The Minor Fall

CHAPTER 44 Chocolate

CHAPTER 44

Chocolate

T he walls were as pink as the roses Kazie left around the house.

Bryn paced James’s bedroom, impatience in the tight lines of his broad mouth and steel eyes. I’d never been in here before, not even to do repairs, and I could see why.

The room was an homage to Essie, to Ruhaven, to the land James would never make the Fall to. Standing here, it was impossible not to feel the bone-deep longing ringing from every sketch and photograph of people who’d visited Naruka over the years, of his mother, of Ruhaven, but mostly of his mate.

Essie—painted in cool colors in the monstrous daffodils, marbled skin glowing a bright lavender from Ruhaven’s light. Essie—drawn with a toothy smile that would have scared me once. Essie—with her side profile showing a round nose and deep-set purple eyes.

While Bryn might have painted and hung a portrait of Nereida in the library, he’d never descended to this.

James slumped at a desk of colorful drawers with hand-painted knobs. He wore a thick sweater with a vase of cheerful sunflowers embroidered on the front. Their happy yellow seemed a mocking contrast to the bags under his eyes, and he’d either chosen it to cheer himself up or, by his stuffed snowman look, had layered on all the clothes he possessed to ward off the chill.

“The walls are pink,” I repeated.

James steepled his fingers. “Beige,” he corrected. “They’re beige, Roe.”

They were pink.

Bryn planted his hands on the windowsill and gazed at wild fields unfurling into the sea. “What was Levi doing in L’Ardoise, James?” Bryn demanded.

I’d seen him at the bakery, which I wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—have remembered, except he’d spoken to my sister. To Willow, while I’d ordered coffee for us. I’d thought he was trying to ask her out, so I’d taken my time with the coffee. But in the end, he’d left with only a bag of muffins.

James dragged off his glasses, rubbed at the marks on his nose, and laid them next to a Santa-embossed coffee mug. “I’ve not the faintest idea like. It doesn’t make any bloody sense. I haven’t seen or heard Levi in years.”

He brushed back dark hair that framed a face drawn from the strain of Essie and the news Bryn had dumped in his lap. I hadn’t wanted to bring this to James now, but Bryn had rolled over my protests and virtually stormed into James’s bedroom. When James cursed impressively at both of us, I quickly realized he was extremely private about his space—and with the hundreds of Essies staring at me, I could see why.

The wicker chair squeaked as James adjusted himself. “And suppose Roe’s mistaken? It may be Roe—not that I doubt ye—yer misremembering.”

But I couldn’t have known the razor smile of Levi’s lips or the faint accent I knew he spoke with.

“She is not,” Bryn said before I could protest.

I sank onto James’s bed, finding it cloud-soft and piled with pillows. “He was there before Willow died, but I’m not sure when. Maybe Levi was working on finding Ruhavens in the Ledger ?” I ventured, because the alternative was more insidious and I didn’t think James could handle it right now.

James shook his shaggy hair. “Ye think he just got some whim up his arse to start recruiting? Ye didn’t know Levi, Roe, but he didn’t much fancy this place like. He heard me out sure, but after a month or so he was gone. We left on good terms well enough, or so I thought at the time, but sure now I find he’s gone and given me a bogus address!” The insult brought the first sign of life to his face in days.

Bryn hiked a hip on the window ledge. With the sunlight at his back, he looked like my avenging angel without wings. “Levi left Naruka prior to the discovery of Willow or Rowan’s location, which suggests either someone told Levi later of the location, or he copied the Ledger and began a search for Ruhavens on his own.”

Did other people do that? What for?

James scratched at his jaw. “Yer man’s hardly gonna waste his time trying to recruit. Sure it’s not an easy task like.”

Tye would no doubt agree with that. “Maybe he wasn’t recruiting,” I said quietly, and Bryn and James turned to stare at me. “Both the Inquitate and Levi were in L’Ardoise. What if he brought them there?”

James set his untouched coffee down slowly. “Yer not saying ye think Levi has something to do with the Inquitate killing Willow?”

I rubbed my lips, switched tactics. “Carmen’s the only one he kept in contact with and she seems to know more about the Inquitate than any of us. She would have known Willow’s location when you found her, right? She could have sent him.”

