Page 1 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
CHAPTER 1
Four pink petals lined Bristol’s windowsill, softer than silk, promising to brighten the darkest day.
“More,” Deek whispered. He and the other sprites left in a frenzied cloud, returning to the garden until the rose was plucked bare and the wide stone sill was full.
Was it enough?
Deek had already told the other sprites why.By day’s end, this room will be filled with misery. He had tasted the tears coming in the air, in the way only sprites could, a sweet saltiness that warmed the skin but crushed the heart.
And he didn’t want the mortal’s heart bruised more than it already was. He was afraid it might stop beating altogether. He tasted that in the air too.
Bristol’s room was spotless, her rampage erased. A fresh vase of hyacinths rested on her breakfast table, and the floor was free of shattered dishes. Butterflies glided over the forest floor–patterned carpet once again, and her fox’s green eyes peered from his woven burrow in the corner. Even the smoky singed ceiling above her bathtub was white and pristine again. The evidence of their bitter argument was gone, but inside their hurtful words still lingered. Those would take longer to clean up.
She skimmed past the thought instead of sinking into it, her sights set elsewhere. She raced through her room, stripping off yesterday’s clothes as she gathered her riding gear and boots. Tyghan was doing the same in his room, rushing to get ready. Their nearly sabotaged quest had been given a second life. Today, with their team, they would rescue Cael. She remembered the cheer that rang out in Timbercrest Castle on Beltane Eve, when the smoky vision revealed that Cael was still alive. And even if he wouldn’t admit to loving his brother, she saw the relief that washed over Tyghan’s face. No one, not even a king, should have to choose between duty and his brother’s life. Today, Cael would be coming home.
She sat on the chaise to lace her boots, but the open wardrobe doors drew her attention instead. Her stomach fluttered. Tyghan’s clothes hung beside hers once again. The hobs who had discovered them thrown out in the hallway probably hadn’t known where else to put them, and she was surprised at the lightness unfurling inside her, a grip loosening in her chest. His clothes were back—and she was glad.
Forgiveness is a thing of the heart . . .
Had she forgiven him?
That morning, in the predawn hours, their legs still tangled beneath bedsheets, he pulled her close and kissed her palm.We’ll work this out, Bri, I promise, he whispered. But the full meaning ofthisremained unclear. Maybe for now it had to stay vague, so they could patch together one part of their life before they tried to fix the rest. Tyghan told her he had Eris working on the council, sending messages to them in all their far-flung homes, recalling them to the palace for a new vote concerning her father, and he had already rescinded the kill order for her mother.But that doesn’t mean your mother won’t be taken prisoner. She will.
Bristol understood that, at least for now. Being a prisoner would give her mother the pause she needed to shake the spell Kormick had cast over her. Strangely, Bristol’s worry for her father had eased. Trows hadn’t taken him after all, Kormick still believed he was dead, and Tyghan was working to stop the hunt for him. She guessed her father would be fine. Logan Keats, Rían Kumar, Kierus the Butcher of Celwyth, was a man of many faces and lives. He always landed on his feet, always had a plan, his own determined ways. Those determined ways had always kept his family safe. He had managed to outwit two kingdoms for over two decades, after all—with three children in tow.
But perhaps, most importantly, she couldn’t keep worrying because he had refused Bristol’s help or advice. That part, after all she had done, still hurt.You need to go home. Like she was interfering instead of helping. His goals were focused only on her mother and his own secret plans to find her. She reconciled her hurt and worry by remembering that Logan Keats wasn’t only an artist but a clever warrior too. A wonder, even without her. He would evade his enemies a little longer.
His enemies. The thought dug into her, like a cat’s claws in flesh, a sharp reminder of the differences that still lay between her and Tyghan. The anger she still felt for all the cruel years her family had spent on the run, but also her remorse for the horrible torture Tyghan had endured. They would eventually have to talk, to wrestle their harsh words and choices into something they could both live with, but at least he was making an effort to meet her demands, which was no small thing. Julia’s words rang clear again:Every heart is wounded and mended in its own way. Tyghan’s heart still bled from her father’s betrayal. He had suffered greatly, and forgiveness was still nowhere inside him. But if Logan Keats hadn’t betrayed Tyghan all those years ago . . .
The hard truth was that Bristol only existed because of her father’s horrendous act. Her violent argument with Tyghan in the rotunda still rattled inside her.
You were going to kill my mother!
She wasn’t your mother yet! She was a monster terrorizing Elphame!
The facts made her head pound. Tyghan had lost his best friend and had to endure unknown horrors, but because of that betrayal, she was here. It was a dark puzzle with a thousand pieces that didn’t quite fit together.
Light peeked through her drapes, and she stood, grabbing her knife from the wardrobe shelf. She sheathed it in her belt, an act that was now as natural as brushing her teeth. Who had she become? Had she reinvented herself the same way her father had? She glanced sideways at her mirror, barely recognizing herself. Riding boots, leather wrist cuffs studded with protective amulets, a knife hanging casually at her hip—a knife she was fully prepared to use if necessary. She shook her head. Courage came from unlikely places, and hers had sprung from fear. It was the powerful elixir that had pushed her to come here—a deep, breath-robbing fear of always being on the run.
She had never wanted a life like her parents’, and she didn’t want that for her sisters either—especially not Harper. Happy endings? Maybe that was what she was still trying to give her little sister. Bristol had a shot at creating a lasting home for Harper, a place where she could watch the seasons change, watch the elm tree in their front yard grow past the roof, where the front porch would sag a little more with each season, where Harper would sleep in the same bed month after month, year after year, where continuity would become a solid history inside her, something that anchored her to the world in a way Bristol never had been. She took the long dirk from the wardrobe and shoved it in her scabbard. Courage didn’t feel strong or wise. It just felt necessary. Bristol would never underestimate the power of fear again.
It was even fright that drove her to Tyghan’s room yesterday. She barged her way into his room because she was more terrified than she was angry, terrified that Tyghan might give up. Afraid that this time, the demons would win, and she would forever lose him to the monsters her father had unleashed.
“May I come in?”
Bristol whirled around. Tyghan leaned against the doorframe, the color back in his face, the icy glint back in his eyes. In that brief glance, she knew she had saved him, and her own eyes suddenly stung. Maybe it was how close she came to losing him that burned inside her, or maybe it was all the things they had said that couldn’t be taken back.Yes, she thought.Come in. Let me hold you and kiss you and feel your heart beating strong against mine. Come to me like the last two days never happened.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
But curiously, he remained in the doorway, four days of stubble shadowing his face, making him impossibly more handsome. “Why did you come back for me yesterday?” he asked.
He was the picture of a warrior—confident, lethal, his shoulders wide, his sword ready. From the outside. But she saw the crease between his brows, the uncomfortable set of his jaw, the uncertainty that resided beneath the confident exterior. She saw the prince he had been only months ago, carrying out orders, carrying out a plan her father helped devise. And then fate had intervened.Love. The unexpected but abiding love of Kierus and Maire turned all their plans on end.
“I came back to you because second chances are more compelling than first ones,” Bristol said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Because I loved you more than I hated you. Because I was sorry for what you’ve suffered, as much as I was sorry for what I have suffered. I didn’t want us destroyed by past decisions that we weren’t fully part of. I didn’t want to lose you and never get the chance to fix this.”
This. What they had. And it was worth fixing.
“So this is a fresh start?”
