Page 89 of Crossroads Magic
“By flying,” I repeated dully.
“Yes.”
“If you know how to manage it, then why were you so weak you couldn’t help Ghaliya?”
Benedict sighed. “I used nearly all my strength on your mother.”
My head spun. “You tried to bring her back….”
“Foolish, I know.” He still did not look at me, but I could see his throat work. “I knew she was beyond reach, but still…”
I pressed my hands together. He had tried to bring her back! “How long does it take to recover from something like that?” I asked diffidently, my heart beating heavily.
“Flights on each solstice and both equinoxes refresh…us.”
I stared at him, my heart hammering. “You were flying on the night my mother died!”
Benedict grimaced. “Yes.”
“That is what you would not tell me,” I added. “But…Harper…she said you and her…”
“I know,” Benedict said quietly. “She told me some time later. I was furious with her, for lying, for…for giving you that impression. But she did it out of concern. Harper, in her own way, is highly protective of everyone in the Crossing.”
“You found out some time later…but you didn’t correct my impression?” I asked. All my pleasure and relief began to congeal into a hard knot in my middle.
Benedict met my gaze. “I thought it best I let the impression remain.”
“You did, did you?”
“I didn’t know you. I still don’t know you very well.”
“So you thought lying would be okay?”
“It wasn’t a lie.” He said it quickly.
“From where I stand, it is,” I said coldly. “You deceived me.”
“That’s not what you did to me,” Benedict said softly, his gaze burning.
I spun away, ran through the house and back to the inn.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I desperately wanted a drink,somethingto clutch and help me draw a breath. I couldn’t just stomp upstairs and pace the sitting room. And it was too early to start lunch in the kitchen.
I hovered in the hallway of the inn, dithering, steam building in my chest.
Then I saw Harper.
Someone had pulled the doorway curtain aside, which let me peer directly into the bar.
Harper was not sitting at the locals’ table. Of course she wouldn’t be. Instead, she sat at one of the tables close to the side exit. She had her ankles crossed, her boots propped upon the table, and the chair tilted back. A glass of whisky—the public stuff—was in her hand.
She was watching me.
The steam in my middle built up higher. I stalked into the bar and up to her table.
Harper didn’t move.