James held up a hand. “That’s a wee bit of an accusation there, Roe. This is just what got ye into trouble in Oslo, ye know, when ye accused Bryn of lying about his leg.”

I fisted the old quilt. He was right, and I’d learned nothing, apparently.

“Rowan may have been wrong about my leg,” Bryn put in, “but she was correct that I was hiding something. James, I do think we must consider that there is an uncomfortable connection between Carmen and Levi, and no discernible reason he should be in L’Ardoise prior to Willow’s death.”

James, unwilling to have doubt cast on his aunt, said quickly, “It might be she was wanting to help with recruiting again.”

“If it’s not nefarious, let’s figure this out.” I pushed off the bed, pacing a line on the oval rug. “Levi visits L’Ardoise because they discovered that Willow and I are there. We can probably assume he didn’t want to take a holiday in a place with one motel. So why go? He’s a triplet, just like Bryn and I. Maybe he discovered that pattern and wanted to warn us?”

Bryn followed my pacing, letting me sort it out.

I knew Levi, somewhat, had read his diaries, as false as I believed they were. So I forced myself to go through the steps, no different than walking through a job for the first time. “We need to go back to the beginning. It took two months for Levi to decide he wanted to leave Naruka—that’s what you said. But that’s a long time to live in a world you don’t believe in. Do you remember the reason he gave you?”

James folded his hands on his stomach. “Just that he didn’t want to live in a fantasy. Some don’t, Roe.”

“And yet his book didn’t describe Ruhaven. No , I know he wasn’t there,” I said quickly when James looked ready to interrupt. “If there are only two countries and he wasn’t in Ruhaven, then maybe he started in Drachaut, but he didn’t describe that in his journal, didn’t talk about mirror floors and glacier skies. Instead, he pretended to describe Ruhaven. Why?”

Bryn pushed off the windowsill. “Possibly because he did not wish anyone to know.”

I nodded. Like voltage in a circuit, everything eventually had to add up. “Yeah. So he wanted you to believe he was in Ruhaven. Why is that?”

James appeared genuinely perplexed. “I’ve no idea. Sure, it wouldn’t matter to me if he’s in Drachaut or Ruhaven. We’re in Drachaut ourselves now like.”

And that was exactly the question. Why would it have mattered so much that he was in Drachaut?

Bryn stopped in front of the illustration of Essie on a violet-sand beach. “The only person we are aware of whom Levi remained in contact with is Carmen.”

“People often remain close to those who did their recruiting,” James agreed.

I snapped my fingers. “Exactly. Close enough that he’d lie if Carmen told him to?”

James threw up his arms. “About what so? Ye think she told him to make up some wee story in his diaries? For what feckin’ purpose? She may have some strange ideas about the Inquitate, but she’s no reason to bother with this. Yer all but accusing Levi and me aunt of planting false evidence, but why lie about where ye were in Tallah?”

That stopped me.

I looked at Bryn. No, why lie about who you were?

When our eyes met—a punch that rippled through me—he slowly inclined his head.

Determined, I crossed to James, flattened my hands on his desk, and drew a line with my finger from his glasses, to the coffee, to the journal. “Not where, James. Who . I think the where was incidental.” My blood pumped in my ears, loud and clear. I could smell the truth of it because I’d lived it through Bryn. “I bet they knew each other in the Gate, knew who they were in the Gate. Carmen and Levi. And she told him to lie .”

“Why?” James asked, wide-eyed.

“Because,” Bryn answered, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Who they are, where they are, must lead to the Inquitate. That is how Carmen knew of the sacrifice made to create them.”

W hat did it mean that Levi had been in L’Ardoise? Had Carmen sent him? And who were they to each other in the Gate—mates? Friends? Enemies?

What did who and what they were in the Gate have to do with the Inquitate?

A chocolate pinged me in the cheek.

“So ya really think Carmen wanted Levi to write a bunch of bullshit in a diary?” Tye asked, readying another candy.

I dug the chocolate out of the couch cushions. “I don’t know, Tye, what do you think? You know her better.”

“What do I think?” He shrugged and propped his bicep over the back of the sofa. Tye had swapped his leather jacket for a soot-gray hoodie. The boots, as always, were leather, blackened, and dirty. “I think it’s Christmas, Roe, and I wouldn’t mind one damn day without talk of Ruhaven, Carmen, Levi, or any Inquitate. Chocolate?”

