afraid to move. Then he rolled to his back, taking his arm to his side, leaving her feeling like the sun had been shot out of the sky.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She realized she hadn’t answered his question and spoke up a little too fast. “No, no, it’s fine. Go ahead and snuggle up. It’s cold tonight anyway.”
He didn’t hesitate at all, moving as quickly as a kid on Christmas. He threw his arm back around her, and the same electricity returned.
“I’m just no good at this,” she said quietly.
Amanda rolled to her other side so that they were face to face. The muscles in his arm tightened in surprise but stayed firmly around her waist. She was going to continue talking, but he took her breath away. His large chocolate eyes were so bright and full of excitement. She had to look down before she could speak.
“I haven’t, you know, ever been touched a lot. Growing up I didn’t have parents who hugged me or a grandma who gave me kisses. The only thing I knew was the orphanage, which wasn’t all that bad… until I had what they thought was a mental episode. After that it was Burberry Psychiatric Institution and doctor after doctor, pill after pill, telling me everything I saw and felt from these spirits was just in my mind.”
“I wonder why Scars started finding you so young. That must have been so terrible,” he said, holding her tight.
“I’ve always wondered… but the crazy house wasn’t that bad. There was no doubt in my mind I was crazy. That wasn’t hard to deal with. I just wanted their pills to stop what I thought were hallucinations. The Dredging was much worse. I was sitting alone in my room when the bars fell off the window and the glass slid up slowly. Two cloaked strangers crawled into the opening and said you’re a Healer, come with us… well, you know how the Dredging was.”
“Can I ask you about something, Amanda?”
She wasn’t positive she wanted to say yes, he sounded so hesitant. “Yes,” she said nervously, wondering what he could want to know.
He took a deep breath. “When you left, when you ran away from the Hovel, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you take me with you?”
They lay in silence for a few moments while she tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t believe he would’ve come with her. It was a thought that had never crossed her mind
“I… I didn’t know you would have come with me,” she stuttered.
He pulled away and looked at her face as if she’d slapped him. “You can’t mean that! All we’d after the Dredging was each other. How could you not think of me?” his voice wavered.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Never meant to hurt me? What did you think it would do when you left me? How was I supposed to feel?” he asked, his eyes pleading.
“Cole, I was a thirteen-year-old girl feeling unbelievably guilty for wanting to run. I wanted more than anything to tell you, but this voice in the back of my head kept telling me you’d be disgusted with me.”
Cole opened his mouth as if to protest, and Amanda put a finger to his soft lips to silence him.
“I was ashamed and, like a coward, couldn’t bring myself to face you. I was running from the very thing that I was born to be, that you were born to be. How could I face you?” she asked, turning away from him.
They were silent for a long time, until he put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that conversation to go like that. I’ve just wanted to ask you that question ever since you came walking back into the Hovel,” he said apologetically. “When you came back, I didn’t know how to feel. You left me there, like what we had never even mattered to you. Do you know what they did to me?”
He paused, looking torn. “I wanted to be mad at you. Even tried to make myself hate you.”
Amanda sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.
“But when you looked up at me, all of the pain and anger evaporated. Even after two years, I couldn’t stop my heart from swelling at the sight of you.”
She turned back to face him. His eyes were moist, but he kept his tears held back.
“I never stopped thinking about you, Cole,” she said, putting a hand to his cheek. “Your smiling face got me to sleep every night. you kept me sane.”
“I guess we both went through some stuff those two years.”
She took his hand off her shoulder and held it tight. “Let’s get some shut eye. We’ll need our strength tomorrow.”
Amanda rested her head on his arm but never did doze off. She could hear Cole next to her murmuring spells of protection throughout the night. Even after all she’d put him through, he’d still risked everything to help her.
Amanda finally gave up on pretending to sleep when the first sign of dawn pierced through the foliage. She found that even with no rest it was a rush to wake up next to Cole.
He smiled at her with tired eyes.
“Okay, let’s find Madgie!” she said excitedly. After such an amazing night, she felt a little guilty about where the old woman could be, probably not snuggled in the arms of a handsome young man. She moved to get out of the makeshift tent when Cole spun her toward him. He had a look of apprehension before he spoke.
“Listen, I don’t want to talk like this… but if we don’t find Madgie, what’s our next step?”
Amanda remembered Madgie’s counseling about where she should go after she escaped the Hovel. “She told me I had to find someone, an Ancient named Shiphra. Madgie said this woman is the only one who can hide me from the Ancients and the only one with the knowledge and the power to find Kaedin.”
Cole looked taken back. “Who’s Kaedin?”
Amanda took in a deep breath. She didn’t know if she had the strength to talk about the child whose face hadn’t left her mind, the little girl who was stronger and braver than any person she’d known, the spirit she’d doomed.
“Kaedin is the reason we’re out here. I was in her Scar when this happened.” She gestured to herself and took a breath. “I left her there with that thing. If I don’t find her soon, she’ll fade, and it will be my fault. Kaedin found a Healer. She should have been freed from her terrible prison, but because it was me, she’s still there.”
Amanda didn’t realize she was crying until warmth from the tears stung her cold skin. She looked up at Cole’s face and saw the worry in his dark eyes. Amanda knew he wouldn’t like it. He’d rather find some way to help her than find a rebel Ancient that might have the ability to find a specific Scar, which was unlikely. How could she tell him finding and helping Kaedin was something she had to do, without hurting him? He gave up his peaceful life at the Hovel to help her, to be with her, not go on a wild goose chase.
She reached for his warm hand and placed it between both of her cool ones. “Don’t worry. We’ll think about the future when it gets here.”
“Then it’s no longer the future, it’s the present. Shouldn’t we make some sort of plan if we’re going to be hunted down by the world’s most powerful beings?” he said bluntly.
She knew they needed a plan, but not more than they needed to find Madgie and ask her what to do.
“Wait! It’s Madgie!” she said in an excited whisper.
He kept his warm fingers tightly wound with hers and closed his eyes. “This way?” He pointed, and she nodded slightly, afraid to speak because if they could feel Madgie she could feel them and so could the other Healer near them. “Carter,” he murmured.
They began to slowly close the distance between them and the others. Cole kept her behind him as he muttered spells of invisibility and stealth. She’d never used stealth spells, and they were disorienting, even to her. One of them was an echo spell that threw their spiritual signatures out all around them. Up and down, left and right. First, she felt them somewhere on a rocky ledge. Then they were crouching in the forest of bamboo shoots, but they never left the straight path that he had them on. They were everywhere.
It was making her dizzy, and she knew where they stood.
She couldn’t imagine that anyone would be able to pinpoint their exact location. Amanda didn’t question Cole. She knew where he was going. He was taking the quickest path to Madgie. She knew this because she could feel Madgie the same as he did. Her spirit felt muffled like a shout from under a pillow. They were out in the open
