I spent most of the day hiding, hoping against hope that Cassian was able to rein in his sister. Mom went out, though, and when she came back, I took one look at her grim face and knew that Miram’s work was done.
“Hello, Taya.” I pause to deeply inhale the musty scent of books greeting me. “I’ve missed this place.” An awkward silence hangs on the air. “So.” I attempt a smile. “What do you have for me to do today?”
Taya blinks. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Her lips purse unhappily—not because of whatever news she has to impart but because
she’s
the one who has to impart it. “Your position has been filled.”
“Filled?” I echo.
“That’s right.” She nods briskly.
Then I hear it. My heart sinks as a soft hum ripples through the quiet library. It’s a bland, unremarkable tune, and I instantly know who it belongs to and who’s about to round the corner.
Miram appears, carrying a stack of books. She stops when she sees me, her face revealing nothing. Naturally. “What are you doing here?” Her lips, very nearly the same color as her strangely neutral skin, barely move.
“I work here. At least I thought I did.”
“You thought wrong. Lots of things have changed since you left.”
I’m beginning to see just how many.
Taya looks back and forth between Miram and me. This is probably more conversation than she gets in a week. With a faint smile and shrug of apology that lacks any real regret, she returns to her work.
Miram waves her fingers at me. “Good-bye.”
Without a word, I turn and head out the door, walk past the school, ignoring the stares, the indiscreet whispers, and pointing fingers.
I’m almost to the meeting hall when something hits me in the head. I stagger, clutch my face, more stunned than hurt. It’s a ball.
There’s a burst of laughter, and a shouted taunt followed by children’s feet scampering away. Heat flares through me, spreading from the inside out. It hadn’t been an accident.
Tears burn and prick at my eyes, which makes me furious. I loathe this weakness—that I would crumble over a child’s prank. I lean against the short stone wall edging the meeting hall, taking a moment to reclaim my composure.
I will not cry.
It’s hard sought. As the throbbing in my cheek really penetrates, really begins to smart, the steam builds in me.
Closing my eyes, I sip air, cooling my lungs. It’s a dangerous feeling, this anger, this building fire inside me that wants to unleash itself. And not just because some kids hit me with a ball. It’s everything. Az ignoring me. Getting rebuffed by Taya . . . I always thought she liked me. I sniff and rub at my burning nose.
I should expect no less. It’s no less than I deserve. These children playing in the streets—I put them in danger. I can’t ever forget that.
Still, Will’s face rises in my mind. His changeable eyes so clear, so tender as he gazes at me. I see him so well just then that my chest clenches, the ache terrible and fierce. Longing overwhelms me. For the deep sound of his voice rolling through me. For the way he made me feel. Not like I am now. A useless creature, deserving of contempt and ridicule.
“W
ell, let’s see what we have available right now, shall we?” Jabel clicks at her keyboard and peers at her monitor, and I decide it’s not in my imagination that she treats me with decidedly less warmth than before. Expected, I suppose, but still ironic considering that a little more than a month ago she invited me to every family gathering she hosted, plying me with food and drink and sitting me between Corbin and Cassian. Her son and her nephew. One way or another, she would have the fire-breather in her family. I’ve always known this was her goal.
I stand in front of her desk and try not to fidget. She’s not looking at me right now, and for that I’m glad. I always avoid her gaze. Even though hypnos draki are unable to use their talent on fellow draki, I feel like she can get inside my head anyway, whispering her words, trying to influence my actions.
A deep rumble of voices flows from the office behind her. Severin, I’m sure. In there with the elders. At least I don’t have to see him. Or worse—I don’t have to endure some remark about losing my duty being the least of what I deserve.
“Ah, here we have something.”
I nod, eager to leave.
Grabbing a slip of paper, she starts scrawling, saying, “There’s always room on the gutting crew. I’m putting you down for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Those are big hunting and fishing days. They can use an extra hand then.”
My stomach lurches. The gutting crew? I must have made a sound because Jabel gives me a sharp look. “Too good to skin and gut the food that keeps us fed?”
I shake my head, but I’m sure the motion is slow, unconvincing. “No, but . . . is there nothing else available?”
She snaps her gaze back to the paper and signs her name with a flourish. Ripping it from the pad, she hands it to me. “Take this with you when you report in.”
