The boat ride had not been long enough for Echo to pull herself together. Rowan had called again to let her know he was okay, and the sound of his voice had been a balm to her nerves. She’d sat in the little boathouse on the eastern side of the island, soothed by the sound of birds chirping and water sloshing against the wooden beams of the dock, for what felt like an hour before she’d calmed down enough to make her way upstairs. The second she opened the door, the sweet aroma that greeted her made her feel almost normal again.
Scent, it is said, is the sense tied most closely to memory. Echo couldn’t remember where or when she had read that, but it rang true. The candles distributed throughout her bedroom, crowded on every level surface, were testament to that. Each one had a unique scent that reminded her of someone she had lost. She wasn’t much for funerals, but she had found a way to remember the dead in her own fashion.
There was a balsam fir candle for Holly, the Avicen woman who had sold Christmas ornaments in the Agora year-round. Christmas was a Christian holiday, and the Avicen did not celebrate it, but Holly loved bright, shiny things, and the decorations most associated with Christmas – poinsettias, icicles, pinecones, and, most important, glitter – were not out of place during the winter solstice festivals the Avicen celebrated. She had even taken to stocking candy canes once she learned how much Echo loved them. Holly had been at the Nest when it was attacked, and she had not made it out alive.
She had not been the only one. Far from it. Over the past few weeks, Echo had collected a modest trove of treasures, one for each person she held dear. Most were candles, but when she couldn’t find a suitable candle, she substituted another item.
There was a vanilla-scented candle for Ainslie, the apothecary. A cinnamon one for Hazel, the baker who’d always slipped Echo a few truffles whenever she stopped by.
A small eagle, carved out of wood, for Altair, a man Echo had only begun to know, a man she’d thought she despised and who she’d thought despised her in turn. But he had been, like most people, far more substantial than she’d realized. Echo mourned that she had only begun to see how much love he’d had in his heart before Tanith had torn it out of his chest. He’d loved his people. He’d wanted them safe, protected. He’d died for that love, and Echo would carry that memory with her until she met her own end.
A fat yellow, citrusy candle for Garland, the young Avicen who’d joined the ranks of apprentice healers the same week Ivy had. Echo hadn’t procured that candle – she had come back to her room one day to find that Ivy had added it to the collection without a word. Echo hadn’t told anyone what she was doing with the candles or why; it was no one else’s business how she mourned. But Ivy knew. They’d been sharing a room since the Ala had ordered everyone to double up to make space for more refugees. Tales of Echo’s defeat of Tanith – however temporary – and her subsequent warding of the island had spread far and wide, and each day brought with it a new face, desperate for the safety Avalon provided.
Ivy had watched silently as Echo amassed her collection of candles and trinkets. She hadn’t pushed for an explanation or begrudged Echo the space. After a time, Ivy also started adding to the collection. The candle for Garland had been the first, but her contributions had not ended there. She had acquired a small bowl of colorful beads, their vibrant hues the same shades as the feathers of some of the Avicen who had not escaped the Nest; a porcelain unicorn; a sprig of dried lavender; a painted wooden knight from a chess set; and a maneki-neko, a little white cat with an upraised paw said to bring luck to shop owners. Echo knew who some of the items were meant to commemorate, but not all, and she didn’t prod Ivy for explanations. If Ivy wanted to share, she would do it in her own time.
Their little collection grew and grew, taking over the surfaces of the room. It reminded Echo of a German word she’d come across in a book: Habseligkeiten. A meager collection of treasures that might appear to possess little value but that held great meaning for their owner. It fit their memorial, as strange and varied and cobbled together as it was.
Before meeting up with Rowan to go to the Agora, Echo had made an unplanned stop. She had struggled with finding the right object for weeks, but she had finally spotted it in the window of a gift shop on St. Marks Place. The contents of her backpack clanked together, glass bumping against silver through the newspaper she had stuffed between items. Her boots dragged along the worn stones of Avalon’s courtyard. Stares followed her, as they always did, as she made her way through the foyer, up the grand staircase, and down the labyrinthine corridors that led to the room she shared with Ivy. It was situated as far from the rest of the castle’s inhabitants as possible – knowing that Echo needed her space, the Ala had quietly reassigned her to a more secluded room.
