CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A beautiful slow song, with a swinging percussion, beats through the air, but the true melody is in the clinking of glasses and high-pitched yelps that echo across the main tent.
The drapes have been pulled apart, revealing the magnificent night sky.
It’s always special on the eclipse, but whichever force orchestrates this evening has outdone itself tonight.
A curtain of green hangs against the black abyss, and I’m lost in the delicate turns of the aurora dancing above our heads.
“This is marvelous,” Valentin says. She’s sitting next to me, her head swiveling to take in the celebrations. “If this were a haunting, I would never fear loss.”
I laugh. “How much of Geneva’s stash did you smoke?
” I can smell the musk on everyone, including Beam, who’s been on Cillian duty since he was found face down in a bowl of mashed potatoes.
He’s alternating between purring and trying to get out of Beam’s arms while she’s in deep conversation with Quill.
The tome is resplendent on her polished mahogany stand and has been waxing poetic about dinosaurs for at least an hour.
All notions of being clear-headed for scrying have vanished, and I can hardly blame them for succumbing to the night’s seduction.
A candle floats dangerously close and I swat it away.
“Enough to never want to leave,” Valentin admits. “I mean, I do want to go back to…wherever I’m from, but I would be lying if I said that this place hasn’t been the loveliest dream.”
Her eyes are closed to the music, and a wide smile sits on her lips.
“Would you not go back if you had a choice?” I ask before I can stop myself.
I don’t know what I’m expecting – an assertive yes, complete faith in a decision she’s known to be true – but Valentin blinks slowly. Chews on her lip.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve only been here for so long, and I’d be turning away from everything I’ve built and loved in another life. I can feel it, this purpose that’s calling me back. Like a missing puzzle piece, except I don’t know what the image is.”
I nod absentmindedly. I’m more emotional than normal tonight, and there are too many reasons to pinpoint, none that I can isolate.
There’s the general high of the celebration, the company of people I love, the anticipation of what’s to come, and the never-ending, always-present wonder about why I’m here and where I should be.
“Everest and Iris are putting on quite the show,” Valentin says, raising her glass to the revelry.
I glance over at the dancing couple. Iris is laughing, her dress floating through the air in a dazzling burst of color, while Everest spins and dips her with each beat of the music.
“This is nothing. You should have seen him with this woman he brought to the festivities a few years ago. I was on the brink of blindfolding Beam.”
“You wanted to blindfold yourself,” Beam mutters. I pretend not to hear her.
Valentin chuckles. “What about you? Have you had… company?”
It’s the most private question she’s asked, surely prompted by the rampant debauchery that’s ensnared everyone, including our polite guest.
“Sorry if that’s intrusive,” she says hurriedly. “It’s just that I’ve wondered because it’s only you here, and everyone’s a ghost, and you can’t leave…”
“No, it’s okay,” I assure her. “Some of the questers who’ve visited have asked me before.”
She waits patiently, uncertain whether to push me or not. I’m debating whether I want to continue, but Valentin’s face is warm and open.
“I don’t feel attraction in the same way as most people describe,” I say.
“I can go a very long time without feeling any… needs. It’s not something I miss, which is usually something met with utter disbelief, but it’s how I’ve always been.
Even in my old life, where I had human options, I mostly engaged with men because it was what was expected from relationships, and I didn’t have the vocabulary or, frankly, an understanding of myself to have an honest conversation about it.
It was only after coming here and not having that pressure on me that I felt liberated. ”
And it’s true. There are many challenges that come with being anchored to a fantastical realm, but a lack of sexual activity is not one of them for me.
“We’re our truest selves when we’re alone,” Valentin says. “I’m glad you were able to figure it out.”
“Honestly, I’m still not sure I have.” I take a sip of my water.
“I see objectively good-looking individuals and understand why someone may be attracted to them, but I don’t feel it.
Not with most people. But there was someone in my old life, a good friend who grew into something more for about a year. I enjoyed it then, for a while.”
He worked at the hospital where I did my residency, and we bonded over many an instant ramen meal in the dead of night.