I take the slip and exit the office, wondering whether I should have said anything at all about needing a new duty. Would anyone even notice if I went without one for a while?
Other than children who throw balls at my head, everyone else has been doing a good job ignoring me, treating me like I’m invisible. Even my own best friend avoids me.
As though the mere thought conjures her, I spot Az as I descend the steps. I call her name and hurry to catch up with her. She shoots a quick glance over her shoulder before whipping around again.
I’m panting by the time I reach her. “Az, please, wait.”
“Why?” She keeps a brisk pace, staring straight ahead.
“C’mon, Az. I can handle lots of things, but not you being mad at me.”
“Really?” Her blue-black eyes flick to me. “I wouldn’t think that would matter.”
“Of course you matter to me.”
“Really?” She makes an ugly sound. “I do? I didn’t think anyone in this pride ranked over your human!” She stops now, fury sparking from her almond-shaped eyes. “When you showed yourself to him did you think of me at all? About any of us?”
I search her face, pleading. “Az, it wasn’t like that. Will is—”
“Will,” she spits his name out, her hands knotted into fists at her sides. “I never thought you would sell us out for some guy. The whole time you were gone I worried about you. Even when Severin imposed his stupid rules and curfews and everyone started grumbling it was because of you, I told them they were wrong. You never would have left deliberately. I was sure your mom made you. Kidnapped you or something. How stupid was I?” She shakes her head, her hair rippling like water around her. “And the whole time you were probably off making out with some human . . . a hunter!”
“Az, please—”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Eventually. Yes!”
She holds two hands up in the air like she wants to shove me from her. “Sorry, Jacinda. I just can’t talk to you right now.” She looks me up and down. “I don’t know you anymore.”
She spins, her blue-streaked hair a splash of color on the chalky air. I watch, helpless, spotting Miram in the road ahead. She waves Az over. I hold my breath, thinking surely Az has not taken to hanging out with her. But Az joins her and together they walk away.
I stand there for a moment, my throat impossibly thick. Then, conscious of how alone I am standing in the middle of the road, how pathetic I must look staring after my ex–best friend, I begin to move. One foot in front of the other. Left, right, left, right.
I should report in to my new duty. That would be the responsible thing to do. But I don’t care. I’ve already failed everybody. I can’t disappoint them any more than I have.
I toy with my dinner, moving food around my plate to make it look like I’m eating. Mom made verdaberry bread, but even that isn’t enough to restore my appetite.
I glance out the kitchen window at the settling dusk, imagining Tamra and the others gathered in the field for group flight tonight. She stopped by earlier to see if I wanted to go. Selfish or not, I couldn’t do it. I’m not ready to take to the sky with my sister and everyone else. In my dreams, when I had imagined things as they should be, it was always the two of us.
“How was your day?” Mom asks.
Something I would like to forget. Or at least make it until tomorrow so I can say it’s officially behind me.
My gaze drifts to Tamra’s vacant seat and I quickly look away . . . only to find myself staring at the space where Dad used to sit.
There’s nowhere safe to look. I’m surrounded by emptiness. Dad’s chair to my right. Tamra’s across from me. It’s only Mom to my left. And me.
“Fine.” I crumble a piece of bread between my fingers, squishing a verdaberry. Green juice stains my fingertips.
“Use your fork,” Mom says.
I pick up the utensil and stab at the dark bread. I’m not about to unload on her when she looks so fragile right now. If it hasn’t been easy for me here, then I know it’s been rough on her. Especially since the pride blames her for taking us away. “And you?” I ask. “What’d you do?”
She shrugs, twisting her thin shoulder as if to say nothing worth mentioning. I think of getting hit in the head with the ball and wonder if that happened to Mom, too. The thought makes me clench my fork so tightly my knuckles ache. “It was good to see Tamra,” she volunteers.
“Yeah,” I second.
“She looks . . . good.”
“Yeah.” Pale as an icicle.
“Spending a lot of time with Cassian,” Mom adds, watching me closely to see how this affects me. “She seems happy.”
I merely nod, unable to deny that. Tamra
did
look happy. But then she had Cassian now. Why wouldn’t she be?
After a moment, Mom adds, “I had a slow day at the clinic.”
