CHAPTER 21 RAYA #3
“Because I wanted them to stop wanting me, Ari,” Saleen says, falling back against the cushions.
“I’m a promising Red with two tracker parents; the guild’s been courting me for years—they expect me to join them and no isn’t a word they like to hear.
But I’m not like my parents; I can’t compartmentalize my conscience and I won’t go hunting Hues in the hopes that maybe I can help a few escape.
I don’t want that life, and my parents don’t want it for me, so we decided that I should play the problem child for a bit, ruffle some feathers until the guild decided I was more trouble than they needed. ”
“Saving a Hue from execution is hardly ruffling some feathers, Sal.” Akari’s head shakes with disbelief.
“I know, I wasn’t actually supposed to do that. My parents are going to kill me when they find out.”
She’s assuming the Council won’t find out first, that their investigation won’t connect the dots between the Gold wielding stolen magic and the rebellious Red in their midst.
“So, this is something you’ve known for a while, huh?” Akari asks, glancing up at Saleen through her lashes. “The whole time we were together?”
“Not the whole time, no.” Saleen worries at her bottom lip. “I only got read in a couple of years ago, when I was old enough to keep the secret.”
That’s right around the time the two of them started fighting, when Saleen’s views on the Council shortened the fuse on her temper and turned her barbs mean.
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“It wouldn’t have been fair to, Ari.” Saleen’s words are as sad as they are convinced. “It would have put you in an impossible position and you were so intent on being a tracker that I didn’t—I couldn’t—trust what you’d do, whether you’d choose to hand me in.”
“You thought I would hand you in?” Akari reels back as though she’d slapped her. “Seriously?”
“No, I—yes, maybe. I don’t know.” A frustrated rush of air deflates Saleen. “That’s the point, Akari, I couldn’t take the risk.”
“Is that why you broke things off, too? Because you didn’t trust me?”
I suddenly feel as though I’m trespassing on something private, something weeks—if not months—in the making that isn’t meant for me.
“Trust had nothing to do with it, I just couldn’t lie to you anymore.” Saleen aims that truth at the rug. “It hurt too much, okay? Being with you. Knowing that come graduation, I’d have to watch the person I love most turn into a mindless killer.”
“Then it’s a good thing you had a whole castle of girls to cry it out with.” Akari lurches to her feet, her anger rippling through the shadows like spilled ink.
“They didn’t mean anything, Ari.” Saleen springs up after her. “I just figured it would be easier if I gave you a reason to hate me.”
“Well, it wasn’t easier.” Akari bats her away. “It actually made things so much worse.”
“Then I’m sorry.” Saleen’s voice is as soft as I’ve ever heard it. “It was stupid of me to lie, and it was stupid of me not to tell you, and if I could go back and do it over, I would. All of it, including the girls. If you believe anything, then believe that.”
As much as I’m glad Akari’s finally getting some answers—not to mention the apology she was so desperately owed—there’s still a bigger problem at hand and this conversation has veered way too deep into the personal.
“Look, I hate to interrupt but”—I honestly think you’ve both forgotten I’m here—“you have three Hues in your house right now, Saleen, and the Council isn’t going to upend four centuries’ worth of thinking on nothing but their word—or yours, for that matter—so can we maybe focus on that for a second? ”
“Gods, there’s nothing to focus on, Raya.
” It’s comforting to know that while some things change, Saleen’s disdain for me remains as solid as a rock.
“They came to raid the library and get a top-up of magic, that’s it.
I’m not looking to pick a fight with the trackers or reform the Council all on my own.
I’m just trying to keep them alive until they leave Sarotuza.
So, unless you’re planning to turn me in, there’s nothing for us to do. ”
“Except that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I say, meeting her tone for tone. “I don’t think they can leave Sarotuza. Not yet, anyhow, the future won’t let them.” I feel that truth in my gut and the marrow in my bones.
When they escaped from the castle, the fates sent me after Ezzo.
When we escaped from the tavern, they kept us tied together and led us to Akari in the laundry hall.
