by Kim Smejkal
He paused to let the words sink in.
Hints of forgiveness weren’t in the air after all. That had been a part of his act. And he’d wanted her to know, unequivocally, that it was he who was saying those words.
“You were right—there are answers here,” he said, so low she had to tilt her head even closer. “But maybe you’re not asking the right questions.” His words brushed against her neck and ear. “And Celia, just so you’re perfectly clear, I don’t expect to survive this. Stop trying to save me.”
His words stopped, the silence filled with the sound of water dripping, of faint ripples, of light wind in the leaves. The warmth of his breath, of his closeness, made her shivering stop. The water pushed against her skin.
It was as if the entire world paused, allowing them a moment to breathe together. Even the setting was perfect for a false reconciliation. The few frayed threads that remained of her heart snapped, one by one.
His hand went to her cheek. “I hate this,” he whispered. The look in his eyes was a fiery mixture of anger, confusion, and betrayal. “I hate how much I want to kiss you, and how much I want to fly away. I hate how well you know me, because that means you know how to hurt me.”
Celia was having trouble concentrating, couldn’t look away from his dark eyes. One drop of water trailed from his damp hair, across his tattoo, and down his jawline, and she watched it, still partly caught in the world’s pause. They hadn’t been this close in weeks. So many nights, too many days.
His words flooded over her, wave after wave. “I hate that I still want to trust you even though you’ve proved I can’t trust you. I hate that I understand your ghosts, I hate that you understand mine. You’ve always been both my beginning and my end.”
His chest, pressed against Celia’s, was warm with his thundering pulse. She wanted to explore every inch of it with her hands, press her lips to where the heartbeats came from. Despite what he’d just said, the pull of him would never go away. She should have hated that herself, but she didn’t.
One of his hands slid under the water and his fingers traced lightly along Celia’s hip. His gaze roamed over her face slowly as he moved his hand from where her pants clung to her, and upward to her skin.
His gaze landed on her neck, just before his lips followed. Celia nudged her face until he turned his head, his lips tracing gentle kisses along her jawline until they found her mouth. It began as a sweet kiss, slow and leisurely, his lips dancing with hers. She could pretend, for a minute, that he hadn’t scripted this in. That it was real, and he meant it.
The sweetness didn’t last long. A moan in the back of his throat, and both of his hands were wrapped around her, caressing the small of her back and her shoulders with increasing urgency. It felt real. His tongue, his taste, everything about him overpowered her. Celia’s fingers stroked up his arms and along his neck until they tangled in his damp hair. She twined a leg around his and pressed their hips together.
“Celia,” he moaned against her lips. Then he broke away from the kiss. Panting, flushed, fully in character and able to harness lust and passion and hate and fear, all at once. To outside eyes, their reconciliation was complete.
Under the water, where no one could see, he took her hand significantly. “I don’t expect to survive this, but I hope you do.”
Then just as fast, he dropped it, darted away like a fish, and sent up a wave of water at Celia’s face. She swallowed half of it.
His laughter, slightly deeper than normal, told her he’d really enjoyed that too.
Act 3
Chapter 21
A new play was beginning. One without a proper stage, and one without a known ending. “From here,” Griffin had said by the lake, pulling his plague doctor mask back on over his damp hair, “we work our improvisation skills.” Celia understood now why Griffin had permanently donned his plague doctor persona after his death and miraculous resurrection: he’d been performing the part of someone who wasn’t scared of death.
Rian had found them shortly after their confusing, incredible kiss, waving her arms and out of breath, as if she’d climbed a mountain. Celia didn’t buy it for a minute; she’d heard rustling in the bushes almost as soon as they’d entered the lake. Griffin had been right: Halcyon’s spy had been lurking around long before she’d made her dramatic appearance. “You are taking much longer than an hour!” Rian pointed out. “And I have a suit to squeeze into for the party, so I’d appreciate if you hurried it along!”
