Page 16

CHAPTER 16

Painters

S eptember came and went, and though Bryn never walked on water, I did learn other things about him.

He took his coffee black, his lunch to go, and spent a majority of his time either in the Gate or the library.

He dressed in the same outfit every day—a long-sleeved collared shirt, trousers, and Oxford shoes—unless he was visiting the Gate—then he switched them for brushed leather boots. I never once saw Bryn in a T-shirt, even when the kitchen was stuffy with thick heat from the woodstove and I had to open the adjoining tack room door. Never jeans, and certainly never, ever shorts.

On Fridays, he joined us for our weekly trip to the market, loading an easel and a box of paints into the back of the Ford. He never stayed with us or bought a single thing, instead choosing to disappear with his paints for hours at a time.

Last Monday, during one of those trips to Capolinn, I’d shaken Kazie off in search for Bryn. After twenty minutes of striding up and down the narrow cobblestone streets and slippery stone stairs, I’d found him standing by the mouth of the port, the sunrise coating his hair in burnt golds, painting some of the worst boats I’d ever seen.

Rowan , he’d said, lips tightening in that vague disapproval, you should not be alone with the Inquitate about.

So I’d sat on the port wall watching him finish the painting, and experienced an almost euphoric rush of knowing he was this bad at something.

But like me, he wrote no letters, made no calls. It was as if he existed only in the Gate.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t manage more than twelve minutes. And when you included the five it took to transition through the Prayama, then the time to get adjusted, it meant I barely saw anything.

Especially because I was never in control.

But it was almost better that way. I didn’t need to think or worry, didn’t need to feel that hollow emptiness of missing Willow. Didn’t need to battle the constant worry the Gate would recognize me for the fraud I was.

But each time I slipped through, it never protested, only showed me that empty room before I transitioned into the world, like now, when the memories opened to a white swamp.

It sprawled in all directions, flowing around freckled lavender trees and floating squid plants. Sparkles played off the surface, bubbles burst with creamy liquid, and all of it—from the leaves, to the milk, to the beach—reflected our star’s purple light.

I waited on the shoreline, toes curling in sand softer than a spilled bag of flour, while a crisp breeze tickled ears that ended at the wrong length.

She scanned the waters, searching with eyes that zoomed like an eagle’s might soar above the lakes of L’Ardoise, picking out the slightest ripple of fish in water. Except the water here was an opaque, creamy white and tasted like burnt honey.

Bubbles the size of my fist pushed at the surface, bursting through, the milk dripping off their glowing spheres as they floated up, up, up.

Across the swamp, something flickered.

My eyes—her eyes—latched on to it, zooming with that impossible speed that wasn’t my Mark, but felt like a superpower anyway.

Then she stopped, her gaze landing on a creature I’d never seen.

Wild awareness flooded my senses—mine? Hers? I should have been terrified.

The male’s eyes were two enormous eight balls in a skull with translucent skin. Coal-black bones shimmered through it like stars at night, revealing a skull fused in the wrong places.

I recoiled when it grinned in a two-step process, lips peeling up and back, teeth retreating inwards.

A smile. Had to be.

As it stood, white liquid dripped off a body as long and angular as the face, with skin the color of squashed blueberries. A sopping cloth draped over narrow hips, ending at corded thighs showing yet more bone. Hair as black as its bones sprouted in a thick rope from its skull. Coarse and strong enough to grab hold of and swing on.

Behind him, another followed in his shadow.

She was—kind of beautiful. With marbled skin carved from a bucket of pink and black paint swirled together, like the tiger tail ice cream Willow had loved. Creamy and soft, it wasn’t translucent like the male’s, and her face was rounder, almost a complete circle that gave her childlike cheeks and a bubble nose with four nostrils.

I itched to reach up and check my own nose.

With the same weird smile on his face, the male extended a four-jointed hand toward her. Their fingers linked, locked. He brushed back her sphere of curls, murmured in a round ear that elicited a quick giggle from her white lips, the sound like jumping crickets, and twin dimples popped into her rosy cheeks.

Then the male spoke—or was it singing?

A series of notes pitched up and down at different intervals—somehow, impossibly, more than what could fit in a single octave. She answered in the same musical anomaly, so rhythmical, I wanted to sway to the beat of it. A sound that no instrument could ever capture.

So I listened, to the words, to the music, marveling at all the hidden notes, and when the call home finally came, I was as reluctant to leave as before. Each anchor felt different when they pulled me back. Kazie was like a sprinkle of fairy dust. Tye, a lasso around the waist.

But this, a warm and familiar hand grasping mine, was undoubtedly James.

“ J ames, I saw another one, big this time,” I gasped as soon as the world stopped spinning.

