“Take this thing off. Take it off!”
He pulled at the Smarteye, forgetting to use his good hand. He couldn’t get it off. Pain burst across the back of his burnt hand, but it was nothing compared to the daggers that stabbed deep into his skull. Saliva coursed into his mouth in a warm rush. He shot to his feet and darted to the bathroom. Or thought he had, because he was dodging trees as well as walls, and poorly at that. He ran smack into something hard, shoulders and head connecting with a solid thud. Roar caught him as he fell back. They exploded into the bathroom together, Roar holding him upright, for Perry no longer trusted his balance.
He felt cold beneath his hands. Porcelain. No more trees.
“I’ve got it.”
He was alone with the toilet now and that was how he stayed for a good long while.
When it was over, he pulled his shirt off and draped it over his head. It hung heavy and damp with his sweat. He still felt dizzy and queasy, like he was coming off the worst seasickness he could imagine. How long had he lasted in the Realms? Three seconds? Four? How would he find Talon?
Aria sat beside him. He couldn’t summon the courage to come out from hiding. A glass of water appeared in front of him.
“I felt the same way when I first came to your world.”
“Thank you,” he said, and drained it.
“Are you all right?”
He wasn’t. Perry took her hand and turned his face into her palm, resting his cheek. He breathed in her violet scent, drawing strength from it. Letting it settle the trembling in his muscles. Aria’s thumb ran back and forth over his jaw, making a soft brushing sound over his scruff. There was something dangerous about this. About the power of her scent on him. But he couldn’t think about it. This was what he needed now.
“How’d you like the Realms?” Roar asked.
Perry peered from beneath his shirt. Roar stood at the bathroom door, and he could see Marron out in the hall.
“Not very much. Try again?” he said, though he seriously doubted whether he could manage it.
When he returned to the common room, the lighting had been dimmed. Someone had brought in a fan. The efforts embarrassed him even though he found they did help settle his nerves. Perry tried to explain what he felt.
“You need to try to forget about here,” Aria said. “About this physical space. Turn your focus toward the Smarteye and it’ll start to feel right.”
Perry nodded like that made sense, as she and Marron continued to instruct him. Relax. Try this. Or maybe try that.
Then Roar said, “Per, act like you’re sighting down the length of an arrow.”
He could do that. Shooting an arrow had nothing to do with his stance or his bow or his arms. Not for a decade had he thought about any of those things. He thought only of his target.
They brought up the forest again. The images battled for his attention like before, but Perry imagined aiming at a curled piece of bark that shuddered past. The woods fixed around him, bringing a sudden, shocking stillness. Somehow the others must have known because he heard Marron say, “Yes.”
The longer he focused on the woods, the more he felt them settling in place. Perry’s body cooled under the current of a soft breeze, but this wasn’t from the fan. This breeze carried a pine scent. Cone pine, though all he saw were spruces. And the odor was too strong. He scented fresh sap, not just the breath of the trees. The air held no traces of human or animal scents, or even the cluster of mushrooms he spotted at the base of a tree.
“The same but different, right?”
He turned, looking for Aria in the woods. “It sounds like you’re in my head.”
“I’m next to you out here. Try to walk, Perry. Take a few more seconds.”
He found that doing so took only the thought of walking. It wasn’t like being in his own skin. He was still dizzy and unsure, but he was moving, one step after the other. He was in the woods now. It should’ve felt like home, but his body held on to the feeling he’d had since he’d come to Marron’s. The same feeling that drove him up to the roof at every chance.
Then he remembered something and knelt quickly. With his good hand, he swept aside the dry pine needles and scooped up a handful of dirt. It was dark and loose and fine. Not the hard-pack earth he usually saw in pine forests. Perry shook his hand, letting the dirt sift through his fingers until a few rocks rested in his palm.
“Do you see?” Aria said softly.
He did. “Our rocks are better.”
