9
In the morning, a brisk knock comes at my door, stirring me from a heavy, dreamless sleep. I blink away the cobwebs from my eyes.
Throwing off the covers, I pad over to the door and open it to find Rook, freshly showered and shaved, with his hair curling around his ears.
“Hey,” he says. He’s changed into new clothes.
Ones I’ve never seen before. Brown leather pants with stitching up the sides hang low on his hips.
A sleeveless leather shirt that skims his waist is embellished with straps and buckles, accentuating the swell of his arms and the breadth of his chest. Several of his fingers are now adorned with silver rings, and black lines his eyes.
This is his real wardrobe. The real Rook.
A fucking work of art.
He’s so beautiful it makes my throat ache.
“Do you want to come have breakfast?” he asks, tipping his head as a lock of hair falls in his eye. “It’s getting late, and they’ll stop serving soon.”
“Sure,” I say, shaking myself out of my stupor. “Let me just get changed. Give me a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
I close the door and dig out some clean clothes, including my Amery-issued black pants and a purple cotton Storm Guard tunic. Once I’m dressed, I open the door to find Rook leaning against the far wall, his hands in his pockets, a foot pressed to the surface.
“You’re standing out here?” I ask, and his face stretches into a slow smile.
“It’s a great place to stand,” he answers, picking up on our inside joke.
“That day,” I say. “Outside the med wing. When you were waiting . . . I mean, standing . . .”
“I was waiting,” he says. “For you. To make sure you were okay.”
I clutch the pendant dangling around my neck. “Why? I’m nothing but trouble.”
Again, our eyes meet. “So much trouble,” he says, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. We pause before he pushes himself up, clearly changing his mind about something he was planning to say next. “Hungry?”
“Ravenous,” I answer. He keeps his hands in his pockets as he leads me back through the building. Last night, he wouldn’t let go of me, so is something different today? I wish I didn’t care.
We enter a busy mess hall lined with metal tables and filled with people dressed in what I’m coming to understand is the uniform of the Veil.
The smell of food hits me along with the cheerful chatter of people and the clatter of cutlery against plates. It almost reminds me of Amery. I was supposed to be training for the Storm Guard. Hanging out with my friends. Getting into harmless mischief with Trinity.
My chest heaves around her name. I wonder if I’ll be able to say it without a screw twisting through my heart ever again.
Knox might be dead. Edward, too. I switched Houses. My parents disowned me. Then my oldest friend betrayed me.
None of this year went as planned.
It all makes me wonder what I’m truly nostalgic for. My life no longer exists, even if I turned around and headed straight to New Manhattan.
We enter the line and pick out a selection of standard breakfast fare. It’s obvious Rook is popular among this crowd. Every few seconds, we’re stopped by someone offering a greeting or welcoming him back, before their gazes land on me with puzzled frowns.
Rook introduces me as his friend, offers only my first name, and very pointedly doesn’t say anything else. Everyone is amicable enough, but I can tell they know what I am. No one refers to me as a Crust, at least to my face, so I guess I’ll take the win.
Once we’ve piled our plates with eggs, toast, and bacon, we find an empty table to sit. A moment later, Calliope and Fisher arrive, settling into seats across from each other.
“You know you don’t have to sit with us,” Rook says. “We won’t be offended.”
“Please,” Calliope says, rolling her eyes at Fisher. “It wasn’t my choice.”
“We need to get our story straight,” Fisher says. “Your father will interrogate us separately, and we need to be on the same page.”
“Why? Are you so worried about me?” Rook asks.
Fisher snorts. “I’m worried about me.”
Rook leans in, his expression turning hard. “There is no story. I’m planning to tell him the truth.”
“You think that will be good enough?”
Rook shrugs. “I do. So don’t try to play the fucking hero. I’ll tell him it was my fault. I will accept the consequences.”
For some reason, that answer pisses Fisher off, and he grunts, staring at his plate before he shoves a piece of toast in his mouth and starts chewing.
They’re half brothers, but there’s plenty of love lost between them.
Rook told me he had numerous siblings, but he spoke of them with such fondness.
Something tells me he wasn’t counting Fisher in the family he so lovingly recalled to me that night we spent on the edge of the city, touching the storm.
“Poet,” Rook says. “My father has asked that you attend the questioning, since you witnessed the incident.”
He gives me a meaningful look. The truth includes revealing what I am. Rook said his father wants to keep his Storm Caller status a secret. What will he do when he discovers what I’ve been hiding, too?
“Okay,” I say, my stomach coiling with nerves. “Sure.”
We finish our food, and then we’re on the move again, winding through rocky hallways as people stop to salute and say hello to Rook.
He greets them all, offering equal attention to everyone in that quiet, steady way that first drew me to him.
It’s clear how much everyone respects him and values his calming presence.
At Amery, no one saw who he really was. He had to play a role—one that fit perfectly with the assumptions everyone made about him.
We pass through tiled hallways and approach a set of iron doors before entering a room where High Commander Athira is waiting for us.
He’s wearing an outfit similar to Rook’s, and there’s a ruthless coldness in his eyes.
