“The baby was already dead when I got there,” Milo says.
They’re quiet for a moment.
Then Milo gets to his feet. “I’m going to go and find some firewood,” he says. “You’ll watch that, make sure it doesn’t go out?”
“Yeah, I will,” Emlyn says. “Don’t worry about it.”
Milo nods and jogs off into the trees.
I wait until he’s gone and then come over to sit beside Emlyn. “He’s something,” I say.
“I want to stick with him,” Emlyn says. “I want him to stay with us. Is that all right with you?”
If I’m being honest, I want the same thing. I know I shouldn’t. It’s crazy to bring a second Moon Caster into our little group. And this one’s obviously much more skilled at magic than Emlyn is.
Maybe I should turnhimin for a reward. I wonder if Emlyn’s pack would be willing to pay for a Moon Caster hybrid who wasn’t the specific one they’re looking for. It’s an interesting dilemma.
Then again…
“You like him,” Emlyn says. It’s almost, but not quite, an accusation. “I can see it on your face. You want him to stay as much as I do.”
“Maybe not quite as much.”
“But youdolike him.”
“Have I told you about my mother?”
“No,” she says quietly.
I can tell by her tone that she knows what’s coming. Of course she does. Everyone alive in this world has a story about their mother or their sister or their mate, and all the stories are the same. They all end in tragedy.
Most of the time, the tragedy is bearable. The woman couldn’t conceive, or if she did, the child was lost before its birth.
But sometimes—
“My mother died,” I say. “She died in childbirth. I was only a few years old myself. It was the year following the Reversal. I have no memory of her.”
She rests a hand on my arm. “My mother died that way too,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry, Nate.”
I nod. Right now, it feels good to have her sitting beside me, to know that she really understands what I’m feeling.
I can’t possibly turn her over to her pack to be killed.
“You were thinking what I was thinking,” she says. “That if Milo—or someone like him—had been there, your mother might have lived.”
I nod. “I always think of moon magic as evil,” I tell her. “But what we saw today—saving that woman’s life—that wasn’t evil. How could it be?”
“I feel the same way,” she says. “And I have to believe that it’s possible for moon magic to be used for good. I have to believe it if I’m going to make peace with what I am.”
“Moon magic is probably just a tool,” I tell her, and I can’t believe it, but as I say the words, they feel true. “It’s like a knife. You can do good or bad things with it. The fact that the Moon Casters are bad doesn’t mean you have to be.”
She smiles at me. “Thank you, Nate,” she says. “You’re really the best person I could possibly have met now that I’m on my own.”
The thing is, that isn’t true at all.
And I can’t let her know it.
Chapter 38