Chapter 22
Periwinkle
By the time we’ve found Rollick, I still haven’t wrapped my head around what we heard from his assistant.
“How can the shadow realm be warping?” I demand without preamble.
Rollick has a harried look that makes me suspect he wouldn’t mind if all of us warped to some other plane of existence.
He rubs his face and manages a crooked smile.
“We didn’t think the mortal realm could warp until these rifts started belching their shadows all over the place. All that matters is, they are.”
Hail frowns. “So, what, on the shadow-realm side of the rifts, they’re vomiting sunshine?”
It’s hard for me to imagine how beaming daylight could be a bad thing, but Rollick shakes his head anyway.
“Not exactly. The shadowy atmosphere is thinning, which makes sense if you assume some of those shadows are being poured into this realm. And what’s left…
is twisting. We’re hearing about the aggressive, morphing creatures rampaging on the shadow side now too.
Strands of darkness are wrapping around beings like murderous seaweed.
And the regular shadowkind, if they stumble too close to those twisting areas, have had their bodies warped too. In the worst cases…”
He stops, looking sick. I’ve never seen the demon so unsettled he’s lost his words.
“In the worst cases?” I prod tentatively.
His mouth tilts into a grimace. “We’ve gotten a few reports of beings actually dying in the shadow realm. Which shouldn’t be possible. In all my millennia, I’ve never heard of it happening. I trust the people who reported their observations to me, though.”
My heart stutters. “They’re just… completely fading away? And not coming back?”
Yes, that is what dying normally means, but it’s not something shadowkind normally do. The one benefit of the shadow realm compared to the mortal world has always been that our essence can’t totally break apart when we’re at home in the shadows.
If that advantage is off the table… We might be in just as dire circumstances as the humans who evacuated the city.
What’s next—all the chocolate in the world turns into cow manure?
Rollick waves his hand dismissively, though his expression stays somber.
“My associates are looking into the problem more closely. We may have more answers soon. The important takeaway is, we need to get those rifts closed as soon as possible.” He fixes his gaze on me.
“The sorcerer’s daughter is awake and seems coherent.
Why don’t you find out what brought her out here searching for you? ”
Does he think Gracie might know something about the strange rifts? I don’t see how that’s possible when none of us had any idea that they’d come or what they’d do, but it’s hard not to hope.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the answer to the biggest problems the world has ever faced dropped into our laps like a perfectly flung buttered croissant?
Okay, even I can tell that’s optimism on overdrive.
Still, I weave through the cluster of trailers that we shadowkind and our associates have been using to the one set up as a sort of medical room.
I peek inside to see a couple of shadowkind beings lying on the cots at one end of the room, one of them still seeping a little essence from his bandaged limbs, and a sort-of familiar human sitting up on her cot at the other side.
Only sort-of, because for all I recognized Gracie on sight, it’s obviously been years since I last laid eyes on her.
The final lingering childish chubbiness has faded from her face, which is still youthful but definitely a woman’s now.
The chestnut hair she used to wear in ponytails and braids has been cropped into a chin-length bob that’s drooping after her trials.
But when her eyes light up at the sight of me, there’s no denying she’s the same Gracie I knew.
“Peri,” she murmurs, as if she can’t totally believe I’m here. “You look… You look good. You’ve been okay the past six years?”
Six years since I escaped. Having a number doesn’t change anything about the blur of time spent huddling in the shadow realm and then creeping out into this one to feed.
A quiver of my old guilt runs through me to join all my current regrets.
I push my mouth into a smile. “I am now! I mean, other than the whole crazy rift spewing shadows into the mortal realm thing. Everything else is great!”
Gracie’s lips twitch, probably because that statement sounds absurd no matter how you cut it. “I always wondered… I was worried the things Dad did might have injured you permanently.”
I see no need to mention the ache that prickles through my feet and ankles when I’m on them for too long. It’s one small discomfort that barely matters compared to being out of that cage.
“Shadowkind are pretty tough.” I ease closer to her, feeling oddly cautious, as if she might run away after all the hassle she went through to find me. “Have you been all right? I worried a lot… If I could have stayed and helped you… I heard how angry your dad was after you set us free.”
Gracie’s brief laugh is careless enough to soften the sharp edges of my guilt. At least, that particular patch of it. “The whole point was to get you out of there. I’d have had him angry at me for nothing if you’d stuck around and gotten captured again.”
Her lips form a smile as crooked as Rollick’s was minutes ago.
“I won’t say it was fun. He laid into me a lot, and for a whole year he wouldn’t let me out of his sight except while I was in school.
But then he got distracted by some new project—the second I got accepted into college, he shipped me off to the dorms and took off.
He came back for a couple of Christmases like he was going through the motions, but I haven’t seen him in almost… two years now.”
The other gob of guilt sticks in my throat for a few seconds before I can speak. My voice comes out thin as if it’s squeezed around the lump. “You aren’t going to see him again.”
