Chapter 87

Nine a.m. finds Alcina standing across from Darla in the emptied courtyard, Orion and Perseus seated dutifully a few feet away.

Alfred had been called to assist his mother with matters around the palace, and Nordin, begrudgingly, had had to depart to his own family’s home to attend to business there. It had left Brendan and Percy, then, as the only spectators, settled as they are under the shade of a tree some meters away.

Alcina stands now, feeling stilted and a bit displaced, hands held awkwardly at her sides.

Darla, in contrast, stands perfectly, utterly still; and, as always, demonstrates a sense of incredible self-ease, as though it were effortless to simply exist.

Alcina envies her for that, more than anything else.

“So, you can summon fire on your hands, you said?” Darla says.

Diving right into it, then.

Alcina shifts. “I- I’m not sure,” she admits.

The only time she had summoned fire, had been...Elton.

With Brendan, it hadn’t been fire, but- heat.

Darla tilts her head. Her e