CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sun finished its ascent. It dipped below the horizon again. I was there and not there. Asleep and awake.
I saw Irene. What I could remember of my parents. Brielle and Zander. I saw all the members of The Council, including Cato. I saw Nya, and the faces of the people I had met Outside.
I saw Kieran.
I also heard something like a giant bang and a rumble somewhere nearby. I’m not sure if what I saw were dreams or visions. Or a mixture of both.
At some point, I realized vaguely that I needed to go to the bathroom.
I wasn’t sure if it was that sensation that pulled me out of my trance, or if it was the fact that I was already coming out of it that allowed me to recognize the sensation.
Either way, I raised slowly up onto my hands and knees.
My limbs trembled with the effort, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night Kieran arrived.
Was that only yesterday?
As soon as the realization hit me, sickening, gut-wrenching hunger exploded through my stomach and burned my throat.
I hurried to the bathroom and emptied my bladder, then tore through my cabinets, consuming anything edible I could get my hands on.
Bread, a stray apple, a jar of peanuts, a quarter of a bag of sugar…
I shoveled it all down, too ravenous to even try to throw together something that resembled a meal.
When I was finished, I filled a glass to the brim with water and downed it, then repeated the motions twice more.
I leaned against the sink, breathing heavily. Water dripped from my lips. My hands were sticky from where I had been grabbing sugar out of the bag by the fistful. When my breathing steadied and the feeling of hunger was sated, the sensation of pain rose to the surface. My muscles and joints ached.
I crossed to the bathroom, carefully avoiding looking in the mirror. This time, it had nothing to do with not wanting to see my resemblance to Irene. It was because I knew I would be horrified to see how the mess inside of me was manifesting on the outside.
I rinsed the sugar off my hands, then stripped off my nightgown.
Once in the shower, I let the cold water wash over me.
Over and over and over. Relishing how it made me feel as numb on the outside as I still felt on the inside.
Afterward, I brushed my teeth then ran a comb through my wet hair and braided it.
When I emerged from the bathroom, I went straight to my bed. With all my basic needs met, I felt the gentle brush of a thought, which was equal parts tentative and urgent.
What the fuck was I going to do?
I ran through all the events of the past twenty-four hours Then I ran through them again.
And again. There were so many things that had been kept from me for so long…
I needed to replay every conversation, every interaction, every subtle change in expression and body language that had caught my attention, to make sure there was nothing left that I was missing.
In spite of myself, I found a fresh wave of tears spilling over as I replayed the night and morning that Kieran and I spent together before the Enforcers showed up.
Each memory brought fresh pain. He had said that he had something to tell me.
Now I understood it was the truth about me being a Conductor.
But the memory that stuck in my mind the most at this moment, making my chest ache, was not that revelation.
It was not the Enforcers breaking down my door, or even when Kieran and I were moving against each other, as close as two people could physically be.
It was that moment, after he pleasured me, and before we both found our pleasure again in each other, when he pressed gentle kisses across my face.
The feeling of his lips against my skin was arousing under any circumstance. But those kisses, soft and gentle, hadn’t been meant to arouse me. They were communicating something else. Something he was struggling against his pride, or maybe even his nerves, to say.
In that moment, I had known, somewhere in the depths of my soul, what he felt for me.
Yes, he was feeling attraction and lust and all the things that went along with what we had done.
What we had been about to do. All things that I was feeling too, toward him.
But in that moment, I had also felt something else from him.
I had felt cherished.
A feeling I hadn’t experienced since Irene was alive. And, if I was being honest, a feeling that I hadn’t thought I would ever experience again. I thought it had died along with my family.
My mother. My father. My sister.
What must they have gone through when I was still too small to understand? What was so compelling that my mother and father were willing to risk death? Risk leaving their young daughters behind? Was it truly just compassion for the people outside the walls? Wanting more for the citizens of Cyllene?
Then there was Irene. A big sister, a caretaker, an Enforcer.
And yet, so much more. Hiding so much more.
