Otherbound

by Corinne Duyvis

  She shivered in the cold. The air smelled of ocean and forest and old, moist stone. A bug crawled up her leg. She shook her foot to get rid of it, and her teeth clanged together from pain.

  Nolan didn’t take long to return. For the first time, she welcomed him. She exhaled slowly as Nolan unclotted her bruises, smoothed over the swellings, sewed up her skin. She let it happen and brought him up to speed.

  I’m going to jump, Amara thought. The trees are close enough to make a run for it. No one’s expecting me to leave on this side, but if we wait too long, they’ll have marshals all around the perimeter.

  The moment I’m healed from the jump, you need to leave. I don’t think Ruudde has a ward around the palace, but if he does, it’ll react to you. Tell me you heard this. I have to know if—

  Her head nodded of its own volition.

  A second later, her body was her own again. Thank you, she thought—finally, quietly—and jumped.

  he second Nolan returned home from the pool, he retreated to his room and paced, swinging back and forth on his crutches. He rarely used his crutches inside, but he had to keep moving, and pacing didn’t work as well when you had to hop.

  Amara was running. And if she hadn’t been able to reach Bedam safely even with long hair, intact clothes, and Cilla’s help, there was no chance at all she could flee it without any of those things.

  But Nolan had thought there was no chance of her escaping in the first place. He wasn’t sure which surprised him more: that she’d done it or that she’d succeeded.

  His door opened. Pat stood in the entrance. He should probably make some kind of irritated comment about her knocking, but—

  “So,” she said without preamble. “This is where you live. I still don’t see the appeal.”

  Her voice was Pat’s, and so was her body. The resemblance ended there. She stood too upright, with her legs spread too wide. He didn’t recognize the look in her eyes. Her voice sounded different, flatter, with none of Pat’s posturing. The accent didn’t fit. He couldn’t place it. Something between Pat and … something else.

  She wasn’t acting. This wasn’t his sister.

  Nolan sat on his bed. His crutches clattered to the ground.

  Pat—Ruudde—went on. “You really are just a kid, aren’t you? Look, I know it’s hard to leave your life behind. I’ve been there. Your name, your family, gone. But you’ve seen what that other world can offer. The trade is worth it. And from what I can tell …” Ruudde scanned the bedroom skeptically. “You’re not leaving all that much.”

  All of Ruudde’s amiability was gone. Amara’s escape must’ve pissed him off.

  “You followed me,” Nolan said.

  Pat rolled her eyes and shoved the door shut. She crossed her arms in the exact same way Ruudde had in front of Amara’s cell. “I did. And I didn’t need pills to do it, either. If we see someone travel, we can piggyback along. We can hop into any body we see and remember it for later. You didn’t know any of that, did you?” Ruudde grinned. “Pills. You’re pathetic.”

  That was why Ruudde had stood in front of the cell the other day. He’d waited for Nolan to arrive so he could establish a link. To Pat.

  “I tossed those pills, by the way, before I entered your room. Poof. Down the toilet.”

  Nolan had a few in his room, but that wouldn’t be enough. He’d go back to before. In and out with every blink. No way of communicating. And his parents—how could he explain losing the pills he had left? They’d never purchase new ones now, even if they had the money.

  “I wonder how long they’ll take to wear off,” Pat mused. “Withdrawal might be nasty.”

  It wasn’t right seeing Pat like that, or hearing those words from her mouth. Full of scorn. She was trapped in there. And Nolan knew exactly what that was like. His voice shuddered. “Get out of my sister’s body.”

  Pat’s eyes dropped to Nolan’s legs. “The boy with no leg and the girl with no tongue. Poetic.” Nolan didn’t even realize she’d said it in Spanish until she grinned at her own words, as if she’d discovered a new toy to play with.

  “Get out of—”

  “Ag, shut up. What are you going to do? Hit me?” She laughed. No, he laughed. This wasn’t Pat. “I never wanted this. I thought if you took control, it would make things easier on both of us. I gave you so much time to think my offer through. And what did you do? You let her run.

