Hess smiled. “That’s better.”
Her heart started drumming with anger. “Much,” she said.
A waiter arrived with a tray of coffees. Dark-eyed and handsome, he could have been Roar’s brother. He smiled as he set the drinks on the table. A warm breeze blew past, carrying the spicy scent of cologne and shifting Aria’s hair on her bare back. It was all so normal and safe and charming. A year ago, Paisley would’ve been kicking her under the table over the waiter’s smile. Caleb would have looked up from his sketchbook and rolled his eyes. She was suddenly furious at how difficult life was now.
Hess sipped his coffee. “Are you well, Aria?”
Did he know she’d been poisoned? Could he tell through the Eye? Through her body chemistry? “I’m terrific,” she said. “How are you?”
“Terrific,” he said, matching her sarcasm. “You’re on your way now. Are you traveling alone?”
“What do you care?”
Hess’s eyes narrowed on her. “We detected a storm near you.”
Aria smirked. “I detected it too.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you really can’t. I need to know if something’s happening in Reverie, Hess. Were you hit by the storm? Has there been any damage?”
He blinked at her. “You’re a smart girl. What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I need to know. I need proof that Talon is all right. I want to see my friends. And I want to know what you’re going to do when I give you the location of the Still Blue. Are you moving the entire Pod? How will you do that?” Aria leaned across the table. “I know what I’m doing, but what about you? What about everything else?”
Hess tapped his fingers on the marble tabletop. “You’re quite fascinating now. Life among the Savages suits you.”
Suddenly the Realm plunged into silence. Aria looked to the canal. The gondola had frozen on water that was as still as glass. A flock of pigeons hung in the air above, caught in mid-flight. People looked around them, panic on their faces; then the Realm snapped back, sound and movement returning.
“What was that?” she demanded. “Answer me, or we’re done.”
Hess took another sip of coffee and watched the traffic in the Grand Canal like nothing had just happened. “Do you think you can fraction if I don’t want you to?” He looked back at her. “We’re done when I say so.”
Aria grabbed her coffee and flung it at him. The dark liquid splattered over his face and his pale suit. Hess jerked back, gasping, even though it hadn’t hurt him. Nothing in the Realms could inflict true pain. The most he would feel was warmth, but she’d surprised him. She had his attention now.
“Still want me to stay?” she asked.
He disappeared before she’d finished speaking, leaving her to stare at an empty chair. Though she knew it would be pointless, she tried to shut off the Eye. She was ready to be back—completely—in the real.
UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND flashed on her Smartscreen.
Now what? The waiter peered through the café window, interest sparking in his eyes. Aria turned away, looking toward the canal. A couple embraced at the top of the ornate cement bridge, watching the water traffic below. She tried to imagine that she was the one pressed against the rail. That it was Perry brushing her hair aside and whispering in her ear. Perry had hated the Realms. She couldn’t form the picture in her mind.
A time counter appeared at the upper corner of her Smartscreen. It ticked down from thirty minutes. Aria braced herself. Hess was up to something.
In the next moment, she fractioned to another Realm, appearing on a wooden pier. The ocean lapped gently below, and gulls cried overhead, the sounds garish parodies of their real versions. A boy sat at the very end of the pier. He faced out to sea, but Aria knew exactly who he was.
Talon.
She felt sick. She’d wanted to know that Perry’s nephew was well, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know him. She didn’t want to care any more than she already did. And what was she supposed to say to him? Talon didn’t even know her. She looked down at herself. At least she was back in her usual black clothes.
The time counter now read twenty-eight minutes. She’d been standing there for two minutes. She shook her head at herself, and went to him.
“Talon?”
He leaped to his feet and faced her, his eyes wide with surprise. She’d never met Talon, but she’d seen him once before. Months ago, when Perry had visited Talon in the Realms, she’d been watching on a wallscreen. He was a striking boy, with curling brown hair and serious green eyes, their color darker, richer than Perry’s.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A friend of your uncle’s.”
