“That’s probably what happened,” Raiya said. “Someone took it with the intent to use it.” She sighed. “This is so confusing sometimes.”
I tried to take her hand, before I remembered I couldn’t touch her. “There’s a lot going on.”
I was gratified by her small smile. “I’ll say,” she said.
A moment passed between us, and it was one of those magical moments when you don’t need to say the words to let the other person know that you know what they want you to know. Looking at her, I knew we would get through this, together even though we were apart, and I felt much better.
“Tell me what else has happened,” Raiya said. “I know a lot of time must have passed.”
“It’s been about a month,” I said. “Do you know of a Mary from up here? She said she came to hold your place for you down there while you were up here.”
“I know of Mary,” Raiya said, nodding. “I never imagined she’d be taking my place one day.”
“She’s nice,” I said, “but no one can tell it’s her and not you.”
“That’ll be helpful for school,” Raiya said. She smiled. “I imagine a lot of our friends wouldn’t mind if Mary stepped in for them for a while.”
I chuckled at the thought. “She’d have a long waiting list,” I said. “The guys would run over each other trying to get to her first.”
“How’s the city?” Raiya asked a few moments later. “Everything okay?”
“It’s alright,” I said. “I have found a few mysteries to amuse myself with while you’re gone.”
“How’s Mikey?” she asked. “Did he tell you who told you about us before?”
“You know, I forgot about that,” I admitted. “I was just really caught up in wanting to spend time with you, and then everything else.”
“It sounds like it’s been an exciting couple of weeks, with all the time stops and the meteorite getting stolen,” Raiya said. “And I can understand about wanting to spend as much time together as we could.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s better if we’re not together. We might get more work done.”
“Like the Weaving Girl and the Herding Boy tale?” I asked. I frowned. “No thanks. I’d rather not see you just one night a year.”
She leaned over to kiss me, and we were once again disappointed to find we were unable to feel the warmth we each had to offer the other.
“There’s been other stuff, too,” I said. “I’m sure Mary can catch you up with school, but we did manage to seal Elektra away.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I’ll bring her crystal up with me when we get to Alora’s.”
“I’ll start heading back over there,” Raiya said. “I’ll trust you for now about the water.”
“Didn’t Alora warn you about that?” I asked. “I know she doesn’t always tell you everything up front, but that seems wrong.”
“I didn’t talk to her much,” Raiya admitted. “Orpheus requested meeting with her in private after I gave her the crystals.”
The light around us seemed to darken. “I’ll bet he’s behind the trouble we’re having.”
Raiya shuddered. “I better head over there. I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Hopefully it’s soon,” I said. “I miss you.”
I couldn’t help it; I reached for her again.
Ghosts and dreams and logic and all of reality fell short of explanation as I leaned into kiss her and finally managed to feel her; the warmth of her lips meeting mine sank into me, and it was the sweetest moment of my life.
It was almost like a parting gift as I felt my physical body struggle awake, jostled from my dreams as I returned to my world.
☼15☼
Across Memories
A new determination spurred on inside of me as I headed out of my last class.
I was so determined, I didn’t even have to stop for coffee; I did because it was on the way and out of habit, but I didn’t need to. That’s the important part.
I did make it a quick stop. I got in and out, not even really paying attention to Rachel or Mary, or even Grandpa Odd. I still wasn’t comfortable with him, even if he did help me out by helping Mary watch Adam the other night.
After that, I headed for the hospital. I knew it was going to be a less than pleasant conversation with Mikey.
Maybe I should have brought Mary, I thought. A moment later, I decided it was better that I didn’t; I didn’t really want to put her in that situation.
I didn’t even want to be in that situation.
This notion became extremely prominent the moment I walked into Mikey’s room and he groaned.
“Where’s my call button?” he complained.
“Nice to see you too,” I grumbled.
“Shut up.”
“Come on, Mikey,” I said. “I did apologize.”
“You’re not suffering like I am,” he insisted. “You don’t deserve any forgiveness.”
“If I deserved it, it wouldn’t really be forgiveness, would it?” I sighed.
“I don’t need your smart attitude, either,” Mikey said.
“You know, I didn’t treat you like this when I was in the hospital before.” I leaned against the window.
“You’re glad that I’m all mangled up?”
“No,” I replied tersely. “Why would you even ask that? Were you happy to see me all mangled up before?”
“Kind of.” Mikey smiled, and I almost smiled back.
I paused for a beat, and then moved onto the reason I came to see him. “Who told you about me and Starry Knight, that night you came to the observatory?”
Mikey snorted. “Why do you need to know that?”
“I need to know because the Sinisters have a new leader. Elysian and I are not sure who it is, but if it wasn’t Dante or SWORD, we might have a problem.”
“I still don’t—”
“I need your help,” I said. It was time to do something I never wanted to do, if I could help it. It was time to be open. “If SWORD knows who we are, or if the new leader of the Sinisters knows who we are, then Raiya could be in danger. I know we haven’t been close lately—”
“Understatement of the year,” Mikey interrupted.
“Fine, yes, it is.” I clenched my fists. “Look, Mikey, I’m in love with her.”