With Griffin determined to find Zuni, and Diavala intent to stay the course for some unknown reason, Celia’s first improvised task was to make sure that Halcyon was happy enough with her that he would leave on one of his find-Martina quests. Celia needed to prove to him that she was capable, prove he could trust her completely. In that regard, Lyric was exactly right. If Celia was in charge of Wisteria, she would also be in charge of that door and its secrets, the ink and its power, the whole of the town.
As much as she wanted to stay with Griffin, to find Zuni, Celia had to be clever about strategy. She needed to keep the upper hand as long as possible, where Halcyon had no idea how much she knew.
Celia made her way toward Halcyon’s home with quick steps. She’d thought the portraits of Martina were beautiful, once. Now all she saw was a partner in deception, long dead but no less to blame. With every stride, she cursed Halcyon and Martina both.
They’d messed around with the natural order of things. Whether they’d been the ones to actively pierce through the barrier between life and death or whether they’d stumbled upon a breach already there, they were the ones responsible.
They’d stolen the ink from the place where it belonged and brought it to the place where it didn’t, wreaking havoc on both sides. Halcyon acted without thought to consequence, yet the consequences of his actions were everywhere. They stretched out over hundreds of years, to all corners of Illinia, and even beyond, to the world of the dead.
That Diavala had gotten in the way of their plans had earned her a drowning and a flogging and an eternity of straddling life and death—belonging to both and neither at the same time. A curse, not a blessing. Part of Celia, a small, teeny part, could hardly blame her for trying to make the most of it.
The fountain burbled quietly as Celia made her way through the wisteria tunnel toward the courtyard. She created a family of sparrows for Xinto to play with and then stretched out the clumps of lilac bunches so they were as large as pumpkins, snapping one off and pressing her nose into it to drown out the scent of wisteria. She was just about to make the cluster in her hand orange when she saw him.
At a stone trough full of crisp, cool water—the aqueduct that fed the fountain with a constant supply of fresh water—Halcyon stood, his back to her, dipping a cloth in the water and washing his face and chest with an abundance of care. Even the way he cleaned up was elegant; she would have bet a hundred kropi that his favorite shoes wouldn’t see a drop of stray water splash on them. How beautiful he was, with his chestnut hair veined with silver, his perfect skin and strange eyes. But surreal somehow, as if he’d stepped out of one of his paintings and hadn’t thought to bring along his heart and soul.
Thief, thief, thief . . .
Celia silently called on Xinto and his new sparrow friends to play quietly behind her so they didn’t startle him, and she backed away slowly, the giant lilac bunch still held up in front of her face like a big purple shield. Instead of the awkward feeling of intruding on an intimate human moment, she felt a shuddering unease crinkle its way up her spine, crunchy and harsh. It wasn’t shock at seeing his skin: that might have made her flush and turn away, embarrassed at her intrusion.
But she hadn’t realized that Halcyon wore a mask until that moment when she saw him without it.
Seeing him so normal only accentuated that he wasn’t normal at all. There were layers of him she didn’t understand and didn’t want any part of. She’d wanted only the mentor, the recluse in his studio, the means to an end.
Not to be so hit with all the things she’d chosen to ignore, all the backstory she didn’t know.
With his obsession with ink, Halcyon was more like Diavala than anyone else. It shouldn’t have been a shock.
And yet.
He turned his head to the side, listening, and Celia froze. In mid-flight, poor Xinto and the sparrows froze too, Xinto’s very stylish leash dangling to the ground like an unfurled ribbon, connecting him to the rest of the town.
Halcyon dropped his chin to his chest, resting there a beat with his eyes closed, then carefully hung the rag on its hook. Every movement precise, methodical, stiff. Child killer, thief, immortal narcissist . . .
Celia took a careful step back, her heart pounding against her ribs, still holding the lilac shield in front of her face. So much damn skin lately! By the end of the night, everyone would be dancing around naked.