He glared at her suspiciously. “Then how come I don’t know you?”
“I met him after you were brought into Reverie. I’m Aria. I was with Perry when he came to see you in the Realms last fall.... I was helping him from the outside.”
Talon wedged his fishing rod between the slats on the wooden pier. “So you’re a Dweller?”
“Yes … and an Outsider, too. I’m half of both.”
“Oh.... Where are you? Outside or in Reverie?”
“Outside. I’m actually … I’m sitting next to Roar.”
Talon’s eyes brightened. “Roar’s there?”
“He’s asleep, but when he wakes, I’ll tell him you said hello.” Another pole rested by the pier. Talon was using two. He was a Tider, she realized. He’d probably fished for all of his eight years. “Can I join you?”
He didn’t look happy about it, but he said, “Sure.”
Aria picked up the extra rod and sat next to him. She couldn’t believe that after a few days in a fishing settlement, she was now fishing in the Realms. She studied the wooden pole in her hands, realizing she had no idea how to cast it. She’d gone fishing in another Realm before. A Space Fishing Realm, where you fired hooks at fish as you floated through the cosmos. This was fishing as the ancients had done it.
“Umm … here,” Talon said, taking the rod from her hand. He cast out slowly, so she could see what he was doing, then handed it back.
“Thanks,” she said.
He shrugged without looking at her and began swinging his legs over the edge of the pier. Kicking left and right, left and right, left and right. Being still makes me tired, Perry had once told her. Apparently it ran in the family.
“We use nets more at home,” Talon said after a while.
“Oh, really?” She fumbled for a follow-up question. The timer read twenty-three minutes. “Do you like fishing better or hunting?”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “I love them both.”
“I could’ve probably guessed that. You look like you’re good at both.” He was sturdier now, healthier than when she’d seen him in the fall.
Talon scratched his nose. “I can catch them and catch them, but this Realm doesn’t let you cook them. I tried a few times. I gathered some wood and I tried to start a fire, but it doesn’t work. There’s no fire in the Realms. I mean there is, but it’s like a pretend kind of fire?”
Aria bit her lip, nodding. She knew that too well.
“You have to go to a cooking Realm to cook fish, but those are barmy. And then even when you eat them, it doesn’t fill your stomach after you leave the Realms. It’s not as fun catching them when there’s no point.”
Aria smiled. When he talked, his legs stopped swinging, and a crease appeared between his eyebrows. “I’m sure there are places where you can compete,” she suggested.
“For what?”
“For, you know, rankings. You could be first place.”
“Does first place mean I get to cook and eat what I catch?”
Aria laughed. “Probably not.”
“Maybe I’ll try them anyway.” He looked out at the ocean and swung his legs for a while before he spoke again. “I want to go home. I want to see my uncle.”
She felt her throat tighten. He hadn’t asked for his
father. She wondered if he’d figured out what had happened between Vale and Perry, but it wasn’t her place to ask. It dawned on her that he no longer had parents. He was an orphan like she was.
“Are you unhappy in Reverie?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I just want to go home. I’m better now. The doctors here made me better.”
“That’s good, Talon.” She remembered Perry telling her that Talon had been ill on the outside. “I’m going to get you out, and back home to the Tides. I promise.”
He scratched his knee but didn’t say anything.
“Do you ever fish with a friend?”
“Clara used to come with me. She’s Brooke’s sister. Do you know Brooke?”
Aria swallowed back a laugh. “Yes, I know Brooke. Why did Clara stop fishing with you?”
“She got bored. She thinks this Realm is too slow now. No one likes to fish this way.”
“I like it. Maybe we could do this again sometime?”
Talon gave her a sidelong glance and smiled. “All right.”
For the rest of their time together, Talon told her about all the fish he’d caught here. Using what sort of bait. At what time of day. Under what weather conditions.
