13. Chapter Thirteen
Linorra watched Syndeth fly away with a heavy heart. She could not understand why he didn’t want to be her friend anymore. The sun reflected off his scales in bright blue, crimson, and gold, like handfuls stolen from a treasure chest and flung wide. “Go, my treasure,” she said to the sky. “Be free.”
We walked for about two hours. Or, rather, the big and tall men did. I had to jog to match their pace. Aaron hurried now, impatiently looking back to see if I kept up. I did, sort of, but I carried the oil lamp, and it was hard to do that and jog at the same time.
“How old are you really, Ward?” I asked, wanting to distract myself from the growing concern I had over Aaron’s new attitude.
Ward had to think about it. “We don’t celebrate birthdays on Monash, but I think I had just turned fifteen when I came to you.”
“Twenty-six, then, same as me,” I said. “We celebrated your birthday, sort of. We used the date we found you.”
He smiled back at me. “That’s true.”
“But we only gave you bones and chew toys,” I said.
“And a cake that one time,” he said.
“Oh, yeah! I forgot about the cheesecake. I had one piece and then you scarfed down the rest so fast that you got it inside your nose, and you couldn’t stop sneezing.”
“Yeah, and then you laughed so hard that you dropped your piece on the ground, and I ate that too.”
“Ha, that’s right! You gained a lot of weight that first year before I learned to stop giving you so much people food.”
“You never stopped doing that,” he said.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. You loved—”
“French fries!” we said together.
“Earth has amazing food,” Ward said. “I’m going to miss that.”
“Why? Aren’t you coming back?”
There was a pregnant pause. Aaron grumbled under his breath again, but I only have normal hearing and couldn’t tell what he said. I heard a loud crack and guessed that it was one of the dragon’s leg bones breaking in his grip.
Me and my big freaking mouth. “Do you have family here, Ward?” I asked.
Ward sighed. “I’m not sure,” he said. His voice was low, almost desolate, making me think that something might have happened to them.
Seleca.
Aaron didn’t contribute to the conversation, but he stopped grumbling. I decided to change the subject.
“Ward, what is the ghost fragment called?”
“Conjuration,” he said.
Ew, that’s a dumb name. “Okay,” I said, “but didn’t you say that I needed a combination of fragments to get it? How could they have suspected I would gain Conjuration when Seleca didn’t know about my Protection? My only other one is Connection.”
“And Absorption, like Seleca,” he responded.
I stopped in my tracks. So did Aaron. Ward almost ran into him but stopped in time, turning around to look at me.
“You didn’t know that?” he asked.
I shook my head, then looked at Aaron. “Will that help us?” I asked.
Aaron’s eyebrows squeezed together. “Yes, if it’s true.”
Ward shrugged. “Seleca said a person must have both greater Connection and Absorption at the time of death to acquire Conjuration. They can then be brought back with Protection, but the spirit of the one coming back has to decide to reenter their body. It can’t be forced unless a conjurer is standing by to push them back in like you did to me.” Ward’s face was neutral as he stated this, but his choice of words left me with the impression that he was conflicted about his own return.
“I’ve never heard of someone having both Absorption and Protection,” Aaron countered. “I thought that combination was impossible because those two fragments repel each other, but if it’s true, then you could possibly gain enough power to defy the Ministry.”
Aaron and I stared at each other for a moment, then he started walking again. Ward and I followed, but I refused to jog anymore. I wasn’t tired, just grumpy and sick of arranging myself around the needs of others. I fell behind and the men finally had to slow down to my pace, which gave me a feeling of vindictive satisfaction.
I dug a granola bar out of my pack as I walked, guessing that maybe I was hangry because Aaron’s attitude was starting to aggravate me. “Absorption is the one where you steal other people’s powers, right? How do you know I havethat?” I asked with my mouth full.
“I heard Seleca talking about it with her,” he said.
“Eve?” I clarified, wondering why a supposed goddess would concern herself with me. One would think somebody that powerful could handle her own necromancy. Or Conjuration. Whatever. I sighed. This whole thing is so ridiculous. Eve isn’t a goddess. She’s probably just some schmuck behind a curtain, demanding we pay no attention. But if she’s no goddess, then how did she know which reservoirs I had?
“Yes. Eve,” Ward said. “Hey, do you have another one of those?” He motioned to the granola bar. I dug one out for him but paused for a second to wonder if he should be eating chocolate. Laughing at myself, I handed it over.
“You heard Eve talking about my reservoirs?” I asked.
Ward nodded. “After Seleca trapped me in the dog form, she kept me in a cage for a few days in her room while I went through the worst of the withdrawals.” He looked at me to confirm that I understood withdrawals occur when you stay transformed for too long. Satisfied, he continued. “I thought I would die, but it eventually went away. I heard Seleca get instructions from Eve, and then she took me to you. I was supposed to watch for signs of those two fragments and report on it when she came to me.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes as he spoke.