  “So I changed my mind. We had a good arrangement going with Amara before, and your pills screwed it up. I offered you everything, kid, and that didn’t work. So no more excuses. Here’s a deadline you can’t wiggle out of: turn Amara’s bony ass around while you still can. Then your pills will wear off, you’ll go back to watching, Amara will go back to protecting Cilla, and everyone stays safe.

  “If you don’t get Amara back to the palace, I’ll make these bodies, your parents and your sister”—Ruudde plucked at Pat’s shirt—“kill themselves. Do you have any scissors handy? I can turn off the healing and show you.”

  “Get—out—of—her—” He couldn’t say anything else. His brain screeched to a halt at anything past he’s in her body, he’s going to kill her, get him out get him out get him out.

  This room used to be safe. Cramped and messy and hot enough to choke on, but safe.

  Ruudde raised Pat’s hands in a gesture of false surrender. “I’m going. Meanwhile, you should act smart for once. For fuck’s sake. You make this so much harder than it needs to be.”

  Ruudde gave a last roll of Pat’s eyes.

  She collapsed to the floor.

  mara stole a basket and clothes from a servant house at a nearby dairy farm and dumped her own bloody rags in a pond. Checking the setting sun for directions, she trudged by the side of unpaved roads into the city, boots cracking the autumn leaves. By the time she reached Bedam proper, the chill had taken root in the tip of her nose and every bit of the hand clutching the basket. The skin of her fingers was bone yellow.

  She swallowed the pain. Keeping her chin respectfully raised, she crossed slabs bridging narrow, foul-smelling canals, through alleyways, past a stand showcasing exotic Jélisse birds and felines, and stalls offering snacks from places Amara had never heard of. No one stopped her. Servants visited central Bedam for errands daily.

  Finally, the harbor noise reached Amara. Shouts, seagulls, horns. The click-clack of cargo horses’ hooves on cobblestones. Amara dawdled at the edge of the harbor. Ruudde would’ve forbidden detection spells to prevent further mixed-magic blowups, but the number of marshals had doubled since her arrival a few days ago.

  From a safe distance, alternating hiding behind groups of people, crates, and warehouses, she squinted at the crates stacked for loading. There were few at this late hour. Most of the crates were marked with their contents or destinations. Amara read the words slowly. Far too slowly. Standing still for that long put her so on edge that every seagull’s squawk made her start.

  She repeated Cilla’s lessons in her head, piecing together slashes and dots until they became letters, then formed words. The biggest trading ships would sail to the Alinean Islands and Eligon, maybe even the Interterran Sea for the State of Jélis on the other side of the Continent, but the smaller ships couldn’t go that far. Those had to have Dunelands destinations. None of the crates were labeled ROERTE, though some might stop there on the way. Amara waffled about taking the risk, then spotted another set of crates, already being lifted into a ship: TESCHEL WT WLLW, the letters said.

  She hesitated. She’d hoped to find Captain Olym at her farm in Roerte, but the island Teschel might work, too. She could find the bartender who’d helped before.

  She memorized the ship—a fluit like Olym’s—and its location.

  Then she found a quiet spot by the water a few minutes from the harbor and finally put down the basket she’d been clutching. She rapped numb, pale-skinned knuckles on the pavement. She checked for scrapes and saw nothing. Nolan was here. Do you have time? I’ll need you for several hours.


  The thought of cooperating didn’t feel as dirty as it had before. Maybe it ought to, but without Nolan, she had no chance of saving Cilla—which she had to try, even if it still felt like a betrayal of Maart or herself or both. She couldn’t leave Cilla to Ruudde, and she wouldn’t beat herself up for that. The world was bad enough without her help. That one kiss in a storm-soaked world, for all its baggage, was the only good thing to happen to her in a long time.

  She remembered what she’d told Cilla: I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay even less.

  The lesser of two evils. That was all Amara could hope for. It’d have to be enough.

  Nolan took too long to answer. He was here, though, evidenced by her knuckles gleaming orange in the almost-gone sun, the skin fully healed. Finally, her hands spread out, his doing. “Ruudde visited my world,” he said, with slow, deliberate signs. “He threatened my sister.”

  She stared. Seagulls wailed, circling the harbor.

