Star's Crossing

41: A Courter of Fate

Mare had barely processed Alison's words before she'd turned and bolted back to where she'd come from. In the rapidly steeping dark, Mare could make out an impression in the grass, wrought by her body and Geoffrey's.

But the boy himself was gone.

"Mare!" Alison had her skirts in gloved hands, and was picking her way down the grassy slope. "They're all to be at the Bridge house this evening. Our parents are going to Duke's in the country-"

"Take me." Mare grabbed her friend's elbow and dragged her toward the path.

"Mare, wait! It is not so simple! What is it you plan to do?"

"I am going to end this," Mare said, "once and for all."

"Mare, please, I implore you! Consider what you are saying-"

"Camden knows," said Mare, striding back to the path. "Teddy knows. And clearly," Mare laughed, harsh and angry, "Geoffrey knows as well."

Alison caught Mare's hand, jerking her to attention, brown eyes serious. "Mare Atwood. Please. Think."

I have had more than enough of thinking! Mare wanted to turn her flushed face to the ocean. She wanted to ball her hands into fists. She wanted to scream, long and loud, until everyone across every shore acknowledged her rage.

A coward and a selfish man.

Let us hope you are the one taking aim, and not the one falling.

Mare, you are...

Red. The girl. The cloak. The wood.

The wolf.

Mare took Alison's hands. "There is a game at work here, we both know it. I will face its players if it is the damning of my reputation."

"The damning of your life," warned Alison, eyes bright with fear. "Your future, Mare. Please."

"I knew it," Mare muttered, clutching Alison's hands in hers. Dark had fallen in its entirety, and cold came off the sea in sharp, determined bursts. "I knew they were lying. From the ball-all of the roses, all of the boys. It is a game. A wager of some kind. Don't tell me you do not wish to know of it. To know why."

"Your life was once so mundane," lamented Alison, eyes fluttering shut, brow furrowing. "Now you are a wild thing."

Mare surprised herself with a laugh. "I have always been, Alison. I have simply dispensed with pretense and appearance."

"You are far braver than I." Alison brought Mare's hands to her lips and kissed her cold fingers.

"It is not bravery," Mare admitted. "It is foolishness, and I no longer care that such a vice comes at a cost. They all do."

Alison's eyes gleamed, her mouth set. She looked older in the deepening dark, her gaze too wise, her face too pale; Mare realized that in recent months she'd all but been a ghost for her friend. Selfish. Childish. Woefully melodramatic.

Mare pulled Alison into her arms. "When this is put to rest, when I have dismantled my reputation and sullied my good name-"

Alison laughed.

"-when there is pause in all of this madness, we shall be together again. Best of friends. Sisters." Mare breathed in the familiar scent of Alison's perfume, the starch in her gown, the fresh, free-fallen pollen that clung to her hair. "But I will no longer be shunted from people's boards. I will play."