Page 36

A week later, the Gate in Naruka sucked me back home, tearing me away from Sahn’s body, his butter-soft wings, and his rough, low moans.

But I couldn’t even enjoy him. Just the thought of knowing it was Bryn biting me, hearing me, driving himself into what was my memory and never his…

He’d stolen more than Sahn; he’d stolen Nereida too.

James patted my shoulder. “There ye are, Roe, yer back now,” he murmured, setting a mug of tea on the blanket.

I murmured a thanks, then turned to watch the man rousing by my side. Color blossomed on cheekbones formed in a mountain slide. He was as aroused as I was. How had Bryn hidden it this entire time?

His eyes fluttered open.

Lust boiled in his golden irises, a star collapsing in on itself. Worse, it punched molten desire in my gut. But that wasn’t my fault—any attraction I felt was because of Nereida.

Then he blinked, and the star cooled to a white dwarf.

I shoved up so abruptly, I knocked over the tea. The quilt tangled in my boots as Kazie and Tye stirred.

Bryn coughed, rolled over to his side, and tugged the blanket up. Don’t look down, don’t look down.

A wise choice.

You son of a —

“Rowan, I refuse to apologize for a memory,” he said steadily, and nothing in the smooth tone would have anyone believing he’d just woken from plowing himself into Nereida. At least James had anchored him before he could finish.

“What about lying? Do you want to apologize for that?” I wished it was just the lying that burned my gut, that left me sleepless every night.

He leveled his stare at me. “I assumed my walking home half-naked in a hurricane was sufficient for you.”

Ignoring me, he pushed to sitting as the wind ruffled the loose hairs around his brow. I’d trimmed his hair in the kitchen, joking about what Nereida looked like while Bryn pretended not to know. He hadn’t guessed at drawing her eyes. He’d known .

“ Sufficient would have been admitting who you were months ago.”

As James woke Kazie, she tuned in to the show—for once more entertained by what was outside Ruhaven rather than in it.

“Rowan, now is not the time for this discussion,” Bryn chastised me.

I’d cared for him, and he didn’t even have the decency to grovel.

“Not the time?” I accidentally kicked the mug of tea, sending it pinwheeling into his boots. I winced when it soaked his pant leg to a dark brown. “How about four months ago when we met in Oslo? Or when you so generously offered to anchor me?”

Bryn’s nostrils flared in his perfect, beautiful nose, and it gave me a perverse delight to know each word of mine might finally hammer through his glass shield. “I was witnessing it regardless,” he stated.

How dare you. I summoned all my anger and funneled it at him. Are you getting my loose inclinations now?

Yes, I believe I am.

James scrubbed at his eyebrows, reducing them to shaved ferrets before throwing up a prayer to the skies. Bryn had better hope they were listening because I was warming to the idea of Tye’s body-burying services.

“For feck’s sake, yer both driving me bloody mad,” James yelled. “I’ll put ye in a feckin’ room and lock the door so I will.”

Tye rose, hefted his backpack, and put a restraining hand on my shoulder. “C’mon, Roe, let’s walk on back to Naruka. Stornoway here’s just pinin’ because he knows the only piece of ya he’ll get is in a dream.”

The comment immediately lifted my spirits.

Bryn heaved himself off the ground, annoyance sharpening the planes of his face. “Rowan, let us talk in Naruka.”

Talking wouldn’t undo his mistake. Just like talking hadn’t brought Willow back. I was all out of talking.

“ T ye, I swear I can’t do it anymore,” I said when we were out of earshot. “Just knowing it’s him while I’m in there, knowing he can feel…” I swiped at air. “I can’t.”

Tye grunted, navigating the swampy path feet ahead. I hopped from stone to stone behind him, so distracted that I missed and got an ankle-full of mud.

“I think it’ll be good for ya to take a break,” Tye agreed. “I always thought ya were in too much, so if this is what it takes to get a bit of perspective, it’s a good thing.”

I stabbed my hands into my pockets when we’d cleared the worst of the puddle. “You could have told me.”

“We’ve been over this, Roe. You ain’t gonna make me explain it again?”

