by E. E. Holmes
“Whoa,” I said softly, picking up one of the stones and turning it over in my hands. “These are huge. Do you think they’ll notice if one is missing?”
“Worth the risk, I think,” Finn said, taking it from my hand. “We are in a blind spot after all. They’d have a job proving we were the ones who took it, even if they cared to investigate where it went.”
A sudden cracking of twigs made us both freeze. Someone was walking—well, stumbling—in our direction from the other side of the fire pit. We waited, with our hearts in our throats, hoping that whoever it was would veer away, but with every passing second it became clear that they were headed straight for us. Any moment they would see the two of us crouched in the fire pit, with the open bag of gemstones conspicuously between us.
Finn looked up at me, and I saw my panic reflected in his eyes. Maybe it was just a valid reason to act on what so much of me longed for so badly, but I had a sudden, wild idea. I yanked the elastic from my hair, quickly slid the strap of my dress off of my shoulder, and pulled Finn on top of me.
“What are you—”
But I didn’t let him finish his question. “Sorry about this,” I said. Then I grabbed his face and kissed him full on the mouth.
He froze at first, but then I felt the moment when he realized what we were doing and why. He snaked his arm under my back and pulled me closer, pressing our bodies together, and began kissing me back. My pulse began to thunder in my ears, my breath to escape me in gasps. I very nearly forgot this was just a ruse. I threw myself hungrily into the kiss; Finn’s lips seemed just as ravenous as my own.
“Oh, my! I’m so sorry, I—” Marigold cried as she rounded the corner.
Finn and I leapt apart. He jumped to his feet, then reached out a hand to help me to mine. Marigold swayed where she stood and squinted at me, trying to focus on my face.
“Jess? Is that you, sunshine?” she slurred.
“Uh, yeah… it’s me. Hi, Marigold,” I said, pulling the strap back onto my shoulder and hastening to smooth my hair.
Marigold was so drunk that she looked as though she were trying to get her bearings on a ship sailing through a squall. Even in the moonlight, I could see that her mascara had left wide black tracks down her face; her lipstick was smeared all over her teeth. I think she tried to wink at me, but couldn’t get her eyelid to cooperate.
“Well, look at you, sugarplum! Having a little fun for yourself.” She stumbled a bit before adding—in a loud, drunken whisper, no less—“And he’s so handsome! What a catch! Where’d you find him hiding?”
I stepped over to Marigold and pulled her to me conspiratorially. “Yeah, he is handsome. He’s also my bodyguard, and my parents would kill me if they knew we were dating. But I can’t help it! We’re in love!”
Marigold’s bloodshot eyes filled with moisture. “You’re in love?”
“Yes,” I said solemnly. “So please, please don’t tell anyone you saw us here together, okay?”
Marigold pressed her lips together as if she were trying to repress a sob, and then saluted me. I took this as a positive sign.
“I’d promise just about anything in the name of true love, and you’d better believe it!” She teetered for a moment before adding dreamily, “I’ll just leave you two be, and let the moonlight work its magic.” Then she set off toward the house, singing “People Will Say We’re in Love” from Oklahoma! while conducting an imaginary orchestra with the high-heeled shoe she clutched in her hand.
I heaved a sigh of relief and turned back to Finn, who was watching Marigold weave up the path. “I’d be surprised if she even remembered she saw us, but if she does, hopefully she’ll remember her promise, too,” I said.
“Right,” Finn said quietly, not quite meeting my eye. The fire that had roared through my body moments before fizzled out and died as swiftly as if he’d doused me in cold water.
§
Even as my heart sunk fully and completely, I resolved that there was no way I was going to show my disappointment to Finn. No way was I going to betray even a hint of the swirling bliss he’d inspired in me, no way I was going to let him know how deeply and desperately I needed his kiss. I snapped my guard back up, determined to get out of this moment with my dignity intact.
“I’m sorry if that was… unpleasant for you.” I mumbled.
Finn frowned at me. “Unpleasant?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I didn’t ask you first—I just did it. And I know you don’t have any interest in kissing me anymore. You’ve made that pretty clear. So, yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Just stop,” he snapped. “Stop apologizing. I don’t think I can stand to hear you say the word sorry again!”
I looked up at him, taken aback by his sharpness. “Look, I was only trying to—”
“I know! I know what you were trying to do. I just… don’t say you’re sorry. I’m the only one who has anything to be sorry about.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, perplexed.
“It’s my fault that it’s all cocked up between us! It’s my fault that you felt the need to apologize for kissing me. All of this is my fault, and I can’t fix it!” He ran his hands through his hair, pulling much of it free from his ponytail. His face was contorted, twisted with pain.
“Are you going to explain what you’re talking about or not?” I asked.
“It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you! It’s never been that I don’t want to kiss you!” he cried. He had closed his eyes and raised his head toward the sky, as if he couldn’t stand looking at me while confessing this. It only made me feel worse.
“I don’t understand you, Finn!” I replied. “Three years ago, I thought I knew what was happening between us. I was sure enough that I asked you to stay the night with me! I’ve never asked anyone to do that. Ever. But then you basically told me I’d imagined the whole thing. You made me feel like a delusional, lovesick school girl! I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life. But now you’re saying… what? That it was all a lie?”