“Easy now,” he murmured, face wavering in and out of focus. A lock of mist-dampened hair curled into his eyebrow. “Breathe.”

“He had these arms that were— And these eyes that—”

“ Breathe ,” James repeated, firmer. “Ye can tell me all about it, just get a breath now, and ye need to drink something, eat. Yer blood sugar’s low.”

Under the low glow of dawn, I tilted my head back, letting the soft mist of rain dampen my skin under a creamsicle sky. I smiled, still hearing the musical speech and wondering if it was their Mark.

“Well, I’m glad ye liked it, so I am,” James said when I lowered my chin at last. Under the hood of his rain jacket, honey-brown eyes took my measure.

I worked the smile from my cheeks. “How long this time?”

James shoved back the sleeve of his jacket. “About thirteen minutes.”

I took a bite of the apple he handed me. “Rounding up?”

He bit his bottom lip. “Might be, but yer doing well. And here I thought ye didn’t want to be in the Gate?” James teased.

I rolled the fruit in my hands. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be in the Gate, but that the Gate didn’t want me. “If I’m going to figure out why Willow was targeted, I need to be in longer.”

“Ah, but yer exhausted.” His two friendly slaps on my back sent me lurching toward the hawthorn tree. “Ye see? Ye need to build endurance.”

I stood, stabbing my feet back into my boots. “And what if I can’t?” What if the reason I was struggling was because I wasn’t meant to make this trip?

James rose with me. “Roe, of course ye can. It takes time. Everyone goes through this period. Kazie did, Tye did, and now ye are as well.” We started down the steps toward Naruka, with James asking me what happened.

I explained the white swamp, then the creatures I’d seen, the translucent skin pulled over black bones and elongated ears like the sketches I’d once seen in Bryn’s room.

We shifted to single file over a mucky path that muffled our footsteps. Rocks wore the moss as olive-green wigs, and the way the bare branches caught the evening light made them look like lightning rods in the woods.

But the more I rambled, the slower James walked, and his face seemed to lose color with each step.

“James? What is it? What’s wrong?” Were they dangerous? Wait. “Are they Inquitate ?”

He stopped, ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. His shoulders lifted on an inhale and shook on his exhale, looking ready to collapse.

I reached out a hand for him, didn’t know where to touch, and ended up patting his back awkwardly. “What is it?” I asked again.

He pulled his hands from his face, and his bloodshot eyes blinked rapidly.

Fear rippled down my spine. I grabbed his elbows firmly. “James, tell me what it is. Are you in trouble? Is it the Gate? Is it—”

But he yanked his arms from my grasp and swung away.

“James!”

He shoved a branch out of his way, choked on a sobbing curse, then broke into a run, backpack bobbing through the trees that swallowed him.

My mind went entirely blank.

Never had James been anything but steady. He’d watched me drive off with his own car after Tye showed me the Gate, with nothing more than a smirk and a few Irish idioms. He’d carried tea and fresh scones to my room every morning after. He’d listened to my raging disbelief of the Gate with patience. And when he told me of the disease, that Bryn might have the answers, he’d accompanied me to Oslo to help me get them.

“James!”

I sprinted after him.

C old fear crept into my blood—for him, for me, for the Inquitate that Bryn had warned might still be following us.

I dove after him. It was like the first time I’d run from Tye, shoving through brambles and brush, except I knew my way now. Knew how the ground dipped and swerved, the loose stones on the makeshift steps that I’d once tripped over.

James was fast—freakishly fast—his slim form slipping through trees like quiet butter, making my subsequent stampede almost offensive. His wool jacket became smaller and smaller, the leaves eating it up, the sound of snapping branches growing distant.

What had I told him that would cause this? We’d spoken about different creatures before. Did he think they were Inquitate? If so, why run away from me ?

The trees quivered as a gust of wind tore through thin branches, stirring up pine cones and growling pained yelps.

And there, by the bank of the river, with his hands in his pockets and the ferns brushing his thighs, stood James.

The water rushed in front of him, curling into foamy rapids that gathered like the spittle of a hungry beast. His eyes seemed to glow in his face, either from the rain or the Irish air, but they felt like night come to life. Like the space between a million tiny stars.

I slowed my pace, breathing ragged, and stalked through the brush for him. A twist of thorns snagged my sweater, forcing me to yank a few stitches out to free it.

James turned at the sound.

His nostrils flared in a face pale but for the reddened eyes. He squeezed them shut, opened them. “I’ve no right to feel like this,” he said quietly, curling his hand into a fist and banging it on his thigh. “I’ve no right , Roe.”

“No right to what?” Worry gripped me as I stood helpless in the mucky trail, watching the spray of the river soak James’s boots, watching him shiver in his shiny rain jacket. “Is there something wrong with what I saw?”