Before I could shake my head, he sent another crisp mint soaring over the coffee table.

Christmas in Naruka would have suited Willow down to every baked scone, apple tart, and candy cane, though she’d have recoiled at the vivid lime grass.

Our fireplace roared, its flames licking life into a house that had been too quiet after Essie. In an effort to liven up the place, Kazie had strung popcorn—buttered, by the smell of it—across each lamp and frame, and its scent mingled with the room’s cocktail of blue spruce, orange peels, and chocolate mint.

The Christmas tree Tye and I had dragged back was wedged next to the television. Like the billiard table, the tree wore a thrift shop’s worth of ornaments, from a tiny hand-carved rocking horse to molding orange slices. Six feet up, a red nutcracker gnashed its teeth, a concession James had not made willingly, as he’d been adamant it was a sign of support for the British.

I glanced up as the kitchen’s farmhouse door inched open, the sounds of “O Holy Night” crackling from the radio, and beside it, a naked Father Christmas used a Santa hat to cover his unholy night.

James paused in the doorway, wearing his leprechaun apron with a tea towel flung over one shoulder, his glasses reflecting the flickering embers of the morning fire. Then, like a broken toy come to life, he forced his lips into a plastic smile and stepped into the room.

“James, are you—”

“Fine, I’m fine sure. ‘Tis a fine tree too.”

Playing along, I nodded at the blue spruce. “Tye, what’s a Montana ball cap doing on my tree?” It perched over the glowing angel at the top—probably some subtle dig at Bryn.

“ Your tree?” Tye drawled. “I reckon it took two of us that day.”

James brushed the flour from his slacks and squinted at the tree’s disco ball lights. “Kazie did a lovely job decorating. Where’d ye get it?”

When Tye drew a zipper across his lips, James’s eyes widened until the whites of them popped like ornaments. “Jayzus, Mary, and Joseph. Don’t say ye feckin’ cut this down in Naruka—sure these are protected historical woods, for reasons I’d say we all understand.”

When the whistle sounded from the kitchen, James hurried after it, passing Kazie, who slid in wearing a sweater with glued-on candy canes and reindeer antlers that bounced in time with the music.

“I expect plants from everyone,” she stated primly. “Or books! Anything else and I’ll worry that you don’t know me at all.”

Check. And check. “Then prepare to weep when you open your first drill set,” I lied.

Chuckling, Tye tossed another chocolate at me. “Wanna guess what I got ya?”

“A chainsaw.”

“Nope. Might have used that with your casserole, though.”

The candy landed between my breasts, but before I could grab it, a smooth, pale hand smothered it. I lifted my chin and braced for the kick of power, the jolt that only Bryn could summon.

I met dark, winter-blue eyes in a face carved in the Norwegian fjords, with angel-wing cheekbones sweeping like a waterfall and gold glinting in a beard he hadn’t shaved since yesterday. Snow-blond hair hung in soft waves to his ears, more angelic than the Christmas angel hiding under Tye’s ball cap.

He closed his grip around the candy, pinching it between two long, elegant fingers. “Hello, Rowan.” His voice was as rich as Christmas morning.

Deliberately, he skimmed the candy between my breasts, trailing a path up my body. His eyes lingered on my mouth.

I parted my lips.

He waited a beat, watching me through burnished-gold eyelashes. Then he slipped the chocolate onto my tongue, trailing a finger along my bottom lip. “Do you wish to guess what your gift from me is?” he asked in a voice like rough silk.

As my mind launched into fantasies, Tye drawled, “The finest plucked flowers from the glowin’ fields of Ruhaven, if I know him at all.”

Bryn didn’t take his eyes off me. Didn’t so much as blink when a memory flashed between us. Nereida and Sahn, naked, rolling in lavender .

I swallowed audibly. How could he do that?

Then it was gone, and Bryn replied, “I have something else in mind.”

What? Really? Tonight ? No, no, he was winding me up again.

“So, ready for New Year’s?” Kazie called.

