Chapter 23 #2
“You never seem scared,” he says. “I felt selfish coming here. I was scared of everything. My grandfather was the only one who thought I should go. He said it was brave.”
Ivander lets go of the silk, standing with his hands by his sides, crimson pooling around him like a cloak of blood.
“Sometimes I wonder if the real reason I keep pushing off my retrial is because I’m scared to go home and find things worse than when I left them.
What if after every connection I’ve made, nothing changes? ”
I reach out again, and this time, I touch his bare arm.
The warmth of his skin makes my heart flutter.
“It’s okay to have two reasons for doing things.
It doesn’t mean one’s worth more than the other.
” I rub my finger up and down his skin. There’s an ink tattoo of a rose losing a flower petal on his arm.
One he doesn’t normally wear. “I thought I wanted to join the Hawks to protect my province. But I think it was more to prove to myself that I wasn’t like the dangerous Morphics they hunt. I wanted to feel closer to Leith.”
I’m surprised at the words tumbling out of me. There’s a powerful release in letting go of my fears with only Ivander to hear them. “If they take my Morphia, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d lose any chance I have at seeing my brother again.”
I know it sounds silly. I’ve never succeeded in raising his spirit before. But losing my Morphia ensures I will never see him again.
Ivander regards me with the scrutinizing eyes I remember from when we first met. He squeezes my hand. “You may not be able to raise your brother’s spirit, but trust me, Roe. Your Morphia is not the only thing that makes you who you are.”
I shiver at his words.
Ivander steps closer to me. “Is it okay if I—”
I nod, pulling him closer to me. His fingers trail up my forearms with gentle pressure. The way he touches me makes my whole body burn, like I really am a bird on fire. It’s a delicious, dizzying heat. Being with him feels good in a different way from summoning spirits.
As we stand close, a hair length apart, his hand curls around the silk above his head. On second glance, it’s not a silk, but a coil of rope. His other arm wraps around my waist. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
A sandbag falls, and we shoot into the air together.
My breath leaves me as I clamp my arms around his neck. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. The fluttering nerves in my stomach fly away. I laugh as we soar around the stage. It’s a far cry from when I thought he would let me fall on my ass my first time in this theater.
When he eases us downward, I relax my grip. The bottoms of my feet tingle as we land. I stumble, but he grabs my arm, steadying me.
“Are you okay?” He looks down at me with his head cocked.
“I … I can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now.” I collapse on the stage, heart thumping with too many emotions to name.
Sitting, I wrap my arms around my knees.
“After my brother died, I guess I sort of closed myself off.” Ivander sits on the stage across from me.
“I didn’t want to get close to anyone. The person I loved more than anything left me.
I couldn’t go through that again.” He says nothing, but his deep brown eyes absorb the energy from mine.
Flecks of sadness, fear, and regret reflect back to me.
“I didn’t really think anyone could love me.
I decided a long time ago to like scary things because I thought I was one of them. ”
His lips purse. “Just because you think something about yourself doesn’t make it true. For what it’s worth, I’m not afraid of you.” He smirks. “For you? All the time.”
I open my mouth to say something back. Something that will make him understand the acceptance and sincerity he’s given to me.
But instead, I blurt out the words that have been clamoring to escape since Gray spoke to me.
The ones I haven’t wanted to tell Ivander or anyone because it might make them true.
“I think someone’s framing me for murder.” If he’s afraid of me getting hurt, he should know. He should hear it from me. “My friend, Gray, the Hawk, thinks someone tried to pin that girl’s death on me at the ball.”
Ivander’s lips part in silent shock. “Why would someone do that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” The words stick in my throat, but I push them out. “It sounds like someone doesn’t want me to keep my Morphia.”
“It sounds like murder,” he says bitterly. “Do you think it could be one of the bosses?”
“Keep your voice low. Anyone could be listening,” I whisper. “I wouldn’t put it past Charmaine. But it seems like a lot of work just because she doesn’t like me.”
“Who else?” he asks. “It’s strange you couldn’t summon that girl after she died. How often does that happen?”
“Not often.” He’s right. Occasionally, some spirits don’t feel like coming back to the physical plane of existence. Most don’t mind, as long as I keep them here for a short time. “Maybe I was nervous. My emotions affect my abilities.”
