The garden had quickly become Ivy’s favorite place in Avalon Castle. It wasn’t quiet, not with its proximity to the rubble-strewn area of the courtyard that the surviving Warhawks used as a sparring ground, nor was it particularly beautiful, considering that two of the four walls surrounding it had crumbled during Tanith’s attack. In spite of all that, Ivy found a sort of peace when she was working there, snipping leaves to muddle for tea or pulling up roots to create poultices for minor wounds and burns. There was something about the feeling of dirt underneath her fingernails that made her feel accomplished. It sounded trite, even in her own head, but there was an honesty to working with her hands that Ivy found reassuring in a world filled with uncertainty and brutality. And it helped that the view was spectacular.
The object of her gaze turned, as if feeling her eyes grazing the side of his face. In the late-morning sun, Helios’s black hair shimmered in shades of midnight blue. The iridescent dusting of scales at his temples reminded Ivy of the clear glitter nail polish Echo had shoplifted from Sephora as a Christmas gift for her last year. The Avicen didn’t celebrate that particular holiday, but Ivy would never turn her nose up at presents. Thinking of Helios and glitter brought a small smile to Ivy’s lips, a rarity these days. Helios mirrored it with one of his own.
“Something funny?” His English was flawless, though his accent was slightly thicker than Dorian’s or Caius’s. Ivy assumed he had spent most of his time speaking in his native tongue with his fellow Firedrakes before he turned his back on them to help Ivy escape Wyvern’s Keep. The memory of her time there made her smile falter. She mentally batted the recollection away as if it were an annoyingly persistent mosquito.
Helios noticed the change in her demeanor. He leaned back on his heels, brushing the dirt from his hands onto his already stained jeans. “Are you all right?”
Ivy took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the herbs around her, finding solace even in the bitter aroma of the bloodweed roots she was planting. She pulled off her heavy gloves – a necessity when dealing with bloodweed, as its leaves had the tendency to sting – and sank her fingers into a patch of moist dirt. It had rained during the night, and the soil was ripe for gardening. She could feel the magic buried in the earth like a subtle vibration. The spell that Echo had worked in the heat of battle had seeped into the very foundations of the island, working its way through every inch of soil and stone, creating a protective barrier between the island and the rest of the world. The magic even felt like Echo, though if Ivy tried to verbalize how it felt like Echo, she would have found words to be too reductive, too simplistic to describe the magic’s familiarity. Every living thing had an aura about it. Not the kind that human new age books liked to talk about, not exactly. It was as if every person, every animal had a unique flavor – or perhaps a unique perfume – that was theirs and theirs alone, one that was created through an accumulation of all of life’s experiences, of all the people they had ever met, of all the places they had ever been. Part of Ivy’s training as a healer was learning to read auras, to understand them. One of the truths about medicine – human or Avicen – was that patients were unreliable narrators of their own condition. Some people would downplay their pain, either because they wanted to act tough or because they had grown so accustomed to its presence that it simply didn’t seem as big a deal as it was, while others oversold their symptoms. But auras were honest. Auras did not lie or exaggerate or understate. A person’s aura told the truth of their distress. Ivy could always tell when Echo was feeling unwell or frightened or elated, without needing Echo’s words to confirm the diagnosis. Ivy spent more time with Echo than she did with anyone else, and therefore she knew the feeling of Echo’s aura better than anyone else’s. She felt it now, coursing through the soil of Avalon island. It comforted her, as it did when Echo was present. Her friend was elsewhere, but a part of her remained.
“Ivy?” Helios prompted. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Ivy replied, pulling her fingers from the dirt. “I’m okay.”
She looked back at Helios to find him quirking a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “Is that an ‘I’m okay’ as in ‘I am actually okay,’ or is that an ‘I’m okay’ as in ‘I am not at all okay but I do not wish to discuss it at this time’?”
“I’m okay, truly,” Ivy insisted. “I was just … thinking.”
“Ah, yes,” Helios said, rubbing his chin as if deep in thought himself, and unintentionally smearing dirt on his face. “Thinking. A dangerous activity. I try to avoid it whenever possible.”
Ivy chucked one of her gardening gloves at him. He caught it with a smile. Instead of returning it to her, he plopped the glove down on top of his own, which he only wore when handling bloodweed. He reached into the basket of herbs Ivy had instructed him to pick and retrieved a small purple blossom that was often used to treat ailments of the head and stomach. He held the flower out to her and said, “Peony for your thoughts?”
Ivy groaned, but she accepted the flower, hoping the blush she felt rising in her cheeks wasn’t too violent a shade of red. “Two things,” she said. “One: that’s rosemary, not a peony. And two: that was a terrible pun and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Be that as it may,” said Helios, “my question still stands.”
