CHAPTER 242: YOU HAVE WANDERED FAR FROM YOUR GATE

The petals fell to the ground slowly and the woman sighed. Yet another flower she had picked that ended with her saying to not send that letter to Elen.

"Let me try this again," she murmured to herself.

She picked up another poor flower and began to pick the petals off muttering, "Send the letter, do not send the letter." And again it ended on "Do not send the letter."

"Perhaps you should keep your letter to yourself," Feyra laughed in her head.

Serena squinted her eyes and found another petal, it would be barely suited to be called one but she pulled it out anyway. "See, I will not."

"Hm, you already knew you were going to write that letter," Feyra said.

The truth was, she had rewritten the letter to Elen five times and still she wasn’t certain if it was her place to write it at all. Serena stood still for a while after Feyra’s voice faded from her mind, the remains of the flower clutched between her fingers.

"Enough," she muttered to herself, standing.

Serena pressed her fingers to her brow and exhaled. "Feyra," she whispered again, but the voice did not return. It was gone as quickly as it had come, as it often did.

She turned on her heel and returned to her room. Serena glanced down at the crumpled parchment beside her, edges curled and soft from handling. That cursed letter.

"My lady Elen," she whispered, testing the opening aloud. "I hope this finds you in better spirits..."

No, it sounded too cold and too proper for her liking. It did not sound like the woman who had once danced with her in slippered feet, giggling like a fool under torchlight.

"It would be fine," she said. She folded the parchment crisply and smoothed it with the heel of her hand. It would be sent but not on its own. A token was needed to go with it. Something small, something lovely. Elen deserved that much.

Yet she hadn’t the patience to make one herself. She could embroider, yes, and she could fashion a trinket if pressed, but the act felt suddenly intimate and arduous. What she needed now had to be bought.

"I shall go to market," she said aloud. And then blinked, because she had not thought it through at all.

She could ask Darius for permission, but that came with questions, questions she did not feel like asking. No, he would either offer company or counsel, and she wanted neither.

—

In her chamber, she bound her hair up, tucked it into a simple kerchief, and retrieved the dull brown cloak Charlotte had discarded earlier in the week. It smelled faintly of lilac soap and old paper, and would do well enough to disguise her among townsfolk.

She locked her door with care, slid the key into her bodice, and slipped through the lesser stairwell that fed into the old hallway behind the scullery. She walked down the gravel path toward the outer gardens but veered sharply when the hedges ended, ducking beneath the boughs of an overgrown elm and stepping into the tangled undergrowth.

Serena kept on walking even when her skirts caught on brambles and mud splashed her hem. Even when a stone nicked her ankle and made her hiss. The thought of Elen opening that letter, of her smile softening, even briefly was enough to keep her going on her impulsive quest.

At some point, she paused. Her gaze drifted skyward where birds dipped lazily above the canopy. She pressed her hand to her chest, wishing more than anything that she could shift. Her fingers curled into a fist.

"If only everything was dandy," she murmured, "I would be there already."

After some time, how long, she could not tell, only that her feet ached and her shoulder burned from the slope Serena came to a clearing. Beyond it, a ridge descended gently into what could only be described as a hamlet: not Longdale, she was sure of it. And though there were familiar scents of bakehouses and iron, she recognized nothing.

She stood on the edge of the path, peering down into the cluster of buildings with a faint unease.

"This is not Longdale," she said aloud. "I have not walked far enough for it."

Still, it was a market. People bustled in clusters around shaded stalls, and wares glittered in the afternoon sun, trinkets, lace, candied fruit, combs of carved bone and dyed glass beads. A wind lifted the hem of her cloak and she tucked it tighter around her.

Now came the true dilemma.

"What do you give to a girl who loves birds and doesn’t trust you anymore?"

She walked slowly past one booth, then another. A pair of children ran giggling around a wooden post, one of them clutching a painted whistle shaped like a swallow. Serena’s eyes lingered on it. A gift needed to be gentle and nothing expensive. Something sweet enough to soften up Elen, but not so heavy as to seem like bribery.

She almost reached for her coin purse when someone spoke behind her.

"My lady."

She turned swiftly, clutching her cloak tighter to her chest.

A man stood just beside the booth she’d just passed. He was not old, but neither was he young, his face bore the long-set lines of one who spent his days in wind and ash, with a tradesman’s weathered calm. His eyes were dark, his posture unassuming, but something about his presence stirred unease in her gut.

He smiled. "My apologies," he said, inclining his head, "but I believe we’ve not met."

Serena’s hand tightened on the edge of her hood. "You are mistaken," she said evenly.

"Forgive me," the man replied. "I meant no trouble. Only... you do not belong here."

Her breath caught. The market noise faded to a dull roar behind her.

"I’m not sure what you mean," she said carefully.

He tilted his head.

"You’ve wandered far from your gate, wolf."