As Halcyon pulled a loose shirt on, Celia realized exactly what unnerved her so. A small thing. A big thing.
His upper arms were unmarked.
The wisteria bunch she’d carefully drawn to get his attention—the tattoo she’d sent him that had started all this—wasn’t there.
There were only two possibilities Celia could think of that would explain it. He might have created an illusion of fresh skin to cover it. If so, that meant he was part of the grand illusion too.
Impossible.
Or he might have wiped it away somehow. But getting rid of Divine tattoos was also impossible. It was a dead form of the ink. Totally inert and untouchable compared with the sweater of live ink sustaining the town. He shouldn’t have been able to do it.
It was shocking to see something that should have been permanent just gone.
He didn’t face her, only turned his head to the side, offering his profile, waiting for her to explain herself.
“What happened to the wisteria tattoo?” she asked.
He waited a beat, as if surprised by the question. “I didn’t like it. I got rid of it.”
“But how?” It hadn’t been an illusion, it’d been real.
“That doesn’t particularly matter, does it?” He turned to face her slowly, the pendant laying against his chest in plain sight between the wings of his shirt as he slowly buttoned it up. “What matters is whether you’re ready for tonight. What matters, right now, is how much more time I should waste on you.”
A shudder knocked through her, and she carefully tried to keep her face neutral as she stepped forward.
What was bothering her so much about the tattoo not being there? She should be shuddering at the fact that he could traverse the worlds of both the living and the dead. She should be cowering at the idea that he was somehow a thousand years old, or raging that he’d trapped Zuni somewhere close. Yet it was the missing tattoo she fixated on.
Celia called Xinto and made the sparrows disappear. One thought—those sparrows shouldn’t exist—and they were gone.
But the sparrows were different from a Divine tattoo.
Quivering, she finally parted with the lilac bunch in her hand, restoring it to the shrub she’d plucked it from. “I’m ready. You’ll see.”
As she walked away, she made the mistake of looking back at Halcyon once more. And right then, when a sunbeam sliced through the taller shrubs across his face, Celia decided that she liked clouds and rain very much. Sunlight made things wither. Made things ugly. Creeping things and claws lurked everywhere, but in the sun, they stared at you with a glinting smile.
Chapter 22
As the sun set, Celia made her way with Xinto to the main square. She hadn’t had much time to get herself together, but she’d inked herself to perfection: a glittering opalescent gown, her dark hair swept up with silver clips, such elegant taste that Dante would have been proud. She’d even covered her regular buckled black boots with slippers that looked like they were made of pearls. So much easier and faster to get yourself into costume when the ink did all the work.
She was opposite-Celia that night, an inside-out version of herself.
Perfect.
The giant platform the town had built together had an arch of flowers stretching from one side to the other. Every person in the square would have a good view, and the expanse of cobblestones around it would make sure that everyone had plenty of room to dance. Wisteria dripped in heavy bunches from the arch, all along the periphery of the platform, and hung in planters around the square, painting everything a splendid, delicately textured purple. It was a lighter shade than the plague doctor’s signature rich plum, and Celia hated it to her bones. She had a feeling that Halcyon had spent a lot of time on those particular flowers, and they wouldn’t have that offness she’d seen in the other bunches around the town. They were the showcase, and they would be perfection. Hideous, tacky, and perfect.
She wondered about music: Would everyone make the music with their stomping and shouts? Then how would they dance? Or would Halcyon cast an illusion of music? But then a band began assembling in one corner of the square, answering that particular question in the most mundane way.
Lights twinkled in the night sky, bigger than fireflies but smaller than lanterns, and for the life of her, Celia couldn’t figure out what they were or how they glowed. It seemed as if Halcyon had taken each star and pulled it closer.
Thoughts of Kinallen entered her mind for a moment, but she pushed them aside, blurring them back into the maelstrom with everything else.
