Two triads after he’d first helped Ev swim through a tunnel, he heard gasps from Ifeleh and Djal, who were ahead of him. Thiyo prepared himself for the worst—another flood, or a collapsed section, a chasm with no bridge or a place where they’d have to crawl through rubble.
Instead, a grand cavern arched above them. Its ceiling reminded Thiyo of nothing so much as the Night sky, in that it was a darkness broken by scatterings of light. The glow from his lamp ricocheted off faceted crystal surfaces glistening on all sides. His companions were all staring up, astounded. Thiyo caught Ev’s eye and she beamed at him. He could feel the same expression on his own face.
The others were talking, oohing and aahing over the sight. Thiyo could guess what they were saying, but that wasn’t the same as understanding, and he didn’t want to ruin this moment with his own weakness. He let them get a few steps ahead so he could enjoy this in relative quiet.
It was dazzling. Entranced, he wandered forward, watching the play of light against the planes. The crystals clustered in bursts and spears, sheared off at neat angles. They were clear and not quite colorless, but milky and iridescent, flashing pink or blue as they caught the light.
At some point, Thiyo realized that not only could he no longer hear the gasps of his companions, but they were also out of sight. He turned in a circle, unsure which way he had come. This shouldn’t be hard. He could trace his own steps back. He hadn’t made many turns, so the path ought to be simple. The ground, where it was free of crystal growths, was slippery with whatever dripped from the ceiling. It was dark and slick and bore no signs of his passage.
He held the lamp high. Had he seen that particular constellation of crystals before? What about the form on the wall over there, a series of sprouting clusters almost as tall as him? That straight, towering one bursting from the floor—was it familiar? Or was he imagining things?
Thiyo stepped backwards, looking up at the ceiling to assess it. His ankle caught on something. He slipped. Expecting to hit the ground in an instant, he was surprised when he tumbled, rolling over several times—there must have been a hole to the side of his path that he hadn’t seen. A small shower of gravel accompanied him to the bottom of the dark, wet space, and he hit the ground hard.
He got up gingerly, checking himself for bruises. His ankle throbbed. Nothing broken—not even his lamp, which he lifted above his head. This hole wasn’t fully open to the rest of the cavern and the rock face was bare of crystals. It would have been easy to climb out if it hadn’t been so smooth. Shit.
He gave up on that after two failed attempts and resorted to calling for help, using the best word he knew for that.
“Ev!”
Ev had never seen anything like the cavern full of crystals. A glittering forest wound through the room, every wall and curve of the ceiling frosted with long, angular shapes. It was overwhelming. The whole crew murmured their amazement as they wandered through. Long moments passed before worry penetrated Ev’s wonder.
“Where’s Thiyo?”
His voice hadn’t been among the gasps she’d heard. He’d fallen back a few steps behind them, but she’d been too distracted by the beauty of her surroundings to note when exactly he’d disappeared from sight.
“Djal,” she said. “Can you tell me where Thiyo is?”
He shook his head. “He’s a hard one to find unless he’s talking to me. And I’m not your Alizhan. There’s a limit to my range, and this cavern exceeds it. But I’d have felt it if something had—well, let’s look for him.”
Ev wasn’t stupid. The full sentence was But I’d have felt it if something had killed him. The thought pierced her. Smoke, Thiyo couldn’t be dead now. Here. Not after they’d survived the medusa together. He couldn’t just wander off and get himself killed like that. They weren’t done yet. She couldn’t do this without him. Rage and fear twined together and sent a shiver through her.
Ifeleh nodded. “Keep your lamps up and let’s meet back here in an hour.”
Ev’s throat went tight. Ifeleh had never really spoken to Thiyo. He wasn’t useful to her in any way. She didn’t know him. This was for Ev.
“Be careful. Take it slow,” Ifeleh called. Ev was already picking her way back through the cavern. There were protrusions of crystal all over the floor, but a path wound through them. Some of the rock and mineral mounds were twice as tall as her, dividing the huge space into a labyrinth. The floor was uneven and occasionally she had to step over a bank. It would be easy to trip if her eyes were on the ceiling.