His face caved in. “Aye, in a way.”

Mud squished around my boots as I stepped toward him, my fingertips brushing the wet tips of wild greens.

He murmured something the rapids ate up, then said louder, “Roe, yer a Kalista . That’s yer Mark.”

I slowed, stopped. A Kalista? I was his Mark? My heart started to speed up. “Is it bad to share a Mark?”

He glanced down the river, where the light eked through the thinning leaves. “No. No, ‘tis not bad.”

Then what put that look on his face? Like he’d seen death.

If I was a Kalista, then I’d be bonded to something too. “Is my spirit something bad?”

He tried on a smile that was more a wet grimace. “No, as it is, ye aren’t bonded to anything. Ye haven’t gone through the rite yet. It’s what ye need to do to activate yer Mark. A test ye need to pass.”

I frowned as something occurred to me. He knew me in the Gate, or knew the woman I was. That’s how he knew I wasn’t bonded to a spirit, didn’t have any ability, wouldn’t be able to fly, wouldn’t have a leaf or blackberry bush.

Didn’t matter.

“James, I’m sorry, I don’t understand what’s—”

“ Rowan .”

I yelped, the sudden musical voice causing me to snag my foot on a log. I hopped, stumbled, then flailed my arms like a crane about to soar over the river. Oh, Jesus . I was going to slip right in. You can swim, you can swim, there’s nothing below, it’s just —

An arm snagged my waist, yanked me back.

I slapped into something hard before my knees hit the ground and mud oozed between my fingers.

Light? No, he was definitely a ghost.

But there Bryn stood, hovering over me, cool rain unable to loosen his stiff shirt, his trousers—nothing that nice could be called pants—ironed and perfectly clean amongst the blooming forest. He opened the top button of his collar, revealing the hollow of his long, pale throat. His cane gleamed in the rain.

I ignored his offered hand and lurched to my feet.

His eyes left mine to find James. “You were not to leave her alone,” Bryn stated.

James scrubbed at his face. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, don’t apologize,” I said quickly.

He turned to Bryn. “Ye were right.”

“What’s wrong with James?” I asked Bryn, because he knew everything about the Gate. “Did I break a law? Is there something bad about a Kalista without a spirit yet?”

His mouth tightened into a pale line, but any sign of the cold fury I’d witnessed in Oslo had been carefully locked away since we returned. “It is not what you are, but who you are not .”

Willow. I wasn’t Willow.

And James had figured it out. Had figured out I’d been lying to him from the beginning, posing as this—this thing .

I took a breath, my chest heaving. “I—I—James, I’m sorry if—”

“ Stop .” James’s voice echoed through the woods, silencing me. He pinched the bridge of his nose before releasing a weary sigh. “Bloody hell. I’ve no business being like this, no business at all.” He motioned to pass Bryn, who stood blocking the path.

After a brief hesitation, Bryn stepped out of the way.

I braced myself.

James lifted his gaze, met mine, and opened his arms. “God, come here, Roe. I’m sorry. I’m…’twas just a shock. I’ve had a shock. I’m not meself. I just…”

I walked toward him in a daze, then my arms were around his waist, hugging his slim, shaking body to me. He smelled like my mom’s kitchen—cinnamon, honey, warmth, comfort. I squeezed my eyes shut, my pulse pounding against my ribcage. “How did you figure it out?” I whispered.

“When ye told me who ye saw, I…” James trailed off, squeezing me so hard my lungs shrank a size. I sucked for air just as Bryn took a step toward us. “I recognized who ye were looking at. It told me who ye were in the Gate.”

I stiffened. “What?”

Then James said, “Yer name’s Nereida.”

My mind went blank. Nereida?

Bryn laid a hand on James’s shoulder, pulling him slightly away, and my ribs relaxed again. “James has always known who you are. Though he has not wanted to accept it.”

James held me at arm’s length, eyes red-rimmed and watery. A smile wavered on his lips. “Roe,” he said, “you’re Nereida. And I’m—I’m yer brother.”

“My—my brother ?” I repeated numbly.

James wiped away freshly brimming tears. “Aye, your brother. ‘Tis me ye described in the memory. And Essie,” he added on a hiccup. “But I’m—I’m so glad ‘tis yerself, Roe. So glad yer here.”

This couldn’t be happening. God, this couldn’t be happening.

“You think I’m you’re—you’re—”

“Sister, aye.” He squeezed me to him, his warm body offering comfort to a lie. Over his shoulder, Bryn watched me knowingly, as if he was waiting for me to confess.

I should. I should tell James right now before this got any worse.

I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing I couldn’t handle that rejection. It was wrong, so wrong to use this connection, to use his own belief to keep him here with me, but I couldn’t let go.

Not yet.