by Reilyn Hardy
She nodded and took my hand within her own.
“She always does.” Her voice was small. Her mother worked all the time, I hardly saw her anywhere else but at the marketplace. She squeezed my hand. “You’re going to go with him, right?”
“Jace?” I smiled, her concern was kind of cute. “I’ll be okay without him, Zo.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think he’ll be okay without you.”
I let go of her hand and ruffled her hair. She frowned and quickly patted down the messy strands. I thought back to what Jace said about the forest spirit and the memories that flooded me in the Woodlands. How they ended with him, the cuts on his back and the blood on my fingers. Maybe she was right, and maybe Jace was right.
Maybe I should go, it could be a sign.
CHAPTER THREE
two decades
A week passed since the Vernal Equinox, and I tried to go on with my life like nothing unusual happened. I sat right outside of my house and measured the base of a candlestick with the bend of my finger and cut off the bottom using my dagger. Though it wasn’t meant for cutting, especially not candles, it was the only blade I was comfortable with.
I brought the two sticks together, and held them side by side to check their heights, before slicing through the wick at the top that kept them paired. Once I finished, I put them down in the wooden crate that sat beside my feet on my right, and grabbed another pair of unfinished candles hanging on the rack to my left.
This was all I did when I wasn’t watching Zoirin. I cut unfinished candles and prepared them for sale, fire being the main source of light when it got dark. The council still hadn’t sent anyone out to fix our wiring, and I doubted they ever would. I couldn’t remember what it was like to have working electricity anyway, so I wasn’t as bothered by it as I had been as a kid. I actually preferred it this way now. Strangers made me uneasy, like the woman at the Salvation.
Maybe I was just afraid someone would recognize me.
I tried not to, but I kept thinking about her and the information she told us, about the dragons and about David. The way she looked right at me made my stomach churn, even there where I sat. Why was she wearing a triskelion pendant? How did she get it? I shifted in my chair and tried to focus on the candles. Thinking about it wasn’t making me feel any better.
“Some Salvation last week, huh.”
I didn’t have to look up to know it was Jace. I knew his voice anywhere.
“Yeah,” I said absentmindedly.
I stared at the candles and curled my finger again to measure the base while I pretended I wasn’t thinking about it. I didn’t want to talk about it and I hoped he didn’t either. We hadn’t said much to each other about it since it happened, but I managed to cleverly avoid him up until that point. Mostly because Jace was hardly ever home.
I was happy to forget, I was happy to put it all in the past and pretend that none of it happened. Not the woman or what she said or the way she looked at me or the Vernal Equinox.
Jace seemed to disagree. He kicked my chair just as I tried to slice through the bottoms of the candlesticks. I nearly cut off of my finger.
“Jace!” I glared at him and swiped the excess wax into the ceramic bowl positioned in my lap. The blade had only just missed.
“You’re not listening to me,” he said as he dragged a stool against the dirt and plopped down beside me. “You don’t believe it?”
“Believe what?” I asked irritably.
He sighed and clutched his fists as he took a quick glance away from me.
“That King Solomon was forced? That a cave-in didn’t really kill Father Time’s kids?”
“I have trouble believing that someone — anyone — can force the dragon king to do anything,” I said. I dropped the dagger onto the wooden table and sat back in my chair. With the back of my wrist, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and ran my fingers through my short curly hair. “And if the cave-in didn’t kill them, where are they?” I knew, one was sitting right next to him. “But I guess you believe it.”
“I’ve got no reason not to. You don’t always have to see things to believe them.”
That wasn’t the problem. I had seen things. I saw more than I ever wanted to. I saw things I wished I could forget. But I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
“You believed me when I told you what I am,” Jace added.
“Because no one would lie about that,” I said. “I don’t want to believe in any of this. I don’t want to — even for a second — believe that bad things could still be happening out there. They erupted Pryley so they’d kill what he created and trap him in the Underworld. She’s saying that might have been for nothing? People died, Jace. Look, I’m a child of munfolk and a son of candlemakers. I have a good life and I’m happy with it. With the way things are.”
“It’s simple,” he said. He said it like it was a bad thing.
“It’s safe,” I corrected and faced the dagger sitting on the table. “Or at least it is when you aren’t kicking my chair trying to make me cut off my fingers.” I knew he was grinning at my words. I didn’t have to look. “But I’m fine here,” I continued, and picked up the candles again. I held them up side by side to make sure they were the same length and cut through the wick at the top. “I don’t want to go out there and get myself beheaded like David of Barrowhaven.”
“So you don’t wanna go with me?”
I sighed and dropped the dagger back onto the table.
“You weren’t serious about that, were you?”
He shrugged.
“Why not? You and me, right?”
I ran my hand over my face. Unbelievable. I could feel him staring at me, practically burning holes into the side of my head. You and me. He had always said that, since we were kids making plans to go on adventures. Is that what he thought this was?
“I’ll die out there, Jace.”
“Not on my watch. Plus, at least Ferris won’t be out there. That’s gotta be a little tempting, don’t it?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. Maybe a little.