Gracie’s brow knits. “What do you mean? He doesn’t have anything to do with all this, does he?” She motions vaguely to the city beyond the trailer walls.
She doesn’t know anything specific about his research then.
I grope for the right words. “When we were first investigating the rifts—just us shadowkind—we found one off in the wilderness in Canada. Your dad was up there too. He must have noticed the unusual energy somehow, and he was studying the warped creatures, using them for his… usual sort of purposes.”
Forcing them to attack people he wanted out of his way, mostly. David Blaver was the kind of guy who’d sooner choke you on a cupcake than offer it on a plate. And then be mad if you didn’t thank him for the honor.
Gracie winces. “Oh. He barely talked with me about that part of his life after I ‘screwed things up’ for him. I had no idea.”
“Yes. Well.” I twist my hands in front of me. “We didn’t want him to hurt any more people. We found the place where he was working and freed the shadowkind he’d caged there. And they… They killed him.”
You can hardly blame them for holding a grudge against a guy who’d forced them to live surrounded by silver and iron, ordering them around day in and out, zapping them with his weird testing equipment when he was in the mood.
But, maybe you can blame them if you’re the guy’s only kid. That kind of relationship comes with special benefits.
Gracie stares at me for several seconds as if in a daze. Then she blinks and gives herself a little shake. “Oh. Oh my God.”
Another laugh spills out of her, rougher than the last. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I started telling people he was dead just to avoid awkward conversations about what he was up to. I always wondered if he’d try to tackle the wrong monster someday.”
She doesn’t sound angry, but the word ‘monster’ ripples through my senses alongside a dollop of resentment as sharp as cactus skin. I don’t know who that resentment is aimed at more, but I’m not sure I want to find out.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I wish… I wish things could have been better.”
Why couldn’t David Blaver have been a more loving father?
Or at least found a good mom to look after Gracie instead?
I might not fully understand human family dynamics given that shadowkind come into being fully grown rather than starting as babies, but I don’t think they get much more messed up than this.
“So do I.” Gracie leans against the pillow propped on the head of the cot frame. Her gaze goes distant. “At least it’s over now. I don’t have to worry about him popping back into my life and screwing things up for me.”
I swallow thickly. “What have you been up to? I mean—I guess you went to college— How did you even know to come looking for me?”
Gracie’s next smile looks warmer, a splash of strawberry-sweet amusement coming with it.
“I saw you on TV, silly—like most of the world did, as far as I can tell. The reporter said where you put on your little show. I know it’s kind of dangerous being near this weird rift, but I wanted to see you again.
I had vacation time at my job I needed to use… ”
Her attention slides away from me. “I had no idea there’d be people here who’d have such a problem with that. What is the deal with those assholes who think wanting to talk to a shadowkind is a crime?”
I shudder. “They’re hunters. Humans who know about shadowkind and have figured out how to capture us and kill us. I can’t tell whether they’re happy the whole world knows what they’ve been fighting or annoyed that now they have so much more competition for being the biggest jerks to us.”
Gracie lets out a small snort. “Maybe some of both.” She takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I also… Because of people like that—even if I didn’t know they existed until now—and also people like my dad, I feel bad that I never did anything to make this world safer for you and your friends.”
I gape at her. “What do you mean? You saved me and all the other beings your dad had locked up.”
“I know. But after that… I went on with my life as if you didn’t exist. As if everything was normal. While you still had to worry that some other sorcerer might come along, or these hunter guys, or whoever.”
Gracie squares her shoulders. “There are a lot of voices talking about shadowkind now, some who think you deserve a chance, some who want you gone. I know what kinds of things you’ve had to endure to survive while still trying to help everyone.
I know you. We need you so we can get through this mess, don’t we, Peri? ”
A strange sensation sweeps through me, as if I’m brightening up and cringing at the same time. She sees me as the hero here. That’s a real honor.
But some tiny part of me was holding out hope that she was going to charge in and save the day one more time.
Nope. Looks like it’s still up to me.
“Yeah,” I say. “It seems that way. And I’m still not sure how I’m going to manage it. The progress I’ve made doesn’t feel like enough.”
Gracie holds out her hand. I let go of my tentativeness enough to walk the rest of the way over and wrap my fingers around hers.
She smiles at me with all the fondness and determination of the teenage girl who promised she’d get me out from behind those bars of silver and iron as soon as she had the chance.
“Then this is where I should be. Here with you, figuring it out, pitching in however I can. We aren’t going to let the shadows beat us, are we? ”
“Of course not!”
I put a surge of enthusiasm into the words automatically, but deep inside, my gut has twisted.
I have one more person relying on me—a person who matters a lot to me.
One more person I might let down if I can’t stop this rift and the others like it from belching more awfulness over both our realms.
Are there enough rainbows in all the world to put a bright side on that?