Chapter 22
Daerios leads me down a set of stairs and onto the path. He turns to the left and starts circling the water. I fall into step beside him.
“That island at the center,” Daerios says, pointing out over the water, “is called Great Island. In the nineteenth century, they used to hold wrestling and prizefighting matches out there.”
“Seriously?” I bunch my eyebrows together. “Why would they go all the way out to a remote island just to fight?”
Daerios shrugs. “Human men are a mystery to me.”
“You and me both, pal.” I sigh. “Is the island deserted now?”
“It is, though it’s free for anyone to explore. I’ve been out there myself a few times. There’s a plaque at the center with an engraving that says ‘WHERE SHUTE FELL.’”
“Where Shute fell?” I wrinkle my nose. “Who’s Shute?”
“No one knows. Maybe one of the fighters.”
“I read a linguistics paper recently by an academic whose last name was Shute,” I say. “She had an interesting theory, actually. She proposed that ear vibrations are—”
“Kallister.” Daerios looks at me, and my stomach squeezes at the nickname. “We just traveled an hour on horseback to get away from Harvard. Let’s leave the books behind. Let’s pretend, at least for a few hours, that you actually like to have fun.”
“I like fun,” I say defensively.
Daerios laughs. “That’s exactly what an uptight bore would say.”
I try to shove him off the path and into the lake, which only makes him laugh harder.
“I’m sorry.” He schools his features into wide-eyed innocence. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t think you’re a bore.”
“Right.” I cross my arms, looking out at the lake.
“I’m serious.” When I look back at Daerios, his eyes have softened, sweet butter left to melt in the sun.
“You are many things, Quinn Kallister. You are brilliant, and frustrating, and mysterious, and, more often than not, a general pain in my ass.” His eyes flash. “But you are certainly not boring.”
I inhale. Sunlight flickers on right at the center of my body, swelling outward, warming every limb.
His words—I cannot believe how thoroughly they affect me.
Brilliant and frustrating and mysterious.
Exactly how I would describe him. I shiver, attempting to smother the growing warmth, to dim the light flooding my body. To throw a blanket over the sun.
I fail.
Daerios extends a hand. Smooth and moon-white. Tentatively, I reach out and take it. Then I let him pull me forward, and we resume our circle of the sky.
We walk for hours. We cover every subject imaginable, from movies to politics to where to get the best ice cream in Harvard Square.
“I thought elves didn’t eat human desserts,” I say.
“Are you crazy?” Daerios eyes me. “Have you tasted J.P. Licks’s cake batter Oreo?”
“That’s why I suggested it for break time in the first place, idiot.”
“But this is better, isn’t it?”
I bite my lip. “This is better.”
We must circle the lake a half-dozen times. At no point does he release my hand. At no point do I ask him to.
As we walk, the sun sinks lower in the west. Clouds gather, thin enough not to draw my worry. Regular Quinn would say it was time to head to the dining hall for dinner. Regular Quinn would eat, then do homework, then spy, then sleep too little and repeat the process.
But Regular Quinn isn’t here. She’s an hour south, sitting on a pile of hay.
As we round the lake for our seventh turn, I ask, “What are you like outside of Harvard?”
“Just as charming as inside.”
I roll my eyes. “Not what I meant. I meant outside of the final clubs, and the search, and your family. What do you enjoy doing?”
“Ah. Well, if I’m being honest, I don’t particularly enjoy any of the things you listed, anyway.”
“So, you’re saying that Harvard Daerios isn’t the real Daerios.”
“No. Not really.”
“What is, then? Where are you happiest?”
He casts his eyes out over the lake. At the center, a bird with brown and white wings lands, sending ripples drifting toward shore. “I suppose that would be… here.”
“Here? At Spot Pond?”
“Sort of.” He squeezes my hand. “I mean nature in general. Especially bodies of water. Rivers. Lakes. Ponds. Streams. Waterfalls. Open air and sunshine.”
“I’m shocked. I would have thought you’d say a nightclub. Or a yacht. Or perhaps getting into a fistfight.”
He smiles, but it’s pinched at the edges. “Those activities certainly serve their purpose.”
“And what purpose is that?”
Instead of responding, he draws his eyes back to the path, staring down at its pocked surface as if it might hold the answer.
I sigh. He’s been so open and easy to talk to all afternoon.
I’m not sure what I said that made him shut down again.
I glance down at the water and, noticing an empty dock we must have passed during every circle, I say, “Hey. If you love the water so much, let’s go check it out. ”
I tug his hand. He doesn’t resist as I lead him down the stone steps and out onto the wooden slats.