Then when Ezzo escaped me and Akari, they wasted no time in steering the five of us to Saleen’s door.
So while the future can be changed, this particular path seems inordinately stubborn—and if fighting it won’t get us anywhere, then maybe we should be embracing it instead—while we can still avert the parts of the vision I can’t allow to happen—try to understand the task it’s setting us before we collide over and over and over again.
“Raya’s right, I don’t think it will.” It’s Ezzo’s voice that jumps to my defense, resigned as it is unexpected. “That’s why we came here, to try and figure out what it wants.”
The sight of him is like an iron fist to the jaw, a sudden blow I’m entirely unprepared for.
When I told myself I wanted to thank him, I didn’t imagine that this mess of revelations would be the circumstance involved, or that Chase and Cemmy would be standing on either side of him.
I don’t even know what I imagined, to be honest, but I guess I was hoping that his expression would be a touch more .
. . warm. Not that it has much cause to be.
“Wait—did you just call her Raya?” Saleen seems more surprised by that than by their sudden appearance in the living room. They must have left the library and phased while we were still arguing. “Do you two . . . know each other?” she asks. “How? When?”
“It’s a long story,” we both say at the same time, but since today is shaping up to be the day for those, between us, we do tell it, taking it in turns to fill in the gaps until all six of us are fully looped into the fold—albeit reluctantly and with no love lost between Hues and Shades.
“So, you didn’t find anything useful in the books?” Saleen asks once we’re done with the telling. “Nothing about voids?”
“Not even a mention.” Cemmy sighs. “And we used over a dozen charms to ask every question we could think of, so either we’re doing it wrong, or the future sent us here for a different reason.”
This reunion, would be my guess. It couldn’t have Ezzo and me separated for long.
“I still don’t understand why it would want us to do this.” Chase paces his agitation across the room. “As far as the trackers are concerned, we’re as much of a threat to the Gray as the Divine Meridian. Anything we do would be tainted by that mindset.”
“If this is really about the Meridian, then I think it’s more of a need than a want.” Cemmy’s reply is reluctant, as though it physically pains her to say the words. “You believe that he’s somehow connected to the deaths you saw in your vision, yes?” She aims that ask at me.
“Yes.”
“And the trackers haven’t been able to infiltrate his church because it’s warded?”
Also yes. “The entire block around it is impenetrable to Shades.”
“Then there’s your answer. We can—”
“Beat the wards,” Chase finishes for her, scrubbing a hand hard through his hair.
“Exactly. This isn’t something their kind can do on their own.”
Right, of course. The future’s meddling suddenly makes sense. It’s impossible to ward against Hues—there’s not enough magic in their blood to trigger the spell—so they can go where we can’t.
“Then help us.” I try to catch Ezzo’s eye, since in this, he seems to be my staunchest ally, the Hue that convinced the rest of the palette to continue the search.
“If there’s a reason for what he’s doing, there must be a record of it somewhere.
In some kind of office, maybe, or in whatever private sanctum he keeps in that church. Help us find it.”
“Why? So your attack dog can turn us in when we’re done?
” His bite is every bit as harsh as I deserve.
The last time I talked him into helping, it ended with Akari tightening an Orange noose around his throat, swiftly followed by me not making a particularly noble case for his freedom.
Any goodwill we’d been building is gone now.
“No, so that the future will stop pushing us together,” I say, as that would put an end to both my guilt and this bizarre attachment I’ve inexplicably formed.
“It’s got us doing all the same work, anyway, so wouldn’t it be easier to just .
. . find the answer so we can be rid of each other already? ”
“Will she agree to that?” Ezzo cocks his head at Akari, the accusation in his eyes burning cold.
“Yes, she will,” Saleen says, looking to Akari to confirm. “No one’s turning anyone in, right?”
“Gods, yes, right,” Akari mutters, though it’s clear she’s only doing it for Saleen, to prove that she’d never betray the Red’s trust. But no matter the reason, the six of us are finally aligned on a course, so without any further bickering, we blink back into the physical realm and get to work.