They’d been so close to … what? What the hell was he doing? He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.
She kept slipping under his skin in small ways, making him forget who she was. At Rhys’s house, she had brushed against his arm and sent his body on high alert. She probably didn’t even know she had an effect on him, but he knew it every time she got near him.
At the same time, he wasn’t at all sure he could trust her. She’d tried to kill him. She’d led him into this mess in the first place.
That horrible image of Jasmine resurfaced in his mind: trapped in that awful flower, ensnared by the snaking vines. A wave of guilt overpowered him.
“Corinthe?”
She lifted her head. He pulled back a few inches so he wouldn’t have to stare into those eyes—the eyes that made him forget who he was and what he was doing.
“I need to see Jasmine. I need to know she’s okay.”
Corinthe didn’t hesitate. She carefully scooted an arm’s length away and picked up the backpack Rhys had given them. In it was a flask of water. “Hold out your hands, like a cup.”
He did. She poured out a stream of cold water. He knew he might need the water later, might regret using it for this purpose, but Jasmine was all that mattered right now.
Corinthe reached behind him and extracted the knife from his pocket, keeping her eyes locked on his. His breath hitched. She had the knife now. But she was so weak her hands trembled. There was no way she could kill him, even if she wanted to.
She merely pricked the end of her finger, and carefully, deliberately, she set the knife back down beside him. She held her hand over his and allowed a drop of her blood to spill into the water.
She cupped her hands under his. His skin tingled as if a small electric charge flowed from her to him. He stared at the surface of the water, but nothing happened.
Beads of sweat broke out on Corinthe’s forehead, and her breathing became ragged.
The water rippled like a tiny lake in his hands, and finally, a wavy image of Jasmine appeared. She still lay inside the flower, but already he could see the changes in her. His stomach twisted. Thick veins were visible under her blue-tinged skin.
Corinthe cried out and slumped forward. Luc let the water run out between his fingers and caught her before she fell to the ground.
Her body was shaking. She felt cold under his touch.
“Corinthe?” His pulse pounded in his ears with a dull thumping beat. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her arms vigorously.
Her eyes fluttered open. Slowly, they focused on him. She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was difficult to find her.”
Dread seeped under his skin. “That’s not good, is it?”
“I can connect with living things, but …” She didn’t have to finish for him to know what she meant.
Jas was dying.
Luc wanted to jump up and hike down the mountain in the dark right that second. Wanted to tear apart the whole universe until he found her. But he knew that would be idiotic—a death trap. And his arms were like lead. He hadn’t slept for almost two days. A few hours was all he needed.
Then he would find her. He would find her and save her.
No matter what.
15
Corinthe woke up, gasping, from another dream. That made two in two nights. She’d never dreamed before, as an Executor or as a Fate. She’d never needed to sleep.
What did it mean? What was she becoming?
The fuzziness of waking up was unfamiliar, too—she felt disoriented as shreds of the dream came back to her, weaving and melding with the events of last night:
Luc’s hands on her waist, then in her hair. Luc’s eyes, staring into hers. Their lips almost touching. Their bodies creating heat in the cold atmosphere. And then the two of them standing on a wooden pier, extending endlessly in both directions across the Ocean of Shadows. Gazing at the night sky. A shooting star streaking the darkness. Luc’s laughter. Another star falling … and then another, and another. The shower of sparks becoming a downpour. Constellations collapsing. The pier catching fire, trapping them, forcing them to dive into the ocean, where Figments pulled at their limbs, pleading. Stars coming down like fiery rain, blinding. And then the stars turning into headlights, careering, heading right toward Corinthe.
Principal Sylvia’s car, Luc gone. Sylvia grinning wickedly, baring one long, sharp tooth, just like Miranda’s.
“What’s so funny?” Corinthe’s own question echoing inside her head.
Sylvia’s grin. “I’m not the one driving.”
St. Jude dancing wildly in the window. Corinthe looking down; the steering wheel in her own hands. Trying to swerve out of the way.
Then, the moment of impact: sudden, screeching, horrible. Jolting her awake.
The two suns were already high above the mountains, and a film of sweat lined her brow. Luc’s sweatshirt was balled up under her head, and the wall of the boulder at her back barely provided any shade. She sat up slowly, trying to gauge her dizziness.
Not too bad.
She leaned against the boulder for a moment, wondering where Lucas had gone. He wasn’t sleeping beside her—he must have gone to forage for more supplies.
She should never have slept, yet last night the urge had been too overwhelming to fight. Over the course of their hike yesterday, she’d managed to steal small bits of energy from Luc every time he touched her. She could draw no strength from the dry, dead terrain and was forced to use his.
It made her feel guilty.
Another feeling she had never known before.
It shouldn’t matter that she was using him to get home. That she stitched strength from him to keep going—she took hardly enough for him to notice. It wasn’t possible to drain another being of all its life energy anyway. At least, not as far as Corinthe knew. She could only tap into it, feel it, feed off the excess. It was barely enough for her to even stay standing. Definitely not enough strength to fulfill her task. But she had hoped it would at least be enough to get her home, where she would be healed fully.
And now he was gone, and she could feel the absence of his energy in her body. She felt brittle, exhausted: a worn shell.
When he had asked to see his sister, it had taken nearly all the power she had stored up. But she had wanted to give it to him, as a gift, to show that she was not so terrible, to show that she could do beautiful things as well as bad ones.
She wanted him to understand.
She cared what he thought of her.
The fire had burned down to a few embers. There was no sign of Luc, no evidence of where he’d gone. But then she spotted it: scratched into the hard packed dirt were several words. Corinthe began to shake as she pushed herself to her knees.
Don’t follow me.
Then, as if an afterthought: I’m sorry.
Her chest tightened, and she suddenly felt she couldn’t breathe. She fumbled inside her shirt for the reassuring weight of the locket.
Gone.
And just as quickly, a flood of anger replaced her shock, drove out every other feeling. He had taken the locket. Stolen it.
A sickening feeling opened up deep in the pit of her stomach. He had tricked her. Last night, he opened up to her, and in turn, she had told him things she shouldn’t have. Things about what she did and where she was from.
It had all been an act. Getting her to let her guard down. So she would sleep. So he could steal the locket and leave her.
Corinthe wrapped the sweatshirt around her shoulders and stood up—still dizzy, still weak, but fueled by anger. The trail they had followed the previous day continued down the rocky hillside. Corinthe began to jog, half blind with fury. And some other feeling, too; one she had no words for. It was like falling backward. Helpless, out of control.