Page 17 (1/2)

"You’re lucky you don’t remember"

"Lucky?"

If I have to hear that one more time

"So I’m lucky your mom stole my memories? Erased the first seven years of et it--nobody ever has

"All I’ is for you to help et my memories back, you can at least share yours"

I lose track of how many seconds pass in silence Her voice is cold when she says, "My memories are my own"

She stalks over to the crackedand strokes her deo near her Not that I want to, at that moment

I know her h she could throw oes back to that day of the storm

I need to knohat happened

CHAPTER 20

AUDRA

It was only a dream, I tell myself Only a dream

But I know it’s more than that

It’s a memory

The memory The one I can’t let Vane recover

Where I told him I killed his family

It was a foolish, impulsive decision, and the only reason he didn’t unleash any of his rage was because he was too shocked by what happened I’m lucky my mother had to erase his memories, so I never had to live with the consequences of ain

I won’t tell hiers curl into fists and I squeeze, trying to stop the tingling I still feel in my palms froto each other in the rubble of the storot that detail, but I re throughI felt as I leaned on the boy whose life I’d ruined Let hiive uilt

My body’s way of punishingto do now?"

I’m honestly not sure I’d always planned tohis increased fah

Noe have eight days--assuht days, since today is

The ser his Northerly and Southerly breakthroughs now, and train hie of combined drafts will be more powerful in a wind battle than competency with only one

But can he really handle three breakthroughs in less than a day?

My mind was nearly overwheler two at once--and I’d been speaking the Easterly tongue for almost my entire life

Vane’s mind is already taxed with all he’s learned and felt since last night To add the strain of two hs would be a tremendous temptation on his senses--one even experienced sylphs would find hard to resist

"Uh, you want to clueabout?" Vane asks " ’Cause standing in a date grove in the hundred-and-twenty-degree heat getting attacked by flies isn’t really what I had inbreath, forcing myself to admit this is our only option "The best way to train you is to force your hs That’s e call it when the wind shoves its way into your consciousness and gered your Easterly breakthrough last night, when I joined the wind and entered your mind That’s why you could see me in ue now"

"Sopretending any of that makes sense--which, by the way, it totally doesn’t," Vane says, ju in, "one question: Why do you say that like you’re telling me we need to chop off both my arms, make theh "Because triggering three breakthroughs so close together is going to be veryunpleasant"

"Unpleasant?"

"Dangerous"

"Okay, I’m not a fan of that word"

"If there were any other way--"

"There is You could call for backup, like you proht What happened to that plan? I liked that plan much better"

"I did ask for backup" My eyes drop to my feet "My request was denied"

"Denied?"

"Yes" His tendency to repeat everything as a question will definitely push ht I was the last Westerly Future king All that jazz Doesn’t that h priority?"

"It does They’re stalling the Storuardians in the Gales"

"Yeah--and you said last night you’re too weak to fight them on your own--even withI can do that will definitely defeat the Stormers"

"Uh--if it will definitely defeat them, why don’t we just do that?"

"We don’t ‘just do that,’ because it’s the ultimate sacrifice"

The words slip out before I can stop the me, but I refuse to look at him--refuse to face whatever emotions he has written across his face I don’t knohat I want him to feel

I don’t kno I feel

"So if I’ht," he says after a minute, "these Gales you worship soreinforcements?"