“Where are you even planning to go?”
“Barrowhaven.”
“What? Why? What for?”
“I guess you didn’t get a look at the paper this morning.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been sitting here since I got up. You know that.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a torn piece of newspaper. It was the front page with today’s date on it. Jace pushed the dagger to the side and flattened the crumpled paper onto the table so I could see it. I sat forward to get a better look.
DAVID RYLAND’S BODY REPORTED MISSING.
Stanton Montgomery declined to comment.
I sat back in my chair and averted my eyes to avoid making eye contact with him. Stanton Montgomery was elected president of the munfolk territories in Aridete shortly after the Pryley eruption, and the disappearance of my dad. He was always headstrong and stubborn when it came to anything regarding the Grim Reaper. I knew him. Well, I knew of him when he was head of the Barrowhaven guard, and I knew he covered up the attack in Valfield. No one else had that kind of power. A cave-in. He was in denial.
I shifted my attention to the crate on the ground.
Maybe this was Jace’s way of telling me that I was too.
“I wish I was more like you sometimes,” he said, interrupting my train of thought. He stood up and walked around the table.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as he picked up one of my finished candlesticks. I wasn’t sure whether or not I should be offended.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the stick of wax. “You’re content, y’know? Satisfied with doing the same things, every day.” Jace dropped the candle back into the box and lifted the crate onto the table. “I mean, this is all you do. Day in and day out. You sit here and you cut candles — you watch Zo when her mom asks — and you’re just okay with all of that. It doesn’t bother you. You aren’t bored.”
&n
bsp; I wasn’t bored, but he was calling me boring. I stared at the candles that lay neatly stacked. They were blanketed by straw to keep them from sticking to one another. He slid the ripped piece of newspaper out from beneath the crate, freeing it so he could take another look.
“Remember the horse?” he asked, his eyes didn’t move from the crumpled scrap, like he was waiting for it to tell him something else.
“You know I do,” I said. I didn’t like where that was going. Part of me was curious, I couldn’t deny that, but I didn’t want to be.
“They’re offering a reward — if anyone finds him… David, I mean. But what if he’s not really gone, Mae?” Jace asked. I knew he wasn’t still talking about David. I knew he was talking about someone else entirely.
I closed my eyes and started to shake my head. I didn’t want to hear anymore.
“I mean, listen. The horse, and now this — those boys — missing? Not dead. They can’t be coincidences. They were both within a year of each other too. I know it, I did a little digging. What if he’s still out there? The Grim Reaper? What if they never trapped him like they planned? What if something went wrong?” He crumpled the paper in his fist. I didn’t say anything. There was no changing his mind. Jace always felt like he had something to prove and once he made up his mind, there was no convincing him of otherwise. “I’m two decades tomorrow,” he added. “Everything changes.”
“Nothing’s going to change,” I said and picked up the bowl in my lap before standing. I put it in the crate along with the unfinished candles and tucked my dagger into its sheath at the side of my pants.
“You know better,” Jace said. “The offer still stands. I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”
He turned to head toward the marketplace just as I nodded. I thought about the woman again at the Salvation. Jace stayed a while after I took Zoirin home. I hoped she’d leave soon if she wasn’t already gone.
I scratched the side of my jaw and slid the crate off of the table to bring it to the back of the house where Weylan worked.
Weylan, the man who decided there was something in me worth saving. The man who scraped me off of the side of the road and brought me to Newacre.
After placing the wooden crate on top of another, I grabbed the ceramic bowl and dumped the excess candle butts into the pot for reheating.
“So Jace is planning to leave soon?” I glanced up and saw Weylan standing in the doorway. His sleeves were always rolled up to his elbows, exposing his massive, hairy forearms while dark suspenders held up his trousers. He gained a gut over the years from too much liquor, but he was a solid man. Not even Jace would mess with him. I nodded and placed the bowl down onto the nearby table. “And you’re going to go with him?”
“I don’t know. If I can’t convince him to stay —”
“You know what he is, you won’t be able to,” Weylan said and pushed his floppy graying hair out from his face. He crossed his arms, resting them on his belly. “They’ll kill him if he stays.”
“You really think they will? I mean really?”
He nodded, his expression was stern.
“Go with him, Artemis.”
I froze.
“What?” My voice cracked. My eyes widened at the mention of my name. My real name. I hadn’t once gone by that name in over seven years. I never once went by that name in Newacre, nor did I ever tell him what it was. Since I woke up on that couch years ago, I had always been Maestri. “You knew? How long have you known?”
Weylan turned away from me and I followed him into the house. He stopped at his bookcase and ran his fingers along several spines before pulling one from the shelf.
“Since I picked you up from the side of the road. Your death was in the paper. Though quite obviously you weren’t dead, at least not from a cave-in.”
I was really starting to hate when people talked about that.
He opened the book and took out a folded sheet. Weylan handed me the old scrap of newspaper. “I kept it in case this ever came up. I figured it would one day. I knew you were Artemis, because you just rearranged the letters for Maestri.”
