by Lynne Matson
His words killed me now.
Because right now I didn’t have her back, or his, because they weren’t here. Unless Thad was here after all, lost to the island forever. And if that was the case, I was the shittiest wingman ever.
He made it, I repeated. Because if not, Nil fell so deep into the foe category that nothing could drag it out.
“But what?” Skye’s words brought me back.
“But they were the real deal.” I glanced at her, wanting to believe her story. “Thad’s not here, but you already knew that, right? So how did Charley make you take that gate?”
“Her pain.” Skye said. “She was suffering, like my uncle had, only differently. And at the same time, my dad had this crazy idea that if he could just find this island, he could save all the kids.”
“Really? How?”
“I’m still working on that,” Skye said. She was completely serious. “But it has something to do with that stationary gate. In the end, it was the gate that made me go for it. The way it rose, the way it stood still, the timing of it. Tell me, Rives, what gate comes at midnight?”
Merde.
I’d totally missed the fact that her gate flashed at night. At twelve o’clock midnight, not twelve o’clock noon. The number twelve capping the labyrinth carvings shifted in meaning again.
Are you playing with us, Nil, or leading us to understanding? All the carvings spun, the labyrinth lines shifting too fast. Like a gate I couldn’t catch.
I relaxed my grip on my knife; I didn’t remember reaching for it.
“Exactly,” Skye said. She’d been watching me like I watched her. “Gates don’t come at midnight. Or at least not the ones my uncle saw.”
Her thoughtful, assessing look was back, like she’d retreated into herself. “I’ve been replaying that night ever since I woke up here. I acted without thinking, jumping into that gate, and I think I know why; it just took me a few days to work it out. That gate was different. It rose in the night, and it didn’t move. It stood there, Rives, waiting. And it took more than one rider.” She paused. “On some level, I think at the moment I chose to take that gate, I already knew: If there’s a stationary gate on that end, wouldn’t there be a stationary outbound on this end, too? And if that gate—the outbound on the Death Twin—can take two people, a chicken, a goat, and a cat, why couldn’t the stationary outbound on this end take a group, too?” Skye’s expression was as fierce as Charley’s on the day Charley had told me about her storm theory.
No, Skye’s was fiercer.
Watch out, Nil. Skye’s coming for you too.
“That gate has a mate,” Skye said quietly. “A bookend. Here, on this side. And it could take everyone off Nil.” Her expression dared me to defy her. “We just need to find it.”
Warning bells went off in my head like sirens. “Skye, if a stationary gate on this end exists, where is it? Why hasn’t anyone seen it? Or heard of it? The island’s not that big.”
“You could ask the same thing of Nil back home. Why hadn’t anyone seen it? I think the answer isn’t that it hasn’t been seen; it just hasn’t been seen by the right people.”
Maaka, I thought. And Paulo.
She narrowed her lips, a sign I was quickly coming to read as annoyance. “I think the boat captain and our guide knew of this place, and maybe more people than just them. I got the distinct feeling that the locals were stalling my dad, trying to lead him anywhere but here. Paulo definitely knew of it. He was waiting for the gate. Somehow he knew when and where that outbound would show.”
“Just like how Maaka knew where that gate would appear on this end,” I said. “Because from what you said, he was waiting too.”
“Exactly. And I don’t think Paulo would’ve taken that gate if he didn’t know he’d get back. He looked resigned, not brave. Not brave enough to jump into that gate without knowing he could get home.”
“We’ve got to find Paulo or Maaka. Or both.” And I need to talk to Johan—if he’s still here.
It was a big if.
Skye tilted her head. “I hear the falls,” she said. “Finally.” A wry smile broke through her calm veneer.
I gently touched her shoulder to slow her down. She was more dangerous than she knew, or at least her secrets were, and I’d barely scratched the surface.
