Chapter 30
The rendezvous point is less of a safe house and more of a safe cave. It’s also not the cave the Nomad originally told us about when we planned the train robbery.
I’d asked him when we arrived why we were hiding out on this mountain and not the one directly east of it, where he’d told the rest of the crew to meet up.
He’d simply told me that it’s never wise, as the conductor of an operation, to be the first to arrive at the rendezvous point.
Better to have a vantage point to overlook the actual meeting place in case the other members of your team happen to bring company.
I can’t argue with that. I’m not sure exactly what the Nomad’s stakes in this heist are, but I know that—except for maybe Acel—mine are much higher than any of the other crew.
Lars is in it for curiosity’s sake. Venus already has her magic back, so really she’s just fulfilling a debt.
Sure, we haven’t figured out how to get Phoenix’s power from her painting, but I can’t get a read on whether she actually wants it.
So who knows how committed the muses are to fulfilling their bargain?
They already have a bounty on their heads, after all. What’s one more?
So the Nomad and I trek up the wrong mountain.
The path is winding, but it’s not the most treacherous I’ve ever taken.
The cliff sides in Neverland were considerably worse.
We’re both quiet on the way up. For the Nomad, I have to assume the silence is a by-product of our failed mission.
I’d shown him the clump of faerie dust that I’d salvaged, and he’d pretended to be hopeful before slipping it into an empty coin purse, but there’s no denying we failed.
But at the moment, that’s not what’s bothering me.
It’s not that the loss of faerie dust isn’t also on my mind—after all, it was my one hope for getting my wings back.
And my voice. But I don’t want to confront that reality quite yet.
For now, I allow thoughts of the escaped faeries to assail me.
We’d parted ways with them in the wilderness, after the Nomad had insisted on cleaning and bandaging my arm.
I’d wanted to lead them to the mountains where they could hide out in the caves for a while.
The Nomad hadn’t exactly taken to that plan.
Something about not wanting to lead a host of hunted faeries directly to our rendezvous point.
We had argued, but in the end, it wasn’t the Nomad who convinced me to split up, but the first faerie we’d freed.
“You didn’t come here for us,” she’d told me after pulling me aside. “And besides, we’re not helpless. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with the chains. You of all people should know that.”
When we reach the cave, the Nomad allows his satchel to slip from his back. It thuds as it hits the cave floor.
“I’ll be a gentleman and let you choose your bed,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.
I scan the rather barren cave, then point toward the cave mouth before writing, I want the one closest to the door.
“I thought you might say that,” he says, glancing down at my sheet of paper. “Afraid I’m going to kill you in the night?”
One can never be too sure.
“Fair point.” He perches himself on an indentation in the cave wall as if it’s a bench. When he pats the place next to him, I simply glare.
“Are we ever going to get past your refusal to sit when I ask you to?” he says.
I shake my head.
“Fine. Well, there’s a seat here if you want it. See? I’m not asking. Not telling you what to do. Just offering you information. Rather obvious information, but information nonetheless.”
The corner of my lip twitches of its own accord, and so does his when I slowly make my way across the cave and take the seat next to him.
“Any ideas on how to pass the time? Until the others do or do not come?” he asks, that same twinkle in his eye as his gaze dips toward my mouth.
I simultaneously feel a tingle at my spine and the inclination to shove him, but I suppress the urge. I need to learn more signs. Back on the train, me being unable to communicate almost got us in trouble.
“It did get us in trouble,” says the Nomad. “Where would you like to start?”
I shouldn’t have to ponder. Other than thinking of the escaped faeries and their fate, this is the other topic that’s kept my mind off of our failed mission.
I’ve been considering this the entire dusty trek up the mountain, but it’s not so simple.
On the train, I needed the signs for railing capping, which hardly seems as if it will come up again.
I communicate as much to the Nomad in writing, adding, That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’ll need to be able to sign in the future. I need to know everything.
The impossibility of that statement steeps between us.
Eventually, he looks at me quietly, then says, “Empty your pockets.”