“She broke into the house every few months while you were sleeping,” he continued, “and then she would break into my mind and see what I had learned. It was never what she wanted. She commanded me to force you to absorb Conjuration by putting you in danger, but I wouldn’t do it, no matter what she did to me. She got more and more angry and would kick me so hard I thought I would die. But, as time went on, she lost interest and showed up less. She went a year without showing herself at one point. I hoped she’d forgotten about me.”
“But she came back,” I said.
Ward nodded. “When you went to college, she came for me with a new assignment.”
“Aaron,” I guessed. “She sent you to him. That’s why you disappeared.”
“Yes,” Ward said. “She figured out where he was hiding and that you were linked to him, so I was supposed to spy on you and find out how.”
“How did she know we were linked?” Aaron asked over his shoulder. I hadn’t known he was listening to our conversation.
“Your mother’s book,” I said, the pieces falling together. “Your mother wrote that I was meant to find you.” I looked at Aaron, a shadow of suspicion growing. He was dangerous and may have been one of the only people who’d ever thwarted the Ministry. “Seleca probably thought she could use me against you, but the book must have tricked her somehow because she didn’t know about my Protection. She said before leaving that she wanted to find your mother to complain.”
“She thought that, as soon as she got you here,” Ward continued, “she would wait to see what happened with you and Aaron, then try to take both of your reservoirs in one move. She didn’t know that you could protect not only yourself but him as well.” He smiled. “She must be livid,” he said. I smiled back at him, feeling smug.
“What did she mean when she said, ‘someone like you’ should be in a dog’s body?” I asked.
Ward didn’t answer for a minute, but then he stopped walking and turned those piercing amber eyes on me. “Because I’m like you,” he murmured.
I looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant. Then I got it. Ward was queer, like me. “Dog” must be the derogatory term they use here. “Oh, you mean you’re . . .”
He nodded, peeking over his shoulder at Aaron, who had continued walking without us. He looked down at the ground, his body tense. I took his posture to mean that he assumed Aaron would be homophobic. I hoped that wasn’t true, for both our sakes.
I stepped in close to him and whispered, “Exactly like me?”
He shook his head, indicating he was gay, not bisexual.
“I take it that’s not very well accepted around here,” I said.
Ward released a bitter laugh. “That’s putting it mildly,” he said, then drew a thumb across his throat.
“Oh,” I said, giving Aaron my own sidelong glance. This could potentially be a huge problem.
I looked up at Ward and decided that we both needed a hug, so I held out my arms to him. He obliged me, though we both knew Aaron wouldn’t like it. It was weird hugging someone so much taller than me, but his warmth was comforting. I missed Rogue, but Ward was still my best friend. He knew me better than anyone.
“When I came to your family,” Ward said, “that was the first time I’d ever heard that it was okay. I was trapped in that dog body, but you made me feel like at least I wasn’t broken.”
I looked up at him, feeling his gratitude, and smiled. “I’m glad. Because you’re not. You just started out in the wrong place. You belong on Earth, Ward. I mean, we’ll have to special order all your clothes and you won’t fit in cars or beds, but I think we could make it work.”
He smiled, nodding, then turned to start walking again. I hooked my arm up into his and walked beside him, almost like old times. “If Seleca trapped you in the dog body, then why are you back to your real body?” I asked.
Ward thought for a moment, his mouth pinched. “Probably because you healed me. You freed me, Lina.”
“I wish I would have known earlier,” I said.
“I don’t,” said Ward. “That was my home. Now I can’t go back. Even if I go back to Earth, I don’t think your parents will want a giant stranger in their house.”
I lifted my hand to my forehead. Yet another problem to solve. The list was getting long, but this one would be a priority. I took Ward’s hand and squeezed it.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
We walked that way for a minute. I thought about how he used to walk so close to me through the woods that we were practically touching. I wasn’t as deeply inside his mind as I’d been with Aaron, so I couldn’t send thoughts to him, but I could feel his anxiety very clearly. Underneath that, though, was a solid foundation of love, and I reflected that love back to him.
He squeezed my hand, then let go abruptly when he saw Aaron turn around to look at us. I understood Ward’s trepidation. Aaron was scary for a short dude, especially while hauling a giant dead animal that weighed more than he did. I wasn’t sure if he saw us holding hands, but we made eye contact. His expression was blank, but his eyes were heated, furious. He turned forward again without comment.
I could only guess at Aaron’s psychology, but I knew that he’d been isolated since his family had all but abandoned him to the mercy of Seleca, a literal psychopath. I guessed he anticipated nothing more than the same as he’d always had, plus a good dose of kicking himself for hoping otherwise. Ward coming back right at this moment may have even felt like poetic justice to him given their shared history.
Yeah, that sounded right.
