This is his secret. Our secret. Does he know he once held the Verity? Is he aware he shared it with Joshua?
“I am. But only because of you.”
Seriously, stop. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad you can hear my thoughts.
“It’s good, Em.” His crooked smile makes a candid appearance. “It’s very, very good.”
I drop my spoon into the bowl, and broth splashes onto the tray. Crud. I’ll have to watch what I think from now on.
“Don’t be embarrassed.” His cupped hands dip into the water. “I’m a part of you now. And you’re a part of me. It took me a bit to get the hang of reading your mind, and then soon after, speaking to you through thought. It seems you hear me when I think a thought toward you, and I’m betting with focus you can block me, as well as learn to hear me whenever you please. It’s just a theory, though. I need to do more research.” Excitement fills his tone. He almost sounds like a little kid. He strokes my feet. My ankles. My toes.
I look down and for the first time I realize what he’s doing. My throat constricts and my lip quivers. I clamp my teeth to restrain the brewing emotion. Then I watch as he tenderly, selflessly washes and massages my dirty, aching feet.
My heart twists. My throat constricts once more.
This is why the Void entered him. The reason it inhabited Ky instead of Joshua. I still don’t understand it.
His hands stop moving. He looks up. Brows draw a V. “David didn’t tell you?”
Tell me what?
The expression on his face turns from smooth to sour. “The—” His hands fist beneath the water. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.” Then he shakes his head. “Typical.”
I touch his arm.
“David and I share the Void, just as we shared the Verity.”
Ky rises.
“It split.”
Water drip, drip, drips from his knuckles to the floor.
He inhales and says, “The Void—it entered us both.”
TWENTY-FOUR
She Who Holds Her Tongue
His words are a dagger, hitting its mark at the bull’s-eye on my chest. I don’t know what to feel first. Betrayal? Anger? Relief? If the Void enters the one the Verity’s vessel cares for most, that means—
“You love us both.” His words are simple. Monotone.
No. How can I know who I truly love when the Verity and Void decide everything for me?
Ky’s eyes form two dark slits, making their color indistinguishable.
I lift my feet from the water and stand before him. What do I say? What do I do?
He reaches for my neck, withdraws Joshua’s treble clef–heart charm from its resting place beneath my T-shirt.
We stay that way for one long, unblinking moment. I almost, almost, think he might kiss me. But then he takes my left hand in his, touches the diamond band Joshua gave me.
My heart is an anchor at the bottom of the sea.
Ky steps away, popping the bubble. “You may use my quarters to change and freshen up this evening. I’ll inform the crew you’ll be joining us, not as a prisoner, but as an asset. You’ll move belowdeck with everyone else tomorrow.” He motions to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Washroom’s in there. When you’re done the chair folds out into a cot. Get some sleep. I’ll return in the morning.”
Blink. Nod. Swallow.
He walks away. Once he’s across the cabin, one foot out the door, he says, “Eventually you’ll have to give one up.”
Instinctively I close my fingers around my necklaces, as if to shield my two most treasured possessions from his next words.
“You can’t have it both ways. At some point you have to choose.”
The door slams.
I slump into the chair, open my palm, and gaze toward my chest. At the rose-engraved button, at the diamonds studding the treble clef heart.
They clash.
But they’re mine.
Both of them.
As I move to the washroom and draw a bath, Ky’s words replay in my mind, raising one final question.
The Void may have split, but it’s Ky with whom I shared a Kiss of Infinity, Ky to whom my soul is fully bound.
Why?
I shed my clothes and dip a toe into the tub.
Something tells me it won’t be long before I find out.
Sleep eludes me.
So does Ky.
I toss and turn on the pull-out bed. The mattress is too stiff, the sheets itchy. I fold and unfold my arms. Lie on my right side. My left. I wad the pillow beneath my neck, flatten it, and then chuck it to the floor.
“At some point you have to choose.”
I flip onto my stomach, press my face into the sheets, and loose a silent scream.
Why is everything such a mess?
“The Callings are losing power. The Thresholds are draining.”
Ugh.
When at last I accept my sleepless fate, I cocoon myself in the fleece blanket Ky left for me and waddle to the window. The sea beyond lies eerily still—a reflective plane that seems solid on the surface but if tested would fail to support me. An illusion. A façade.
I hate—hate—that it reminds me of my relationship with Joshua.
I question it still. If his love for me is real or merely a product of our childhood bond. Does he love me because he loves me, or because he always knew he was supposed to? Would he love me if he could see my mirrormark?
I guess I’ll never know. It’s not as if I can go back in time and alter the past.
A shiver crab-walks down my spine, and I cinch the blanket tighter around my shoulders. Moonlight reflects off the ocean in wavy white ripples. The ship creaks every other heartbeat and I close my eyes, imagine myself far away from here. No Joshua to deconstruct. No Ky messing with my emotions. There is just me. Alone and confused, teetering on the verge of brokenness.
Who am I? What do I want?
I. Have. No. Clue.
I curl my toes, tense my jaw. Things have gotten so cataclysmically screwed up. Maybe I’ve never known the answers to these questions.
Who am I?
What. Do. I. Want?
My life was decided for me the moment Joshua kissed my chubby baby cheek. And even now it’s the case. I’m the Verity’s vessel, so my future is obvious.
But what does it mean that Joshua holds the Void too? How is it affecting him now that I’m gone? Will it spread? Is Ky better with me near? Does he feel the Void less with the Verity close? And how could the Verity inhabit the same space as the Void in the first place? Ky held part of the Verity before, even when he lived with a portion of the Void—does he know? It seems this last question holds the key. Void and Verity together, warring against one another.
I’m missing something. It’s right there on the tip of my brain.
Ugh. Why can’t I figure it out? This is worse than trying to master the Chopin-Godowsky études on piano.
I touch my bang-matted forehead to the window, shift the blanket up so it covers my ears. I watch the waves as if they hold the answer, the secret treasure I seek just beneath the surface. An exasperated sigh escapes. How much longer until morning? Why does the night always feel so forever?