Chapter 29
ARIA
On the wallscreen, Aria watched through Perry’s eyes as he stood and brushed dirt from his palms like it was real. Like it would stay with him.
Aria met Marron’s gaze. He shook his head, his signal to her that he hadn’t detected a link to Bliss. She wouldn’t find Lumina today. She’d been prepared for that. Aria pushed down the blow of disappointment. They had to find Talon.
“We’re going to take you into the research Realms, Perry. It’s a little strange hopping to another Realm. . . . Just try to stay calm.”
DLS 16 appeared in red lettering on an icon, suspended in front of the woods. She and Marron had spent the night hacking into her mother’s files, organizing everything. She knew Perry couldn’t read, so Marron was controlling Perry’s location through the palette. Perry turned his head, the icon tracking with his movement.
“Here we go, Peregrine,” Marron said.
Perry swore at her side as the image on the wallscreen rearranged itself into a tidy office. A small red couch with neat proportions and square cushions sat opposite the desk. A fat fern rested on a low coffee table. To one side of the office, a glass door gave to a courtyard with boxwood hedges and a fountain at the center. To the other, evenly spaced along the wall, there were four doors: Lab, Conference, Research, Subjects.
Aria felt light-headed. She’d never seen her mother’s office before. Her gaze lingered on the empty chair behind the desk. How many hours had Lumina spent in that chair?
“Perry, step through the fourth door,” she told him. “The one on the right. Subjects.”
He walked through it, arriving at the end of a long corridor lined on both sides with more doors. He ran to the nearest one.
“Amber.” Aria read the name on the small screen. He moved on to the next. “Brin.” And then to the next. “Clara.”
Perry didn’t move. He stayed in front of the door marked CLARA. Aria couldn’t tell what was happening. She was looking through his eyes. She couldn’t see his face in the Realms. Beside her, he looked calm but she knew he wasn’t. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Roar cursed at her side. “She’s one of us. A girl who disappeared from the Tides last year.”
Marron sent her an urgent look. “Aria, he has to keep going. We have little time.”
Perry sprinted now, past Jasper. Past Rain. To Talon. He burst through the door, into a room with walls covered with animated drawings of soaring hawks, swirling blue skies, and fishing boats casting in the sea. Two comfortable stuffed chairs sat at the center. They were empty.
“Where is he?” Perry asked desperately. “Aria, what have I done wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” She had thought that opening the door would summon the children into that Realm, but she didn’t know. All of this was new.
She was right. Talon fractioned at that moment, appearing on one of the chairs. His eyes flew open and he shot across the room, away from Perry.
“Who are you?” he said. He had a commanding voice for such a young boy. A voice full of fire and daring. He was a rangy little thing. He had green eyes, the color deeper than Perry’s, and dark brown hair that fell in the same twisting locks. He was a striking child.
“Talon, it’s me.”
Talon peered at him suspiciously. “How do I know?”
“Talon . . . Aria, why doesn’t he know me?”
She scrambled for an answer. These were the Realms. You could never trust anything. It was too easy to become something
else. Someone else. Talon knew that already. “Tell him something,” she said, but it was too late.
Perry was wild, cursing. He turned to the door. “How do I get him out of here?”
“You can’t. You’re with him only in the Realms. He’s somewhere else. Ask him where he is. Ask him anything else you want to know. Quickly, Perry.”
Perry dropped onto one knee, his eyes falling to his burnt hand. “He should know me,” he said under his breath.
Talon came closer, tentative. “What happened to your hand?”
Perry wiggled his swollen fingers. “You could call it a mix-up.”
“Looks like it was bad. . . . Did you win?”
“If you were really Talon, you wouldn’t ask me that.”
Aria knew Perry had smiled at his nephew. She could picture his crooked smile, a blend of shy and fierce.
Recognition sparked in the boy’s eyes, but he didn’t move.
“Talon, it looks like you, but I can’t get your temper.”
“There’re no tempers in here,” he said, full of righteousness. “All the scents are off.”