“Rules,” I muttered under my breath, and tugged my jacket closed.

“That’s right. Now I don’t make ‘em, but I do set store by ‘em. Didn’t agree with ‘em either, but there ya go.” His Guinness-brown hair bounced under his ball cap, then he flicked a grin at me. “Look, can’t say I’d be in the Gate either if I was bouncin’ on Stornoway.”

I stepped beside him when the path widened. “I think I’m just going to focus on the Inquitate connection here. We’re in Drachaut now, so maybe we picked up something.”

“Drachaut ain’t a disease,” he said, annoyed.

“Well, I’m running out of ideas for why these triplets matter. And I’m worried I won’t know until we watch ourselves make the crossing, see why we went over together.”

Tye started to answer, stopped when the bird calls rose to a raucous, then resumed, “Ya won’t actually get to watch the crossin’, so unless someone else is there watchin’ for you…”

“Like Jamellian?” I asked. “If James is there, he can tell me what happened.”

Tye pulled out a smoke, offered it. “No?” He stuck it between his lips. “Ya aren’t thinkin’ ‘bout makin’ this Fall?”

I’d given it about as much thought as my own death. “Well, maybe if I hear the call on my deathbed…”

“It ain’t gonna work like that. You’re gonna hear it well before.”

“How soon? How do you know?”

“’Cause I do,” he stated, cutting off all conversation. “Look, Roe, I worry ‘bout Stornoway tryin’ to influence you on this.”

I jumped another puddle. “Why?”

Tye hung his head. “Goddamn, Roe, you don’t seem to have a clue the kinda mess you’re walkin’ into. I warned ya before that Stornoway ain’t right, why we exiled him. That man’s been living with Nereida for years in the Gate, pinin’ over a dead memory. It messes ya up. You start thinkin’ it’s real.”

“That’s why Bryn asked me out, isn’t it? For Nereida.” I waited for Tye to deny it, to tell me no, there was something about me Bryn did like.

But Tye only let out a long sigh.

Of course there wasn’t. Because we weren’t living in Ruhaven, we were here where things like being a college dropout mattered and doctorates were important. The simple fact was that if Bryn and I had passed each other in L’Ardoise, he’d think I was as worthless as the rest.

“I’m sorry, Roe,” Tye said quietly.

I pinched my nose, willed back the emotion I had no right to feel. I’d cry for Willow— that I’d earned—but I wouldn’t cry for this.

“This whole business ain’t healthy, if ya ask me,” Tye continued. “Be better off if none of ‘em had anyone they wanted to find in the Gate. Some days, I worry we ain’t just better off forgettin’ about all of this.”

“Do you have someone in Ruhaven?” I asked.

His dimple flashed. “A girlfriend? Thank sweet baby Jesus I do not. I got enough women in my life to drive me crazy. Don’t need to be seeing them in Ruhaven too.”

Did he? I’d never seen anyone come by, but maybe that was where he went on weekends sometimes.

“But I bet Stornoway wouldn’t mind a real woman to lose himself in after years of delusions, huh?”

Well, he wasn’t going to get her.

“ R oe, me love, it’s been weeks like. Can ye tell me just how long ye plan on punishing Bryn?” James begged.

I pivoted on the ladder where I stood insulating the lounge windows. “Until his tattoos wilt off?”

James let out an aggrieved sigh. “Fine, so, just fine. Yer not visiting the Gate, Bryn’s in a foul mood, Tye’s never been happier, Kazie’s obsessed with Drachaut, and then ye’ve poor me in the middle of it all! Have ye no pity, Roe?” He clasped his hands together.

“None.”

“Ah, for the love of—”

“I’m sorry Bryn lied, James. I’m sorry he manipulated me in the worst way. And I’m sorry you’re in the middle of that. But staying out of the Gate has been good for me, I think. I discovered that each of the Ruhavens who experienced broken Tethers all travelled to Drachaut afterwards, and the memories ended shortly after. None of them made the Fall, though.” Or were prevented from it. “And Levi wrote about broken Tethers, but I don’t think he experienced it himself.”

