These Wicked Crowns by LJ Andrews

Author:LJ Andrews [Andrews, LJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub

17

The Memory Thief

“Ready, Mallie?” Kase whispered and tugged on the rope he’d tied to a notch at the top of the heavy gate. Laughter from the fete in the Strom gardens was loud, boisterous, and a little slurred. No mistake, Bard’s noble friends were already half-asleep from too much brän.

I gnawed on my dirty thumbnail. All hells, the gate was high. But I wasn’t about to show Kase I was scared, he’d laugh at me and call me a little. I was bleeding ten now. It took two symbols to write my age, not one.

Then again, if I said I was ten, Kase would be irritating and remind me he was eleven.

When I took too long to answer, Kase groaned like one of daj’s hounds when its sleep was interrupted. He narrowed his golden eyes and abandoned the rope, stomping back to the edge of the trees to me. Kase had gotten taller this last turn, and when he butted his chest up to mine, now he had to drop his chin to look at me.

His voice was a breathy whisper when he grumbled out, “What?”

“What, what?” I asked, one brow arched.

“Get it out.” Kase waved his hand in a gesture to keep talking. “Get it out now, so we can get on with it and get some of those bleeding honey cakes.”

I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “I got nothin’ to get out.”

“Do so. You’re afraid and sometimes it’s good to get it out, so I can tell you how stupid it is, and how you’re stronger than you think, and how I’ll catch you if you bleeding fall.” He shook his head like he was annoyed. “Don’t know how many times I gotta say it, Mal. Now get it out. I’m hungry.”

Heat flooded my cheeks. No doubt my freckles matched the color of my red hair by now. I tossed my hands in the air and stormed over to the rope. “You hush up, Kase Eriksson. I’m not afraid. Ah, no—” I jabbed my finger at him before he could open his big mouth. “I’m not afraid.”

One side of Kase’s mouth tilted up in a pompous sort of smile. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it.”

Gods, he was so . . . so . . . aggravating. Bard always used that word for me, and truth be told, I was stealing it to use for Kase Eriksson.

I gripped the rope and glared at him over my shoulder. “I will. Now stand back and watch. Bet I can climb faster than you.”

“Bet you can’t.”

“Watch. Me.”

I gripped the rope and grunted as I lifted myself off the ground. In the back of my head, I knew Kase said all those things to get me moving. But there was truth there too. He did always catch me when I fell. Out of anyone in Klockglas—no—anyone in the entire bleeding world, I trusted Kase to watch my back.

My arms burned, but I kept forcing one hand over the other until I reached the top of the stone wall connecting the heavy iron gates.

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