Ivy wanted to insist that she wasn’t avoiding his question, but since she was, she grasped for a diversion. The clouds above shifted, strengthening the sunlight falling on the garden, and Ivy’s eyes alighted on a glint at Helios’s throat. A thin gold chain disappeared into the collar of his shirt, but the subtle form of what looked like a pendant showed beneath the fabric. “What’s with the necklace?” she asked. She’d noticed it weeks ago, and as far as she could tell, Helios hadn’t taken it off once.
Helios’s hand rose to lightly touch the pendant. “This? It’s just a locket. I’ve had it for so long, I don’t even feel its weight anymore.”
Something too close to jealousy for Ivy’s liking fluttered in her chest. “Did you leave a special someone back at the keep?”
Helios cut her a sideways glance, informing her without words that she was hiding nothing. “Yes,” he replied, “but not the way you’re imagining.”
Warmth suffused Ivy’s cheeks. “Oh?”
By way of explanation, Helios pulled the chain from beneath his shirt and placed the locket in his palm. It was a humble piece, its square, golden surface burnished to a reflective shine. He popped open the clasp to reveal two portraits, one of an older woman and the other of a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Helios. “My mother and my younger brother,” he said. “She passed away some years ago, but Hermes is still alive. As far as I know, anyway.” His fist closed around the locket, blocking the portraits from Ivy’s view.
“Where is he now?” Ivy asked.
“He works in the kitchens at Wyvern’s Keep,” Helios replied, snapping the locket shut and tucking it back into his shirt. “He was never much of a fighter, so he didn’t follow me into the Firedrakes, but he’s a genius in the kitchen. He made the almond cakes I brought you.” He sighed. “I hope Hermes is unimportant enough to escape Tanith’s notice. My leaving put him in danger, but he was always telling me I ought to do what’s right, no matter the cost.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Ivy said, even though she was sure of no such thing. She wasn’t cruel enough to say anything else.
Helios scoffed softly. “I hope you’re right.” He blinked up at the sky, squinting against the light. “I want to make him proud. And I want to keep him safe. I’m not sure I can do both.” He looked back at her, his expression rearranging itself into one of curiosity rather than concern. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the redirect. You’re avoiding my question.” For good measure, he repeated it: “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m not avoiding the question,” Ivy said. “I honestly don’t know where to begin.”
Helios sat on the ground, legs crossed in front of him, supporting his weight on his elbows. He turned his face toward the sun, soaking up the rays like a contented cat. He rarely went outside. The Avicen distrusted him, and while the Ala had made it clear Helios was a defector and therefore on their side, he kept to his room, unhappy that he made them so uncomfortable. In the herb garden, with Ivy, he was safe, mostly because only the healers and kitchen staff were allowed there, and they were far too busy fixing and feeding a castle’s worth of refugees to grumble about one lone Drakharin. Ivy had overheard one of the senior healers say she didn’t care if Helios had scales so long as he made himself useful, which he was very good at doing.
“You might feel better if you talk about whatever it is,” Helios said, cracking open a single lemon-yellow eye to squint at Ivy. “Feelings are like wine: they need time to breathe.”
“That was unusually poetic,” Ivy said. She abandoned the bloodweed. They were running dangerously low on bloodweed, and so far, she and Helios had managed to cultivate only a tiny bit more. It was an astonishingly difficult herb to grow, as Ivy had discovered, which was not the least of her grievances.
She moved to sit next to Helios, close enough to touch him, even though she didn’t. “Where do I start? There’s the issue of the bloodweed. If that monster attacks again, we don’t have nearly enough to treat any victims. We barely had enough to help the people here. Not to mention the fact that there is a hospital full of people in Manhattan – human people – who are suffering from the same ailment, and I don’t know how or even if we can help them. Just because the bloodweed works on us doesn’t mean it’s compatible with human biology.”
Now that Ivy had started, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
“And then there’s the issue of my best friend running off on another dangerous and deadly mission to save a guy being held captive by one of the vilest individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. And that’s the best-case scenario. Caius could be dead for all we know, and Echo could be putting herself right into the trap that vicious bitch has left for her.”
“Such language,” Helios said without a hint of judgment. “Go on.”
Oh, would she ever go on. Gladly. The words bubbled up as if they’d been boiling inside her.
“Echo is out there risking her life and I’m sitting here planting godsdamn weeds that insist on dying if the wind doesn’t blow right. I’ve lost my home, I’ve lost people I’ve known since I was a child, and I don’t want to lose her, too. I can’t. I wouldn’t survive that. But I’m here, and she’s … I don’t know where she is, but it’s not here, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.” The words came out in a messy tumble, backed by such force that it felt as though they stole all the air from Ivy’s lungs.