I saw him do a quick double-take before scowling at me. But he said nothing, and in all honesty, I could understand his hesitancy to believe me.
“I mean it,” I continued, pushing onward. “I love her, and I’m worried for her. You know how she is. She’s determined and strong, and if something is out there, she’s more than willing to face it. With or without me.” I shook my head. “I can’t protect her without your help.”
Dead silence lingered between us for a long moment.
“You can’t protect her even with my help,” Mikey finally said. “I don’t remember who told me.”
I frowned. “How can you not remember?”
“I mean, I can’t remember. I remember I was at Rachel’s that night, and then all of a sudden I was walking to the observatory.” He shrugged. “Maybe I was headed there on instinct?”
Doubtful. I knew Mikey, and it did us no favor to say his instincts were well honed.
I was not trusting enough. Calling up my power, I checked his emotions; I was surprised to see genuine confusion leaping up from the usual mix of depression, apathy, and frustration.
Okay, so he’s not lying. Too bad. I guess.
A new idea formed inside of my mind. “Can I see?” I asked, holding my hand out to him.
“See what?”
“Uh … can I see into your heart?” I asked, having a hard time keeping my voice sounding normal. (It’s not a question you go around asking people.)
I was prepared for him to say no, so I was further surprised when he shrugged. “I guess so. I know I’m telling the truth.” He paused for a moment, and then said, “And if it will help you protect Starry Knight, I suppose
it’s the right thing to do.”
A rush of gratitude settled between us. “Thank you,” I said quietly.
“Don’t get mopey about it,” Mikey muttered. “Just hurry up. I don’t want the nurses to see me doing this.”
He reached out for my hand and grasped it.
“Just try to think about that night,” I said, allowing my power to reach into his heart.
He sighed loudly, but he did it.
A second later, I could feel the innocence of his heart, the happy daydreams of Starry Knight, and the excitement of seeing her again.
Pictures began to form around the experiences. I was in Rachel’s when a shadow stepped forward.
I frowned; a shadowed figure, wearing a dark cloak. Just as Asteropy said before. Red eyes glared out from underneath the darkened hood, and I didn’t need to look too closely to see how they resembled the shape and size of Elysian’s; in the dim lighting, I could just make out a scaly pattern on the hand that reached out to Mikey.
Draco.
I gasped in pain, as the strange figure unleashed a string of power to fold Mikey’s mind inside itself, twisting time, memory, and perception.
I dropped his hand and broke the connection.
“Woah, that was weird,” I said.
“Did you see who it was?” Mikey asked.
He still didn’t see the guy in the cloak?
Well, I thought, in all fairness, it wasn’t the first time that the Sinisters or Orpheus had managed to fool others I knew. During the first “real” attack I experienced, Maia attacked us dressed up as a police officer, and I was the only one between me, Mikey, and Gwen to know otherwise.
“I saw,” I said finally, “but I don’t know …”
I don’t know how he managed to be in a human-like form.
Elysian told me before that changeling dragons were rare. They had the power to transform into a variety of reptilian forms; I didn’t know if they were really able to turn into humans, too.
I shuddered. Part of me didn’t want to know.
“So you got nothing?” Mikey asked.
“No, I got something,” I assured him, seeing his disappointment. “It’s enough to give me something to look for.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess—augh!” Mikey doubled over, grabbing his forehead in pain.
“Mikey?”
“It hurts!” Mikey cried. “It hurts.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Get the nurses,” he stammered. “Ugh, what did you do to me? It hurts!”
“Nothing,” I swore, clamoring around for the call button. “Nothing, I promise!”
Two nurses came in and hurried forward, as Mikey continued to twitch and yelp in pain.
What happened!? I watched, helpless, as the nurses injected Mikey with something, and then he relaxed.
“You’ll be fine in a few moments,” the one said. “The medicine has to kick in again.”
The other one turned to me. “That’s the quickest we’ve ever gotten to him when that happens. It’s good you were here, but you should really let him rest now.”
I just stared at her, blankly, until the two of them shuffled me out of the room. I’d never seen Mikey like that.
Did I do something that hurt him?
I didn’t do anything, I realized. Draco did.
Maybe Dante wasn’t wrong in trying to use that medicine to try to help him.
The nurses shoved me out the door a few moments later, all while I was calling out to Mikey to tell them to let me stay.
After realizing my protests weren’t working, I dug my hands in my pockets angrily. Raiya had said it was likely Mikey had a broken heart, but it was clear to me after that he had a broken mind. And not the insult kind, the sort I would say to him if we were normal kids in high school.
*☼*
“Come on, Cheryl—I mean, Mom,” I said, nearly yelling into the phone. “This is just something that can’t wait. I have to take off work today.”
“Stefano’s still in the hospital,” Cheryl reminded me brusquely. “He’s counting on us to keep the city running while he’s ill.”
“Get Cecil to help,” I said, remembering how he had ambition. “He’s worked at City Hall way longer then me anyway.”