One last flight of winding stairs left her by the uppermost room in the castle’s highest tower. She could feel the draft that perpetually wafted through the room despite its thick wooden door. For the sake of privacy, she and Ivy had sacrificed the possibility of ever being warm. They could not have their cake and eat it too.
Echo pushed open the door slowly. The room was so small that on more than one occasion, she or Ivy had slammed the door into the other when they opened it too quickly.
“You’re good,” came Ivy’s soft assurance from the other side of the room. She sat on the window seat Echo had fashioned from a wooden crate and a few scraps of fabric too small to be good for much else. Her nose was buried in a book, and the late-afternoon sun provided enough light for Echo to read the title: Herbalism and the Healing Arts. A stack of similarly themed books sat on the floor at Ivy’s feet. The Avicen’s central leadership and fighting arm weren’t the only groups devastated by the attacks. The healers had also seen their numbers diminished. They were often the first to rush toward disaster, but unlike the Warhawks, they had no armor to protect them. Ivy had lost time in her training while they’d been on the run in London and she was determined to get back on track. That Ivy would resume her studies wasn’t even a question; the Avicen needed her and she would be there for them.
Echo kicked the door shut behind her and unslung her pack from her sore shoulders. The bowl and the addition to their memorial weren’t the only items with which she had returned. She unzipped her bag and dumped its contents onto the bed. Curiosity drove Ivy from her perch to inspect the spoils of Echo’s trip into the city.
“Where’s Rowan?” Ivy asked.
“He got lost on the way back,” Echo said.
Ivy froze. “What?”
“He’s okay. It was the in-between. It spit him out on the Upper West Side, but he’s on his way. He’s okay. Everyone’s okay.”
A frown creased Ivy’s brow. “That’s not good.”
“No, ma’am, it is not,” Echo agreed, injecting bravado she didn’t quite feel into her voice. “But everyone’s alive and accounted for, so I’m counting it as a victory.”
She set aside the silver bowl, ignoring the drumbeat of urgency she felt when she touched it. As much as she wanted to use it right away, she still lacked several key ingredients required for the locator spell. Until each item was found, the bowl – despite the enchantments laced through its metal – was about as useful as a candy dish.
Ivy reached for the heavy textbooks Echo had plucked off a shelf at Enchanting Essentials. One was an anatomical text – similar to Gray’s Anatomy but with chapters devoted to Avicen and Drakharin anatomy – and the other was a compendium of spells, potions, salves, and poultices for treating wounds of the magical variety. Both had been among the Ala’s extensive library, and like everything else the Avicen had left behind, they had been lost to the mage fires that had cleansed any trace of the Avicen’s existence. The fires were a contingency plan they had hoped never to use.
“You found them,” Ivy said, her tone reverent. She traced a finger down the gilded spine of one book as if it were actually gold. “Echo … thank you.”
Echo shrugged off Ivy’s gratitude. Her heart was still too heavy to allow for any amount of graciousness. She felt Ivy’s gaze on her as she sorted the rest of the items: a few more books for the Ala, some glass vials for the bloodweed elixir, a half-crushed box of granola bars. Ivy remained silent until Echo picked up the last object: a candle in a heavy glass jar, its label sporting a cheery illustration to accompany the name of the scent.
“‘Cookies and Cream,’” Ivy read. She met Echo’s gaze with a knowing smile, her eyes a touch watery.
Echo nodded. She rearranged the items on the windowsill to make room for the candle. They were running out of space, but this one required a decent spot. “For Perrin.”
“I think he would’ve liked that,” Ivy said. She fished a box of matches out of the milk crate that functioned as an end table and lit the candle. Its scent was sugary and artificial, but it was enough to make a lump form in Echo’s throat.
She and Ivy stood in silence for a while, watching the candle’s meager flame flutter to and fro. The room’s perpetual draft refused to let it burn calmly. It was a peculiar vigil, and not one likely to be understood by anyone outside of that room, but that was what made it fitting.