Then again, I could have been projecting. Lord knows I’d had my share of loneliness. I could just be hoping that Aaron cared for me when in fact he preferred to be alone. It’s not like we’d known each other for that long. He was probably thinking about what he wanted for dinner, and happy that Ward had come along to distract me so he could finally get a minute to himself.
But no, I could feel that wasn’t true. Curiously, he was jealous. Nobody had ever been jealous over me before. It was simultaneously flattering and annoying, and holding Ward’s hand in front of him definitely wouldn’t help. On the other hand, was I supposed to ignore my dear friend, who was in the middle of a personal crisis, in order to take care of Aaron? I groaned in frustration, the back-and-forth logic making me dizzy. The two men looked at me. I didn’t know who to look at, so I looked down at the ground in front of me and kept walking.
It was dusk by the time we made it to the edge of the forest. Aaron stopped and surveyed the oardoo fields. They were bordered by a very mundane wooden fence that looked much like the ones I had seen in the American countryside. The only difference was that these were taller, reaching maybe six feet high. Aaron could see over them, but all I could see were violet flowers poking up and over the slats as if trying to escape.
The flowers were so fragrant I could smell them from our position a hundred yards away, even over the pungent odor of dead dragon. It reminded me of lilacs, and I had a vivid memory of the house in Eureka where we lived before my parents moved us outside of town, to the stables. My mother had a potted lilac in the front entryway that smelled like that. She planted it in the yard before we sold the property, and when we drove by the house the next year, it wasn’t there anymore.
I sighed. These random memories were making me homesick. Maybe I wasn’t hangry, just tired and sad.
Aaron stopped to listen before walking out into the open. A dirt trail butted up against the outside of the fence. Grass growing down the center of the trail had recently been flattened, presumably by a wagon or a cart, but I didn’t hear anything except wind rustling through the grass and the trees. A heaviness in the air weighed on my every breath, reminding me of Eureka in early autumn. It felt like a storm was coming, making me sleepy, and I sorely wished for a shower and a comfortable bed. My own bed.
“How long does it take to cross the fields?” I asked.
“An hour if it goes well,” Aaron answered. “The oardoo make a lot of noise when they see intruders coming into their fields, and then they run back to the stalls and ring a bell. If that happened, it would prompt the flock tenders to come looking, and we would have to hide until they gave up. It is known that Jorin is my uncle, and there are bound to be spies among the seasonal workers. If any of the tenders are spies, it wouldn’t be long before Eve’s minions came looking for me.”
“Uh, huh,” I said, “and what’s an oardoo again?”
Ward chuckled.
Aaron did not. Although he was once fond of Ward as a boy, he was obviously far from amused by his presence now. Add it to the list of problems, I guess.
“An oardoo is a large running bird,” Aaron said, clearly annoyed at repeating himself. “It has a blue head and legs and is covered in white feathers everywhere else. My uncle raises them for the feathers, which are worth a great deal. The bedrolls are made with them.”
“Oh,” I said. “I was wondering what that was. And they can ring bells?”
“Yes,” Aaron said. “Jorin has a large oardoo bell by the house. They are trained to run and tap on it when there’s danger.”
“They eat that purple plant on the other side of the fence,” Ward said, smiling. “I’d recognize that smell anywhere. It’s jarring weed.”
“What’s that?”
He grinned. “It’s just like that stuff you smoked in high school and thought your parents didn’t know.”
“What? They knew about that?”
Ward laughed. It made my heart happy to see it, and I smiled back at him.
“Are you serious? You’re not exactly the Black Widow.”
“Quiet,” snapped Aaron, dropping the dragon at his feet. “I need to listen.”
I sighed. Ward was still silently laughing, and I was glad, but I also knew we needed to get serious.
“Maybe I can help,” I said. I stuck my fingers into the ground, questing out with Connection. I sensed Ward behind me, still depressed but putting on a brave face for my benefit. I felt Aaron, whose anxiety was so sharp I could have cut my brain on it. That was it.
“Spirit,” I called.
I’m here, Lina.
I jumped in surprise because it sounded like she stood right beside me, like if I closed my eyes, I could reach out and touch her. Instead, I grabbed Aaron’s hand so he could listen through Connection. His hand was hot, and standing close to him felt like standing next to a literal fire. He kept his gaze averted and his expression closed, but he let me connect to him. He wanted to listen in, but he was also pissed.
“Any news?” I asked, looking at Aaron. He wouldn’t look back at me.
Seleca waited at your house for several hours and turned on the TV as if she had done that before. Then she got angry and now you don’t have a television. Or windows.
I sighed. “That’s better than no parents,” I said. “What else?”
When I left her, she was digging through drawers looking for something to burn the house down. There’s nothing I can do.
“We’re insured,” I said. “Hopefully it won’t burn the whole state down.” So much for that comfortable bed, I thought, feeling a pang of homesickness. Aaron finally squeezed my hand back and I looked up at him.
