Chapter 13 #3
Huddling on this ledge. The countless notebooks in my lap. Page after page of songs as lyrics leaked from my pen until my fingertips were dyed blue or black.
“Tell me why you stopped,” Cary requests.
Our eyes meet. His are the deepest black.
Not the dread of shadows but the endless possibility of night.
The curiosity behind his lashes is almost childlike, a look I never get anymore.
Everyone else wants to know things about me so they can pick them apart and decide whether I’ve earned the way I feel.
Before I can say anything, footsteps and voices rise from the stairwell. It’s one of the courthouse’s guided tours.
Immediately, I tense.
Cary grabs my hand, then whispers, “They cannot see or hear you.”
Soon, the tower is teeming with tourists. The awe in their voices echoes. They take photos from the railings. Ask the guide a million questions. But no one looks our way.
We’re invisible, like that day outside the hospital.
I look down. Cary’s threaded our fingers together. He gives a small encouraging squeeze.
I tell myself what I’m about to do is for London. Cary is my only link to Aides. My way back to him. Being coy hasn’t worked before. Neither has being demanding.
It’s time I try something else. The truth.
I don’t want to talk about this. But I need to.
“Someone close to me died,” I confess, still looking down. My sneaker scuffs the floor. “He meant a lot to me. I would show him all my songs. Sometimes, I’d sing them too.”
Cary’s mouth goes a little higher. “You sing?”
Fire swarms through my cheeks. “Badly.”
“That sounds like a lie.”
“You don’t have to believe it for it to be true.”
A mom and daughter pass us. The little girl has braided pigtails and a gap-toothed grin that rivals her mom’s.
Cary’s featherlight touch on the inside of my forearm draws my eyes. His index finger traces my tattoo. He follows the lines of every petal until a shiver ripples under my skin.
“Daffodils are my favorite,” I say.
“This is a narcissus.”
“I’m a what?”
He laughs quietly while outlining the thin stem. “No, the flower is a narcissus.”
I blink at him, lost.
Another memory catches me in a sticky web: the day I got the tattoo. It was right after graduation. I was desperate to feel something other than the constant ache in my chest. The waves tugging me under.
Max came with me. We flipped through a thick book of designs. I found this flower on the last page. A random sketch by the tattoo artist. I can’t explain it, but…the flower called to me.
A whispered I will help you.
It was silly then. Silly now. But I knew.
In the leather chair, I listened to the needle’s incessant buzz. Savored its sharp bite against my skin. For a few hours, I was distracted by a different kind of pain.
“It is sacred,” Cary tells me.
I almost guffaw. His serious expression halts me. “To you,” I say, gently pulling my arm away.
The docent is reciting the final lines of her speech. The tour is wrapping up.
“Did you stop writing when he died?” Cary asks.
“Before,” I say.
“Why?”
I exhale. “We were supposed to go to college together. I was gonna study music. One day, he told me to study journalism instead. Music wasn’t something I should build a future around.”
“And you listened?”
“He wasn’t wrong.” My fingers drag through my curls. “It’s just that—I was sixteen. And not a very good planner. I’m still not very good. I listened because he always had the right solution. He knew what was best for me.”
I pick at the threads of my bracelet. Think of every time London told me one of his plans. For himself. For us. All the times he told me to get serious and stop dreaming.
He was right. Wasn’t he?
“He was wrong.”
Cary’s words hit like a slap. The tourists descend the stairwell, and I yank free of his hand. I stand, glaring at him.
“You don’t know him,” I spit.
“Of course not,” he agrees. “But I know you let one mortal’s opinion change who you are.”
Anger thunders in me, loud and reverberating. It’s the sound of After August pounding on his cage. Demanding to be let out.
“He wasn’t just ‘one mortal’!” I snap. He was everything.
Cary gets to his feet. “August, I am—”
“You have no clue what it means to be one of us,” I cut in. “All you do is guide souls. How could you possibly understand what losing him did to me?”
I hate how my voice breaks.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
“You’re a Deathless,” I say venomously. “You don’t have to care about anything else.”
His face hardens. Mouth tight, narrowed eyes flecked in gold. For a long time, he’s quiet. The breeze changes direction. His scent fills my nose, a sugared contrast to his sour expression.
Suddenly, he stretches his hand in my direction, palm up. “Come with me.”
I flinch back. “Come with you?” A humorless snort jolts me. “Is this a joke?”
“No.”
“Go with you where?”
Is he taking me back to Aides? To Milos? Is Cary powerful enough to end my life and banish me to the Abyss?
In a blink, the lines around his mouth turn soft. The golden wrath has faded from his eyes. “Time for me to show you what it really means to be the ferrier.”