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“Merec’s.”
I stiffened, but Lorik never stopped stroking my wrist, the rough, flat pads of his fingertips journeying beyond the edge of the bandage.
“Merec left Rolara because he, like you, was indebted to someone. He left because it was time to repay it,” Lorik told me.
“To who?” I asked, thinking what debt could possibly be so important that he’d packed up his entire life in a single night and left without a trace. People only did that when they were in trouble. Or scared. “Where did he go?”
Lorik inhaled a deep breath, smoothing his fingers down the inside of my arm, making tingles race up my spine.
“To the Below,” he answered. “His debt was to a Sever.”
Chapter
Six
“What?” I whispered, wide-eyed. And I wasn’t shocked or surprised by very much in this life. “A Sever?”
“There’s your secret,” Lorik told me. “No more this night.”
“You can’t just tell me that and say nothing else,” I argued. “How do you know this?”
“Like I said, my father was good friends with Merec.Is.”
“So, he’s…he’s alive?”
“As far as I know,” he murmured, closing his eyes again briefly.
“But it’s the Below,” I said, standing from the chair, my legs suddenly restless. Lorik’s grip fell away from my wrist. He watched me as I paced, and I noticed that Peek was curled up near the door of my bedroom. Keeping an eye on our guest? “No one survives in the Below except Severs. It’s impossible.”
A flash of something crossed his expression. Annoyance? Disappointment?
“You know nothing about what is possible and what is not, Marion. Village folk shouldn’t speak of something they know nothing about.”
The sudden change in his mood had me quieting. His tone was stern. I felt like I was being scolded.
An uncomfortable silence dropped like a heavy stone between us.
Then he said, “I want to ask you something.”
I studied him. Even lying back in the bed, half-poisoned, it felt like he still took up the majority of the room.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Are you the kind of person who believes what somethingseemsthat somethingis?”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted quietly.
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Or are you the kind of person who understands there are things that cannot be understood in this world, things that are not what they seem, and that if you understood them in their entirety, you would see that you understood nothing at all?”
“Do you often speak in riddles?” I wondered.
“There are two types of beings on Allavar,” he murmured, his blue eyes glittering. Were theyglowing? “Those who welcome change and those who don’t, who resist it. Which one are you, little witch?”
“You tell me,” I replied, stepping forward toward the bed. His eyes never left mine. “I left the safety of my home in the middle of the night to help a stranger, who is now sleeping in my bed. That’s certainly a change.”
“One might call that bravery,” he said. “Or foolishness.”
I jolted, annoyance beginning to build in my breast. I shot back, “Or duty.”