I tense.
“Just do it,” he says. The words, as commanding as they are, are gentle, soft.
So I comply, pulling the satchel of John’s tiles out of my pocket. I scoot away from him, leaving a space between us on our makeshift rock seat, then spread out the tiles face-up so he can look at them.
Why do you want to see these? I write.
The Nomad doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes examine the tiles like he’s searching for one word in particular.
I point to what I had just written, not appreciating being ignored.
“How long did it take the two of you to come up with this list of words?” he asks.
“THREE MONTH,” I tap onto the tiles, finding them quicker than writing in this instance. “WHY.”
“I just wanted to know what words were important to you,” he says.
My heart stalls in my chest.
“What you most wanted to say,” he continues, his eyes lingering on one tile in particular—LOVE. But then his voice snaps from pensive to practical. “I figure why waste time coming up with a list when you and your friend have already done the work?”
I nod and press the OKAY tile with my finger, then write, It still wouldn’t have helped us on the train. There’s no RAILING CAPPING tile.
“Perhaps not,” says the Nomad, “but…”
He scans the tiles, and I see it before he points it out. Slowly, I pick out two tiles. GRAY OBJECT.
Of course. John had made a series of what he called generic tiles for when I needed to describe something I didn’t have a word for. It wasn’t a perfect system, but with context, he could usually figure it out.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but we only make it through a third of the tiles, the Nomad showing me the corresponding signs, before my brain decides it’s had enough. I get the sense the Nomad could do this all night, but he concedes when I ask for a break. On one condition.
“One last sign,” the Nomad says.
I narrow my brow at him—not in consternation, in question.
He reaches out and takes my hands, and I flinch at his touch. All of the other words he’d simply modeled for me, allowed me to imitate him. But he runs his fingers through mine and twists them, and I get the sense it’s not because the sign is too complicated for me to learn without his touch.
Warmth caresses my skin at each place he touches. The scars that have developed where I dug my nails into his palms scrape over my skin, but instead of feeling abrasive, they feel like a comforting reminder. As if they don’t need to form a sign to say, I will hurt for you.
I’m a fool to listen to hands such as these, hands that have murdered and robbed and hurt.
Still, I let myself bask in the warmth of his hands for a moment as he twists my fingers into place. He stares at our hands, intertwined, for a long moment. A word sits on his tongue—one he can’t make himself form.
My throat hitches.
“You flinch every time I touch you,” he says, his gaze still lingering on our hands. “Act as if my touch repulses you. Why?”
I can’t answer him. Not with our hands intertwined.
So I let go.
Regret instantly flashes across the Nomad’s face, as if he wishes he hadn’t asked the question.
I take the pad and write down my answer. You’re a thief and a murderer, and you’ve hunted me down for years. Besides, I’ve been touched before. By hands that turned against me.
“Whose hands?” says the Nomad, staring still—not at me, not at my eyes, but at my throat.
You know whose.
He watches me carefully. “You want me to assume you’re referring to Peter. But you’re not talking about Peter, are you?”
Fear constricts my ribcage, though what I’m afraid of, I can’t quite place.
“I saw Acel touch you back in the train car,” he says. “He touched you and you smiled. It’s not just any man’s touch that causes you to flinch. It’s not just Peter.”
I respond the only way I know how, with silence.
“There’s something about me,” he says, and this time, when he makes eye contact with me, there’s something in his gaze that tells me that even if it weren’t true, there would be no convincing him otherwise. “What is it about me, Wanderer?”
Why do you call me that? I write.
I expect him to expose me for deflecting. Instead, he says, “Is that not what you are?”
There’s something about the name that hurts. Something about it that threatens to make me feel fully known, but in a way I had never figured out myself. And that almost aches more.
What did that sign mean? I write.
A flash of disappointment crosses his face, like he wasn’t ready to end this conversation. For a moment I think he won’t let me get away with it.
But then he simply says, “Light,” and rolls over and goes to sleep.