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“You rat. Are you just made of lies?! And you!” I turn to Jordan.

“I thought—” he starts.

My hand flies at his face. He catches my wrist before my palm slams into his cheek.

“I thought you knew.”

“Let’s get this over with so I never have to look at either of you again.”

Forty-One

Jordan

The trip to the caves of Aronya is a nightmare. It takes three days to get there because of the resting time required to hold cloaking magic for that long. I don’t know what I was thinking, choosing to be stuck with these two. A patch of rocky earth wreathed by mountainous boulders is where we’ve made camp for the night. It only has room for a single tent, which I’ve set aside for Quell. The moment we left Headquarters, Yagrin transformed back into Liam. But he decided to lay his sleeping pack right beside mine. I can’t stretch my arms without hitting his.

“Again,” he says, nudging me with his elbow. Despite Liam’s persona, Yagrin’s brown eyes stare back at me, and seeing a part of the real him is some small consolation. I want him to realize I’m honestly trying to save him. “Oh, come on. What about the time Father whipped you at the governor’s party in front of everyone?”

“I said, no more. We’re done.”

The mirth playing on his lips dies as if the curtain just closed on his favorite show. I leave him there. I’m about to douse the fire with a bucket of dirt when I catch a pair of curious eyes peering at me between the flaps of her tent. Once I’m upon Quell, she retreats back inside. I open the tent, letting firelight stream in.

“Is it too cold in here?”

“I’m reading. Go away.”

I clench my fists. Her stubbornness knows no bounds, I swear. “You need to keep your body fairly cool so that magic of yours doesn’t start to act up.”

“I said I’m fine. Go away.”

“You’ll slow us down if you start having issues.”

“The only issue I’m having is your insistence that you know my magic better than I do. Go back to reminiscing with your brother. You two deserve each other.”

Her pupils dilate normally, the moonlight catching on the lighter brown of her eyes. Her lips are full of color. And her skin is smooth, as if freshly oiled. She doesn’t appear sickly. Toushana’s affinity for the cold can make it flare up without warning in warmer climates. She must have struggled at Chateau Soleil. And yet I was so mesmerized by her facade that I missed all the signs.

“I’ll check on you again in a few hours. Answer when I call or I’ll drag you out of that tent.”

“Touch me without my permission and I’ll burn your eyes out of their sockets while you sleep.” She snarls as she zips the tent closed. Her anger stirs like a furnace. Choices have consequences. But as I walk back to my pack, all I can think about is how devastated Quell felt when she told the Dragunhead what happened to her mother. Her rage is a mask.

It’s not hard to imagine how Beaulah weaseled her way into Quell’s trust. She is good at manipulating what people want. I look back at the tent and think of returning to Quell, of telling her that I’m sorry she had to endure Beaulah for a single day, let alone several. But sympathy is useless. When I return to my pack, my brother’s waiting for me. This is going to be a long trip.

The second day takes us to a jungle buzzing with thick air and colorful foliage. We make camp in a nest of grass. I tug the triple knot secured to the large rings of a hammock roped between a pair of trees.

“Yags.” I walk over and take his bedroll from him, rolling it back up. “Sleep off the ground. We’re not in the desert anymore.”

“Why do you have us in the jungle on this island anyway? Sleeping out in the open would be better. Like a beach.”

Beyond my brother, Quell stands with her back to us.

“No beaches.”

“It’s better than whatever’s going to slither down these branches while we sleep.”

“If I say no beach, it’s no beach. You had your chance to get Quell to the Sphere and you failed.”

The brown in my brother’s eyes shifts to Liam’s blue, and a whole stranger stares back at me. I sigh. I can practically see our father visiting Hartsboro the day he realized Liam was one of Yagrin’s personas. A part of childhood I’d buried. But the more we rehash the past, the harder it’s becoming to ignore.

My father had chewed Yags out for his low marks, right in front of me. My brother cowered and the walls seemed to clatter with our father’s thundering voice. When he finally stormed out, I tried to hug my brother, like I always did. But that time he shoved me off, his eyes dry, his lip quivering. My brother’s magic wasn’t very strong then, but in that moment he rolled his shoulders and strained, wrinkling his nose in determination. Suddenly he looked like a different person, like a young Liam with a shadow of Yagrin underneath. Then he gazed at himself in the mirror and sobbed. Father raged back in, calling him a coward. The scar Father’s ring left etched on his face is still faintly visible on his cheek now, so many years later.