Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
EMBER
When Counterparts become family, wards become welcome mats.
— Helen Blackburn, Echelon to the
School of Mental Magic
It’s broken,” Leland said, hardly one foot in the door.
“You said I couldn’t break it.”
“And that was correct,” he stated, taking a closer look at the shards piled on the floor. “You didn’t. Something else did.”
I was avoiding looking too long at him — at his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and showing off the dark beauty of his Death Bonds.
They wound up his flexed forearm as he leaned casually on the kitchen table.
Two days ago, I swore I’d never invite him inside again.
Now we were mere feet apart, our arms mirroring each other as, standing directly across from him, I braced my hands on the curved back of the couch for support.
“Something else like . . . ?”
“Are you sure you’re okay with me in here?” he asked, eyeing the way my hands tightly clenched the couch.
“Does it matter?” I willed myself to relax my hands, then let my arms fall to my sides. “You already Scry on me. You opened my window — ”
“When was this?” He glanced at the small window to the porch.
“My first night here,” I told him. But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. “What broke the letterbox?”
“Ember . . .” His gaze traveled over my shoulders, his attention lingering on the several ceramic mugs I’d left on the coffee table, along with a half-eaten bowl of rice and three greasy protein bar wrappers.
My ears turned red as I silently prayed he couldn’t see the crumbs smushed into the couch cushions where I slept.
“Is your sink not working?” he asked quietly.
I cleared my throat, touching a hand to my neck. “No, it is.” To get us back to the point, I asked him again, less politely, “What broke the letterbox?”
Leland wet his lips, rubbing them together for what felt like eighteen years before he finally answered. “Jaxan.”
“Jaxan?”
“The Everblade, the artifact of creation. It cuts through everything. It’s the only thing that could’ve done it.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I remembered the knife Jaxan had threatened to cut our tongues out with. Leland rubbed a hand over his jaw, deep in thought.
“You should also know” — he winced at the door — “Jaxan’s bonded to a Blackburn. He’s been slipping through Blackburn wards for as long as I can remember. The window wasn’t me.”
Jaxan was bonded to a Blackburn? Jaxan, the man who sent me to incriminate myself at the Allwitch temple? Jaxan could enter this house . . . any time he wanted?
“Great,” I said bitterly. Just . . . great.
“He wants you protected, so you won’t have anything to fear from him in terms of personal harm. But anything you keep here is fair game.”
“Can you fix it?” I asked, shuffling a foot in the direction of the broken letterbox pieces. “I don’t care about Jaxan.”
Leland let out a small, humorless laugh, and said, “The Echelon Charley Starvos couldn’t fix it. Nothing can repair what the Everblade breaks.”
I opened my mouth to ask where to get a new letterbox, how much gold I’d need, where to get a job . . .
“It was the only one,” he said. “The Goddess made eight artifacts, one for each school of magic. The pair of letterboxes was the dark magic one. And before you ask, no. There’s no other way to communicate with the human realm.
Spells don’t reach there. Not even gifts.
Familiars — ” He must’ve seen the look on my face and known to stop speaking.
No other way to talk to the human realm? So that was it. This morning, I’d sent my last letter to Dad, and however he was doing, I wouldn’t know anymore. He’d assume I stopped writing to him, just like Helen and Ash.
My knees trembled, but I held on to what little strength I had left, just long enough to make my way to the pile under the window and drop to the floor.
I stared at the copper pieces shining in the low lantern light. My legs were drawn in, my cheek resting on my knee.
When I remembered Leland was still in the living room, I cleared my throat, touched my chin to my kneecap, and I looked up at him dimly.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s all I wanted.”
I reached for the pile and stole a shard, absently turning it over in my hand. There’s no other way to communicate with the human realm. Occasionally, I’d drop the shard on the floor, its sharp edge leaving a scratch.
Leland crouched in front of me. “I’m not leaving you like this,” he said, eyes flicking to the shard between my fingers, the edge of it perhaps as sharp as the knife that did this.
I gently set it down. “I’m not going to . . .” My voice wavered, and I had to stop for a breath. “I’m just going to take a bath and try to go to bed. Please go. I calm down better by myself.”
Leland set his backpack on the table, his hands moving deftly as he sorted through it.
I spaced out watching him, going into a numb state, forgetting I shouldn’t be looking at him like this.