“Of course it was a lie! I’m in love with you! Can you honestly say it hasn’t been written on my face every time I’ve looked at you? I can feel it laid bare for the world to see! Seamus certainly saw it, and he made bloody well sure I’d never act on it again!”
My anger turned to ice in my veins. “What do you mean? What does Seamus have to do with anything?”
“He was waiting for me. That night, three years ago, after we kissed—after I’d promised you we’d be together soon. Seamus was there, waiting in my apartment. I have no idea how he knew what had happened between us—he never did do me the courtesy of explaining that bit. All he said was that I needed to end things between us immediately or risk being reassigned.”
“He threatened you? Because we kissed?” I asked, with my voice hollow from the shock of it. “But that doesn’t make any sense! The Prophecy was the only real reason they banned Durupinen-Caomhnóir relationships in the first place, and it’s over! Why do they care anymore?”
“But the rule still stands, and they’re still properly enforcing it. Seamus threatened to personally reassign me somewhere on the other side of the world. I told him he couldn’t do that. I’m sworn to your Gateway—that’s a lifetime vow. But he told me that entering into an illicit relationship with you was violating the terms of that oath—leaving the Caomhnóir free to nullify our contract. When I tried to argue, Seamus went a step further and threatened repercussions for you and Hannah as well.”
“Repercussions? The Caomhnóir have no control over the Durupinen—you’re strictly Guardians.”
“That doesn’t matter, does it? It’s about who has the power, not who’s in the right! Seamus told me that many on the Council wanted to find ways to control you and Hannah, to ensure that you didn’t become too powerful. They didn’t want you growing too independent of the Northern Clans. And Seamus could see to the Council’s properly ruining the lives you were building! I couldn’t let that happen—not after you’d bot
h worked so hard for your independence.”
“So you told me you didn’t love me.” My voice cracked from the emotion of the memory.
“I had to,” Finn said sheepishly, casting his eyes to the ground. “I couldn’t let my own selfishness impede your happiness,” Finn said.
“But you did take it away, don’t you get that? You were a huge part of that happiness! I’d never trusted anyone the way I trusted you, I’d never let anyone in like that. But then the moment I took the leap, you let me fall. Hard.”
“I know. I do know that. So, you see? I’m the one who needs to say sorry. I owe you that word a hundred times over, yet it will never be enough!” Finn cried, beating his hands against his head as if he could knock the memory of that night onto the ground and stomp on it.
Something blazed in me. For one wild instant I thought I wanted to hit him, but one look into Finn’s eyes transformed my anger into a different sort of heat. I rushed forward and seized both of his wrists, pulling his hands away from his head.
“You want to show me you’re sorry? Then kiss me. Right now,” I said. “Kiss me the way I’ve wanted you to for three years.”
And damn it, for once in his life, Finn Carey listened to me.
A frantic and hungry energy pulsed through me, and his lips were the only thing that could stop that longing from consuming me. I wrapped my arms around Finn’s neck, pulling him tightly to me. I wanted him to fill every aching, hollow place in me—every place that I never knew was empty until that moment—until the burning in me lit in him and we were consumed together into ash.
Finn’s hands were suddenly everywhere at once—on my back, in my hair, around my shoulders—and all I knew was that I never wanted to experience another moment when he wasn’t touching me. But then he plucked my hands from his shoulders and pulled away, gasping for breath.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
“We can’t.”
“Wow, you’re shit at apologies, aren’t you?” I panted.
“This doesn’t change a bloody thing, don’t you understand that?”
“No, Finn, I don’t. I don’t understand that. The only thing I understand is that I can’t be without you anymore!”
“Jess… they could ruin us. Both of us.”
“Stop it! Stop it!” I cried, pounding my fists against his chest. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t care, do you hear me? I don’t care about the Durupinen and the Caomhnóir, or their rules, or their prophecies, or any of it! I. Don’t. Care!”
“But I care!” he cried, but even as he said it, he pressed his forehead against mine, as though something magnetic and irresistible was keeping us locked tightly together. “Seamus was right! How can I protect you if I can’t think rationally when I’m with you? I can’t protect you like this, I can’t!”
I took his face between my hands, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “But you did protect me! Your loving me is the only reason I’m still alive!”
Finn froze and gawked at me. “What do you—”
“That night when I went through the Gateway, I got lost on the other side. It was beautiful there, Finn. It was familiar and beautiful—like going home for the first time,” I whispered. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the confession I now had to make. I’d never told anyone what had happened when I’d gone through the Gateway—not even Hannah. “That world deep beyond the Gateway, it wants you to stay, do you understand? It draws you in until you forget that the living world even exists!”
Finn’s eyes were beginning to glisten with emotion. I gently brushed the moisture away from them with my fingers.