I doubt he found himself in the position where he stands today without snapping a few necks. Probably several.
“Good morning,” the high commander says as we enter. “Thank you for coming.”
Rook dips his head, and his father directs us to a set of wooden chairs, then settles into a third seat before us, his feet planted wide and his hands resting on his thighs. “Now tell me what happened.”
“I had to tell them the fence failed,” Rook says as he recounts the moment when the Whisper grabbed me.
“Wait, why can’t Whispers pass through the fence if they’re immune to Spark?” I ask.
“They can,” Rook says. “But Whispers who’ve succumbed to the Silence can’t fully process pain.
If they kept moving, they’d be fine, but given how their minds work, the shock causes them to shut down and stop moving.
If someone doesn’t offer a push, they stand there until they die.
As long as we get to them in time, it doesn’t result in any lasting damage, so we use the fences to offer ourselves a few extra moments in the event of an attack. ”
“And you told them the fence failed because you don’t want anyone to know you’re immune to Spark,” I say. “You had no problem passing through.”
“Right. In my case—and yours—we passed through quickly, mostly unharmed.”
High Commander Athira’s gaze jumps between us as his mouth firms into a line. “What do you mean by her case?” he asks.
“Dad,” Rook says. “Poet is like me.”
The slightest widening of his eyes is the only indication that the high commander has been caught by surprise. “She is? You’re sure?”
“I’m pretty sure. She has all the same symptoms as I do when a storm comes.
” Rook sits forward, his hands clasped and his elbows on his knees as he goes on to tell the story of the night we held hands and touched Spark together.
Though he must be as surprised as we were, Summit reacts only by deepening the groove between his eyes.
“That’s fascinating,” he says, assessing me with a lingering look.
I sense a shift. Less open hostility and more wary curiosity.
“Did you find any other Storm Callers?” he asks Rook.
“What does Storm Caller mean? Why have you named us that?” I interrupt.
“We have a theory,” Summit says. “That Rook’s presence, and I suppose yours, actually pulls the storms in. That they are attracted to you and—” He cuts off, glancing at his son as though conscious of revealing too much.
“Remember when we talked about how the storms seem to seek us out?” Rook finishes.
“That doesn’t happen with Whispers as far as we can tell.
They also don’t experience the same degree of discomfort when storms are coming, or the need to touch Spark.
In many cases, they don’t feel anything at all.
We believe only the strongest Whispers exhibit the same symptoms, and even then, it’s rare. ”
“Oh,” I say. “I see.”
Though I’m not sure that I see anything at all.
“I didn’t intend to bring Poet back with me,” Rook says, and those words sting, even though I knew that already.
Hearing all this reminds me that Rook never intended to remain in New Manhattan.
I’d been building a future for us in my head, all while he had his real life waiting for him.
“But things went awry the night of the graduation ball, and I had no choice.”
He tells his father about Trinity’s accusation and our need to escape the city. When he’s finished talking, Summit doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He inhales deeply and shakes his head.
Something is clearly troubling him.
I suppose my presence is a threat. They blindfolded me for a reason. They all hate New Manhattan and The Shield, and I’m just beginning to scratch the surface of why.
“First, we need to deal with the Whisper’s death,” the high commander says, returning to the original purpose of our meeting. “And I’ll need to discipline Fisher. You were under his command.”
“It was my fault,” Rook says. “He was nowhere nearby when it happened. I regret it, but the Whisper was about to kill Poet. I had to make a choice.”
“A choice,” Summit says, nodding slowly. “I see that you’ve made several choices since the day you left us.”
Rook gives his father an inscrutable look, and I suspect they have a lot more to discuss when I’m no longer around.
“There will need to be public consequences for you as well,” Summit says, his gaze sliding to me.
“Leave her out of it,” Rook says. “I accept the consequences on her behalf. Punish me. Poet did nothing wrong. She was on the ground, and he was choking her. I acted alone.”
Summit’s eyes narrow. “Regardless, you both understand that she cannot stay here? She is one of them.”
Of course I know it’s true, but this verbal confirmation makes my fists clench tightly against my thighs, nails digging into my palms. “I have nowhere to go.” The words slip out, small and uncertain. “They know what I am. They’ll kill me if I go back.”
“I understand the rules of your world, Poet Graves, but your father is the one partly responsible for them, is he not?”
“Dad,” Rook says, and Summit holds up a hand.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his expression softening. “But your presence causes problems.”
“I understand,” I say.
“Will he come for you? Your father?”
I exhale a wry laugh that deepens Summit’s frown. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
It’s embarrassing to admit. I don’t know if my father loves or cares about me enough to come after me, especially knowing what I am. All I’ve done for the past year is defy him. Embarrass him. Make his life impossible.
Summit scans me up and down, thoughts flickering across his expression that I can’t even begin to interpret. “I’m not saying you need to leave immediately, but you will have to make a choice. Regardless, you are not welcome in the Veil.”
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I just nod.
“Then you’re free to go. Send Fisher in,” Summit says to Rook. “We’ll mete out your punishments tomorrow evening.”