“I need to hear you say it, Joshua.” I step closer, crossing the force field he’s constructed around himself these days. The same one I put up after I thought Mom died. It’s as if Joshua and I have switched places.
“My duty is to the Verity and its vessel. To the people. The rightful king. That means ensuring your safety until your birthday. Nothing more.” His dynamic tenor is gone, replaced by an unrecognizable, droning lament.
Why won’t he look at me? It can’t all have been a lie. Our afternoons on the roof. That night on Broadway’s stage. The way he held me in the subway. “Say it.” My teeth grind so hard my jaw pops.
He takes a lengthy breath. With shoulders straight and head erect, he looks me square in the eyes. “I. Do. Not. Love. You.” Joshua holds my stunned stare, chin high.
“What wounds the heart only serves to make it stronger.”
If Mom’s words are true, I’ll be Hercules after this.
I step back, dizzy, the landscape tilting sluggishly. It’s as if this is a scene in a movie playing in slow motion. If this were a montage, the music would be dark, depressing, falling like forever rain. I force myself not to lose it. Steady now. “If that’s how you feel, I guess this is good-bye.” I hold out my hand, waiting.
He takes it. “Good-bye, Eliyana.” Our hands fall away. Separating. Dividing. Creating a permanent chasm that can’t be bridged.
“One last thing,” I say. “How do you know so much about this?”
He flattens his lips. “I have my sources.” He moves to go, then pauses when we’re shoulder to shoulder. “Gather your things—we’re leaving within the hour. We’ve been here too long. Kyaphus was right. We should’ve gone straight to the Maple Mines last night.” He walks back inside. The door clicks closed. The end.
This is it then. I have to let him go. I’ll do what I must, return to the Haven, and hide out until my birthday. What’s two more weeks? Mom is the only thing that matters, my final goal.
Joshua is nothing more than a memory now. “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
I wait the full hour until I head inside. Joshua, Kuna, Stormy, and Lark converse quietly in the sitting room to the right. I pass them, aiming for the stairs. The front desk is vacant, Grizz nowhere to be seen. Ky tromps down the steps, carrying two packs. One is his, made of fading brown leather. The other appears to be—
“Ky,” I gasp. “Are those my jeans?”
He grins. Hands me the denim pack. There’s a heart-shaped pocket on either side, the remainder of the seat of my jeans. Sloppy and uneven stitches bind the sides, but a tug proves my new purse won’t be falling apart anytime soon.
“Did you make this?” I turn it over, tracing the seams, then thread an arm through the straps on the back. I should be furious. He cut up my favorite pair of faded blues without even asking me first.
“You need your own pack. You can’t expect me to be your carrier boy forever. Open it.”
I lift the top flap, crafted from the end of one pant leg, and peer inside. My Third Reflection shirt and underthings rest at the bottom. I blush, picturing Ky holding my bra and underwear. Moving on. Besides my clothes it contains the vial of Illusoden, a canteen, the hair and tooth brushes from the washroom, Mom’s sketchbook-slash-journal, and my cracked, lifeless phone.
“You grabbed my cell from the gutter?”
“I wanted David to be able to track you to the Pond. Wasn’t sure if you’d want it back.”
Ky has no idea my treble-clef necklace was the real tracker. I’d give anything to have it back. Still, I appreciate the gesture, so I say, “Thanks.”
“There’s something else too.”
I move my phone aside. Is that . . . ? The copper jean button bearing an engraved rose is tied to braided cords.
I should be fuming. Instead, a lump forms in my throat.
“Don’t worry.” Ky’s cheeks redden. He can stare at a buck-naked girl without blinking, and this he blushes at? “Stormy collected your things from the washroom and packed them. I just added the stuff on top.”
He reaches into the bag and withdraws the button necklace. He brings the homemade jewelry to my neck, a bandage wrapped around one of his fingers. Did he prick himself as he sewed? He leans in to tie the cord at the back, and I inhale his earthy scent. The button tilts to one side at my collarbone.
“There.” Ky draws back, but his touch lingers on my skin a second longer than necessary. “I know how upset you were when you lost your other necklace at the Threshold. I figured you needed a replacement. It’s one of a kind. Like you.”
Heart. Beats. Fast. If Christina Perri only knew.
My birthday isn’t for another two weeks. Afterward I’ll be free to start over. Move on. Not anytime soon, but . . . someday.
I touch the rose button, a near mirror image of Ky’s Shield tattoo. When I turn eighteen, my spell will break. Like the Beast in my favorite fairy tale, could I also learn to love again?
ACT III
Something There
TWENTY-FOUR
Unsure
We’ve been back at the Haven for most of the day. We had zero trouble on our journey south. The recesses of my abdomen churn. Shouldn’t Mom and Makai have joined us by now? Our delay at Wichgreen Village would’ve given them time to catch up. And what about Jasyn? Why hasn’t he sent his men after me? Something’s rotten, and it’s not the undigested beets we ate for breakfast.
It took us five days to make it to the island by way of the Maple Mines. Five days of worrying and wondering if I’ll ever see Mom again.
What’s taking Makai so long?
Stormy and I are on friendish terms now. I was right. She did give Gage a Kiss of Accord. Kuna still has no idea what transpired, only that Gage is a traitor and Ky proved he is not.
“It happened a long time ago,” she shared.
It was our second night in the mines and her shift to keep watch. I couldn’t sleep, anxiety crazing my thoughts. So I just lay there and listened, staring up at the root and dirt ceiling.
“Kuna and I have always been sweethearts. We married young, trained as Guardians together. He’s my best friend. I love him.” She paused then, as if wanting that piece of information to sink in. As if needing me to believe its truth. “When I met Gage, there was something different about him. He had this magnetic kind of attraction, you know? I fooled myself into thinking friendship was the only thing between us. That spending time with Gage didn’t hurt anyone.” She hung her head. “I was wrong.”
“A few months back I tried to end things with him,” she continued. “At first he seemed to understand, but several days later he came to me in a rage.” Stormy lifted her right hand to her cheek and shuddered. “He . . .” She sobbed. Shut her eyes. “He begged me to come away with him. When I refused, he threatened to kill Kuna and tell everyone how I’d been unfaithful. I couldn’t bear it . . .”
“So you made a promise sealed with a Kiss of Accord.”
She opened her eyes then. Nodded as she stared with a blank expression at nothing. “He’d keep our secret and wouldn’t touch Kuna in exchange for three favors. Anything he asked I’d have to do until my debt was paid. The other night in Wichgreen Village was favor number one.”