James sipped his tea in loud intervals. “Well, I suppose that’s something like. Levi…what the devil is with that lad? Leaving me some bogus address, and after I drag him here—”

“But it wasn’t you, it was Carmen who brought him, right?”

He toasted me. “That’s right, yeah, still all the same. I bloody helped him get settled, had his picture taken. I still put it up, so I did, even though he wanted nothing of Ruhaven.”

I paused mid-spray of the insulation foam. “Where?”

James twisted around, shielding his eyes as he looked upstairs. “Outside Kazie’s room, I think.” He frowned into his tea. “Ye sure ye won’t talk to Bryn?”

No, I was apparently just that petty. “Enjoy the market, James.”

He grumbled something that sounded a lot like “ Yer worse than me in-laws, ” before calling after Kazie.

I continued spraying foam, watching out the window until James, Kaz, and Tye climbed into the seesawing Ford. As it burped out the lane, it passed Bryn, who was engrossed in demolishing a canvas.

However much I’d been avoiding the Gate, Bryn made up for it by going in double.

Was it worse that he was living the memory with me—or without me? Like every minute he was in there enjoying Nereida was another betrayal.

It was time to get past it, time to put whatever I’d felt for him aside and focus on Willow, fixing Naruka, and the Inquitate. With this in mind, I hummed determinedly along to the cassette James had left playing while I sprayed the window. A few lines of foam around these windows should stop the gusts from sneaking through, and stop James from having to wear half his wardrobe to stay warm.

Singing to myself, I hiked one foot up the next rung, reaching with the spray can for the top trim of the—

“I believe I have never heard quite such an interesting version of ‘Dancing Queen’.”

I jumped at the sound of his voice and sprayed a foam line straight down the windowpane.

Bryn grabbed my calf as I teetered half off the ladder. How had he gotten inside so fast? When I gathered my footing again, I eyed him warily.

He’d tied his leather apron—skinned from the finest Norwegian reindeer—in a snug knot around his waist, fastened the neck strap under his collar, and rolled the sleeves of his old shirt past his elbows. A smear of white paint nearly disappeared against his tattooed forearm.

Bryn smiled hesitantly up at me. “While Kazie, James, and Tye are in town, I was instructed to remain on duty for any alarm clock heists.”

I tugged my foot away. “Don’t worry, I’m not going back to the Gate.”

Bryn sucked patience through two perfect nostrils. “Rowan, I misunderstood the extent of your embarrassment in this regard. I told you I do not express myself well.” And yet he had five languages to do it in. “I have apologized— profusely —for my handling of this situation. Still, I do not understand why you persist in your anger. You know what Nereida is to me.”

Yeah—a dream that wasn’t me. “I understand exactly what she is to you, which is why you don’t need me.”

When I lifted the spray can to the window again, he grabbed my arm, stopped me. “Rowan, you cannot avoid the Gate forever.”

I tugged my wrist away. “You’re going in enough for both us.”

He scanned my face. “Does it upset you?”

Yes. “No.” It was like he was cheating on me with me.

“I shall stop if you prefer.”

Annoyed with myself, I shook the can vigorously, the plastic pea ball going clank-clank-clank . “No. One of us should be watching in case the Inquitate appear again.”

Bryn took a step closer, his shadow blocking out the light of the chandeliers. “Then you are truly resolute in your determination to avoid both myself and the Gate?”

I pressed my hands to his chest, then dropped them when I felt the connection zing up my wrists. “Don’t ask me to return. You don’t need me, and I can’t stomach it anymore.”

“You cannot stomach me , you mean.”

I rubbed the space between my brows. “No, Bryn, I can’t stomach what I’m not.”

Bryn’s fingers circled my wrists, capturing them. “What is it you believe you are not? I told you the truth at the Gate, that I have waited for you . For you, my Rowan.”

Maybe some part of him believed that, believed that he’d have wanted an electrician in L’Ardoise, but I knew the truth—I was nothing but a warm body to house a dead dream.

“If I could fix this,” he said softly, “I would. If I could return and tell you earlier, I would.”

If only it was the lie that kept me up at night. But he’d used me, used my sister, to chase his own desires, even if the Inquitate had been in the Gate in the end, he hadn’t believed it.