“That’s eight. They’re faded but strong. . . . Squeak, it’s me.”
The suspicion left the boy’s face and he threw himself against Perry.
Aria watched Perry’s hand on the wallscreen, stroking the back of Talon’s head. “I was so worried about you, Tal.” Beside her, on the couch, he shifted, dropping his head into his hands. He was growing used to being in the two places at once. Aria put her hand on his shoulder.
Talon squirmed out of the embrace. “I wanted you to come.”
“I got here as soon as I could.”
“I know,” Talon said. With a gap-toothed grin, he reached out for a tendril of Perry’s hair and rubbed the streaked gold between his thin little fingers. Aria had never seen anything so tender in all her life.
Perry took him by the shoulders. “Where are you?”
“In the Dweller Pod.”
“Which one, Talon?”
“Rev. That’s what the kids here call it.”
Perry patted Talon’s arms, took hold of his chin, touching his small neck. “They’re not hur”—Perry’s voice caught—“hurting you?”
“Hurting me? I get fruit three times a day. I can run in here. Fast. I can even fly, Uncle Perry. All we do is go around in these Realms. They even got hunting Realms, but a lot of them are too easy. You just—”
“Talon, I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll find a way.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
Perry’s shoulder tensed beneath Aria’s hand.
“This isn’t where you belong,” Perry said.
“But I feel good here. The doc says I need medicine every day. It makes my eyes water, but my legs don’t even ache anymore.”
Aria exchanged a worried look with Roar and Marron.
“You want to stay?” Perry said.
“Yeah, now that you’re here.”
“I’m still on the outside. I’m only here this once.”
“Oh . . .” Talon’s lower lip pushed out in disappointment. “It’s good for the tribe, I guess.”
“I’m not with the Tides.”
Talon frowned. “Then who’s Blood Lord?”
“Your father, Talon.”
“No, he isn’t. He’s here with me.”
Beside Aria, on the couch, Perry’s body jerked. Roar hissed nearby.
“Vale’s there?” Perry asked. “He was captured?”
“You didn’t know? He was trying to come rescue me and they got him. I’ve seen him a couple of times. We’ve gone hunting together. Clara’s here too.”
“They caught your father?” Perry asked again.
Marron sat up sharply. “They’ve found him! We need to shut off.”
Perry yanked Talon against him. “I love you, Talon. I love you.”
The drawing of a hawk flying against the Aether sky flickered out.
The screen went dark.
For a second, no one moved. Then the couch shook as Perry jolted back, cursing. “Get this thing off!”
“You have to do it, Perry. You need to be still—”
He was gone, across the room in a few strides. He stopped in front of the wallscreen and dropped to his knees. Aria didn’t think. She went to him, wrapping her arms around him. Perry cinched her into his own arms, uttering a strangled sound as he buried his head into her neck. His body was a tight coil of pain around her, his tears cool feathers on her skin.
Chapter 30
PEREGRINE
Aria guided him upstairs and pulled him into her room. Perry had a vague thought that maybe he shouldn’t be there, but his feet never slowed. He walked in and sat heavily on the bed. Aria turned on the lamp, keeping the light dim. Then she sat beside him and wove her fingers through his.
Perry flexed the fingers of his wounded hand. The surge of pain felt reassuring.
He was still there.
He could still feel.
“Talon didn’t look harmed,” he said after a while. “He looked all right.”
“He did.” She bit her lip, frowning in thought. “I knew they wouldn’t be hurting him. I knew my mother would never do that. We’re not cruel.”
“Taking innocent kids isn’t cruel? They have Talon, Aria! And my brother. They don’t belong there. They’re not Moles.”
Right away he knew it was a stupid thing to say. She’d been kicked out of her home. Cut off from everyone, even her mother. Where did she belong? A cold wave rolled through him. Perry winced, not sure if he’d inhaled her temper or if it was his own regret, his own sorrow. “Aria, I shouldn’t have said that.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Just stared at their joined hands. Perry drew in a breath. Her sweet violet scent was everywhere. His gaze drifted to the smooth skin along her neck. He wanted to breathe there, just below her ear.