“Well, that’s always a good thing,” I murmur, glad Mom didn’t lose her duty at the clinic. As a verda draki—or a
former
verda draki—her skills are best suited to working with the ill or injured, making the poultices and medicines that have kept our kind in good shape for generations. I don’t see them reassigning her just out of spite. Doing so would be a disservice to the pride.
“Reorganized the meds,” she volunteers, her voice a numbing monotone. “I don’t think anyone’s done that since I left.”
I nod slowly, gathering my nerve to confess: “I was reassigned.” Hopefully my voice sounds as unaffected as hers. I have to tell her. She’d find out eventually. If not from me, then someone else.
I wait for the raised eyebrow, the sharp tone that will demand
why
they did that. Basically, I wait for the protective, vigilant mother she’s always been.
Instead her voice sounds hollow. “You’re not in the library anymore?”
“No.” I take a bite and chew quickly, dreading the next words. “I’m with the gutting crew.”
She looks up. “The gutting crew?”
“Yeah.” I tear at the verdaberry bread until it’s only crumbs. “They needed some extra hands.”
“And who reassigned you to the gutting crew?” she asks quietly.
I give half a shrug, certain this is when she will lose her cool. “Jabel gave me the assignment.”
Nothing.
Mom’s quiet for a long moment, staring down at her plate before pushing up from the table and taking her dishes into the kitchen. I cringe as she drops them in the sink with a clatter. Still, I wait. Ready for her to say something,
do
something. March across the street and light into Jabel, her old friend. I can almost imagine the shouting, hear my mom demanding why her daughter was given such a lowly duty reserved for those training to be part of the pride’s hunting crew.
That would be familiar. That would be typical.
Nothing. I strain for a sound and detect the uncorking of a bottle, the faint slosh of wine into a glass.
After a moment, she reemerges, stops at the table with a glass in hand, the deep green liquid dangerously close to the edge. She stares at me over the rim as she pulls a deep swallow of verda wine.
“Everything will be okay,” I say because I don’t know
what
to say to her. She’s not acting like Mom at all. “I screwed up and they have to punish me. It will all blow over.”
She takes a slow sip, her eyes dull. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.” She disappears back into the kitchen again. When she returns it’s with a full bottle of verda wine tucked between her arm and body. My gaze trails her as she walks down the hallway to her bedroom. The door clicks shut after her. A moment passes and I hear the low drone of the television from her room.
I sit at the table for a moment and glance around. At three empty chairs. I quickly stand, unable to sit there another moment.
Gathering the dishes, I take them to the sink. The silence in the kitchen is thick, Mom’s television a distant hum. As I wash, my stare drifts up to the kitchen window and I bite back a gasp. A bowl slips from my hand, bounces off the edge of the sink, and shatters on the floor. Still, I don’t move, don’t even look to investigate the searing pain at the side of my foot.
My gaze fixes unblinking at the far side of Mom’s withered-dead garden. A shape stands in the gloom. The eyes watching me seem to glow, to cut through the evening mist to my house. To me.
The mist swirls, drifts like smoke from a peat fire around him. It parts to reveal a face—Corbin’s curling smile. He looks smug, pleased with himself as he stands there brazenly.
My skin snaps, lungs contract and swell, vibrating with warmth as my gaze narrows, reading perfectly into that smile.
He thinks I’m his for the taking. Tamra and Cassian have each other, and I’m out of favor with the pride—what else should I do but embrace the one draki who looks at me? Who wants me? Right?
Wrong
.
Smolder builds in my chest. He probably thinks I’ll fall to my knees before him, grateful for whatever crumb he casts my way, salvation in this new friendless, lightless existence among my own kind.
Glaring at the shrouded figure, I snatch at the cord and the blinds fall into place with a noisy rattle. But still I imagine him there, see him staring back at me, watching, waiting.
It’s strange. I’m back in the home I’ve longed for, in cool mists and air that weeps kisses over my thirsting flesh. But dead desert might as well surround me. Again. And this time there is no Will to revive me. There is nothing.
That night I make sure my window is locked. A precaution I never took before, even when I was in Chaparral, but for some reason I feel the need to do it tonight, with Corbin’s glowing eyes imprinted on my mind.