He tipped his head to the side when his voice grew softer. His legs never stopped swinging over the edge of the pier. A few times, when he smiled, she had to look to the sea and breathe; he was so much like his uncle. She hugged him as the counter wound down to zero, promising she’d come see him again soon.
Aria fractioned into another Realm—an office. Hess sat at a sleek gray desk with a glass wall behind him. Through it she saw Reverie’s Panop—her home her entire life—with its circular levels coiling up. The view stole her breath and beckoned her forward. She’d been in the Realms dozens of times with Hess since she’d been cast out, but she hadn’t seen the Pod, her physical home, until now.
Hess spoke before she’d taken a step. “Pleasant visit,” he said. “He’s not suffering, as you saw. I hope we can keep it that way.”
17
PEREGRINE
Pledge, Vale,” Perry said, as he held the knife to his brother’s throat. His voice sounded too harsh, like his father’s voice, and his hands shook so badly he couldn’t hold the blade steady. He had Vale pinned to the grass in an empty field.
“Pledge to you? You can’t be serious. You have no idea what you’re doing, Perry. Admit it.”
“I know what I’m doing!”
Vale started laughing. “Then why did they leave you? Why did she leave you?”
“Shut up!” Perry pressed the blade against his brother’s throat, but Vale only laughed harder.
Then it wasn’t Vale. It was Aria. Beautiful. So beautiful beneath him, on Vale’s bed. She laughed as he held the knife to her throat. Perry couldn’t take the blade away. It trembled in his hand as he pressed it against the smooth skin at her neck, and he couldn’t stop himself and she didn’t care. She just kept laughing.
Perry lurched out of the nightmare and shot upright in his loft. He cursed loudly, unable to keep it quiet. Sweat rolled down his back, and he was out of breath.
“Easy. Easy, Perry,” Reef said. He was perched on the ladder, brow furrowed with worry.
The house was dim and deathly silent. Perry didn’t hear the usual snores of the Six. He’d woken everyone up.
“You all right?” Reef asked.
Perry turned toward the shadows, hiding his face. Two days. She’d been gone two days. He reached for his shirt and pulled it on.
“I’m fine,” he said.
Bear was waiting for him when he stepped outside. “We’re leaner than ever, Perry, I know that. But I need my people rested. It’s too much, asking them to work a whole day in the fields and then do the night watch. Some of us need sleep.”
Perry tensed. He slept even less lately, and everyone knew it. “We can’t afford to be raided. I need people on watch.”
“I need help clearing drainage ditches, Perry. I need help tilling and seeding. What I don’t need is people snoring when they should be working.”
“Make do with what you have, Bear. Everyone else is.”
“I will, but we won’t get more than half of what we need done.”
“Then do the half! I’m not pulling men off watch.”
Bear went still, as did several people around the clearing. Perry didn’t understand how they didn’t understand. Almost a quarter of the tribe had dispersed. Of course they couldn’t get everything done. He’d hoped to build up food rations for the tribe’s journey to the Still Blue, but after the damage from the Aether storm and the loss of manpower, it was all he could do to keep them fed every day. They were overworked and underfed, and he needed a solution.
He considered his options throughout the day as he cleared drains for Bear and checked the Tides’ defense measures. Reef worked beside him, close as his shadow. When Reef wasn’t there, one of the Six took his place. They wouldn’t leave him alone. Even Cinder seemed in on it, joining Perry if he walked off in search of a few minutes to himself.
He didn’t know what they expected from him. The initial shock had worn off, and now he saw the situation for what it was. Roar and Aria had left; they would go to the Horns to find Liv and the Still Blue. Soon they’d return, and that was all. It had to be. He wouldn’t let himself think beyond that.
Supper was late that night—they’d lost three cooks to Wylan’s group—and the cookhouse was strangely empty and quiet. Perry didn’t taste his food, but he ate because the tribe watched him. Because he had to show them that things might have changed but tomorrow would still come.
Reef fell in step with him as he left the cookhouse and headed for the eastern lookout. Perry sensed Reef working up the courage to say something as they walked. Hands curling into fists, he waited to be told he needed sleep, or more patience, or both.