With a smile, Bryn straightened and explained in a low voice, “Kazie and I are planning New Year’s Eve, an old tradition of ours since I first brought her to Naruka.” He rested his elbows on the back of my couch. “James insisted we continue despite things, and I have been informed I am in charge of music this year.”

Tye rolled over and smacked life into a dead pillow. “Suppose we’ll be dancin’ to something’ like ‘Sonata in A Major’ then.”

Bryn’s reply was dry as dust. “I am certain we can find a compromise between a country song titled ‘Twelve of my Favorite Trucks’ and classical piano.”

I tucked my tongue in my cheek, laid a hand on Bryn’s, and settled back to enjoy the easy banter between him and Kazie, of hearing the old stories of them together at Naruka. Even Tye joined in when he didn’t have to speak directly to Bryn.

As Kazie was wrapping up a joke about Bryn and a bicycle he’d tried to fix, the reek of burned cheese and cereal blew through the kitchen door. “An Choigilteoir Bean,” James announced with a forced zeal that didn’t match the gelatinous egg smoking in a casserole dish. The breakfast recoiled at itself, eggs swaying when James clacked it onto the coffee table.

Tye stabbed an eager fork into the wobbling mess. “This is James’s traditional Ruhaven special, darlin’, and a lot better than that goat head Stornoway tried to sell us on one Christmas.”

Kazie shuddered. “I’ll never forget the eyeballs.”

Bryn said, somewhat stiffly, “It is a Norwegian tradition.”

Well, eyeballs were about the only thing James’s abomination was missing. Before I could subject my mouth to it, Bryn said, “Perhaps we shall add some of the wine Tye bought from his recent trip.”

Both James and I stared at him like he was crazy. “Ye’ll do no such thing,” James warned.

But there was a calculated look in Bryn’s eye. What do you know?

He didn’t answer, simply pushed deliberately off the couch and disappeared into the kitchen as Kazie said, “I wouldn’t mind the wine.”

In answer, Bryn returned a moment later, wine bottle in hand. He set the bottle down next to the egg dish, spun it so that its castle illustration faced Tye. “I admit, when I saw this bottle, I did not expect you to have such fine taste in wine.”

Arms crossed, Tye leaned back with a sneer. “You’d know.”

“I do,” Bryn agreed amiably. “Which is how I know this is not a label you shall find in L’Ardoise, despite you claiming to have bought it on your trip .”

Tye straightened on the couch.

“Indeed, when I was in town last week, I brought it to the local wine shop, much to the delight of the shopkeeper, Darrel. You know him, James.”

Looking as mystified as me, James wiped at his brow. “Aye, I do.”

“And Darrel was quite happy to tell me this wine is from a local vineyard in the northwest of France, La Chateau Belle.”

And that was important because…

“You did not visit L’Ardoise, did you, Tye?” Bryn said.

What?

Kazie yanked at her hair. “What is going on now ? It’s Christmas .”

Tye rose with deliberate slowness.

“Tye?” I said, but he didn’t look at me.

Instead, he yanked out a cigarette, stuffed it between his lips. “You’re a goddamn snoop, Stornoway. A goddamn snoop.”

Now James rose as well. “Tye, what the bleedin’ hell is going on?”

Bryn answered, “He never went to L’Ardoise. He had someone else to visit, someone who also resides in France.”

Then everything tumbled into place.

I shoved off the couch. “You went to see Carmen ?”

Everyone started shouting at once with the steaming mash of eggs spoiling in the middle of us all.

Kazie tossed a new ball of yarn that bounced off Tye’s face. “What do you mean you were in France ?” She chucked another. “You know I love France and you didn’t bring me?” Another twisted ball went flying.

Tye ducked one, two, three until he looked like a yo-yo. “Christ, woman, if ya wanna go so bad, I’ll drag you there by this yarn.”

James held Kazie back before she threw another.

“Tye, we’ve been trying to reach her since she left, and you’ve known how to contact her this entire time?”

He jabbed the cigarette at me. “Don’t you go accusin’ me of somethin’ I ain’t likely to forgive. I didn’t know Carmen’s exact address or nothing—when she left, she told me how to find her. I flew over, met up with her usin’ the directions she left. Had to talk to this guy Philippe at some French café with baguettes. Ya think I wanted to do that?” He looked actually disgusted at the memory.

