Page 17

“Sounds about right,” Kelter mumbles, half-suppressing a smile.

Elivander’s eyes snap to Kelter then back to me. “Walk.” He pulls me along with one hand behind him, and Kaleida falls in at his side with Kelter in tow.

“You’re making fun of me at a time like this?” I say to Kelter as we take stunted, chained steps across the courtyard. “Don’t you care?”

Kelter deflates. “Of course I care.” His eyelids grow heavy as he takes in my pain. “Did he hurt you?”

“No talking either.” Elivander yanks me away.

I look back at Kelt, wordless. My eyes burn, salty wells forming.

We pass between the marble walls of the buildings surrounding the courtyard and into an area with sparse trees and golden hills in the distance. Only nature for as far as I can see—no streets dividing the land into rectangles and forcing order like in Caldera. No cars to keep people from using their bodies. No block-shaped buildings with automatic doors pulling you inside. I make sure not to show how much I love it, even though it’s not home.

We walk west beneath the ever-darkening morning sky. I map the area in my head, sketching the contours of the land as I think about the strangeness of Sonnet. These people have kept themselves so hidden and secluded from Caldera that they use different materials, have their own leader and possibly don’t useelectricity. But of course, no one would find them if no one was looking.

Other Calderans don’t venture beyond the city edge. They don’t question or wonder. And they tear me apart when I do. I suppose it’s big enough to keep them satisfied. They could drive for hours and not be halfway to the southern boundary, but they don’t even bother to see the rest of Caldera. They get up, do their job and go home. Every day. No passion or reason. Kelter’s the only one who puts up with me exploring the forest and searching for my parents. I look over at him, waiting for him to catch my gaze.

Elivander has me scurrying, the chain between my ankles tugging and snapping and the metal cuffs rubbing my skin raw. I try to keep up while still looking at Kelter, but I stumble, my foot catching on a hole. I sail forward, out of his grasp and into a vision.

My head smashes into a rock. I wait for the blood to trickle down my forehead, but it doesn’t—because it’s pooling in my brain. I turn over, and Kelter is at my side, his face crumpling. My emptiness inside must be showing, the approach of death painted across my blank expression. I blink, and when my lids rise one last time, the little boy from the forest stands next to him.

I rake my fingers through the dirt, grasping for reality.

What the fuck is wrong with my brain?

Trembling on my hands and knees in the red dress, cuffs clanking, I try to recover as though I’d simply fallen, like Cam taught me.Better clumsy than crazy, she’d say. It’s the hardest thing about the visions—returning from death to find out who witnessed my fractured sanity, what kind of fool I’ve made of myself.

I scan the scene around me. Every leaf is greener than before. Every root pushing up through the dirt tells me its story. Every rock has an edge tucked out of sight.

I’m so alive after dying.

I catch a glimpse of green. A shift of my pointer finger reveals the tiniest seedling. It’s smooth and glossy and new to the world, a crescent the size of my fingernail, bending under the weight of existence. So small it could be obliterated with the stomp of a boot, yet also so tiny it could escape between the ridges of the tread—and survive.

With delicate flits of my finger, I build a mound of dirt around it, circling it with pebbles, a small protection from a big world. We’re both new here. I tap the tip of the seedling. My hand quivers inside, and a tingle darts up my arm as though the plant had reached through my skin and sent a spark of its delicate life into me. I swear it glows for a second, as if to say thank you—another reminder of how close to the edge of madness I am.

Kaleida and Kelter are a short ways ahead, still walking. Elivander puts his broad hands on my waist, lifts me from the ground and plops me down on my feet with no effort whatsoever before gripping my cuffs. I wait for the snide remark, a shove to get on my way. Anything. Instead, his eyes peel away my layers. Against all instinct I let my gaze collide with his, and meddling, rapt curiosity looks back at me. Into me. And I’mseen. And violated.

No one in Caldera has ever looked at me with such fascination, not even Kelter.

“I’m starting to wonder how you got along without a guard before,” he says.

There’s the snide remark.

“I got along fine.”

His head ticks to the side. “Did you?”

It’s a genuine question, and it’s clear he’s not referring to something so trivial as my physical safety, but rather crossing the line into an untouchable topic: the questionable condition of my mind.

No, you don’t get to ask.But I answer anyway. I fill my chest with the air of false confidence, pretending I know what I’m up against. I put everything into my silent response. The whole tangled mess of mixed up feelings, every gnawing memory stinging with rejection, every unhinged thought no one wants to hear—and the rage. All the rage. Toward him, my past, myself. I pile it into my stare.

He soaks it all up, never blinking, and it’s as if his hands are all over me. That’s how deep he goes, penetrating my soul. My knees weaken.

“Stop staring, creep.”Because I can’t stop, and someone has to.

A black curl falls, a casualty of the wind, and even that doesn’t break the spell. His lips are loose despite the tightness of his face. Fingers feather down my back, and I shudder.

“Then don’t play in the damn dirt.” He narrows those disastrous eyes. “I’m supposed to deliver a clean prisoner.”