“Terrible supper,” Reef said at last.
Perry let out a breath, the tension seeping out of his fingers. “Could’ve been better.”
Reef looked up to the sky. “You feel it?”
Perry nodded. The sting in the back of his nose warned him that another storm wouldn’t be far off. “Almost always now.”
The Aether flowed, corded and angry, giving the night a blue, marbled glow. After the storm, the calm skies had only held for a day. Now there was little difference between day and night anymore. Days were darkened by clouds and the blue cast of Aether. Nights were brightened by the same. They flowed together, the edges blurring into an endless day. An ever night.
He looked at Reef. “I need you to send a message.”
Reef raised his eyebrows. “To?”
“Marron.” Perry didn’t want to ask for help from him again—he’d done it only months ago when he’d sought refuge there with Roar and Aria—but the Tides’ position was too weak. He needed food and he needed people. He’d ask for a favor before he saw his tribe starve or lose the compound in a raid.
Reef agreed. “It’s a good idea. I’ll send Gren first thing tomorrow.”
Even after he and Reef showed up to relieve them, Twig and Gren remained at the watch post, huddled at the edge of a rocky overlook. The four of them sat together in comfortable silence as a fine mist began to fall.
Hyde and Hayden arrived soon after, Straggler trailing behind them. They had the night off watch, all three. Perry had seen Hyde yawn half a dozen times during supper. They settled themselves along the lookout, watching as the mist thickened to rain. Still no one spoke, or left.
“Quiet night,” Twig said finally. “We’re quiet, I mean. Not the rain.” His voice sounded raspy and hoarse after the long stretch of silence.
“You eat a frog, Twig?” Hayden asked.
“Maybe there were frogs in the soup tonight,” said Gren.
Hyde grunted. “Frogs taste better than that tripe.”
Twig cleared his throat. “You know I almost did eat a live frog once,” he said.
“Twig, you look like a
frog. You have froggy eyes.”
“Show us how high you can jump, Twig.”
“Shut up and let him croak the story.”
The story itself wasn’t much. As a boy, Twig had been on the brink of kissing a frog, on a dare from his brother, when it slipped through his fingers and jumped into his mouth. It was the wrong story for Twig to tell. At twenty-three, he had yet to kiss a girl, and the Six knew it, as they knew nearly everything about one another. A massacre followed, as they took shots at Twig, saying things like maybe he was worried that after the frog, a girl would be a letdown, and that they supported his quest to find a prince.
Perry listened, smiling at the better jabs, feeling more himself than he had in the past two days. Eventually it grew quiet again, except for the rhythm of a few snores. He looked around him. The rain had stopped. Some slept. Others breathed steadily, focused on the night. No one spoke, but Perry heard them clearly. He understood why they’d been shadowing him and why they sat with him now, staying when they didn’t have to.
Given any choice, they wouldn’t leave. They’d stand by him.
18
ARIA
We made better pace today.” Aria wrung her hair out, scooting closer to the fire. Spring had come in force, with days of steady rain. They’d left the Tides three days ago, and her strength had finally returned. “Don’t you think we made up some ground?”
Roar lay against his satchel, his legs crossed at the ankle, his foot tapping to a beat she couldn’t hear. “We did.”
“Good fire, too. We got lucky to find dry wood.”
Roar looked over, raising an eyebrow. She realized she’d been staring not at him, but through him.
“You know what’s worse than mute Aria? Small-talking Aria.”
She picked up a stick and jabbed at the fire. “I’m just sparing you.”
They had traveled in near silence most of the day, despite Roar’s attempts at conversation. He wanted to discuss their plan for when they reached the Horns. How would they discover information about the Still Blue? How would they negotiate for Liv’s return? But Aria hadn’t wanted to discuss anything. She’d needed to stay focused on moving forward. On pushing harder when she felt the urge to turn back. And speaking might get her speaking.
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