FIFTEEN
Turn
You saved me?!”
Ebony’s shrill whisper—if such a thing exists—plunges a dose of oxygen into my chest. Is it a question? A statement? An accusation? With her, I never can tell.
My eyelids snap open. I’m lying on my back. My lungs expand and I breathe deep. Gasp. Cough. Choke. Gulp. Moonlight spills through the bay window at the other end of my suite. The chandelier above rattles and the drapes between my bedposts tremble. The earthquake seems to be ongoing, but the force of it is much less abrupt so high aboveground.
“Why would you do that?” She’s standing above me now, hands on her hips and toe tapping. Doesn’t she know any other way to stand?
I sit up, rub the back of my head. “Good question,” I rasp.
She reaches down and helps me rise. “We didn’t even exchange a Kiss of Accord. You basically just gave me a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
I scowl. “So leave then. Pass go. Collect two hundred dollars. Take the whole flippin’ bank, for all I care.” I turn my back on her, pace to the window, and cross my arms. I’m boiling, bubbling over with no way to lower the heat. I have more important things to worry about than Ebony Archer.
What’s happening to me?
Why was mirror walking . . . painful?
Why do I feel drained and weak and ready to sleep for a hundred years after traveling such a short distance?
Verity, where are you? Where’s your soothing calm? Why can’t I feel you? Did you abandon me?
Shuddering from the hollowness within, I gaze out over the Second. My suite is in the same wing as Stormy’s and I can just make out Dawn Lake from here, or the lack thereof. The ice is broken, bobbing about in chunks across the shallow water. Makai was right. The Threshold is draining. But why? My mind is a spinning record. Too many tracks. They tell a story, but they’re out of order. What’s the pattern, the rhythm to this album?
Ebony appears beside me. She mirrors my body language and I make a point to let my arms rest at my sides. We are not alike. No. Not at all. Nuh-uh.
“I should leave.” She just stands there.
I hurl a sideways glare. “So leave.”
“I will.” She doesn’t budge.
“Fine.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Five minutes pass. Neither of us moves.
“You stay then.” I push past her, making a point to bump her shoulder as I do. When I flop onto my bed, I bury my face in my pillow and scream. It’s all of three seconds before I hear the creak of the wood floor, the click of the door to the hall, and the rattle as it slams closed.
I turn on my side and hug my middle.
Should’ve known better than to turn to a traitor for help.
In my sleep I toss and turn. Throw the covers off. Drag them back on. My pillow is on the floor and the sheets are twisted around my legs. My dry mouth and throat beg for water, but my body is lead and I can’t bring myself to get up.
Wretched nightmares.
“El, come on, you’ve been in here all day.” Joshua’s shadow blocks the lamplight, casting a gray film over my work space in the back of the library.
My brows pinch and I subdue the annoyance begging to grunt from my throat. I don’t look up from the book laid out on the table in front of me. I skim my notes, trying to make sense of what I’ve found. My eyes are dry and itchy. My nose runny from the dust in the air. But my obsession—er, interest?—takes precedence. Where was I? Oh yes. Here. According to this author, the earliest record of the Void dates back to—
A hand reaches out. Snatches the book away. Tosses it onto an empty chair. “Enough is enough,” Joshua says. “It’s the first day of First Month. We should pause and celebrate.”
I want to ask him what we have to celebrate when the Void is still alive and well. When it isn’t destroyed—not really—it’s always hurting someone even if it’s not hurting everyone. Is it so easy to forget another’s pain as long as it’s not your own? How can Joshua ignore it? The Verity within keeps me calm, quelling whatever darkness I might feel from Ky. Does it keep Joshua at peace too? I’m still not quite clear on how this triangle-soul-connection thing even works.
I pick up my pen and scribble in the margin of my notes:
research soul links (also see Kiss of Infinity)
Joshua takes my writing hand, removes the pen, and kisses each finger soft and slow.
Breaths cease. Time? What is that?
He kneels and that crooked grin of his surfaces, making it impossible not to return the gesture. “One hour?” He lifts a brow. “I only ask for sixty minutes of the future queen’s time and then I promise, on my honor as interim king, I will return you to your task.” Now his eyebrows wag. “It’ll be worth it, I guarantee.”
This. This is the Joshua I remember. The one I’ve hardly glimpsed since arriving in the Second. How can I miss an opportunity to spend a moment with the boy I fell in love with? The one I was afraid, for a spell, had disappeared altogether?
I sigh. Blush. Defenses down. “One hour.” He helps me stand and our hands remain connected. “This had better be good.”
“Oh, it will be.” He winks then. Of course he does.
Outside it’s freezing, like ice-cubes-sliding-down-my-bones-and-turning-my-blood-reptilian cold. New York wasn’t this frigid, not even close. No, this is a whole new level of frostbite. My entire body quakes as we crunch through the snow toward the castle stables—the same stables Ky and I escaped through in November. The memory wraps me with an unwarranted chill and I shiver it away. Should’ve brought my coat. How is Joshua not an icicle in his meager long-sleeved button-down?
“Don’t worry,” he says as if reading my arctic brain. “You’ll be warm soon.”
Teeth chattering, I pick up my pace to match his longer stride. One of his steps is three of my hobbit ones. At the stables, which are U-shaped with their own sort of courtyard at the heart, I stop. Lively, Celtic-feeling music with an urban flair wafts through the entry arch. I glance up at Joshua. It’s city meets country, a Manhattan-slash-Second Reflection mash-up. Most days I wonder if he’s forgotten me—us. But then a pinprick of sunlight beams and I see . . .
He knows me all too well.
When we enter the courtyard, winter fades. Large space heaters are stationed throughout, and a bonfire blazes at the center where Reggie roasts marshmallows bigger than my fist. Couples skip and dance. Children race and tag and tumble. Band members play and slap their knees. Horses whinny and nod. A triple-row horse-drawn sleigh waits to one side where passengers board. There’s even a mini ice rink in the far southern corner. It’s like a Fairy tale come to life.
“This is all for me?” My jaw won’t stay closed.
Joshua chuckles. The sound has always teetered between an old man’s laugh and a child’s giggle. “It is tradition to ring in the New Year with a small gathering of family and friends. With a little light in the darkest of seasons. You will officially be our queen in less than a month. I thought it only fitting to amp the festivities up a notch and add a few of your favorite things.” He releases my hand and offers his arm.
I link mine through his, let him lead me toward the fire. My insides thaw and the Verity washes me with serenity. What was I so worried about? I almost can’t remember why I’ve kept myself holed up in the library. Life is here and now. How have I allowed myself to miss it?