  So much for that flash of optimism. Nolan would abandon her. He would make her walk back to the palace and nod her head to whatever Ruudde said, and she couldn’t even blame him for it. If Amara had a family, a way out of this mess, she’d take that chance, too.

  The thought of returning to her old life still tore her apart.

  “He took my pills. I can’t give you long. Find out what you can.” Nolan retreated.

  Amara stayed in her crouch. She let his words sink in, breathing in cold, salty air and pushing it out again. Nolan was still on her side. He still thought they had a chance. But a chance of what?

  She thought about what Nolan had said. Find out what you can. If Ruudde wanted Cilla safe so badly, Amara could at least use this limited time to find out why.

  And that meant returning to Teschel.

  Regretfully, Amara looked down at her winterwear and scarf. She couldn’t seem to go long without ruining her clothes.

  She dove into the water and swam for the ship.

  hen Pat had found Nolan’s journal, it’d felt like an intrusion, Amara’s world worming its way into places it shouldn’t. Nolan’s life wasn’t much to speak of, but it was his. His parents, his sister, his journals, his pool.

  This? This was nothing compared to Pat reading his journals.

  The lines were crumbling.

  Pat downed one glass of water, then another, and set the glass on the kitchen table with a bang. “What’re you gonna do?” she asked. Her cheeks were still wet.

  “Cross my fingers?” Nolan said feebly. “Amara has a plan. The last thing you read in the journal was—”

  “They were escaping the island.”

  “They succeeded. Partially.” He recapped what had happened—Roerte, the palace, Cilla’s food strike and worse, Amara’s escape. “Pat, I’m sorry. This was never supposed to happen.”

  “You can’t go back to your old life. I knew your seizures sucked, but I—I never knew—I mean, that you had to deal with that kind of pain all the time.”

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Nolan repeated.

  “I—” She sucked in a rattly breath. “I’m not crying,” she said, her voice muffled.

  “I didn’t say you were.” Nolan wanted to offer her another glass of water, a hug, anything to make things better. He wanted to tear even the memory of Ruudde from her body.

  “In the journal, you wrote … you said … ‘fuck this life.’”

  He’d heard Pat swear before, but in a way that was both offhand and probing, like she was testing the word on her tongue and seeing if anyone would notice, or like Ruudde, spat in anger. Not like this. Quietly. As if she didn’t want to say it at all.

  “I didn’t mean it,” Nolan said. He didn’t know if that was a lie. The next part wasn’t: “I didn’t mean you.”

  “Never mind. I get it.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But you can’t go back. Not because of me. We’ll tie me up or something. Ruudde can’t hurt me then.” She tried a smirk.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “You have some time, right? Before he … ?” She went for another sip of water, only to find the glass empty. She rolled her eyes, this time in a way so comfortably Pat instead of Ruudde, so much Farview, Arizona, and not Dunelands, that Nolan wanted to grab her and pull her in safely for the millionth time. He wanted to run.

  But running would make no difference to Ruudde. Taking his deal was the smartest plan. The only plan. They’d go back to traveling alongside Jorn and find a way to stop it all from within.

  “I’m trying to pretend it’s a TV show,” Pat said. She probably aimed for casual, but she sounded shaky. “Makes it easier to think about it all. ’Cause if this is real—whoa.”

  “Whoa,” Nolan agreed. In more ways than one.

  He’d always believed Amara wasn’t a hallucination; he’d needed to in order to function. But on some level, in some corner in the back of his mind, he’d always wondered if his parents and neurologist weren’t right. He was epileptic, had hallucinations, end of story.

  Unless Pat sitting there all gray-faced and fake-smiling was a hallucination too, though, it was real. Everything Amara had been through—real. Every risk Amara still faced—real.

  Ruudde’s threat to his family—real.

  And he was going to sit here and wait for Amara to risk her life to fix it?

  He needed to stop improvising. He needed to think like Amara. He needed a plan. Nolan looked at Pat, determined. “You’re a fast reader, right?”