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” said Helios. “You might not be fighting by her side, but you are helping her. Right here, right now.” He motioned toward the fragile crimson stems that had reluctantly taken root in the soil under Ivy’s care. The bloodweed was in a shady corner of the garden; Echo had found it in an underground cave, but the plant seemed to require at least a small amount of light to flourish. The mountain in which the cave had been located, Echo had told Ivy, had bled magic from its very stones, and she was willing to bet that, in the absence of sunlight, magic had helped the weed grow. Short a magic mountain, a shady patch of soil was the best Ivy could do.
“This bloodweed didn’t grow itself,” Helios said. “And there are a lot of people inside the castle right now who are alive because of you.”
Ivy blushed under his praise. “All I did was follow instructions on how to make the elixir. That text we stole from the keep contained everything we needed to figure it out.”
Helios laughed then, a bright, cheerful sound. “You say that as if it were easily laid out for us, not wrapped up in cryptic language and ancient nonsense. Creating that elixir was nothing short of genius, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short.” He reached out to touch the herbs in the basket beside him, sliding a gentle finger along the delicate petals, tracing the veins of the leaves. To both Helios’s and Ivy’s surprise, they had discovered he had a natural gift for cultivating plants. The herbs Ivy used required a delicate touch, and she had not expected to find that in the hands of a Firedrake.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from spending time with you,” he continued, “it’s that fighting on the front lines isn’t the only way to make a difference.” He closed the distance between them, laying a gentle touch on the back of her hand. He moved slowly enough that Ivy had time to pull away if she wanted to. She didn’t. “I know you want to be out there with Echo. From what I’ve seen, she is more than just a friend, she’s your sister. And I know that telling you not to worry about her would be a waste of breath, but she isn’t alone and neither are you. For what it’s worth – which probably isn’t much – you have my help, whenever and however you may need it.”
Ivy was hyperaware of the points of contact between them, of the fact that they were not quite alone, of the castle tower windows that overlooked the herb garden. Anyone who peered out one of those windows would be able to see Ivy sitting beside someone she once would have considered her enemy, his hand on hers, her eyes on him. Being around Dorian and Caius had changed Ivy. She found that she could hate individuals just fine – Tanith was proof of that – but hating entire groups of people took entirely too much effort.
Helios was looking at her as if he expected her to say something, but the words that had come so freely before now seemed to escape her. “I … Thank you.” It felt inadequate, but it was all she had. Helios barely knew her, and yet he placed enough faith in her to say something like that.
“Your people need you now more than ever,” Helios insisted. “As you said, so much has been lost, and that includes the people they relied on to take care of them. But you can do that for them now. I am confident you can.”
“How?” Ivy asked. “How can you possibly know that?”
“I know that you put yourself in harm’s way to do the right thing, that you walked into the lion’s den, head held high, even though you had to be terrified that you might not walk out. What you did at the keep required an extraordinary amount of bravery, and not once did you falter. I know everything I need to know.”
Helios stood, brushing the dirt off his knees and retrieving their gloves. The power of speech had entirely failed Ivy. She watched, silently, as he picked up his basket of herbs with one hand and held out the other to her. She accepted it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. His hand was so warm in hers, warmer than an Avicen’s, warmer than a human’s. The people of the Dragon seemed to run hotter than everyone else. His grip lingered for a few moments longer than necessary. His back was to the tower, but Helios knew as well as Ivy did that they were probably being watched. She fought the overwhelming urge to hug him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly so not even the keenest ears could overhear. “I needed to hear that.”
Helios grinned, and something fluttered in Ivy’s chest. “Like I said, I’ve got your back.” He bent down to pick up Ivy’s basket as well. He seemed to enjoy doing things like that, although such gestures seemed slightly old-fashioned to Ivy. She was perfectly capable of carrying her own baskets and boxes and bags, but it was nice to have someone who wanted to help her. She felt lighter now that she had shared her burdens, that she had let Helios carry some of the weight.
“What’s next on the agenda?” Helios asked. He looked unbearably charming with his arms full of flowers.
They’d distill elixir from the bloodweed they’d just gathered. Then they’d go to the hospital, where the human victims of the kuçedra were being kept, and administer the elixir. Ivy hoped it worked as well on the humans as it had on the Avicen. Their biology was similar, though not identical. But then, magical healing wasn’t as exact as modern medicine. It was always a bit of a guessing game.
Ivy drew a steadying breath, inhaling the powerful scent of herbs. Helios was right. People needed her, and she knew what she could do to help them. “First we brew some magic potion. Then we save some lives.”