“Thiyo!” she shouted. Her voice echoed among the others in the cavern. She walked back the way she’d come, trying to block out the voices of the Vines crew. Maybe Thiyo had gone in search of quiet. He did that sometimes now, when it hurt too much to listen to conversation. To be constantly surrounded by the thing that had been taken from him. To have the thing he wanted most in the world be ever-present and just out of reach.
Thiyo. Her heart ached to think he might have left them for that reason, and now he was alone somewhere, maybe trapped or hurt. Or dead. She swallowed hard. No. He couldn’t be dead. She refused. “Where are you, Thiyo?” she murmured and then went quiet. She should have listened to him before, should have noticed when he’d vanished. She’d find him by listening now and not by calling.
The silence thickened until she almost suffocated from it. Her breath and her pulse were both frantic, but neither compared to the chant in her mind. Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead.
There was only the dripping of the cave and the faint echoes of her footfalls.
“Ev!”
The call was faint and yet somehow it sliced through the fog that had settled over her. Everything came into focus. Relieved tears sprang to her eyes and she ran toward the sound of him calling her name.
“Thiyo! Thiyo, it’s me! I can’t see you. Where are you?” Ev held her lamp high and followed his voice, searching all around. She’d turned into a space that branched off the main cavern, an opening that she’d almost missed, half-obscured by a huge bank. Following the sound of Thiyo’s voice, she’d slipped behind it into this smaller space. There were mounds to either side of her—she couldn’t tell what was beyond either of them—and the back of the cavern was only a few paces from where she stood. She should have been able to see Thiyo.
“Ev,” he called again, and his voice was closer, but still echoing.
She spun. “I can’t see you, Thiyo. Where are you?” She walked to the back of the cavern and looked around. “You have to tell me.”
“Here,” he said.
It wasn’t descriptive, but it was helpful all the same. She was facing the opening, which was maybe twenty steps from her. Thiyo’s voice was coming from somewhere on the right. In the glow of her lamp, she examined that side of the cavern. Where the ground was free of crystals, the rock was dark and wet. Hard to tell surface from shadow. These caves were full of unexpected bumps and pits. Every person in their group had tripped at some point in their journey, most of them more than once.
Ev picked up a broken shard of crystal. “Did you fall?” Where had the shard come from? She searched for ragged edges among the smooth angles, and found one close to the ground. Leaning toward it, the light from her lamp caught on something—a gap in the mound.
Beneath it, the cave floor yawned.
“Thiyo?”
An instant later he came into sight, waving at her. There was a cut on his cheek that would probably blossom into a nasty bruise, his hair was a damp, dusty nest of tangles, and he was covered in grime. He smiled at her and it was heart-stopping. She wiped at her stupid tears and looked away. “Smoke, Thiyo. I am so scorching mad at you I could punch you. You’re lucky you’re out of reach.” She laughed, or maybe sobbed. It didn’t matter. He was alive. “How did you get all the way down there? Are you hurt?”
He was at the bottom of a deep pit. In response to her questions, he shrugged. He might be favoring one foot, but he was standing, so it must not be too bad.<
br />
“There’s rope in your pack,” Ev said. Thiyo showed no sign of comprehending her, so she dug the rope out of her own pack and showed him. “Tie it around yourself and throw me the end.” She demonstrated on herself and he nodded.
It took several tries to catch the rope, but once caught, Ev looped it around the sturdiest rock formation she could find, then held on with both hands and pulled. He sent his pack up first. Ev dragged it up over the edge of the hole, her arms aching. Thiyo would weigh far more than that, but he’d support some of it himself. She hoped.
Thiyo scrabbled at the rock below and began the agonizingly slow climb out. Every time his hands slipped, or his feet failed to find purchase, every nerve in Ev’s body jumped. She sucked in a breath, only letting it out when it was clear Thiyo was still hanging on. It took ages, and with every pull, Ev thought she’d used all of her strength. But there was always something left.