Protecting me from so much more. I could recite her final conversation with Leon word for word, but this time it held new meaning.
“Your word doesn’t mean much, now does it?
” Leon had said. Her betrayal wasn’t just the betrayal of an Enforcer, sneaking supplies to the Strangers and smuggling books into the city.
It was the betrayal of Cyllene’s most valuable asset. Greatest weapon to greatest threat.
And when I thought now of Irene’s refusal to cry or beg for her own life…the way she held her head high in the face of certain death…
She knew she was right. She knew she was about to die, but she also knew that she was right.
That death was a more acceptable fate than succumbing to what was wrong.
She must have believed with all her heart in the cause that the Strangers were pursuing now.
In making the city a real safe haven—a place where everyone would be fed, clothed, sheltered.
A place where people could have agency in their own lives, make informed decisions.
Be themselves, without fear of retribution.
As much as it pained me, I would never know all the details of what Irene did, what she thought, what she endured. But that was okay. There were countless things in life that I didn’t know, and the past few days had only expanded that list further.
I still knew Irene. I knew her heart.
I was surprisingly calm as I realized what I had to do.
I jumped over the side of the bed, flipped onto my back, and pushed myself into the space between the floor and the mattress. I knew my room had been searched top to bottom, so the chances were slim that it was still there…
It was.
I crawled out from under the bed and hurried to the bathroom. Once there, I put the stopper in the drain and turned the shower on full blast. Carefully, I set the silver chain and the attached larimar stone in the tub.
It was a ridiculous idea. It might have even bordered on insane to think that such a thing could work. But it was all I had.
I stared at the stone. Holding my breath. Kneading my hands. Watching it get pelted by the spray. I willed everything in me to focus on this one thing, this one request. I willed it so hard that a lump rose in my throat.
Come on, come on, come on, come on…
I blinked and there was just the stone.
I blinked again and there was Larimar.
As hard as I had been wishing for it, I still startled.
Larimar was standing over the stone in the shower spray.
Seeing them in full, above the surface of the water, confirmed a theory I had had.
Rather than the fish tail I associated with sirens, their body dipped smoothly into two defined legs, each of which ended in the same fin-like protrusions that took the place of hands.
Their opalescent skin was just as I remembered, somehow no less magnificent in the dim light of the bathroom.
Their expressionless face was also just as I remembered.
“You have summoned me…” they began, voice echoing.
I felt heat rush to my cheeks.
“…to a bathroom.”
They inclined their head slightly. As if trying to make sense of the idiocy that they were being asked to endure.
I thought back on all the humiliating moments of my life, including some recent ones with Kieran. This one topped the list. By a long shot.
“I’m so sorry, Larimar,” I blurted out. “I really didn’t want to disturb you. But this is an emergency, and I don’t have anyone else to call on. I need your help.”
Larimar stared at me wordlessly.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow,” I rambled on.
“Anything that you need from me, I’ll do.
Not that there’s much that you’d need me for, I’m sure.
Being a water spirit and everything. That is what you are, right?
But if there’s something you need, something I can do for you as a lowly human, I’d be more than happy to do it.
I would never ask for your help without offering something in return. ”
I realized with horror that I was still standing. I dropped to the tile in a low bow. The movement was so abrupt that I slammed both knees harder than I had intended, and I bit my lip against the pain.
Larimar’s opaque eyes beheld me. Suddenly even Kieran felt wildly expressive and easy to read by comparison. “I told you when we met by the shore,” they said. “I cannot interfere in conflicts between humans.”
“I completely understand,” I said. “I’m not asking for you to interfere in a human conflict necessarily.
The thing is, I learned that I’m a Conductor.
Which I guess is what my people are calling it when a human can borrow magic temporarily.
” Wait a second. “You already knew that, though, didn’t you? ”
Larimar nodded once in affirmation.
“Then I guess maybe you already know where I’m going with this,” I mumbled, looking down at the side of the porcelain tub. I didn’t have it in me to continue looking them in the eye.