37. Shemaiah
SHEMAIAH
“You’re saying Mrs. Darning was at The Sanatorium for an entire month and lied about it?
” My oldest brother leans against the counter in his laboratory, his arms crossed over his chest, a pipette filled with dark liquid in one hand.
The beakers, seeping distillers, and steaming glass apparatus all hint at his work.
“I’m not surprised,” Zarah says, plopping down on a stool at the other end. She picks up something to look at, then scowls when Noah snatches it out of her hand with a huff.
I dragged her and Jafeth down into the Gate House with me so I could tell all my siblings what Pippa and I learned at the same time.
“We need to question Darning and figure out what she’s hiding.
” I take out my pocket watch. It’s only been ten minutes since I left Pippa, but it feels much longer.
I can’t help but think about her stoicism on the boat ride back, not even the usual motion sickness broke through the barrier she’d erected around herself.
While I’m glad she didn’t succumb to her usual bout of illness, her silence has me worried.
“Good luck.” Jafeth chuckles darkly. “Darning is a stone vault.”
Noah turns away from us and walks around the counter. After adding a drop from the pipette to a plain of glass and setting it into a holder, he looks at the slide through the microscope. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was ignoring us. But Noah’s always processed new information silently.
“Have you learned anything more about Vastatio while I was gone?” I ask.
“Only that the bite seems to help,” Noah says without looking up. “Anna and Kay are doing very well.”
“Kay will be even better soon.” Zarah stands and slides her hands into the pockets of her trousers. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in something other than a dress. They fit her well. She nonchalantly saunters through the lab toward the door.
“What do you mean?” I follow her with my eyes.
Zarah gives me a toothy grin over her shoulder. “I’m going to bite her.” She disappears out of the laboratory.
The silence is palpable as my brothers and I stare after our sister.
Jafeth scratches the stubble on his chin. “Zarah, always so full of surprises.”
I scramble to the door. “You love her?” I ask Zarah, who’s sitting on one of the leather couches in the Gate House library. “Because—”
She holds up a hand. “I know perfectly well what happens if I don’t. Yes.”
“And she wants your bite?” Noah appears next to me, crosses his arms, and studies Zarah like she’s a sample under his microscope.
“I think she wants more than Zarah’s bite.” Jafeth chuckles as he walks past Noah and I to sit in the armchair across from Zarah.
Zarah’s sweet smile is all the answer we need. I haven’t seen that smile on her in years, a little shy and very happy.
“That’s wonderful,” I say, but something blocks my throat, making it come out strangled.
Zarah’s head tilts as her brows furrow. “Will you bite Pippa?”
I note Noah’s shrewd gaze on me, his narrowed eyes, and wonder what he’s thinking.
Jafeth snorts. “Of course not. Shemaiah wouldn’t trust love even if it bit him in the ass. It could be staring him right in the face, and he’d still worry it was all a lie.”
I reel back from his words as if I’ve been slapped. Is he right?
“Personally, I’m not gambling with Kay’s life for the next six months.” Zarah kicks her feet up onto the coffee table. “I love Kay, and she loves me. And I want forever with her. It’s as simple as that.”
I swallow. What would it be like to have forever with Pippa?
Not just a few short years of a human lifespan, but the centuries that a Mavarri can live.
The image is shockingly clear in my mind.
Pippa and I, waking up together and falling asleep together every night.
Pippa, round with my child. The two of us, old and weathered, surrounded by a family of our own.
Happy. So much happier than I could ever be without her.
“We should talk about Solstice,” Noah says, interrupting my thoughts. “I don’t want to do things the way Hammish did.”
“What? No virginal women in white gowns?” Jafeth deadpans.
“I’d prefer to be alone with Kay.” Zarah has a dreamy look on her face. “We don’t need an antiquated ceremony.”
“Can we get back to the task at hand?” I say, attempting to change the subject. “We need to find Mrs. Darning.”
“Noah!” Ruby’s frantic voice cuts into the room from down the hall.
When she finally appears a beat later, her lopsided bun and blanched skin tell the story of her worry.
Noah crosses the room in a blink and scoops Ruby in his arms. “What is it, ta’ari?”
“Pippa, Kay, and Anna are missing.”