The Cursed Heir

Chapter Twenty-One

"If it wasn't my fault, you mean?" Cassie said to the drying, flaking dough on her skin. "If I'd never known her first..." She shook her head. Knowing Leora had brought some peace to her heart, brought her home in a way all her running never could have. "I still would have been worse off."

"I know what you mean," Wynne said, the words bittersweet. She wrestled the dough into a large bowl to rest before covering it with a cloth. "And I keep hearing all these rumors about the war, and all I can think is that she would be disappointed it was ending before she got a chance of her own to join up."

Over Cassie's dead body would she have ever let Leora near a battlefield, after what she had gone through herself. "What do you mean, ending?"

"That's what some people are saying," Wynne said, pulling out a tub of dried blueberries. "This is never going to last until summer," she said, rattling it experimentally. "Because of how some things are coming cheaper now. For a bit, flour was only available through the smugglers, but now it's even coming through the official channels."

"So it's a trick."

Wynne heard so many rumors flying back and forth in the square each day, there was no accounting for what was truth and what was wishful thinking. This war had taken so much, Cassie refused to give in to the hope it would ever end.

"If it is, it's a good one," Wynne said, mixing together a new batch of flour, water, and oil. "It's never been—" She looked up into the square and paused. "Think you have a caller," she said, nodding in the direction of the fountain.

Angled toward Wynne's shop, James bounced slightly on the lip of the fountain, his nervous energy obvious even from across the square.

"I'm sure he's not here for me," Cassie murmured, ducking her head to look out.

Catching sight of her, James waved for her to come join him.

At her side, Wynne snickered. "Want to bet?"

Busybody. Cassie dropped her leftover dough on the worktable and went out the back to see what he wanted.

"You done for the night?" she asked him over the splash of the water. With the lingering light of the setting sun, it felt early for him to be through, but perhaps it went faster now with Elliot's help.

"Taking a break," he said. "Elliot's mother wanted him home for dinner."

"It's already that late?" Cocooned in the dimness of Wynne's shop, she had lost track of time passing.

"In more ways than one," he said, hopping down from the stone edge. He tapped another wrinkled letter against his thigh. "Cassie—" He turned to her, then stopped, looking back across the square. "Wynne is watching us."

It did not surprise Cassie. "She likes having something to entertain her while she's kneading."

"Should we give her something to see?" he asked her, playfully leaning in.

Cassie batted him away with a smile. Whatever was between them, it was not Wynne's business.

"Would you rather walk?"

"I'd rather..." James sighed. "Yes, a walk would be good, I think," he said, changing whatever he was going to say. "I need to talk to you."

The words opened a pit of foreboding in Cassie's stomach. "I'm listening," she said cautiously.

They exited the square in the direction of the berry fields. "I need to leave," James said abruptly.

"Yes, you've said." And since then, Cassie had done all she could to come to terms with it. James was leaving Telyre. It was for the best. It would keep him safe.