Chapter Forty-Two. Rory
Rory
From his spot on Elliott’s floor, all Rory could see was gray.
The dark gray of Elliott’s walls. The bleak gray clouds gathered outside the window, threatening rain.
The thin gray December light pooling on the carpet, discernible only because of the thin gray shadows it cast. Rory closed his eyes and let his head slump back against the bed.
Now all he could see was Daye—her expression as he said goodbye the day before, how her body seemed to curve into itself, a black-and-white statue in front of an empty house.
It would have almost been easier if she had fought with him, if she’d thrown things and argued and refused to say goodbye. At least then he could do something—beg or explain or fight back. But he had nothing to do against this hushed desolation, the way she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“How is it in your sister’s apartment?” Elliott’s voice broke into Rory’s thoughts, dispelling the image like a hand waving away a curl of smoke.
Rory opened his eyes. “Pretty musty. But it’ll probably be okay once I air it out and do some grocery shopping. Though being there without her feels like when we were kids and I’d sneak into her room. I keep expecting to hear her shouting at me to stop touching her stuff and get out.”
Elliott chuckled, picking up a small pine branch. Flowers and leaves were arrayed in small stacks on the table before him, arranged by type and size. “She’s still on that exchange program? It’s been what, a year?”
“She left in June, so about six months. And it ended a while ago, but she decided to do a bit of traveling, since she’s already on the Continent.”
“What was she studying again?”
“Something to do with linguistics and adjoining temporalities. It sounded like there was a lot of grammar involved.” Rory made a face.
“Impressive,” Elliot said, picking up a few blades of sweetgrass and a cluster of hawthorn berries and starting to braid them around the branch he was holding.
Rory shrugged, watching Elliott loop the sweetgrass twice around a hawthorn berry, then cross it with the pine.
A wing, Rory realized, recognizing the mix of plants and braiding, for a drone.
For a moment an image of Daye, half crumpled on the bed as he fought to braid together wilted leaves, filled his vision. He swallowed hard.
Elliott held up a sprig of winter honeysuckle. “Do you remember what I’m supposed to do with this?”
“It’s a bonding agent.” At Elliott’s blank stare, Rory added, “Honeysuckle. They like to shove it into everything, since it bonds a construct with the creator. My sister used it when …” He trailed off. “Anyway, you’re supposed to braid it into the construct’s nexus.”
“Thanks,” Elliott said, swiveling back toward the table.
Rory closed his eyes and tried not to think about the way wilting honeysuckle smelled as he pried it out of Daye’s chest.
“I still can’t believe you’re actually starting in the university,” Elliott said.
“Yeah,” Rory said. A faint smile was all he could muster.
“Come on.” Elliot swiveled his chair so that he was facing Rory. “Cheer up. You got, what, two months? That’s more than anyone else managed.”
“That we know of. There’s no way no one has ever tried before, even considering how scarce Blodeuwedds are. Not when—” Rory cut himself off. They had had this conversation dozens of times already. He just didn’t have the heart to get into it again.
“Still, delaying the transition for two months is incredible.”
“And it ended incredibly badly.” Rory rubbed his forehead. “You weren’t there. It was … really bad. Horror story bad.”
“Shit.” Elliott winced. “Maybe next time you could make the balance—”
“I don’t think I have the guts for a next time when it comes to this type of solution,” Rory said. “Not after how this one ended.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Elliott tied the braid together and started on another. Rory’s hands twitched in his lap, itching to correct the weaving. He looked away.
Abruptly, Elliott put down the wing and turned to Rory. “Look, are you sure you have to find—”
“Yes,” Rory cut him off. “I’m sure.”
“Just hear me out. You know I’m glad that you’re here. We all are. But you sounded happy this summer when we talked. Really happy. And it’s not like you’re planning to join the navy or take a trip around the world like your sister. Do you really have to—”
Rory cut Elliot off. “Imagine that Maggie’s life was tied to yours.
That if something happens to you, your twin dies.
If you break your hand at the wrong time—she dies.
If the road fucking floods and you can’t get home in time—she dies.
Now imagine watching her all but die three times already.
Do you still want to ask me if I have to find a solution?
” His voice echoed off the walls, too loud.
“No,” Elliott said, eyes wide. “I guess I don’t.”
“Sorry,” Rory mumbled. “Didn’t mean to …” He toed the carpet, not quite sure which part of it he was apologizing for. Raising his voice? Bringing Maggie into it? The absolute mess he was?
Elliott waved the apology away. “It’s fine.”
“I just wish I knew what to do next,” Rory said. “I have absolutely no new ideas. None.”
Elliott hummed sympathetically. “Classes start next week. Give it a month, and I promise you, you’ll be swamped with ideas. And in the meanwhile,” he said, nudging Rory’s knee, “I can buy you a celebratory beer, so that you’ll start your career as a student the right way.”
“Hungover at orientation?”
“Exactly.” Elliot winked. “C’mon.” He grabbed Rory’s hand and pulled him up. “I’ll tell you all about the date I had last night. Now that is a horror story—”
On the table, the half-finished drone lay, wings splayed, honeysuckle vines slowly wilting in the gray December light.