“But then, out of someone else’s mouth, came your words—your poem. The one you showed me the night we fled the Traveler’s camp. And those words were so loud, so strong, that they broke the hold that place had on my soul—when that place should’ve held me more strongly than anything else in existence. It was your poem, Finn, that reminded me there was a living world… and why it was worth coming back. Hannah Called me, but it was your words that told me to come home. I couldn’t have found my way back without you.” I paused, taking another long deep breath. “You saved me. You protected me. Your love did that.”
Finn was truly crying now. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him again; the tears on our cheeks mingled together.
Our lips were still touching, still in half a kiss, as I whispered it. “I love you.”
Finn let out a moan that was half longing and half terrible pain. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
“And you don’t know how long I talked myself out of finding the courage to say it.”
All the reasons not to be together still existed, yet everything had changed. As we looked at each other, we decided—together—that none of those reasons stood between us anymore. In that moment in the moonlight, the only word which existed between us was yes.
21
Psychic Habitation
WITH HIS TONE DRIPPING WITH DISBELIEF, MILO ASKED, “And that’s everything that happened?”
“Yup. That’s it.”
“You’re sure you’re not leaving anything out?” he pressed.
“Nope. Hannah, pass the Windex please.”
It was early the next morning, and Hannah and I, already dressed for the day, were scrubbing away the remaining graffiti from the night before, while Milo was giving me the third degree. After Finn and I had gone to inspect Whispering Seraph’s expansion plans, Hannah had swiped some cleaning products and paper towels from the supply closet across the hall. She had fallen asleep by the time I’d crept back into the room, but sadly, nosy Spirit Guides never sleep… or mind their own damn business.
“I can’t believe this. Fire pits that are giant element candles? How can Campbell possibly know the details of Durupinen Castings?” Hannah asked, scrubbing violently at a rune on the side of the bureau.
“I’m not convinced he does. But the angel certainly does, so that’s where our focus should be right now. Campbell could very well be one of the angel’s pawns, just like the rest of us.
“Where’s Finn?” Milo asked pointedly.
I looked up to see him waggling his eyebrows suggestively at me. I looked quickly away and continued scrubbing the wall.
“How should I know? In his room, probably. Damn, I really need to start surrounding myself with washable art supplies.”
Hannah chuckled, but warned, “We’d better hurry up and finish this. We’re due at the next communication session in an hour or so, and I want to have breakfast first.”
We’d awoken that morning to a new schedule slipped under our door. As he had promised, Campbell had broken the communication sessions into smaller groups. We were a part of Group A, which was meeting bright and early at 8:30 AM. Campbell may or may not have been conning these people, but he was undoubtedly a morning person; I held that, if nothing else, against him.
“Maybe we can just put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door until we have more time to get the place cleaned up,” Hannah said a bit desperately. “I think we might need to try something stronger to get this off the wallpaper. If the staff sees it, we might as well pack our bags now.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Based on the number of wine bottles that went around those tables last night, I bet there’ll be quite a few ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs out this morning. I don’t think housekeeping will even bat an eye.”
Looking somewhat relieved, Hannah clambered up from her knees, grabbed the door placard from the bedside table, and opened the door a crack. Then she let out a squeak and leapt back as Finn came charging into the room.
At the sight of Finn, a warm light flared inside of me, tucked deep in the center of my chest. Against my will, the light tugged the corners of my mouth into an involuntary smile, and sent shivers of delight up my spine and across my scalp. I tried to compose myself, knowing Milo was waiting to pounce on the first sign that Finn and I had—as Milo so tenderly put i
t—“hooked up.”
“Hi,” I said, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
Finn stopped short when he saw me. “Morning,” he answered, trying to feign his typical gruffness. It didn’t quite work; I desperately hoped Milo hadn’t picked up on it.
Finn stood there, looking at me in silence until I finally said, “So… what’s up? Why are you here so early?”
“I’ve got Catriona on the line. She wants to talk to all of us. Right now,” replied Finn, holding up his cell phone. “She and some of the other Trackers sorted the pictures we sent last night. She has some important information and instructions for us.”
We all froze as though Catriona had actually walked into the room. After exchanging a few nervous looks at each other, we gathered around Finn as he put us on speakerphone.
“Catriona? We’re all here now. We can all hear you,” Finn said.
“Well, well, well,” came Catriona’s lazy voice. “You Ballard girls certainly are overachievers, aren’t you?”
Hannah and I frowned at each other. “I’m sorry, what?” I asked.
“I send you on what we all think is a simple open and shut case, and you stumble upon a massive Durupinen-centered conspiracy,” she said, with a tinkling laugh in her voice.
“I’m so glad this is amusing you,” I said, trying—but failing—to keep a steely note out of my own voice.
“What can you tell us about the pictures we sent?” Finn asked, jumping in before I could open hostilities too early. He gave me a look that clearly said “back off;” for once, I did my best to heed him.
“I can’t tell you a bloody thing,” Catriona said. “But Fiona can… and here she is.”
We all heard a crackling noise as Catriona handed over the phone, then Fiona’s sharp voice cut into the room like a dagger.
“Jess? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Fiona. We all can. We’re on speakerphone,” I said.
“Alright, whatever,” Fiona said. “Cat showed me those photos of your episode last night. How are you feeling today?”