James cut in. “Ye tell me straight now, Tye, what ye were doing talking to me aunt?”

“Tryin’ to find answers for Roe, what do ya think? Stornoway spends his days snoopin’ through other people’s letters, convinced my old recruiter’s got somethin’ to do with the Inquitate. I don’t believe it, but I go on and meet with her just in case.”

“But why lie, like?” James pressed.

“I don’t know what you all are on about half the damn time,” Tye shot back. “Conspiracies, energy theories, bullshit. I helped in the way I knew how and I didn’t want to be goin’ over there in the first place. Lady’s in fuckin’ retirement, and you got me askin’ her questions ‘bout Inquitate ‘cause Stornoway’s got some bug up his ass.”

That almost made sense.

“ And ?” I pressed, cutting James off. “If that’s true, then what did she say? Did you ask her why she thought the Drachaut turned into Inquitate? Why Levi went to L’Ardoise?”

Tye lifted his shoulders, dropped them. “This was before Levi, Roe. I asked Carmen what she knew ‘bout the Inquitate. She wasn’t much happy with me comin’ to her, bringin’ this to her, ya know? But I did that for you. She wouldn’t talk to no one else.”

I forced my shoulders to relax. “Well, did she say anything ?”

“Not a whole lot, as I damn well thought. She had a bunch of conspiracy stuff. And yeah, she brought up the whole Drachaut to Inquitate thing. I didn’t take it seriously.”

Bryn skimmed a hand over my hair.

You’ve been keeping secrets, I accused him.

I did not want to raise your suspicions of him if my own proved to be misplaced.

“Look,” Tye continued with a wince, “she might have told me about the clocks. Thing is, I didn’t believe her, not ‘til we came home that day and found all two hundred of ‘em stopped. Christ, Roe, I just thought the old woman was batty.”

“And yet you visited her without telling me.”

“For you, ” Tye said, visibly annoyed. “I go on and haul my ass to mingle with the French—not easy, let me tell ya—just in case she’s got answers ‘bout Willow. And I didn’t tell you ‘cause Carmen don’t want people knowin’ her business, and I respect that. She did me a favor, that’s all it was.”

“You lied about going to L’Ardoise.”

“I did go to L’Ardoise, ya paranoid broad,” he said, somewhat affectionately. “I did have roommates to deal with, but I stopped in France on the way back. Christ , a man can’t even scratch his balls ‘round here without gettin’ the side-eye from one of ya. And I don’t even know what you’re accusin’ me of.”

Some of the anger stuttered out of me. No, he hadn’t done anything wrong, and it made sense why he hadn’t told me. Tye was too loyal a person to betray Carmen.

But when Bryn tried another angle, James shouted, “Lads, I can’t feckin’ take this anymore. Tye, would ye sit down before ye threaten to break someone’s leg again on bloody Christmas, as Kazie so pointed out.” James’s voice crescendoed with the caroling choir on the record player.

Tye settled pointedly back on the couch, Bryn on the seat beside me.

“Alright so,” James continued as Kazie emerged from the tree with her arms full and muttering about Paris. “Let’s open the rest of these bloody gifts and remember to be merry about it.”

If merry was the simmering tension between Tye and Bryn, then we were well on our way to achieving that goal.

James tossed gifts unmercifully in our laps, and anyone who didn’t smile and thank the next person got a stern frown in return. I opened a jigsaw from Tye, a cactus from Kazie that I pricked my thumb on—“ Duh, don’t touch it ,” she’d said while Bryn picked the yellow hairs out of my skin.

James unwrapped a crocheted sweater from Kazie, an aged bottle of whiskey from Tye, and a drawing of Essie from Bryn. The latter caused him to break into a fresh round of tears that dissolved any remaining tension.

When Kazie started unwrapping my present, she shook it hard enough that if it hadn’t broken yet, it would have by now. After ripping away the newspaper with a vigor only dogs and the young possessed, she held up her new book with a smile of sheer delight.

James peeled off his glasses, foggy from crying, and peered skeptically at the cover. “ Merman and the Maiden ,” he read.

“Banned in all twenty-six counties,” I added.

