My face is turned from him, but I can sense how close he is now. I don’t know whether to move away or pretend I don’t care.

At least he isn’t talking about my magic. Dangerous, I hear Isolde’s voice say in the back of my mind, over and over. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

Then another voice: Good.

I rub my hands together, pressing into the center of the compass to focus myself again.

Raze extends a hand toward me, like a question. Hesitantly, I place my left hand in his. He holds it carefully to the faint moonlight, like he’s scared he’ll break it. This is his first time really studying the compass, I realize.

I stare at my hand in his. “But why a changeling?”

“I don’t know.” Raze lets out a soft breath. “But I’d bet it has something to do with your magic. Maybe my ancestors wanted their descendants to have to work together with a faerie if they needed to access the treasure, for some reason. It seems...fair enough.”

“It’s not fair,” I say, without thinking. But I don’t pull away. I glare up at him, wanting him to see the damage all this has done to me. For the first time, I notice the faint splash of freckles on his nose and peppering his cheeks. “Not for me.”

“No,” he agrees softly, tracing the silvery design with featherlight fingertips. “Getting you involved was definitely a mistake.” He gives me another diagonal half smile before letting my hand drop.

It’s nice to agree on something for once.

chapter nineteen

That night, when I come inside and face Isolde, her jaw is clenched tight.

“Sol,” I say quietly. They’re right outside and probably not asleep yet. “I’m sor—”

“I know.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. Her tone is like scissors snipping through cloth, and everything I could have said to apologize, to beg her to try to understand, to seek comfort, is the frayed edge that unravels in its wake.

I manage to make it through most of the next day without talking about or using magic, though I can sense the conversation brewing at the back of Isolde’s throat. She keeps giving me weird looks, like I’m a lock she’ll be able to pry open if she just approaches from the right angle.

When we stop for the night, Olani gathers her things. Isolde’s eyes go to the quarterstaff, and I think she’s remembering their fight in the rain—how many close calls there were. But instead of flinching back, she says, “Do you think you could teach me a little? I’ve never fought anyone with a quarterstaff before.”

Olani is all too eager to agree.

Raze and I sit as far as we can get from each other, watching Isolde and Olani spar. It’s dusk with barely a sliver of yellow moon rising, but they seem to enjoy the extra challenge that comes with the darkness. This time, we’ve stopped in a field of heather, and I can still smell traces of the blooms long after their bright purple petals fade into the night. Autumn is finally allowing its cool breezes to be coaxed into the stuffy late-summer days, and it’s actually chilly when the sun sets.