I lift my head gradually. Here it comes . . .
He flashes a crooked smile. “I’m Joshua David.”
Why doesn’t he look shocked or appalled? Is he blind?
“Um . . . Eliyana? Ember.” Genius. Now he’s going to think I’m—what’s the word Blake uses?—“special.”
“I just moved in next door. I’m sorry I startled you. I was trying to replace the bulb on my porch light. Then I heard your voice and . . .” Joshua scratches the back of his dark-haired head and shrugs. “I guess you know what happened next. Anyway, I just started at Columbia. One of my professors is letting me live here practically rent-free as long as I fix the place up.”
Weird. I’ve never actually seen the guy who lives next door. He’s kind of a hermit. It might be nice to have a friendly neighbor for a change.
“Pays to be the teacher’s favorite, I guess.” His smile evens.
I wouldn’t know. “Cool.”
He’s going to leave now. His politeness meter is maxed out.
So why is he still standing here? No, not just standing here. He’s acting as if he doesn’t want to leave.
He rocks back on his heels. “So you like music. Do you play any instruments?”
“Yeah.” What was the question?
“Which ones?”
“Which ones what?” Deer in the headlights. That’s me.
“Instruments.” He laughs, but for some reason I don’t feel as if he’s laughing at me. He just seems . . . happy.
“Oh.” I twist a split-ended lock around my finger. “Um, piano?” Really? I’m asking this gorgeous guy if I play piano? Bury me now. “But I always wanted to learn how to play guitar.”
“Wait here.” He winks. “I’ll be right back.” He’s over the wall and out of sight before I can give a coherent response.
He’s kind of weird.
I like him.
When he returns, he lifts a beautiful, Ibanez electric-acoustic over the wall. I take it while he boosts himself back over. “I’ll show you some chords if you want.”
He’s kidding. “I’m sure you have better things to do right now than teach me how to play guitar.” Please say you don’t.
He makes a face, as if seriously contemplating the concept. “Nope. Can’t think of anything.” Joshua reclines on the swing. He rests his guitar on one knee and strums with his thumb. “The song you were singing was really depressing.”
Shrug.
“I’ve got a better one if you’re up for it.”
“Okay.” I join him, noting our proximity once again.
He still isn’t running, still is looking at me as if I’m no different from anyone else.
Joshua starts strumming, singing “Daydream Believer” better than any Monkee ever could. His tanned fingers pick the strings in fluid repetition. I survey him. The way he rocks in sync with the rhythm. How the corner of his mouth twitches between lyrics.
Moments ago my chest was torn and hemorrhaging. But now—now I’m the girl in the song my new neighbor sings.
“Your turn.” He passes me the guitar and proceeds to place my fingers where they belong, officially making him the first boy who’s ever touched me.
My heart capers. Cheer up, indeed.
Every seemingly random event from my life replays on my mind’s silver screen. Each one scrambles, falls in order, the plot finally making sense. Cut a scene here and splice it in there and voilà—a coherent mystery flick. And I’m the star.
Stop. Rewind. Play.
The next-door neighbor I never saw. Code name: Joshua’s “professor.” A.k.a. Makai.
Fast-forward. Pause.
Joshua moves in. Seems odd he has nothing better to do than spend time with me. Mom hates him too. Until she doesn’t.
Skip, two, three.
Mom’s upset. Her picture is in the paper. She’s acting panicked, not like herself.
New frame. Freeze.
Quinn sits beside me on the first day of senior year. She wants to hang out, despite what it would do to her social status.
Next scene. Hold it right there.
Mom “dies.” I go to Joshua for comfort. He’s distant. Almost mean. But he doesn’t stay that way. I can’t keep track of his emotions. He’s warm one minute and glacial the next.
Blinking away the memories, I zoom in on the new members of our gathering. The guard on the left of Joshua, stout and bearded, is unmistakably Preacher. Odd to see him minus the scowl. On the right, bald and dark-skinned, is Kuna. His infectious smile vanquished, the frown painful to look upon. Both men have lost the light and color from their eyes, replaced by the swirling fog of the Soulless. Every inch of exposed flesh reveals midnight veins, twisting and winding and reaching.
But nothing, not Preacher’s missing glower or Kuna’s absent joy, strikes my core as much as the sight of the pale man between them. He’s shirtless, a wide bandage encompassing his torso, the black Guardian tattoo peeking from beneath. Fresh, still-bleeding cuts mar his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, his arms. Even so, he remains himself, eyes blue as ever. Bruises and road rash–like burns splotch his skin, but it’s still his skin—not a charred vein in sight.
Joshua gazes at me with a fierceness that starts an earthquake in my bones. He struggles against his captors. They release him, and he staggers forward.
I scramble up the steps. We fall to our knees. We’re the only two people in the room. “Joshua,” I whisper. “What have they done to you?”
He shakes his head, wincing at the minor movement. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. “I should’ve told you.” He hangs his head. Closes his eyes.
His brokenness might kill me.
“Do you wish to tell her now?” Jasyn’s cello-deep voice intrudes. “Or shall I?”
Joshua’s jaw works. He opens his eyes but doesn’t meet mine. “I’ll do it.”
I brace myself.
“Twenty-one years ago, my parents died. Their names were Aidan David Henry and Ember Gabrielle Archer.”
Joshua David.
“They were older, and I’m told there were complications with the pregnancy. My father wanted my mother at peace. The less stress she endured, the better chances the birth would come without difficulties. So he sent her away from the public eye, away from the responsibilities that come with being queen. He was an Ever but never took his Calling for granted. Mother would live with a Physic, a man my parents knew and trusted, where she would finish out her term and give birth.”
“Nathaniel.” Natural causes, he’d said. Ember’s death . . . oh no.
He nods. “No one knew she was pregnant aside from my father, Nathaniel, and his two sons.” Makai and Tiernan. “All were sworn to secrecy, sealed with a Kiss of Accord. My father covered every base. He wanted nothing interfering with my birth.”
“He said he was going to die anyway. He was raving mad.”
My father did this. He broke his vow. “When Tiernan told Jasyn about Mom, he also mentioned Ember’s pregnancy.” If my father wasn’t already dead, I might kill him myself.
“Well done, granddaughter,” Jasyn says. “As I have said, I am unable to get around a Kiss of Accord. But if the promise is broken of one’s own free will, that is a different matter. Tiernan wanted to die. The Void had become too much for him.”
I refuse to acknowledge my grandfather’s presence. These may be my final moments with Joshua. I’m not going to waste them.
Combing stained fingers through my hair, Joshua continues, “I already told you my mother died in childbirth. But what you don’t know is her death was directly linked to my father’s.”