They creak and groan under our shoes. Gentle waves lap at the dock.
When we reach the end, I let go of his hand and settle onto the edge, legs dangling over.
I peer down into the water. It’s murky, mud and algae dancing beneath its surface.
“Is it swimmable?” I ask.
This question, at last, seems to pull Daerios from his haze. His smile returns. I’m reluctant to admit how relieved it makes me. “Why?” His eyebrows raise. “Would you like to find out?”
“Absolutely not. I’m just asking.”
His smile fades slightly. “Yes. The water is swimmable. The breeze stirs up the bottom, making the water hazy, but that doesn’t mean it’s dirty. It’s quite refreshing, actually.”
“You’ve been in before?”
“Oh, yes. Many times.”
“Many times?”
“Spot Pond is the place I go when everything at Harvard feels too suffocating. When I start to feel like there’s soot in my lungs. Like grime is coating every inch of my body, no matter how hard I scrub. I ride Vorrok out here. Out where I can breathe.”
“It’s your escape.”
He nods.
“I get that. The gymnasium was my escape, back in Minnesota. Home was just… it was filled with so much grief. I could hardly stand to be around my mother most of the time. But with my team, there was no mourning. No pity, either. Just single-minded focus.”
“And companionship.”
When I look over, Daerios is staring right at me. Shivers creep down my neck, spanning my arms like wings. “And companionship,” I whisper.
Daerios lifts a hand. Slowly, he lowers it onto mine, which is splayed open on the dock. One five-pointed star covering another.
My heart picks up speed. Is this going to happen again?
Are we going to kiss? I know we shouldn’t.
Even if I’ve left Regular Quinn back on campus, when I return to her, she will retain the same intentions.
She will still betray the boy beside me, the one leaning closer now, nose only a breath from mine.
And even if she weren’t waiting for me, what could ever become of this relationship?
Nothing. That’s the answer. Nothing, because it is forbidden by King Varith. I heard so from Saechon himself.
I’m about to pull away, to say that it’s getting dark, that we should be headed home, when a rain droplet splatters the top of my head.
“What the…?”
I look up. In the time we’ve been talking, the clouds have gathered in earnest. They’re curling angrily, trenches of grey-black promising a downpour.
“Oh, dear,” says Daerios. “We should—”
And then God sets the heavens free.
It’s torrential. One second, we’re bone-dry. The next, a flood unleashes, soaking us through to our skin before we can even think about seeking shelter. But despite the fact that it’s October in New England, the rain is warm. It runs down my face in gentle rivulets.
We struggle to our feet. “We need to go,” says Daerios. “This will pass soon, and—”
“Wait.”
No one is more surprised to hear the word come out of my mouth than I am.
Daerios looks at me, brows furrowed. Waiting for an explanation.
I’m stuck, trussed to the dock like a sail to a mast. I don’t want to leave.
Not yet. Today was the most fun I’ve had in ages, and even though I know it was all pretend, even though I must eventually shatter this bubble of make-believe, along with every precious shard of trust that Daerios and I have glued together, I’m not ready. I want to stay.
I meet Daerios’s gaze. “Let’s swim.”
His eyebrows climb higher than I’ve ever seen them go.
“I’m serious.” I plunge forward before I can stop myself. “We’re already soaked. Why not see it all the way through?”
For a long moment, he just stares at me, and I think he’s going to say no. That it’s too late, or that Vorrok needs us. But then his lips curl into a hellish little grin and he undoes the clasp on his cloak. It falls to the ground in a forgotten bundle.
I mirror his action, placing one hand to either side of my Harvard sweatshirt and pulling it up and off.
When my head reemerges from the cotton, Daerios is undoing his shirt button by button.
I watch him work, deft little fingers unhooking each clasp.
When he’s halfway done, something—God help me, I don’t know what—compels me to walk over and brush his hands away.
To do the rest of the job for him. When my hands reach his belt, I tug the shirt loose, hands grazing the elvish silk as I help his arms out.
Then his shirt falls to meet his cloak, and he’s bare-chested before me.
I inhale, about to step away when I feel a gentle hand on my hip. I look up into his eyes. They’re a luminous silver amongst the raindrops. “My turn,” he whispers. Then he grips the bottom of my shirt with both hands and pulls it over my head.
When I reemerge, we’re shirtless before each other. Me in my bra, him utterly bare. My eyes drift downward, taking in the curve of his chest, the flawless skin, a dusky bronze darkening with the gathering clouds. When my eyes crawl back up to his, he’s smirking.