“Well, don’t you look beautiful, Celia!” Michali announced, their pale hair swishing like silk. In a way, Michali reminded Celia of Vincent, in coloring at least, definitely not in personality. Then Michali spied the bee on her shoulder. “And Xinto, my good soul! I’m amazed!”
Xinto wore a sharp black bow tie instead of his usual leash and, to complete their paired look, a wee top hat that matched Celia’s. With Michali’s praise, he shuffled back and forth on her shoulder, as if embarrassed by the attention from one so charming themself.
“The square is absolutely stunning,” Celia said with awe in her voice. “Everyone did such a good job.” Full of lavish opulence, it was a repellent kind of beauty to her now: a golden throne for a starving ruler, or the jeweled sword of a dead soldier.
If the ink of the dead had created it, there was no beauty here at all.
“Yes,” Michali said. “It looks like someone’s getting married, doesn’t it?”
Celia’s choice to dress so fancily suddenly didn’t feel very clever.
Halcyon was already onstage, dressed in his finest of all his fine suits: a formfitting indigo jacket and long indigo skirt, threads of silver woven in subtle tessellations. His hands waved gracefully, as if he were a conductor, urging people to begin the night with dancing.
When Celia was close enough to take his offered hand, she forced herself to do it. “You look nice,” she said. Underneath his clothing lay fine, unmarked skin. Just as he had with the tattoo of a wisteria flower, he could wipe away any indication of his true age. She still didn’t know what it meant, but the thought sent shivers dancing up and down her spine.
“As do you,” he replied.
Shoulder to shoulder with him, she turned to face the milling people. It was a sight she hadn’t seen since taking the Rabble Mob’s stage: hundreds of people in front of her, their tenors shining bright and rich.
“Shall we dance?” Celia asked Halcyon, taking a bow.
He looked startled that she would ask, and every time she startled him, something soared inside her. Small triumphs she savored.
She was still determined to match Halcyon beat for beat. He was done surprising her.
He took her hand and turned her around so they were back to back, not touching. Celia knew about the Dance of Latessa only in theory, she’d never tried it. But because of his gesture and the signal to the band to start a song of the right tempo, she’d have to fake it.
In the dance, the couple didn’t face each other until the very last beat: they spun and circled, stepped away from eac
h other, then back, and only at the end did they turn around to see who their partner had been. It was supposed to be mysterious—you got flashes of your partner as you spun, the heat from their body as you brushed by.
The spaces around them filled with people, and when the last bar sounded, every couple turned around. One last step, finally into the arms of your partner, ending the dance face to face. Because Celia was a bit behind, she heard the sighs and whispers as the other couples came together just as she turned to face Halcyon.
He smiled down at her, as charming as ever, but she couldn’t bring herself to smile back. She extended her fingers to avoid piercing his fancy suit with her claws.
“Another dance?” she asked.
He nodded and held his arms out again, but assessed her shrewdly. “You wouldn’t by any chance be stalling, would you, Celia? When you told me you were ready for tonight, I assumed that meant you had everything in hand, including scent.” The line of his false smile hardened. “You wouldn’t dare make a fool of me.”
Celia laughed, her gaze inadvertently finding Rian’s in the crowd; Griffin needed as much Rian-free time as possible in order to look for Zuni, so the longer the night went on, the better. She was definitely stalling, but not for the reason Halcyon assumed.
“No. I’m celebrating. I figured it out. Why scent gave me such a hard time.”
“Oh?” That piqued his interest. He pulled her to the side of the stage and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for her to prove it.
“You confused me when you said that scent was tied to memories, that it would mean different things to different people. I thought that meant I had to crawl into someone’s mind and figure out what they expected and then deliver that expectation to them.” Celia huffed out a breath through puffed cheeks and got her quill ready. “But it’s tied to me, as the artist.”
He shook his head but looked interested. “To be honest, I have no idea how it works anymore, which is why I couldn’t help you. But that makes some sense.”