“Listen, I know this is a lot to ask, but can you keep the details about your inbound gate quiet? Until we figure out where it fits.” I paused. “The thing is, we have a system for Searching for gates. We Search in teams, with time on Nil deciding Priority. The City supports the Search teams, plain and simple. And we’ve gotten a lot better at finding gates in the last few months. Charley figured out a pattern to outbounds while she was here—and we’re seeing more gates than ever because of it. But your gate is different. And I’m afraid that if people start Searching for a stationary gate, the system will fall apart.” The City will fall apart.
“Without the Search system…” I paused, thinking of the City already on edge. “I don’t know,” I said finally.
“I do,” Skye said quietly. “And it’s not pretty.”
I raised my eyebrows. The silence stretched to an uncomfortable point, making clear it was still Skye’s turn.
“My uncle started the Search system,” she said. “Before then, noon was a free-for-all. Nil was a very different place then. Darker, and cruel.”
“Don’t let the beauty fool you.” My voice was sharp. “Nil can still be cruel.”
“The island or the people?” she asked.
Crosses on the Wall, crosses in the field. Time cut short by fate, by a bad island hand, or by someone else’s. Memories of Li, Bart, and Talla rolled through my head, a mental mash-up in shades of black after too many nights on watch.
“Both.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
I regarded Skye carefully. “You don’t seem afraid of anything.”
Her expression was unreadable. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”
So says the girl who has Nil by the balls.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked. The island air thickened. Grew weighted, as if Nil hungered for the answer, too, anything to keep the advantage.
Skye shook her head, a slight movement I almost missed.
“I hear voices.” Skye shifted toward the Cove. “Is that Dex? Charley mentioned him.”
“Yup.” I pointed to where Dex stood by the Cove’s edge. “He’s the guy with serious tats and a half-bleached mohawk.”
Dex was deep in conversation with Johan. Selfish relief hit me hard.
As Skye and I walked in silence toward the Cove, I wondered what she was thinking and what she was afraid of.
Because if it scared her, my gut told me we should all be afraid.
CHAPTER
28
SKYE
DAY 3, AFTER NOON
Reading about Nil and actually being on Nil were two very different things. It’s like the difference between seeing a documentary about Antarctica and then feeling the ice and snow for yourself.
Waking up in the dark, completely naked, a stone’s throw (not that I had a stone then) from two strange boys and then running for my life only to come face-to-face with a Bengal tiger, knowing it was his decision whether or not to make me his dinner.
No amount of reading could prepare me for that.
Yet since then, sometimes the Nil I’d read about and the Nil I was living were exactly the same. Waking with the sun to the cleanest air ever, checking my water traps at dawn, strolling through the groves in awe, and studying trees packed with fruit like a slice of Eden. In those moments, I’d relax, walking through the world my uncle described so well, checking off invisible boxes of familiar. At other times, the two Nils felt eerily identical—but not quite, as if something in this Nil had been tweaked, just enough to jar the scene, just enough to rip away the comfort of familiarity.
At moments like these, the two time frames blurred: The past overlapped the present, making me f
eel like I had one foot in both and was grounded in neither. Like I’d opened the wrong time capsule.
Like now.
Rives and I had rounded the cliff to the Crystal Cove. The waterfall was breathtaking, as was the cliff, the pool, and the sum of all the parts, just as my uncle described. And the diverse group of people gathered was spot-on—and yet different.
There was no Jenny. No Karl. No Hui.
Still, I couldn’t stop subconsciously overlapping my uncle’s description of his peers to the people in front of me, trying to make it fit. All the people in front of me wore clothes exactly like those worn on Nil over twenty years ago. Wrap skirts, plain shorts. Chest wraps. All off-white, all simple. All matching.
I was the odd girl out.
Rives was right; I wasn’t the average Nil rookie, but I wasn’t a veteran, either. I was an outsider with inside knowledge. I was an anomaly. And I was dangerous, or at least my gate was. I also hadn’t counted on having to repeat my story to each new group of people; I hadn’t factored that in at all. My plan had ended with Rives.
I needed a new plan.
A plan, I decided quickly, that involved more listening and less talking, until I figured out where I fit.