“Why did I have to taunt her?” I whispered. “Note to self: don’t purposely piss off the psychopath. Spirit, would you check to see if there’s anyone around to see us climb the fence?”
“Or any oardoo to reveal our presence,” added Aaron.
What’s an oardoo? Spirit asked.
“Blue-headed ostrich,” I said, suppressing a laugh.
Oh. Okay. No, there’s no one.
“You’re done already? That was less than a second,” I said.
Time means nothing over here. Or very little, anyway.
I blinked at that. “Okay, go back to Psycho Snow White and let me know what happens. I want to know if she gives up and goes looking for Aaron’s family.”
Okay.
Then, Spirit was gone again. I was getting used to this ghost-whispering business. Conjuration was a dumb name, though. I would have to come up with something better than that. Necromancy? Ew, no. Keep thinking, I thought.
Aaron gave me the look.
“What?” I asked.
“Is that really relevant right now?” he asked.
“Hey, I’ve got to amuse myself somehow or you might have to see Evilina more and more often.”
Ward coughed, suppressing a laugh. “None of us want that. Trust me,” he said.
The comment annoyed Aaron, which is when I realized that I hadn’t explained Evilina to him yet. He felt like he was stuck on the outside of an inside joke. He pulled his hand away, but I hung on. “Stop,” I said. He blinked at me. “You have to stop.”
“Stop what?” he snapped. Heat rolled off him like someone had opened an oven.
I scooted closer, craned my neck up to look him right in the eye, and gave him my best Give me a freaking break face.
He looked back at me, his jaw clenched, intimidating in its savage anger. I waited, stubbornly refusing to back down. Impossible man. I never had this trouble with Drew.
Aaron’s face darkened. Well, maybe you should go back to him then.
I felt my eyes widen and my jaw drop. I hadn’t meant to send that errant thought about Drew to him, but his response was needlessly spiteful. This conversation was going off the rails. I needed to get back on track.
I need you, Aaron. I also need Ward—my friend, Ward. Don’t make me choose.
Why not? he thought, his eyes flashing. Because you would choose him? Your friend betrayed you. He betrayed us both, but you told him you love him and you’re acting like everything’s fine. It’s not fine.
His stupid, freaking super hearing had picked up what I’d whispered to Ward. That’s what you’re mad about? He’s my oldest friend. I do love him. And he was trapped, Aaron. He didn’t choose it.
There’s always a choice, remember? I guess you’ve made yours.He yanked his hand away, leaving me with an unexpected stabbing pain in my chest.
I stepped back from him, doubling over. The words themselves hadn’t been that harsh, but the delivery had been absolutely venomous, and I had received them with my Connectionlink wide open and my Protection down. I grabbed my chest like I was having a heart attack. If I had been looking at myself from the outside, I would have called myself a drama queen, but this was real pain, not just an emotional response. Something about the interaction had caused a kind of energy blowback that had physically struck me. It was like Aaron had severed our Connection link, which then snapped back like a rubber band, smacking me right in my heart.
What the hell was that?I thought.
Ward flew to me. “Lina,” he said, surprised as I was by the sudden turn of events. He wrapped his arm around my chest, supporting me. “What is happening?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure.” I hyperventilated for a few more seconds, letting tears stream down my face, but Ward’s warmth and concern comforted me, and the pain dissipated after a minute. When I stood back up, my nose was running. I wiped it with the back of my hand, then noticed that it was streaked with red.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mumbled, pinching my nose. It was a good thing my shirt was red. I glanced at Aaron, expecting remorse, but his face was stony.
I could have pointed out that he’d burned Ward’s freaking face off without a choice and that he had now done whatever that was, but instead, I looked down and said, “Spirit says the way is clear. We can climb the fence. I’ll follow you if you still want me to.”
He didn’t move, and I didn’t look at him. I didn’t have the energy to continue the conversation and simultaneously keep my shit together. I was wrong about him,I thought, shaking my head. He told me yesterday that he had a hard time regulating emotion, but I didn’t listen.
I stood there, waiting, not knowing what to do next. I couldn’t believe the man I’d bonded with so strongly only that morning, who I’d been convinced would protect me from harm, was now someone I needed to keep a distance from lest he hurt me himself.
Don’t cry yet. Wait until you’re alone. Inhale. Exhale. I turned away from Aaron, swallowing a growing lump in my throat.
Aaron hesitated, then picked up the dragon and walked toward the fence without a word.
Ward handed me a cloth for my face, and I pressed it to my nose. I looked at what he had handed me and saw that it was Aaron’s white shirt. He must have pulled it out of my bag. I gave Ward a wry look, but he just shrugged, smirking. Then, he took my hand, and we walked toward the fence like that, Aaron’s opinion be damned.