Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Unsent correspondence, translated to English, and addressed only to My Truth:
I have judged thousands, but you are the only one I kneel to.
MALACH
Alone in the spare room, I listen to Celine and Luca comfort Alistair, an ache throbbing behind my skull.
The vampire doesn’t mean her harm, but my magic remains unsure about him.
There are many colors inside Alistair, mostly shades of gray, and they’re constantly in flux.
I’ve never met someone with motives so wholly changeable.
Either he stands for nothing, or he hasn’t found anything worth taking a stand for.
He bears monitoring.
I sink onto the bed and massage my temples.
This burden is heavy.
Celine dances and fights.
I watch and wait.
Dread is my constant companion. Checking every corner, suspicious of every shadow—my mind clouds and aches. I fear what comes next. What it could do to her. To me. To us.
So we train. And Celine progresses, reaching her goals, and then setting new ones.
It’s the only satisfaction I get, besides knowing she’s safe. As one day stretches into the next, and she remains alive and strong, I count my blessings.
The sun rises; I give thanks. It sets; I brace for the worst.
Celine watches me from the stage, a sturdy divot marring the skin between her eyes. I force a smile, but her frown only grows.
“Are you okay?”
I spin around on what I’ve begun to consider my regular barstool, surprised to see Celine’s friend Imani looking at me with concern. Since I revealed myself weeks ago, we haven’t spoken. Her intent toward Celine is deep purple—pure loyalty.
“I am in perfect health,” I say, dipping my chin respectfully.
Imani laughs, and the sound is oddly mesmerizing. “There are plenty of ways to be in perfect health and nowhere near okay. Ask anyone in here.”
I study the faces around me. Flushed with liquor, most of them smile and trade laughs with their companions. I’m tempted to judge them and find out if Imani is right about their hidden pain. Given how easily she spotted mine, I decide to save my energy.
“Celine said you learned English for her,” Imani says, hopping onto the stool beside me.
Luca passes her a bottle of water, then rushes to the other side of the bar where customers clamor for his attention. A drop of sweat beads on his temple, a near-perfect reflection of the condensation rolling down the glass in his hand.
Too late, I remember Imani asked me a question and I look at her.
She sips her water and smiles at me.
“I gave it my best. English, I mean.” I frown as the simple words come out thicker than they sounded in my head, like my tongue is swollen. I’m an outsider, and my accent makes it impossible for me or anyone else to forget. “I’ve never been good with language.”
Imani raises her eyebrows. “Really? That shocks me, honestly.” Taking another sip of water, she shudders. “It took me five years of listening to be brave enough to say more than ten words out loud. I’ve heard some Earth languages are easier, but English is a bitch.”
“You struggled?” I look at her more closely. She doesn’t give the impression of someone who encounters much difficulty.
“Hell yeah,” she says. “Celine makes fun of me for them now, but those word of the day things really helped me grow my vocabulary.” She pulls her phone from a pocket in her shiny green shorts, then shows me the screen. I move my lips slowly, mouthing the unfamiliar syllables.
“Try it out loud,” Imani suggests. “This is a weird one.”
“P-pereg—” I clench my fist as the end of the word gets tangled in my mouth.
“Peregrinate,” she says. “That one’s hard.”
“Wandering from place to place,” I read the definition she’s typed to the side carefully, my fingers uncurling as I realize she’s not judging me.
“Some would call that an adventure,” Imani says, screwing the cap back on her water bottle. She’s barely touched it. Combined with her dry tone, I’m positive she doesn’t agree.
“What would you call it?” I ask, feeling lighter than when I sat down. Less burdened. If possible, I want Celine’s kind friend to walk away from this conversation feeling the same.
“You first,” Imani says. “If you think hard about what a new word means to you specifically, you’ll be more likely to remember it.”
I raise my eyebrows. That’s a clever idea. Perhaps if I had employed the same rationale in my earlier language studies, I wouldn’t have found them so tedious.
“It sounds lonely.” I admit.
“Missing home is a universal experience . . . except when it isn’t.” Imani turns to look at Celine—she’s finishing her dance on stage—and forces a weak smile. “Some of us are jealous of those with the ability to miss home.”
If Imani is trying to warn me not to get my hopes up about returning to the celestial realm with Celine, she’s wasting her time. I gave up on that dream many years ago.
“That water won’t drink itself, Imani,” Luca says, appearing in front of us again and pushing his messy brown hair out of his face.
“You’re a nag,” she mutters, unscrewing the lid and chugging until the bottle is empty. She tosses it to Luca, and he smiles.
“What were you two talking about? Looked interesting.”
I raise my eyebrows. Is Luca checking on me?
“Peregrinate, pros and cons,” Imani says. “Go.”
Luca’s smile turns upside down at once. “Only cons, the seeds are weird looking—like alien eggs—and there are way too many of them.”
I stare at him blankly. That . . . doesn’t match the definition I read at all.
Imani throws her head back and laughs. “Oh gods, Luca. Peregrinate, not pomegranate.”
He shrugs. “Sounds the same. I stand by what I said.”
Imani laughs again, the sound carrying around the room. Twenty pairs of eyes stop what they’re doing to stare at her with glassy eyes, her siren song enough to draw their attention even when she’s not trying.
“I needed that,” she groans. “Even more than the water, so thanks.”
Luca shakes his head and salutes her good-naturedly before tossing the water bottle in the trash and returning to the growing line.
Imani glances at me, then down at her phone. “One second.”
I shift on my stool, hoping she plans to let me in on the joke without making me admit I didn’t get it. After typing for a while, she shows me a picture of a strange fruit.
“This is a pomegranate. Gods bless it, he’s kind of right about the seeds.”
“Do these grow around here?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I have no idea. We’d have to peregrinate and hope we stumble upon a pomegranate while we’re at it.”
I mutter both words under my breath, and she smiles. “Like I said, impressive. Keep your chin up, Malach, it gets easier.” I’m not sure if she means living here, the language, or all of it, but I nod anyway because I feel better already.