What are you afraid of? Rives had asked.
Not an easy question to answer, but near the top of the list was the butterfly effect, the same effect Dad mentioned on the day he’d handed me Uncle Scott’s journal. I didn’t want to be responsible for undoing all the good my uncle had done; I would not knowingly throw the island into chaos. Not that I really believed I had the power to do that, but based on my uncle’s journal, Nil shifts happened quickly, and on Nil, anything could happen. The noon free-for-all wasn’t history to be repeated.
I won’t let it, I vowed.
But just because I wouldn’t talk about the stationary gate didn’t mean I wouldn’t find it. For everyone.
So much had changed since the moment Dad handed me Uncle Scott’s journal; it was as pivotal a moment for me as stepping into that gate.
I gasped.
“What is it?” Rives asked. His body tensed, like he was on high alert.
“I just realized my dad handed me my uncle’s journal at noon. It’s not a big deal. It’s just”—I paused as I dug for the right word—“weird.”
Rives said nothing, at least not at first. “An interesting coincidence,” he said finally.
“Rives!” Dex strode over, a thin, towering figure with an astonishing number of tattoos and stretched earlobes skewered with black shark’s teeth dangling from twine. He grinned at Rives. “I see you took my advice about traveling in pairs?”
British, I thought, inexplicably surprised. Why his thick accent would surprise me more than a rhino was ridiculous.
As Rives snorted, Dex turned to me.
“I’m Dex. You’ve got quite the island ensemble there. Stella McCartney would be proud. And possibly jealous.”
“Only if she landed here. But she’s too old, right?”
Dex raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Indeed.”
“Dex, meet Skye. Skye, Dex.” Rives’s eyes traced the Cove as he spoke. He wore the same searching look he’d had when he’d strode from the ocean earlier, only without the fury.
“Welcome to Nil, Skye,” Dex said. “It sounds like Rives filled you in on all the crucial details of our lovely resort, yes?”
“No need,” Rives said. “Skye already knew. And she’s got a very interesting story. But first, a few highlights.” He turned to me, his green eyes finding mine. “Cool?”
“Totally.” It occurred to me he was asking for permission I’d already given him, only now he was asking in public. A careful Leader move, I decided. I was curious to see what Rives thought were the highlights. I assumed Charley would be number one.
Rives waited until a small crowd gathered. Ten people, including Rives and me.
“Okay everyone, meet Skye.” He smiled as I raised one hand. “She’s not your average rookie, as you’ll find out soon enough.” He paused. “She met Charley.” Gasps went through the group. One girl with long auburn braids clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
One heartbeat later, Rives continued, his voice steady and reassuring. “Now you know Charley made it. She’s okay. Same for Natalie, and Kevin. And now we have solid confirmation that the gates go both ways.”
A boy with brown hair as wildly curly as mine and freckles across his cheeks and chest raised a hand. “What about Thad?” His deep voice cracked.
“No word. But he followed Charley; I saw him take the next gate. He made it, Jason.” The quiet confidence in Rives’s voice felt practiced; he’d buried the desperation I’d heard a few minutes earlier. No wonder Charley had told me to find Rives. I felt better listening to him too. “He made it,” Rives repeated.
The girl with braids still covered her mouth. Her eyes glistened. She wiped them quickly and looked directly at me, her gaze uncertain and suspicious.
My outsider status had never felt stronger. Worse, I felt like the bearer of bad news, or at least incomplete news. News that wasn’t good enough.
Rives kept going without a break. “But here’s another Nil newsflash: Just because the gates go both ways, they don’t show up in the same place. Charley woke up in France, on Mont Blanc. But she’d been snatched from a parking lot in Georgia. And yeah, she woke up in France naked.”
Groans went through the group.
“A few more things. I’m stealing a little of Skye’s thunder here.” Rives smiled. “But Skye showed up on Nil three days ago.” He paused. “At midnight. And the outbound she took on the other end left at midnight, too. Twelve midnight, not twelve noon.”
