing over its flame. She hadn't yet figured out how to manipulate it, but what she had deduced through trial and error was that, while most of her body still felt the sting of its heat, her hands and forearms were completely immune. When she'd tried just days before, after her accident with the lamp, it had only been her hands. The day after that, she had made it half way up her forearms. Now she was at the elbows.

Most people who made it past the age of twelve without signs of an affinity gave up hoping. Clover certainly had. She'd heard of mages only discovering their gifts in their twenties or even thirties, but it was so rare that she'd never considered it a possibility.

And with mages being attacked in all corners of the realm, it felt like more of a curse than a gift.

She was absently waving her fingers over the candle when she heard the knock at the door. Panicking, she almost blew it out, before realising there was nothing suspicious about having a lit candle in a dark room.

"Come in," she called out as firmly as she could. Her body was starting to tremble.

 The door swung open to reveal Leo and Tarry. Leo pulled up the one chair in her room, leaving Tarry to take a seat next to her on the bed.

"Alright, let us out of our misery," Tarry said. "What did they say?"

Clover dug her nails into her palms as Leo took a deep breath through the nose.

"They said, if we want to succeed, we have to stop hoping to find Cava, because we're not going to."

Clover fought against the tightening of her stomach, swallowing.

"That can't be all they said," she forced out.

"It wasn't," Leo said. She felt a small rush of relief, until he added, "They said we have all the information we need and that the only way we won't fail is if we start being honest with each other."

She could feel her pulse in her ears. Out the corner of her eye, she could still see the flickering of her candle.

"What does that even mean?" Tarry asked.

"I think it's pretty ruddy obvious," Leo said. "Apparently, there are things we're not telling each other."

You would have told them anyway, Clover thought, not that it made it any more pleasant a task. She sighed.

"Alright, I'll get mine out the way."

The boys watched as she reluctantly stretched out her hand and held it over her candle, letting the flame weave through her fingers. She saw the sudden panic cross their eyes, then watched it melt into realisation.

Tarragon's gaze turned cold and dropped to the bed. "So you're-"

"Yeah," she cut him off. "And don't act like this is some massive lie, I only found out a few days ago."

He didn't look any less hurt. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because it wasn't important."

"It doesn't matter, I thought we told each other everything."