Eventually, he pulled out a flip-top glass jar filled with an earthy, green powder, then went to place his bag on the seat of a wooden dining chair.
“Stay put. Or bathe.” He tilted the jar at me. “This won’t take long to make.” At the dull look I gave him, he added, “It’s calming tea. It won’t make you happy, but it will help with your throat. Makes it a little easier to breathe.”
Too tired to argue, I remained on the floor, holding my ribs and staring at the dust tumbling.
When the tea was ready, I sat at the table with him.
Leland’s own steaming mug was in front of him, his back to the kitchen.
He had to stoop forward a little to avoid the hanging bunches of dried lavender dangling from a line of twine over his head.
The tea’s minty smell helped relax me, opening up my lungs on my first sip, and we both drank in silence for a few minutes.
“Why do you need calming?” I asked to put an end to the quiet.
“I don’t,” he said. “But you’re polite . . . sometimes. I figured I’d have as long as it takes to drink this before you ask me to go.”
“You know” — I eyed him over the rim of my mug, my hands hugging its warmth — “sometimes you’re kind of nice.”
He shook his head, throat bobbing. “I’m not.”
“Okay,” I said, a little edge back in my voice now that my tea was half gone. “You’re not.”
A thin-lipped smile was his only response. He directed his attention to his transmitter, content to let me finish drinking in peace.
My blood refused to let him sit there and ignore me. “Why did you take the coin?” I asked.
“The coin,” he repeated, setting his transmitter to the side and sitting back.
“The one from Arissa,” I said, though I was certain he hadn’t forgotten about it.
When he reached for his bag, I got lost admiring the long lines of his muscles, how solid he was beneath his white dress shirt. That is until a sharp zip jolted me, and Leland set a gold coin on the table. He pushed it forward like a poker chip.
“She gave you a gold,” he lied. “I slipped the portstop map in your pocket because I didn’t think you’d take it. Coin was in the way.”
I eyed him dubiously over another long sip of tea. “I had other pockets you could’ve slipped it in.”
He leaned forward. “Two were on your ass.”
“And the one on my left hip?”
“Hand positioning. You would’ve noticed it.”
I pushed the coin back to him. “I don’t want your gold, Leland.”
“It’s yours. Arissa gave it to you.”
There was a conversation we needed to have. About whether or not he was my Counterpart, about how I trusted him less and less every time I heard a new lie from him. But I couldn’t do it right then. It was too big. Not something you just throw out into the ether and move on from.
“Thank you for the tea, but I’m not doing this,” I said.
“I know that’s not the coin. I know you like blueberry.
And I know when you’re lying, Leland.” I got up from the table, not bothering to push in my chair.
“I’m taking a bath. And, because bras were not provided for me, I would really like you to not be here when I get out. ”
His lips parted to say something, but I stopped him.
“If you’re about to say you have a bra for me” — which I imagine he was — he had everything else in his bag — “I don’t want it. Please just take your gold and leave.” I shut the door to the washroom without waiting for his reply.
* * *
I got out of the bath and stepped into the living room, all dried off and warm in Leland’s oversized sweats.
Immediately, a cold breeze stung my cheeks, and I froze where I was.
The front door was blown open, a heaviness hung in the air, and lounging with one arm draped over the back of the couch was Jaxan.
“Oh good,” he said, folding up the newspaper. “You’re home now.”
I calmly scanned the living room for the flask I could’ve sworn I’d left on the coffee table. Not seeing it, my gaze flicked to the kitchen, and stumbled over both empty mugs, right where we’d left them on the table, the gold coin sitting in the middle of them.
Jaxan strode around to the back of the couch.
He was almost as tall as Leland. My eyes might have narrowed a little as it dawned on me their height wasn’t the only feature they shared in common.
They had the same angular jaw line, the same contemplative, dark eyebrows.
And maybe twenty years ago, Jaxan might’ve been as handsome as Leland was.
Yet another thing they shared was their ability to stare deeply and give away nothing.
Though Leland did it like a switch he hated to turn on, and it didn’t feel quite as callous as Jaxan’s version.
My guess was he’d come to tell me the Echelons believed what was written in tonight’s paper. That I was responsible for Trist’s disappearance.
You’re not being careful, Leland had said. The Echelons think you’re trying to undermine them. They’re not going to be nice to you.