Abruptly everyone started talking at once.
Rives held up his hand. “I don’t know what that means, other than Nil has more secrets than ever. Gates still come at noon. Maybe Nil’s giving us more chances. Let’s think positively until we know differently.”
One boy with spiky blond hair stood frowning, arms crossed.
“Last thing. Skye’s uncle came to Nil as a teenager. We have her uncle to thank for the Search system. He created it. Skye can fill you in on what it was like on Nil back then. And speaking of Search, welcome back, Johan.” Rives tipped his head toward the frowning blond boy. “It’s good to see you, although I’d rather you be headed home. And it’s good to see your team intact.”
Rives paused. “Johan, did you fill Dex in on your Search?”
Johan nodded. “Yes.” No inflection, no smile. He looked like he was holding half a breath.
“What about you, Skye?” Dex asked. “See any fun creatures or gates while you were traipsing about?”
I thought for a moment. “I saw an outbound yesterday, a single, at the edge of the northern cliffs.” I didn’t mention I’d run away from the gate, not willing to leave when I’d just arrived and had accomplished absolutely nothing. “And I saw an inbound today, with Rives. On North Beach. It brought an alpaca.”
“What’s an alpaca?” a dark-haired boy asked.
“It’s kind of like a llama, only smaller, and their coats are much softer,” the curly-haired boy—Jason, I reminded myself—said. “Alpaca fleece is like cashmere. Camels are distant cousins,” he added.
“Whoa,” another boy said. His ragged bleached hair hit his shoulders in a rough island surfer cut. “Nice little Wikipedia moment, man. Who knew?”
Jason shrugged. “The farm next to ours breeds alpacas. They’re pretty cool animals.” He cleared his throat as his voice cracked on the last word. “Make some weird noises though.”
“Right. Well, maybe we can work some alpaca wool into the fall islandwear collection.” Dex rolled his eyes. “We’ll get on that straightaway after we make torches and spears and things to keep us alive. Speaking of staying alive and, well, violent death, did you see anything else out there, like, say, big cats?”
“And by cats, Dex specifically means leopards,” Rives clarified. He was clearly fighting a sm
ile.
“Like snow leopards?” I asked.
Dex’s eyes widened a fraction. “We’ve got bloody snow leopards? As in plural?”
“No! I mean, not that I know of.”
“Dex isn’t a cat fan,” Jason offered.
“Me either,” I said. “They make me sneeze.”
Rives coughed behind his hand, like he was hiding something—like a laugh. I glared at him, knowing full well now he was laughing at me, which wasn’t funny. I’d been highly allergic to cats my entire life. Once I touched a neighbor’s cat and rubbed my eye. My entire eye swelled shut, which was the complete opposite of funny. Memorable, horrible, incredibly painful, and unbearably itchy. But not funny. Rives deserved every bit of venom in my stare right now.
Dex cleared his throat, breaking the tight moment. “Back to the big cats, which I’m fairly certain Skye hasn’t gotten close enough to determine an allergy to”—Dex turned to me, eyes wide—“did you or did you not say ‘snow leopards’? Just trying to assess whether we’ve got bloody snow leopards at our island party now, too. As if regular leopards aren’t enough?”
“I didn’t see any snow leopards.” This time I chose my words with care. “My uncle saw them, but that was about twenty years ago.”
“Which means they should be gone by now,” Rives said, winking at me. I narrowed my eyes, unwilling to give an inch.
“Excellent,” Dex said. His crisp accent drew my attention. “I’ll cross snow leopards off my worry list.”
“But—” I paused, thinking of my first night.
“Wait. No buts. Nothing good ever follows the word but,” Dex said. “At least not here.”
“But what, Skye?” Rives asked, all humor gone. “We need to know.”
“I did see a tiger on my first night. I’m sure it was a tiger, because I got closer than I’d like.”
“How close?” Dex asked.
I shrugged. “Twenty feet?”
“Bloody hell,” Dex murmured.
“And?” Rives’s eyes stayed on mine.