Page 71 of For the Love of the Quest

“We need to get out of here before they come back.”

Hurrying past the pews, Thomasin forced herself to keep up with Edith. Every step hurt, but she limped along without complaint. They reached the ramshackle door and stepped through the threshold. Just as the moonlight washed over Thomasin’s face, a hand grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of her head and yanked her off her feet.

She landed on her back, coughing and wheezing. A man stepped over her. Through the stars sparkling in her vision, she saw the chief leaning over her, his face eclipsing the moon.

Edith threw herself at him, punching at his back, tugging on his shoulders, trying desperately to get him away from Thomasin. He shoved Edith off of him as easily as if she were a gnat. She landed in a heap a few feet away, and Thomasin could do nothing but watch. She couldn’t get her limbs to obey. The muscles in her arms were limp, and her legs shook. She could barely lift her head from the ground because every time she did, an all-encompassing dizziness overtook her.

Her eyes struggled to focus on the chief. There were three of him bobbing above her. Three guns aimed at her forehead. “Did you really think we would leave you here unguarded?”

Thomasin’s tongue was heavy in her mouth, and her jaw was too tired to move. The time for witty remarks had passed. She looked past the chief to the stars twinkling through the breaks in the clouds. She would never relearn the constellations.

Something hot dripped onto Thomasin’s cheek. The chief was falling. There was a knife sticking through his chest. She heard a squelch, and then the knife was gone. His body lurched to theright, and he collapsed face-first beside Thomasin. She coughed through the cloud of dirt that puffed up when he hit the ground.

It was Edith now who eclipsed her view of the stars. “I’m a proper criminal now,” she said, the blood-soaked knife still clutched in her trembling hand.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

If all the Arthurian tales Edith ever read had taught her anything, it was that sometimes terrible decisions had to be made. Love or honor. Chivalry or victory. A noble death or a ruthless triumph. Edith had always imagined herself to be a noble knight in pursuit of truth and knowledge.

She wasn’t noble anymore. And she did not regret her choice. She should’ve known sooner who she was. It was clear now. Edith was a woman who would choose love above all else. Above reason and morality and honor. She might be the worst kind of villain, but she did not regret her choice. There was a man dead at her feet. She didn’t know how she was going to live with that, but she didn’t care just then, because Thomasin was alive.

When the chief raised his gun, leveling it right at Thomasin’s forehead, she hadn’t had any time to think. She’d drawn her blade and plunged it into his back, right through his heart. All she’d known was that there was no part of her that could let Thomasin die.

“Edith,” Thomasin said hollowly. Her lip was so swollen that it sounded more likeEdif. She tried to sit up, but her arm buckled underneath her and she crashed back to the earth.

Edith let the knife clatter to the ground, then fell to her knees at Thomasin’s side. Edith reached out but faltered, unsure of where to touch that wouldn’t hurt her. Even more unsure about whether Thomasin would ever want to be touched by her again. Edith forced her hands back into her own lap. There was blood flecking her fingertips, and her knuckles cramped from gripping the knife so tightly.

“I couldn’t let you die.” It was the only thing she could think to say, an echo of the thoughts that had been spiraling in her mind since the moment she touched the knife.

Thomasin’s eyes pinned her to the spot. She was studying Edith, staring so intently, it felt as though Thomasin was trying to see inside her. Eventually, Thomasin reached out a shockingly steady hand.

“Help me up,” she commanded.

Edith obeyed, her bloody fingers clasping Thomasin’s. She gently helped the other woman to her feet. Thomasin swayed slightly but remained upright after Edith let her go. Not that she wanted to drop Thomasin’s hand. Edith was very concerned about all the blows to the head Thomasin had taken. Wounds and broken bones could heal, but if her brain was injured, then Thomasin’s life was truly in danger.

“How do you feel?” Edith asked.

“Alive.” Thomasin took a few experimental steps. They were slow, with a slight limp. The worst of her injuries seemed to be centered around her face and torso. She held one hand to her ribs as she walked. Her split and swollen lips tipped up into something that might have been intended to be a smile, but looked like more of a grimace. “Thanks to you,” she said, tossing her gaze at Edith.

“I couldn’t let you die,” Edith said yet again. The statement grounded her. It was the one thing she knew was true and right.

Thomasin let her shoulder drop against a tree. “I still don’t forgive you.”

Edith looked down at her feet. “You don’t have to.”

A curt nod was the only response she got. Edith had thought that there were two kinds of silence. The steadfast kind that kept her company when she was alone, and then the bristling, awkward kind that clogged the air when she was in the presence of people she was meant to be socializing with. In Thomasin, she had discovered a third kind, a rare combination of the two. A silence that felt comfortably shared between them. In the moments when they were not talking, Edith still enjoyed her company. There was no pressure in it, no expectation. It was calm.

That was not the kind of silence that fell between them now. This silence was jagged, grating against Edith’s skin until she was desperately searching her mind for something to say. But nothing was adequate. Everything was too heavy and too inconsequential all at once.I love you. I killed someone. I would do it again. I’m sorry.

None of it mattered. None of it changed the fact that she had left Thomasin in the first place.

Eventually, Thomasin put her out of her misery. “We need to go,” she said. “Worthing will be coming back, and we can’t be here when he does.”

“Can you walk?”

“I’ll manage.” Thomasin shoved off from the tree. Edith watched her throat bob as she swallowed, and then grudgingly said, “I might need some help, though.”

“Of course.” Edith nodded, probably too eagerly. She delicately laid Thomasin’s offered arm over her shoulder, then wrapped her arm around Thomasin’s waist. Edith tamped down every emotion that popped up at the sensation of Thomasin’s body pressing against her side.