“Clearly I wasn’t as clever as I thought.” I stared at the three sketches on the front; David, Apollo and then mine. The paper was worn, but I could still see the print clearly, along with the text the drawings sat beneath. They were all foreign to me, including myself.
“Clever, for an eleven year old.”
“I can’t believe Stanton covered it up and now David’s missing.” I plopped down on the couch. “It was my fault you know.” I could feel the blood draining from my face and my eyes beginning to water. “David’s death, my brother’s disappearance. It was all my fault.”
“Don’t say that —”
“But it’s true!” I put the paper down on the table and sank back into the couch. “None of it would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me.” I knew that, whether it was a reality Weylan wanted to accept or not. It was the truth.
As a child, I had a habit of wandering off. I never listed to David, I hardly listened at all. Eleven years old and without a father. I would listen to the way people spoke of him, and that I would be great one day like my dad. I heard them talk, and I often used my importance to my advantage. I would constantly urge my brother to come with me while my curiosity got the best of me. I pushed my brother to do things he didn’t want to do, and I told Weylan all about it.
“The lake was gone like it was never there. Not dried up, just gone. Apollo thought it was a figment of my imagination and at the time — I thought — maybe it was but who cares? We were there and the path to the cave was straight ahead with nothing standing in my way. So I grabbed his wrist, and I made him come with me. He was smiling, or I thought he was. I convinced myself he was. I hoped he was.” I inhaled deeply and focused on the paper again, my eyes settled on my brother’s face.
“He didn’t want me to go in. I pulled away from him and I remember giving him this look. How dare you act like dad? I wronged him, and I didn’t even care.” I wiped my face. “Now he’s gone. It should’ve been me. They tried to take me.”
Weylan took a seat beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“Regardless of what you think, it’s not your fault. It’s your father’s.”
His words caught me off guard. I never thought to blame my dad.
“If your father was around, I don’t think you would have acted out the way you did. You were angry, and parents should be there for their kids. No job is more important.”
“But my dad is Father Time. I know now that he was trying to stop the war so we could actually have a future. I know that now.”
“But you didn’t know that then, and what’s a future without family?” Weylan moved his arm and folded his hands in his lap. He faced forward. “I had a family once, and I left them for the war too when my real duty was to my children. There was so much that I missed out on.”
“What happened to them?”
He just smiled. It was a forced smile.
“Something awful,” he said quietly and turned to me. “I should have been there to protect them and that is no one’s fault but my own. Kids need their parents. Kids will always need their parents. It’s okay to be angry with him.”
“I don’t want to need my father. Plus, I have you.” I rubbed my face again and stood up. “I have to go,” I said. It was only half true, I mostly just didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “I’m going to be late.”
Weylan nodded.
I walked down the hallway and slipped into my room, shutting the door behind me. It swung back open. It was still broken. I pushed it back again and slid a chair in front of the door and sat down. I took a minute to collect myself, then grabbed my clothes and went to take a shower. The only water that ever ran through the pipes was cold, but I had gotten used to it over the years. I chipped off the rest of the black nail polish that coated my fingers and rinsed my hands beneath the faucet. I hoped that now Ferris would leave me alone but deep d
own, I knew he wouldn’t. I wasn’t that lucky.
I got dressed and shook the excess water from my hair. I fixed the cuffs of my jacket around my wrists and headed down the street to the Emerald Cask. It was the most popular inn in town and where most celebrations were held. The food was good and cheap, which was hard to dislike. I could already hear the music streaming from the windows of the inn and I was still halfway down the street.
The Emerald Cask was a two-story timber and brick building with a reinforced wooden door that bumped into my back as it closed quickly behind me. It was brightly lit by the torches that lined along every wall. It had unusually high ceilings which made it look a lot larger than it actually was. The mixture of liquor and boiled pork filled my nose while yelling, laughter and music rang in my ears. I pushed through the crowd of bodies tightly packed together and searched for my best friend. I could hear his loud voice that seemed to drown out everyone else’s, but I could always pick out his voice in a crowd. I just couldn’t see him.
Someone wrapped their hand around my wrist and yanked me through the cluster of bodies and toward the bar. It was Jace, his hair tied up in a knot and out of his face. I sat down on the stool beside him. “You looked like you were going to drown in the — are you okay?”
I saw him frowning at me.
“I’m fine,” I said, shifting on the stool and swiveled to face the bar.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Jace, I’m fine,” I insisted, hoping he would drop it.
He did.
“Okay well, there’s a few other people planning to go to Barrowhaven too,” Jace started, and faced the bar, swiveling on his own stool. “I heard them talking about it. The reward could bring stable electricity to Newacre.”
“And put my dad out of business,” I said. Most in Newacre assumed I was Weylan’s son. No one had any reason to think otherwise since we arrived in town together and we never bothered to correct any of them.
“Or if we find David, your dad could retire,” he told me. “Emphasis on the we, Mae — and maybe I could even stay here. Once they realize I’m not so bad.”