I pulled away, shutting my toolbox with a snap. “Sometimes, there’s no fixing things. Enjoy the Gate, enjoy Nereida, just do it without me.”

“I wish to—”

“ I can’t do this anymore, Bryn,” I said, raising my voice. “Can’t be what I’m not. Can’t pretend for you. Go paint a flower or something.”

My boots cracking on the rungs were the only sound in the lounge beside Bryn’s unsteady breathing.

Then he said, very softly, “Have you no sympathy at all, Rowan? No sympathy for a man who lost himself in the Gate for you? Who spent years loving a woman he believed may only ever exist in a dream? Then, when he finds her at last, he is crippled by the Inquitate. And now, is too weak, too crippled, to do anything while she is insulted and belittled because of his mistake. Am I truly so loathsome to you?”

The air hummed in silence as his words hit their mark—right in my gut, where he’d intended.

No, no, he wasn’t loathsome. He should be, I should feel that, but I couldn’t. Even if all of it had been some twisted lie, one I’d perpetrated as much as he had.

But when I turned to apologize, Bryn was gone; I hadn’t even heard his cane leave.

A strange feeling settled over me, one I couldn’t shake long after I’d finished sealing the window and the rest in the lounge.

With Bryn still on my mind, I packed up my tools in a house that had gone quiet, and glanced at my watch. 2:47. James would be another hour still, enough time to hunt for the portrait before I pulled up the linoleum in the kitchen.

With my toolbox in hand, I climbed the creaky steps, carefully scanning the framed pictures, reading each name tag before moving to the next. There were so many. How did James keep track? Probably the same way he knew where every journal, book, and discography on Ruhaven was—obsession.

I smiled to myself, working my way through the hundreds of portraits ranging from tiny, palm-sized displays to a massive painting. Maybe I should just wait for James to come back.

Thinking this, I glanced at my watch again, but found it frozen on the same time as last. It had been Willow’s once, long enough ago I’d replaced the batteries more often than made sense. But with no shortage of clocks, I dropped my wrist and checked the cuckoo clock by a photo of a pigtailed Ruhaven.

2:47.

I frowned at the time, at the minute hand frozen in the same position at my wrist.

I tapped the glass, then rechecked both times, waited, but the clock remained frozen at 2:47.

A little tingle started at the base of my neck as I turned to glance at the clock behind me.

2:47.

The house froze in a sticky, eerie silence, missing the everyday drone of its clocks.

My heart thumped twice, hard. Why would they be dead? What could possibly make them stop now? Was this another gift of Bryn’s? Some manifestation of his Mark he hadn’t told me about?

Or was it another’s?

I yanked a bird-shaped clock off the wall and swapped its batteries for fresh ones in my toolbox, but the clock remained dead, unmoving.

I backed away slowly, my jacket catching a hard-edged frame as I bumped into the wall behind me.

What did it mean? I wished for James, for Bryn, for my sister who would have been shouting a hundred possibilities at me.

Pinching my lips between my fingers, I shook my head at the silent wall, the house that had gone so still, not even a curtain swayed.

Because time had stopped? That sounded ridiculous. Maybe one of our Marks was battery control, for all I knew, but the idea made a weak laugh hiccup from my throat. Battery control .

Energy, though, that was something, wasn’t it? Souls were energy, energy was conserved, souls were reborn.

In a closed system, just like a circuit, you couldn’t have any energy that didn’t already exist. Everything in a circuit—resistors, lightbulbs—all consumed the sum of the energy flowing through. So how did the Inquitate come over at all?

I stepped towards the wall of clocks and picture frames. Was time a form of energy? In a way, yeah. A form of wave energy that could be manipulated like any other. By who? Was it one of our Marks? But which… oh .

I dropped my toolbox, and the sound shuddered through the hall, as if Naruka herself had flinched.

It wasn’t a manipulation of energy, but an imbalance.

Slowly, my lips trembling, I glanced down the stairs and out the window now sealed with foam.

But only a dark circle of trampled grass remained where Bryn’s easel had been.