I guess I was wrong about no one caring how I feel about Liv. “Thanks . . . It feels like I lost her a long time ago, though.”
“When she left for Rim?”
“Yeah.” In a way, I’ve been grieving for Liv since she left to marry Sable, the northern Blood Lord she was betrothed to. The day she walked out of the Tide compound, I knew I’d probably never see her again. The difference is that now I’m sure of it.
A lump rises in my throat. I shouldn’t say anything more. But the way Hyde is watching me, like he really wants to know, to listen to me, makes me feel safe.
“We did everything together. Me and Perry and Roar and Liv. The cave? We used to sneak out of the compound and go there, the four of us. Just to get away from the tribe and be alone.”
“I heard that,” Hyde says.
I stare at him, questions flitting through my mind. What exactly did he hear? From who?
“Reef mentioned something about it once,” he rushes to say.
It’s a poor cover-up. Reef is the last person in the world who would discuss something so trivial. Hyde just doesn’t want me to feel gossiped about, but I don’t really care. People gossip. I’m guilty of it too. But unlike Hyde, I never pass up a good teasing opportunity when I see one.
“Reef was telling stories about the adventures Liv, Perry, Roar, and I had in the cave?”
“Maybe it was Gren or Hayden.”
“Or Twig or Straggler?”
“Er . . . yeah.” Hyde grins sheepishly, knowing I’ve caught him. “One of those.”
He has a softer-looking face than Perry, I notice. His nose and jaw are more sweeping than starkly cut. Kindness rests easily in his eyes.
“It was a long time ago,” I say lightly. Only six months, actually, but I don’t want to look like I’m stuck in the past. “We used to think it was the greatest place. Well, Roar, Liv, and I did. Perry never liked it much. But Liv and I . . . we felt like it was a whole new world that we’d discovered. We used to see it as someplace magical.” I laugh a little, picturing the dark hovel we just left behind. “I can’t believe we used to think that.”
Hyde scratches the scruff on his chin. “I can.”
“You can believe it?”
He lifts his shoulders. “Sure.”
“No, you can’t.”
Hyde laughs. “I really can. Isn’t that what magic is? Something you see when you shouldn’t?”
“If that’s your definition of magic, then it’s everywhere.” I wave at the sky, which shouldn’t be the way it is either. “Even up there.”
Hyde looks up, his expression turning pensive as he considers the Aether.
“You’re kidding, right?” I say, watching him. “You can’t really think there’s magic in the Aether?” I just see destruction.
“What if it’s not what you see, but how you see it? What if the magic is in your perspective?” He gestures to the plateau that spreads in front of us. “What if real magic is about having the right outlook? The right view on life?”
I feel like he’s just become someone different before my eyes. Someone poetic. Someone intriguing. All I can do is stare at him.
After a moment, he looks away.
“Why did you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“Turn away from me.”
“I was regretting what I said.”
“Why?” What he just said was beautiful. I can’t believe he regrets it. “What do you have to lose if you say what you want to say?”
Hyde is suddenly fascinated with pulling a bit of leather from the frame of his quiver.
“Hyde?” I prompt.
“I don’t know how to act around you sometimes,” he says, winding the leather around his finger.
“Sometimes?”
“Alone,” he says. “When we’re alone.”
“I intimidate you?”
He lifts his head. “Completely.” His eyes hold steady on my face. “I don’t want to ruin my chance to know you, Brooke. That’s why. I don’t want to ruin it by saying the wrong things.”