“I don’t see why you have to study for your SATs so desperately,” Cheryl said. “They’re not until close to April, anyway. Didn’t you tell me that you had plenty of time to study for the test before?”
I almost groaned. Why did my excuses have to be so lame sounding, especially when I had to deal with my mother? My uber-controlling, unrealistically expectant mother?
Cheryl could watch the world burn around her and only blink at the carnage, so long as she had her office to run.
“January’s almost over,” I reminded her. “And I’ve had a hard time juggling work and school and, um, all the swim team stuff … ” (which, I suddenly realized I’d missed their last two meets) “ … so you’ll have to excuse me today, especially if you want me to qualify for dual enrollment next year.”
I knew that argument would win her over, especially since I’d been stupid enough to hesitate when she told me about it.
“Fine,” she finally replied. “I have to consider your education first in this matter. But I want to see perfect scores when they come in.”
“Deal,” I said. Before she could say anything else to annoy me, I hung up and started to run.
I headed for Aleia’s church, knowing that she was in all likelihood there. I needed to tell her what I’d found, and it wasn’t pleasant.
Draco was here, and he knew who I was, anyway, and likely Starry Knight, too. He’d poisoned Mikey’s mind, and he was directing the Sinisters, and in all likeliness, Orpheus, too.
There was also the matter of SWORD. They were supplying “security” to the city, and they were being paid by the Skarmastad Foundation, who just had the meteorite stolen from them, and they had a bunch of radiation monitors on the city for enemy activity.
To top it all off, I hadn’t seen Asteropy since she left Patricia Rookwood’s body in an undignified pile in the middle of the street.
“I wish I’d told Mikey we were close to getting Asteropy,” I muttered to myself.
I stopped at the church gate as the first raindrops of a storm began to fall.
Aleia was where she always seemed to be when I came, sitting on a small bench on the winding garden path.
“Are you okay?” I asked, then I sat down next to her. There was a forlorn look on her face as she stared off into the distance. “You seem sad.”
“I do believe it is possible to be both joyful and sad at the same time,” she said primly as she folded her hands together in her lap.
“Maybe,” I replied, “but I’m pretty sure we call that being bipolar here.”
She snickered. “You’re funny. And kind.”
“I try,” I said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I feel terrible about this whole mess,” she admitted. “I knew I would find Orpheus here. I thought maybe he could change, that he could repent. After you purified him with your fire, I was especially excited. Perhaps too excited.”
“I know love makes people do funny things.”
“This is the farthest thing from funny as I can possibly imagine. What if he’s hurting Alora? Or Raiya?”
“I’ll kill him with my bare hands, that’s what.” I watched as she flinched, and then added, “I see what you mean. It’s not very funny.”
We sat there in silence as the rain continued to pour down on us.
Finally, I spoke. “I don’t know what he’s done, if he’s done anything at all,” I said. “And we can’t know. Maybe it’s possible that it’s something Draco or Alküzor are doing.”
“Draco?” Aleia repeated.
“Yeah.” I leaned against the back of bench. “I went to go visit Mikey today. Remember when he found me and Starry Knight in the observatory?”
“I can probably pull up the blog from th
at night,” Aleia said, making me blush.
“No need. I asked him who told him. Originally, I thought it was Dante or SWORD. They had the radiation monitor, you know, and I thought maybe they knew we were there. But Mikey seems too specific of a target; it was a personal choice.”
“He was the one who was writing the blog,” Aleia pointed out. “Maybe he was singled out for that.”
“I thought about that too,” I said. “And for a while, I agreed with that. But it doesn’t make sense. If they wanted a journalist on it, they could have sent anyone from the news. Even Patricia Rookwood.”
“I see.”
“So when I asked him, he let me check his heart and it took me back to the memory of when he was told to go to the observatory,” I said.
I quickly related everything after that; how the cloaked figure shared traits with Elysian, even if I couldn’t see his face.
“It makes further sense to me,” I said, “because I think I ran into him before at Rachel’s, back when we captured Celaena. I just didn’t see him completely; I thought it was Orpheus at the time.”
“So Draco has been here all this time,” Aleia said, her voice full of disbelief. “Incredible.”
“Alora told me that he has been able to slip under her radar before. And he’s likely taught the others how to do so.” I reached over and patted her shoulder. “So if Orpheus fooled us, he fooled us all.”
Aleia gave me a tiny smile. “It’s a small comfort,” she said, “but no less damaging.”
“We’ll see how damaging,” I said. “You were the one who told me I have to have hope. And if nothing else, we’ll be able to stop him.”
“Raiya was right about you,” Aleia remarked. “She says you’ve changed a lot.”
“I don’t think I’ve changed so much as I’ve been changed,” I said honestly. “I never thought I would have this kind of life.”
I laughed suddenly. “My SATs are coming up, and I’m not concerned with them at all. I mean, I normally wouldn’t be, but I barely even think of them. I have too much other stuff on my mind.”
“What else are you worried about?” she asked.
For a moment, I didn’t answer her. But she was my friend, and she was one of the few people I could be honest with about everything. So I gave in and told her about my dream, where I was able to meet with Raiya for a short time.