Echo knocked her shoulder into Ivy’s. The harsh reminder of the fragility of life and the inevitability of mortality was making her maudlin. “I’m glad you’re here,” she told Ivy. She didn’t say that enough, especially considering their lives could be snuffed out any day, as easily as Perrin’s or Altair’s or those of any of the dozens of people they’d lost in the past few months.
“Are you getting sappy on me?” Ivy asked, rubbing her eyes in a valiant attempt to conceal their wateriness.
“Maybe.” Echo thrust her hands into her pockets. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being the Ron to my Harry. The Samwise to my Frodo. The Tom to my Huck.”
Ivy let out a sniffling laugh. “I get it. I love you, too.”
“The Watson to my Holmes —”
“Please stop.”
“The Horatio to my Hamlet —”
“Echo, everybody died in that play.”
“— except for Horatio. The Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote.”
“The Sancho who?”
“The Piglet to my Pooh.”
“Okay, now you’re just insulting me.”
A knock on the door interrupted them.
“Come in,” Echo called, hastily wiping moisture from her eyes. The tears hadn’t quite fallen, but they’d been close. The banter had helped. Ivy gave Echo’s shoulder a quick squeeze, her eyes similarly red-rimmed.
The door was pushed open slowly, and a head covered in tawny golden feathers appeared. Rowan peered into the room. His sweaty hair-feathers stuck up at odd angles and his cheeks were flushed. He must have run all the way up the stairs.
Ivy broke the silence first. “Hey, Rowan. Heard you took the scenic route home.”
Echo hadn’t even realized she and Rowan had been staring at each other like slack-jawed idiots. She shook herself internally and launched herself at him.
“Hey,” Rowan said, sliding through the door that never quite fully opened. The second he was inside, he had an armful of Echo.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Echo said into his neck.
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing her back. “Me too.” The hug went on for what felt like an eternity, but Echo was reluctant to let him go. He was so solid in her arms, so real and alive and safe. Only when Ivy cleared her throat did Echo step away.
Rowan took a moment to rake his gaze over the odd array of trinkets and candles and mementos placed around the room. His eyes landed on the still-burning cookies-and-cream candle. He looked at Echo, and there was no hesitation in his expression. Just empathy, raw and open. “For Perrin?”
Sometimes she forgot how well he knew her. Almost as well as Ivy did. In some ways, even better. Echo held nothing back from Ivy, but Rowan had awakened parts of her she hadn’t known existed. She answered him with a nod, not quite trusting the steadiness of her voice.
Ivy climbed over the stack of books she’d been reading and settled on the bed. With three people in the room, there was no place else to comfortably sit. Or stand. Or exist, really.
“You sure you’re okay, Rowan?” Ivy asked. “Echo said the in-between was acting wonky.” Ivy might have been Echo’s best friend, but she was Rowan’s, too. They had begun to grow apart once adolescence had dug its claws into them – Rowan and Echo’s relationship playing no small part in that – but the events of the past several months had erased the petty differences that divided them. They were family, all of them, for better or worse.
Rowan pushed aside a pile of clothes Echo hadn’t bothered to fold. Why fold clothing if you were just going to wrinkle it with wear? He perched on the bed next to Ivy and wiped at the sweat on his brow with a towel he’d draped across his shoulders.
“I’m fine,” he said, even though Echo could see he was still a bit shaken and trying to hide it. “I ran into the Ala on my way up here. There’s a meeting in the library in five.”
Ivy reached across him to pluck a bottle of water from their stash in the crate beside the bed and offered it to him. He accepted it with thanks and then downed half of it in a single gulp.
“You smell,” Ivy said helpfully.
“Like a bouquet of beautiful roses,” said Rowan.
“And sweat,” Echo added. “With a hint of old cheese.”
It was comfortable, the three of them insulting each other. It almost felt like old times.
Rowan sniffed his armpit. “I do not smell of old cheese.”
“Anyway,” Ivy said, drawing out the last syllable to signify how done she was with the topic of Rowan’s body odor. As if she hadn’t started it. “Who’s going to be at this meeting? What’s it about?”
Rowan eyed the silver bowl. “That, I’m guessing. And my jolly jaunt to the Upper West Side.”
“Okay,” Ivy said, clapping her hands once and pushing herself off the bed. “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t want to keep the Ala waiting.”
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.”