Page 13 of The Midnight Arrow

“I knew him,” Lorik said. “He was a friend of my father’s. Long ago.”

I filed that information away and continued, “The Lunaer Celebration was coming up, and I had no gift for her. It was her tenth year, and I wanted the gift to be special. And all I couldthink of was the bracelet. So one day, I went into the shop and when Merec had his back turned, I took it.”

Lorik looked at me steadily, and I couldn’t help but give him a half smile.

“I think my sister wanted the bracelet enough to not ask too many questions. She liked pretty things. But I couldn’t sleep at night. I felt so guilty, taking something from someone who had only ever shown us kindness. So two days later, I went back to Merec and confessed what I’d done.”

“And?”

I smoothed the cloth down Lorik’s chest and felt it rumble with the spoken word. I could feel his heart beating beneath my palm, heat radiating off him, though he’d cooled significantly from earlier that afternoon.

“He told me to keep the bracelet, to let my sister have it, but that I needed to work in his shop to repay him,” I said. “For three months I worked there, sneaking away from the home when I could. But it was the favorite part of my day. I enjoyed the tidying, the stocking, hearing the little bell ring when the door opened. It was so bright in there, the sunlight came streaming in through the windows, so I made sure they were clean every day. I grew to love the sound of drills and the rotation of the polishing basket. I always imagined hundreds of jewels tumbling in there.”

I met Lorik’s eyes. His legs were too long for my bed, but at least I’d taken off his boots this time. I’d needed to strip him down to nothing to fight the fever and only kept a sheet across his groin for privacy. But the outline of him was…distracting, and I felt guilty thinking that when he was ill and in my care.

“Then one day…I came to the shop and Merec was justgone. His jewelry was packed up. His tools cleared out. He left a note for me, short but nice, saying he was leaving Rolara but nothing more. He said he was glad we were friends. He left me some money—more money than I’d ever seen—which I used when Ileft Correl’s. Without his generosity, I don’t know what would have happened. And that was it. I never saw or heard from him again. But I think about him every time I walk past that shop. It’s still empty. At one point, I thought I might take it over someday.”

“Why don’t you?” Lorik asked, shifting slightly in the bed, wings repositioning. He winced—the muscles, no doubt, stiff.

“You need money for that,” I told him. “Besides, I do well enough on my potions, but…I could never leave my glowflies. The Black Veil is my home.”

“Aren’t you frightened of it?”

“You’re asking for a lot of my secrets when you’ve given me none of yours,” I pointed out.

Lorik trapped my wrist under his palm, and my breathing went tight. His coloring was lighter than the average Kylorr’s, his skin a silvery tone of gray, making him appear like he was glowing…like he was otherworldly. Allavari had elf-like features and lithe, graceful silhouettes. With Lorik, it made for an interesting and overwhelming mix with the brute, winged strength of a powerful Kylorr male.

He was…magnetic. Beautiful but dangerous. I’d felt his pull long before now.

His finger stroked down my wrist, over the bandage there, and my heart sped.

“A secret?” he asked. A small smile played over his lips, despite the strain around his glittering blue eyes as they fixated on where he touched me. “I’ve thought about you far more than I should’ve these last few months, little witch.”

I jerked, my tongue twisting, uncertain how to respond to that.

“But I need to give you a better secret than that after what you shared,” he told me, his gaze flashing back up to mine. “What do you want to know?”

Too many questions to count,I couldn’t help but think, my mind racing with possibility.

“Or perhaps I will tell you another’s secret—would you like that?”

“Another’s?” I asked, frowning. “Whose?”

“Merec’s.”

I stiffened, but Lorik never stopped stroking my wrist, the rough, flat pads of his fingertips journeying beyond the edge of the bandage.

“Merec left Rolara because he, like you, was indebted to someone. He left because it was time to repay it,” Lorik told me.

“To who?” I asked, thinking what debt could possibly be so important that he’d packed up his entire life in a single night and left without a trace. People only did that when they were in trouble. Or scared. “Where did he go?”

Lorik inhaled a deep breath, smoothing his fingers down the inside of my arm, making tingles race up my spine.

“To the Below,” he answered. “His debt was to a Sever.”

Six

“What?” I whispered, wide-eyed. And I wasn’t shocked or surprised by very much in this life. “A Sever?”