“You better not have hurt Mama,” she hissed in a low tone as Theon moved past her, “because if you have, I know where Da hid his swords just now.”
Theon stared back at Nettle, utterly bewildered at the implication that he was capable of hurting the Destroyer, but made no answer because he had just spotted the three hauler dogs who were still lying across the floor in various poses of laziness. They did not seem aggressive, but they were enormous and looked a bit like wolves. One of them flicked an eye open, assessed Theon, and then went back to sleep. Theon took that as a relatively positive sign and moved cautiously forward, doing his best to avoid stepping on tails or toes.
As Tal moved into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, Alaya, who still had ahold of Theon’s hand, used it now to tow him toward the table. A full bowl of stew sat at its end, steaming. “I dreamt about you last night,” she confided to him, “so I made sure Mama made enough stew for a visitor. She’s a terrible cook but I snuck in some carrots and extra bone broth when she wasn’t looking so it should taste okay.”
Theon gave up entirely on trying to process or respond to anything the twins said, and sat down as he was directed.
Tal had found whatever he was searching for in the cupboard and moved toward the table, carrying a vial of pearlescent liquid that gleamed with coppery flecks. Theon recognized it as a copper-Smithed healing potion. His parents kept some in their own cupboard, but it was only for emergencies—it wasn’t as rare and expensive as it once had been, they’d told him, but it still cost enough to merit use only when absolutely necessary.
Tal poured half the bottle into the bowl of stew, then dropped a spoon in it and pushed it toward Theon. “Eat up,” he said. When he saw Theon staring at him, he explained, “You have too many small injuries to try to treat them all topically. This way, it’ll treat the pain of all of them right away, and help them heal more quickly than they would naturally—overnight, probably. In the morning you should be good as new. Eat up,” he repeated.
Theon mechanically lifted the spoon to his mouth as ordered. The stew was, as Alaya had predicted, okay. He ate it all. When he was scraping up the last spoonful, Elodie returned.
The woman who had formerly been the Destroyer strode through the door with no particular sense of ceremony and dropped what she was carrying onto the table before Theon: a beautiful bouquet of the yellow-orange roses from the bush she’d shredded to free him, tied together neatly with a white silk ribbon. The bouquet caught the corner of his stew bowl, which skidded across the table and sent the spoon flying.
“For your sister,” said Elodie, and somehow the words sounded like a dare.
No one moved to pick up the spoon. Everyone stood, silent, and watched Theon—except Elodie. She had already turned and was striding towards the door to the next room, shoulders thrown back carelessly, every movement elegant and commanding.
Theon was reminded, suddenly, of Nettle; of the way she’d stood in the door and braced herself and glared at him, trying to hide that sad wanting in her eyes. He thought he knew now what it was she wanted, even though it wasn’t anything he could put into words yet. And in the same way, he thought he understood why everyone was watching him so carefully, and why Elodie had dropped the bouquet as if it didn’t matter at all to her, even though he could tell from the blood on her hands and the way she must’ve had to take great care not to get any of that blood on the white silk wrappings that it did, indeed, matter. It was an offering. She was offering something to Theon. Not just the bouquet, but the knowledge that she was the type of person who would give a bouquet of prized roses to a boy so he could prove to his sister that he was not a coward. It was a glimpse of some small, secret part of herself, he thought—and she would be hurt if he did not accept it, so she was trying to pretend she didn’t care whether he did or not. Her family knew this, and that was why they watched him so carefully, as if he was holding something precious.
Theon looked at the bouquet. He looked at the Destroyer’s retreating back, and saw how the set of her shoulders was not careless but fragile. Theon had not been raised to destroy fragile things, so he picked up the bouquet.
Everyone seemed to exhale at once.
Nettle, who was still standing next to the door, eyed him. Then she left her post and sat down in the chair next to him with an ungracious plop. Alaya smiled beatifically from her spot at his other side. All the tense lines of Tal’s posture relaxed at once, and he rewarded Theon with another small smile. Then he reached out and touched Elodie’s shoulder as she was passing him. She stopped immediately but didn’t turn. The tilt of her head, the lift of her chin, the curve of her spine: all intimidating elegance. Theon was no longer certain if she was wholly the villain the rumors and stories had made her out to be, but there was a part of him that still couldn’t quite bear to look at her, the same way he couldn’t bear to look too long at the sun.
Tal didn’t seem intimidated, though. He lifted one of his hands and let it hover between them, a silent question. Again unhesitating, she put both of her thorn-pricked hands in his, turned upward with her