“He’s a lot like you, Perry. The way he moves. The way he acts. He adores you.”
“Thank you.” His throat began to tighten as he thought of Talon. He let go of her hand and lay back on the bed. Dropped his arm across his face. He’d just been wrapped up with her in front of the wallscreen. The bandage on his hand was still damp with their tears. But it felt different now. He didn’t want her seeing him like this.
She surprised him by lying down next to him, resting her head on the same pillow. Perry’s heart started pounding. He peered over at her. “I haven’t even asked how you feel.”
She smiled sadly. “That’s a funny question.”
“I mean what you’re thinking.”
Aria stared up at the ceiling, her eyes narrowing in thought. “A lot of things make sense now. I thought I was going to die when I was dropped out here. Everything felt wrong. Being in pain. Being lost and alone.”
Perry shut his eyes, pulled into the feeling of what it must have been like. He’d been there. He’d scented her fear and grief. He’d known it then. He felt it now.
“Now what I feel most is this . . . this relief. I know why I’m alive. And why my body started changing. Now . . . it’s like I have the day ahead of me again. Like I can take a breath and know for sure it’s about living. But there’s so much more I need to work out. I never thought my mother would be capable of lying to me. I can’t figure out how she did it.” She turned her head, looking at him. “How do you hurt someone you love like that?”
“People can be cruelest to those they love.” He saw a flicker in her eyes. A question he didn’t want her to ask. Not now, when he was raw like this. Not ever. But then her curiosity faded and he let out his breath.
“You don’t hate it, then?” he asked after a while. “Knowing you’re half . . . Savage?”
“How could I hate what’s kept me alive?”
He had no doubt the words were meant for him. Without thinking, he reached for her hand. Tucked it against his chest, feeling that was where it should be. Her eyes went from their hands to his Markings. Perry’s heart slamm
ed against his ribs. She had to feel it.
“Will you be the Tides’ Blood Lord?” she asked.
“I will.” His own words amazed him. He’d wanted to be Blood Lord for so long. He’d never have imagined it happening this way. But he knew in every part of him that he needed to go home and win the right to lead the Tides. They couldn’t spend the winter hungry, with infighting and people vying for Blood Lord. They’d need him. Then he remembered the Croven, camped in the plateau. Waiting for him. How would he get out of Marron’s before winter came?
Perry looked down at the small hand pressed against his skin. He knew where he had to go, but what about her? “Aria, what are you going to do?” Somehow, in asking the question, he felt like he was failing her.
“I’m going to Bliss. I need to find out if my mother is alive. Marron and I talked last night. When the Croven leave, he’s going to let me take some of his men. I can’t just wait for news that might not ever come.”
“Aria, I’ll take you. I have to go home. I can take you to Bliss first.”
Perry tensed. What had he just said? What had he just offered?
“No, Perry. Thank you, but no.”
“We had a deal. Allies, remember?” he heard himself say.
“Our deal was to come here and fix the Smarteye.”
“It was to find Talon and your mother. We haven’t done that yet.”
“Bliss is south, Perry.”
“It’s not far. Another week. Doesn’t matter. I’ll get you better shoes this time. And I’ll carry your rocks for you. I’ll even answer all your questions.”
Perry didn’t know what he had just done. Where was the wisdom in heading a week out of the way when his tribe needed him? There was no sense in it, and recognizing that, his blood went cold.
“Will you answer a question now?” Aria asked.
“Yes.” He suddenly couldn’t keep still. He had to leave. He needed to think.
“Why did you really offer to take me to Bliss?”
“I want to,” he said. Even as he spoke, he wasn’t sure if he’d told the truth. It hadn’t felt like a want. It felt more like a need.
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