James slapped the couch. “Thirty-two, excuse you like.” He picked up his coffee, sipped, then spat it out. “Ah for—where are me glasses?” He thrust the mug at Kaz. “This is yers, and if ye put any more sugar in that, ye won’t live to see Ruhaven.”

Bryn’s fingers brushed lightly over the nape of my neck.

Will you come with me to the Gate tonight?

Why?

There was a brief pause. If you do not see O’Sahnazekiel soon, I fear one of us will require a similar book.

I choked on my coffee just as James picked up the envelope I’d left for him and fanned the fireplace with it. “What’ll this be, Roe? Me feckin’ bill, I imagine?” If I was still charging him, it’d be five times the size.

But he ended up being pleasantly surprised to discover not a well-deserved and itemized bill, but a scone recipe I’d tracked down from his favorite café.

Bryn received a truly terrifying three-dimensional reindeer sweater from Kazie—which I immediately forced him to wear.

“What’s this?” I asked her, opening a slim, hand-carved box with two elephants. Inside, hardened beans sat in smooth cups in four rows of ten.

“My mother made it for me.”

I nearly dropped a bean. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”

“Of course you should,” she said briskly. “It’s just a game. You’ll like it.”

“You don’t want it?”

She paused, mid-cuddling the skein of Irish wool Bryn had given her. “I’ve already played it, and I don’t need it anymore.”

“But—”

“Ah, Rowan, you must truly want to see more of my poorly painted boats,” Bryn interrupted.

With a last look at Kaz, I turned to watch him unclamp the portable easel I’d made for him. “I just thought with your leg, and having to carry the old one…” I blushed profusely when he pretended it was good.

But there was no gift under the tree from him, which only made me start to sweat that I’d misunderstood, that I shouldn’t have gotten him anything. Maybe mates didn’t give gifts.

It was in the middle of my burgeoning panic that Bryn looked at James and Kazie and they quietly left the room. Music filtered in from the kitchen—James turning his radio up.

“Rowan?”

I rubbed my knees. “Yeah?”

When Bryn laid his hand over mine, I glanced over. His mouth curled into that familiar, crooked grin. “Would you like your gift now?” He lifted a hand, wiggled his fingers. “A memory, Rowan. As I do know how you love flying.”

And then, he showed me how Sahn and Nereida met.

“ D id ye make this?”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “Yeah.”

Behind Naruka, in the soft, springy earth that belonged only to Kerry, James and I stood shoulder to shoulder.

Pink wildflowers had sprung up early, their tangled stems twirling through logs washed up from the reservoir. Wet bramble leaves reflected the turquoise of the sky. By spring, the gnarled cherrywood tree we stood under would bloom with the pinks I’d seen when I first arrived.

James tugged up his slacks before kneeling at the headstone. He ran his thumb over the engraving of the bow and arrow, then the name, Essie, poorly chiseled in the stone.

“I suppose,” he said at last, “this is where dreams go.”

T hat evening, I returned to the Gate.

On a jutting cliff, I watched the fractured skies of Drachaut ripple like broken glass, crinkling on the horizon until it split the light into a prism of color across the land. Skyscraper stalagmites stretched from ground to sky, dripping like melted wax.

O’Sahnazekiel’s golden skin warmed my shoulder. I leaned into him, into the dove-soft wings I’d missed, cocooning us from the thick smoke of Drachaut, his arm curling around my waist.

On my other side, Jamellian and Kazmira held hands, their legs dangling over the cliff’s edge as we watched a star set in the distance. Essie, who should have been with us, was gone. Her loss was evident in each tight line of Jamellian’s body. I turned to him, noting that his skin’s vibrant purples had simmered out in a low boil, but his eyes, the same size as mine, widened at the beauty eating the land.

It wasn’t Ruhaven.

But, in its own perfect way, Drachaut was beautiful. Because it was part of Tallah, this land I had grown from, skin and bones and silver hair.

Sahn grazed a talon along my forearm, causing the clouds under my skin to spin into new constellations. Then he lifted his finger under my chin, turning me to face him.

I gazed into irises of burning, melted gold.

He arched a dusty wing into a feathered wall until it was just Sahn and I in the shadow of it. He leaned forward, fangs glinting in the smoky night.

But when his wide mouth pressed gently across my lips, it was only Bryn I felt.