  “Look for any encounter with the mages trying to kill Cilla. I know that this book, and this one, I think”—Nolan handed Pat the right journals—“have them attacking. I need to know if they said anything useful. Aside from that, we need to collect physical descriptions. I know there’s a tall Alinean woman who uses this hooked knife, an Elig man, and … we need all that on a list. Names would be even better.”

  Pat nodded. She still looked paler than she should. All his urgency probably didn’t help her pretend-it’s-a-TV-show strategy.

  Nolan thought of the last time they’d sat on his bed together, watching a movie on the laptop, laughing at one actor’s wooden expressions, trying to turn up the volume beyond what the tinny speakers could handle.

  He’d hated that his own life had paled compared to Amara’s. It still did. He’d barely even thought about Sarah Schneider’s grin since Maart’s death, or movies or Nahuatl or school, but this—Pat—Pat mattered.

  He wanted a second chance to mock shitty actors with her.

  And this might be his only way.

  Nolan hadn’t really expected to find anything in a journal so far back. Amara’s first encounter with the mages trying to kill Cilla—with the knifewielder—had been weeks after she’d left the palace. He checked the book for thoroughness’s sake, his fingers trailing over the words.

  He’d been six at the time, so he could write, but not fast and not well. Dr. Campbell had been worried he wouldn’t keep up with the journal if he had to do it himself, so he and Mom had spent ten minutes together before and after school and once in the evening, wherein he recounted what happened in his hallucinations. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table with his juice, shutting his eyes for seconds at a time so he could describe what he saw. Mom would ask questions: What are these people talking about? What do they look like? What do you think about that? What does Amara think? Are you scared? It’s not real, honey. You’re safe.

  Nolan wondered how she’d felt, looking at her son sipping his drink and talking about a child getting hit in the face for dropping a dinner plate.

  Once, Mom asked him to speak Dit. He’d been clunky. She’d looked relieved—at least until he’d raised his hands and formed the fluid motions of servant signs, nothing like what a child would make up.

  There wasn’t a mage attack in this notebook. Instead, in Mom’s rapid cursive, it said: The same man (Yorn?) who talked to Nolan about how quickly he healed yesterday is back and dragged N out of bed. Yorn cuts him again to see if he’ll heal (yes)


  N looks scared. Ask to describe man: he’s Dit(?) and he’s not very tall and

  Dit?

  N: means he has dark hair. curly and long, like this (elbow) He looks a bit like Dr Zhang from the hospital but only his face, Yorn is darker and really strong!

  Darker like N or like Dad?

  N: Like me I think.

  Yorn moves him to other bedroom. N didn’t want anyone to know he heals. Scared.

  Yorn talking to someone outside: minister Ruda(?). N says Amara is confused, waiting at door even though Y said to stay in chair. Scared. They’ll punish him (N: “Amara”) if they find out.

  Yorn: I’m taking Amara. The stable girl, too. We can use them.

  Min.: You know what to make of her? If she heals like that (…)

  Yorn: Does it matter (…) And not using it’s a waste, Naddi(?)

  Min.: Ruda. I told you. Ruda.

  Yorn: Come on. Even for …

  Min.: Even for you. It’s hard for all of us. Ok?

  (…) Yorn: Can’t leave the girl alone this long. Not safe.

  Nolan rarely reread old journals. Amara took up enough of his life already.

  He’d skimmed this one as recently as two years ago, though. Nolan hadn’t made much of the conversation. Jorn had kept working as a palace mage even after he’d smuggled Cilla to safety, so “borrowing” a healing servant and stable girl from Ruudde for a supposed routine job in central Bedam had been easy. Nolan had thought Ruudde’s uncertainty referred to Amara’s irregular healing, not Nolan’s just-as-irregular presence. More importantly, he hadn’t thought anything of Naddi. Amara might’ve misheard, Nolan might’ve misspoken, Mom might’ve misspelled; maybe Ruudde and Jorn had a history and it was an in-joke, a term of endearment, a Continent word Amara wasn’t familiar with.

  His fingers lingered on the name. Naddi. It must be the name of the traveler possessing Ruudde. The traveler must be from Earth. He’d known how to pronounce Nolan’s name, and he’d looked utterly unimpressed in Pat’s body. This world was familiar to him.