I finally felt that tug in my gut, this physical draw Novalie and others talked about that I’d never grasped.
The rare few occasions I enjoyed sex came after deep emotional intimacy, but usually I was repulsed, counting down the seconds until it would be over. It was hard coming to terms with that.
“It must be difficult, figuring all of this out when you’re older,” Valentin says, frowning. “I think I can relate.”
I laugh at the very Beam-like furrow in her brow.
“I can’t wait to figure out who you are, hopefully later tonight.
But, yes, it’s confusing, having all these questions about yourself at an age when you’re supposed to have the answers.
I was also proceeding at breakneck pace before I got here.
It was school, then med school, then residency, and everyone told me I looked like I had it all together; and maybe in some ways I did, but in others, I didn’t have a single clue.
And even now, five hundred years later, it feels like I haven’t figured out the core of who I am. ”
“Time moves too slowly and too quickly all at once,” Valentin says, tipping her head back up at the sky. “It’s a strange age to be able to see your childhood and death in one glance.”
I bite down on my tongue to keep from laughing.
“What about Everest?” she asks. “Has anything ever…?”
My skin runs cold. “Nope.”
“Here we go,” Geneva says gleefully. Ender covers his mouth to disguise a laugh. I shut them both down with a glare that could put out every fire in this fair.
Valentin sucks in her cheeks. “Never?”
“Not never,” Keshav says, hiding behind Geneva.
My ears burn. “That doesn’t count.”
“A kiss counts,” Beam says.
Gods, I have to keep every substance out of her grubby little hands from this eclipse onwards. Out of everyone’s hands. Surely, as keeper, I can enact a total ban on smoking and drinking. I would be the villain of the eon, but it might be worth it to avoid conversations like this.
“What?” Valentin chirps. Who knew she was such a gossip? “When?”
“So long ago that multiple generations of your family weren’t even close to being on earth,” I say loudly, attempting to reel this situation back under control. “We have never been together. We’re friendly.”
Valentin hums. “Friendly doesn’t look at you like that.”
I glance up to see Everest walking over, a dangerous curiosity in his expression as he takes us all in. That same pesky pressure in my chest builds, demanding something I refuse to give.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“We’re giving Valentin a history lesson,” Beam says cheerily. Ender, Geneva, and Keshav burst into the kind of gasping-for-breath giggles that make me eternally grateful for turning down the various paths to inebriation offered during the eclipse.
Everest looks momentarily confused, but his expression clears when he turns to me. Fairy lights pirouette in his eyes. Reaching out a hand, he says, “I believe it’s time for our annual dance.”
I stare at his hand and experience a vivid memory of it gently cupping the back of my neck.
I’m hyper-conscious of the way everyone’s staring at me, that I’m looking at him open-mouthed like a fool, but this tension that’s corded between us since the night of Halley’s comet has only thickened since, reaching a fever pitch today.
I’m scared of what might happen if I take his hand.
Everything I told Valentin about attraction and desire and love used to be true about Everest as well.
He was nothing more than a traditionally attractive god who happened to be stuck in a fair with me.
But he crept under my skin, slowly, then all at once, and it’s impossible to pretend otherwise.
“Why don’t we give this one to Val?” I say, smiling brightly.
His expression falters for a second, but he rallies, reaching for the woman next to me instead. “Would you do me the honor?”
Valentin gives me a funny look, but I wave her along. Everest helps her to her feet, and then they’re off, laughing as she tries to keep up with the steps. I watch him reposition her arms and guide her through the movements slowly, lost in thought.
“If I ask you to dance, would you deny me as well?” Keshav asks.
He’s smiling knowingly at me, like he can sense the turmoil in my chest.
Movement is exactly what I need to cut through the potion of regret and desire that’s been shoved down my throat. “I can think of no better leading man.”
We stand up together and his arm comes around my waist. We sway slowly in place, and every so often he spins me under his arm.
“You should put that man out of his misery,” Keshav says after a few seconds of stepping from side to side.
“He’s in no misery,” I scoff, stealing a glance at Valentin and Everest. The sight leaves me sore and wanting.