When Thiyo got close enough, she grabbed his arms and he grabbed hers. She hauled him up—for an instant, they clung to each other and Ev couldn’t tell which way they’d fall, but she won out in the end and Thiyo came tumbling over the edge, knocking her flat on her back. He splayed out on top of her and she fisted her hands in his hair and brought their foreheads together.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”
He smiled sheepishly, then sat up.
Ev had a sense that more should have happened—she hadn’t explained herself fully, or he hadn’t responded adequately, or something. There was a chill in the air, or a forlorn feeling of missing his weight on top of her, and Ev looked at Thiyo with his hair hanging down into those dark, sorrowful eyes and she wanted to smile or laugh or cry or scream. She wanted, that was it. Maybe it was that funny, apologetic smile he was giving her, or maybe it was the way he’d removed himself so quickly and held himself apart from her, but in that moment of looking at him, Ev realized he couldn’t fix it. But she could.
She grabbed him by his coat and pulled him into a kiss. It was rough and just as frantic as when she’d thought he might be dead, motivated by terror and relief in equal measure. What if she’d lost him forever? She pressed her mouth against his and said don’t leave me in the only tongue they both understood.
She’d barely considered what it might be like, kissing Thiyo—in the back of her mind, some imaginary version of Alizhan said yes you have, you liar—or she hadn’t meant to consider it, but ever since they’d met, he’d brought it up constantly, with his innuendo and his suggestions and his eyes and his mouth and the way he held himself and his scorching obscenely beautiful face. So Ev had thought about it, in dreams and in the sly way she’d learned to think of things she wanted but couldn’t admit; the surreptitious, glancing way of secret desires. She’d sketched an outline: he’d be wicked, and sensual, and demanding. She’d feel bad about it because it would feel so good.
It wasn’t like that.
It was impossible to feel bad about Thiyo’s lips on hers and the tender way he cupped her face. Whatever she’d imagined, all of it paled in comparison to the reality. She’d surprised him, first of all. That hadn’t been in any version of her fleeting fantasy, but it was delicious to have surprised someone so knowledgeable and experienced in these things. No, that wasn’t quite it. It was something else. In that first, sudden contact when he hadn’t fully understood that she was kissing him, he’d held still for a split second, as though any sudden movement might ruin things. As though this kiss might not be real. In that suspended instant, she’d felt—as purely as if she had Alizhan’s senses—how fearful and hopeful he was, how much he wanted her. No amount of knowledge or experience could dull that edge. Thiyo might have kissed hundreds of people in his life, for all she knew. She hadn’t expected him to be so artless. So sincere. But this was no meaningless flirtation. Being wanted like that sent heat sweeping through her body. It made her feel powerful, elated, almost drunk. Hardly a heartbeat had passed and she could have melted into him.
And then when she’d kept kissing him, he’d shifted fluidly from surprise to acceptance to enthusiasm in no time at all, bringing his hands up to her face and touching her like she was precious. Here was the practiced, clever kissing she’d dreamed of, the tip of his tongue tracing the arch of her upper lip and then sliding inside. She threaded her fingers into his hair and pushed closer to him, pulling them down until they were lying on their sides on the cave floor, still kissing. She tugged at his clothes, wanting to get her hands on his skin. They’d spent all that time in the islands half-naked and she’d waited until now, when they were both wearing layers of warm clothing and boots, to kiss him. She laughed softly and he broke the kiss.
“No?” he asked, worried.
She laughed again and shook her head, then pressed her forehead to his. “Yes,” she said and kissed him again. She kissed the corner of his mouth and his jaw and his earlobe and the side of his neck. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
The others were waiting when Ev and Thiyo arrived. Ifeleh had her arms crossed. “It’s been more than an hour.”
“Sorry! When I found Thiyo, he had fallen into a hole and I was focused on helping him out,” Ev said. It was more or less the truth. “I lost track of time.”