But I have no idea who would frame me.
Ivander clears his throat. “Is there any chance your Hawk friend might have an ulterior motive telling you this?” My cheeks flush, and Ivander raises his hands in defense. “I had to ask. We don’t know who we can trust right now.”
The memory of Gray kneeling in front of me, eyes red-rimmed and lip trembling, floods back to me.
On the day of Leith’s funeral, Gray had taken me aside.
Right after Eliza. His eyes, caught between the deep sage of moss and the bright green of the fields we used to lie in on hot summer days, had locked with mine.
“I will protect you, Roe. Just as I’ll protect your sister.
He’d want—” His voice broke on the words. “He’d want me to look after you.”
Gray never wavered in his promise. When we came home from boarding school over the summers, he scolded neighbor boys who’d left dead rats outside my door at school.
I hadn’t needed much defending. I’d brought back the rat spirits to nip at the boys’ heels.
But what I appreciated most was the time Gray took to talk to me.
He rarely let me feel lonely for long, even if he’d grown distant and stiff with his own grief over the years.
Ivander doesn’t know him like I do. “I trust him. He came here to protect me. He’s not trying to hurt me.”
I raise my hands over my lap with my palms facing the ceiling. If I try again, Elayne might be more willing to talk. I have to remember that she was murdered moments before I tried last. She might not have wanted to be questioned while crossing over to the spiritual plane.
Ivander nods, but he eyes my hovering palms. “What are you doing?”
“Summoning.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I let out a long, slow breath through O-shaped lips. I try to calm myself, breathing deep into my belly. One breath in and a long breath out. If Elayne’s going to come to me, I need to relax.
I find myself walking through a grayish-blue, foggy expanse of space.
Glowing silver spirits pass by me, flooding the spirit plane.
Some look dazed, coming to the in-between from the world beyond.
I wish I could ask them what adventures they’ve been on, but I suppose I’ll have to wait to die to find out.
“Elayne,” I whisper, my voice echoing. I picture the girl I remember and reach out to her. Straining and searching for the vibrating pulse of energy that connects me to her spirit.
As I walk, feet gliding with each step, I slam into what feels like a solid wall.
It knocks the wind out of me. I cough and splutter. The realm grows dark around me, and then suddenly I’m back, sitting on the stage with Ivander. The room spins before I’m able to focus on his face.
“What happened?” he asks, leaning forward to steady me with his hand. The pressure of his fingers against my shoulder grounds me.
“I don’t know. Some kind of block.”
“Like what happens with your brother’s spirit?”
“No. With Leith, I feel nothing. It’s like I’m blocked from the moment I start. This … this is different.”
Gritting my teeth and setting my jaw, I raise my palms again. This time, resolve hardens like a stone in my gut. I lock my arms in place. If I can’t summon Elayne, I’ll try someone else. My great-great-grandmother. The only woman in Damarcus family history to be an alchemer.
If I’m trying something that usually fails, I may as well try her. Something innate, a feeling I don’t know how to explain, calls to her. It’s as if some unconscious part of me knows she’ll tell me the truth. Truths maybe even Father kept from me about our family.
“What is the true Damarcus family legacy?” I whisper.
My fingers tremble with the strain, and I slam into the wall again. This time, my vision goes dark fast, and I can’t breathe. When my eyes fly open and I’m back on the stage, I choke. Ivander lunges toward me, clapping me on the back. I remember to breathe again.
Ivander’s widened eyes shut as he sinks back into a sitting position. “Don’t scare me like that,” he says.
“Wasn’t my fault,” I gasp. We sit in silence until I get my breath back. The ends of my fingers tingle from the effort of trying to summon. I brush them against my thighs, trying to rid myself of the tangible feeling of failure.
Ivander taps a finger against his cheek. With each thoughtful tap of his finger, the nail color changes. Blue, green, purple, red, pink. With each color change, the skin of his lips opens up. Blood dots his mouth, and I put a hand on his arm to stop him.
Without acknowledging me, he lets his hand fall away from his face. “This can’t be a coincidence. Someone’s trying to keep you in the dark.”