Rowan finished off the water and left the bottle on the box serving as Echo’s nightstand. “Me neither.”
“Great,” Ivy said. She looked from Rowan to Echo before coming to a decision. “I’m gonna go.” She smiled at them both. “It’s nice to see the two of you getting along. Your angst was getting tiresome.” With that, she left.
Echo snorted, then grabbed her bag. She could feel Rowan’s eyes on her as she put aside the things she didn’t need and replaced the things she did.
A heavy sigh sounded as he stood. “Ivy’s right.”
“She usually is,” said Echo. She risked a glance at Rowan. “I really hate that about her.”
The smile that graced his lips was reluctant but sincere. “Me too.” He wrung his hands, looking older than his eighteen years. “Look…I just had a brush with death, and it got me thinking, because mortality is terrifying and you deserve more than what little I said at the train station. Things between us have changed since…since Ruby”—he stumbled over the words as if tripping over the memory itself—“and I just want us to be okay. I want us to start over. As friends, if nothing else. I don’t want all the terrible things that have been thrust upon us to ruin that. You may not be my girlfriend anymore—and I’m fine with that, I am, I’ve changed, too—but you’re still my best friend. I don’t want to let you go.”
“Maybe you should,” Echo said. “Everyone who gets close to me gets hurt, kidnapped, or killed.”
Rowan stepped over the mess on the floor and went to Echo. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, a comforting weight. “And none of that is your fault.” He gave her a playful shake. “You hear me?”
Echo couldn’t help the upward tic of her lips. “I hear you,” she said. Her small smile faded. “But I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Well, tough cookies. Because I’m right,” said Rowan. He tapped one knuckle against the underside of her chin. “You aren’t the reason any of this has happened. This is a lot bigger than you or me or Caius or even Tanith. You’re not to blame for anyone getting hurt, but if I know you, you’ll figure out a way to help them. You always do.”
Echo laid her hand atop the one that still rested on her shoulder. His skin was warm. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed to hear that.”
Rowan looked as if there was something more he wanted to say but, for whatever reason, wouldn’t. He slid his hand out from under hers and stepped away. “Anytime,” he said, with an air of finality. Echo could practically see the walls he was erecting between them. “But Ivy’s right. We shouldn’t dally. The Ala gets cranky when she has to wait.”
CHAPTER SIX
The library of Avalon Castle had once been beautiful.
When the Avicen first sought refuge on the island, the shelves of the library had been bare. In place of books, cobwebs had taken root, crowding into the empty spaces. Loose pages of tomes long disappeared littered the floor like carpeting, waterlogged from the rain let in through the holes in the ceiling. The chandelier that had once hung proudly above the room’s center had fallen, its chains rusted from decades of neglect. Echo had commandeered the aid of Rowan and a few of his Warhawk friends to move it—the half-destroyed brass monstrosity was heavier than it looked—and it still sat, neglected, in a corner of the library, a mournful reminder of the glory days of Avalon. The Ala had taken to using it as a place to dry her laundry. An ignominious end for such a grand furnishing.
The paper mulch had been swept away, revealing hardwood floors that had seen better days. Beneath the rotting floorboards was solid stone, impervious to decay. Each day, the shelves rediscovered their purpose as the Ala filled them with books salvaged from her chamber at the Nest by the mages who had gone to clear it out before human authorities could discover signs of the Avicen’s habitation beneath Grand Central. Echo had added to the collection with books found in her travels. She wanted to help the Avicen rebuild—she was not Avicen by blood, but they were the family who had taken her in when her own had proven too hostile to ever be a home. Echo carried one of the volumes of what she assumed to be Avicen mythology she’d found in Perrin’s shop, along with the triptych she’d taken from the hidden alcove in his office. The book she would contribute to the Avicen’s modest but evolving library—it wasn’t right for so much of their written history to be lost. Echo knew what it was to be untethered. She’d felt that way when she’d first run away from home, before she’d settled into the library on Fifth Avenue. Nothing anchored the soul like a story, and the Avicen had left behind so much at the Nest.
In its current state, the library was less than halfway to what could be labeled good repair, but it was comfortable enough. Echo sat down on one of the wooden benches that the Ala had unabashedly relocated from the castle’s garden to what was now, inarguably, her library. She used the room to meet with the remaining Warhawks, to convene informal councils on how food and necessary supplies would be distributed to the refugees housed within the castle, to plan their steps into an uncertain future. It wasn’t as homey as her chamber at the Nest had been. Echo let herself indulge in a moment of longing for the place that had been her second home; she missed the soft couches and the mountains of pillows and the welcoming glow of candlelight. It had been a place of solace and safety for her. After a turbulent childhood, it had been one of the first places where Echo had found peace. And now it was gone, like so much else.
Dorian and Jasper had claimed the only other viable seating in the library—a cozy nook in front of a picturesque bay window—while Helios, the Drakharin Ivy had brought home, sat on the floor nearby. They were a motley crew, but they were her motley crew. Their presence soothed the parts of Echo that ached when she let herself dwell too long on the sadness nibbling at the edges of her heart.
Echo reached for the box of Gushers she’d swiped from a grocery store on her way home. At least there were still snacks. There would always be snacks, so long as she was alive and able to steal them. She offered one of the pouches to Ivy, who politely declined, and another to Rowan, who took not only the proffered one but also the one Echo had claimed for herself. Greedy bastard. Echo replaced her stolen Gushers and tried to open the foil package as quietly as she could while the Ala spoke. Jasper chomped unabashedly on a handful of sugary cereal, also stolen, straight out of the box.
“Thank you for coming,” the Ala said, as if any of them would decline an invitation from her. As the only surviving member of the Council of Elders, she was the de facto leader of the Avicen.
“Thank you for having us,” Jasper said. He shook the box of cereal in his hands, peering into it dolefully. “Though I must say the refreshments leave something to be desired.”