“You had to haul him out of a hole and you didn’t think to call for help?” Ifeleh asked.
Ev shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She wished Djal wasn’t present for this conversation. He’d given her several more lessons in hiding her thoughts, and she’d made progress, but she was sure he could see everything. “I panicked,” Ev said. It hadn’t occurred to her to call for help. She and Thiyo had been on their own for so long. And what was one little cave compared to a medusa? They’d managed. “But we’re okay.”
Thiyo had his arm slung over her shoulders. He was limping a little.
“Let me see that,” Mala said, coming forward to take Thiyo into her care. “We should stop here for now so I can tend to him.” She looked to Ifeleh for confirmation.
The captain nodded. “We’ll rest for a shift and then enter Adappyr next triad.”
Ev watched for a while as Mala took off Thiyo’s boot and poked at his twisted ankle while he hissed in pain. She waited for Djal to make some knowing remark, but he didn’t. Had her training worked so well?
They ate—the meal was a sad affair, hard bread and dried fruit and dried meat or fish for those who ate it—and laid out their bedrolls. Ev put hers next to Thiyo’s and tried not to think of anything. They’d be surrounded by people. Nothing would happen.
She sat by herself and waited for Mala to finish with Thiyo, but Djal found her first. “Just so you know,” he started.
Ev’s pulse jumped and she tried to think only of what was in front of her: Djal, the others, an assortment of packs and lamps and bedrolls, the crystal cavern.
“We have to swim into Adappyr,” he said.
Ev blinked.
“What?”
“I know swimming troubles you,” he continued. “Since the incident. You’ve done well getting through the flooded sections so far, but I thought you might like to know. The Exile Road goes into Adappyr through a branch of the Ija. It’s the only way into the city for us.”
He rubbed his thumb over the brand on his right hand while speaking. Branded exiles risked death if they tried to re-enter Adappyr.
“How far?” Ev asked.
“Not far, but it’s against the current,” he said. “The Exile Road is meant for people leaving the city—people who aren’t supposed to come back. And you’ll have to keep your head under for some of it. The guards can’t watch the whole river, but they watch enough of it. Ifeleh’s people will meet us at a spot out of the way and take us into the city.”
Ev nodded. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
He smiled at her. “You’re getting better at hiding your thoughts. I can hardly feel any fear.”
She’d made it through those dark, flooded tunnels. How much worse could t
his be? She was scared, but it wasn’t the choking panic she’d felt the first time. Thiyo had helped her through that. Ev ducked her head and couldn’t look at Djal.
“I’d be a fool not to feel any fear,” she said.
“Smart answer, little sister. And congratulations on the other thing, too.”
Ev looked up sharply. “I thought you said I was getting better at hiding my thoughts.”
“You are,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t need magic for that. Just eyes.”
Ev was doomed to reveal everything, whether it was her thoughts or her face.
“That boy twisted his ankle and got trapped underground, and somehow he came out of the experience looking like it was the best thing that ever happened to him,” Djal continued. “I haven’t seen him smile like that the whole time I’ve known him.”
So Thiyo had given it away, not her. Was that better? Ev wasn’t ready to talk about this. She didn’t need their kiss to be a secret, but the idea of everyone knowing about it made her want to hide. And Djal knew all her feelings for Alizhan. Was he judging her? “Why are you telling me this?”
He nudged her shoulder with his own. “It’s your business, little sister. I know I’m intruding. But I’m going home to a place that didn’t want me and I’m worried the world might end, and I’d like to think about something sweet for a change. I want to be happy for both of you. Can I?”
“Oh,” Ev said. She hadn’t thought enough about how the Vines crew—not just Ifeleh but all of them, little band of exiles that they were—might have complicated feelings about their destination. It was a funny idea that Djal found her relationship with Thiyo a comforting distraction, since she found it confusing and overwhelming. She looked at the ground but found herself smiling. “You can. Quietly.”
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