Chains and Memory

  There were two others with us in the living room. One was a newcomer, a woman named Inola who looked like she had some Native American ancestry. The other was a black guy named Louis, who had been here a few times before. I didn’t know much about either of them beyond that, but wasn’t sure if asking more would be prying.

  I’d settled myself into the armchair, with Hitomi curled up in my lap. She purred and turned her head when I scratched her cheek, leaning into the touch.

  Guan was explaining some of the laws that addressed civilian intervention in psychic problems. As in so many other respects, I fell into a weird grey zone: wilders who had reached the age of majority were required by law to offer assistance when they could, and could be held liable for failure to do so. Ordinary bloods, on the other hand, fell under the umbrella of “Good Samaritan” laws, which varied widely from one jurisdiction to another. Until my legal status was settled one way or another, the only safe course of action was for me to offer aid, and hope I didn’t do anything I could be sued for.

  It wasn’t very a comforting answer.

  But it was more comforting than thinking about the results of my divination the previous week. I’d mapped out three variant scenarios, but even the best of them still wasn’t very good: people would try to get hold of this stuff, and when they did, some of them would die. Baselines would probably just become psychic, but psychics would turn into wilders — if they were lucky. I didn’t think we had the medical technology to stop the mutation once it began. At that point, it was a roll of the dice whether the user survived or not.

  I hadn’t told Julian anything about that. I couldn’t: the woman I’d met with, a suit from some government agency she hadn’t bothered to identify, had required me to sign a non-disclosure agreement that I wouldn’t share information about that with anyone unless authorized to do so. Authorization had not been forthcoming. I didn’t even know who to ask to get an update; I could only guess at what actions they might be taking to minimize the threat.

  For my own sanity, I had to focus on other things. And it occurred to me that I had a good audience for one of those, right there in the living room with me.

  “Can I ask a technical question?” I said, when Guan seemed to have reached the end of his spiel.

  “Of course,” he said. “About the law, or something psychic?”

  “Something psychic. But the law too, I guess.” I shifted in my chair, suddenly self-conscious. Hitomi meeped a protest and extended her claws, not scratching me, but pricking to send a warning. Too late, it occurred to me that the Fiain might see this as outsiders intruding on their business. “The deep shield. This whole fight about putting it on me — it’s gotten me thinking. Is there any alternative to it? Some other way to keep kids safe, without having to gut them?” The official term was “stripping,” but that wasn’t how wilders referred to it amongst themselves. I’d picked up their habit.

  Louis had been reading while Guan and I talked, but at my words he put down his book. Inola’s drifting attention snapped to me. I occupied my hands petting Hitomi, to hide my nerves.

  Guan said. “Do we have an alternative? No.”

  He left it at that. We were all psychic; he could tell I wasn’t asking idly, and I could tell he could tell. I sighed. “All right. Julian and I have some friends — Robert Ó Conchúir and Liesel Mandelbaum. Has he told you about them? When they found out about the deep shield, they started trying to think of other ways to handle the problem.”

  “Have they come up with anything?” Louis asked.

  I snorted. “Oh, they’ve come up with lots of things. Just none that work. Their best idea so far involves designing a new kind of power reservoir, one that can be built by an outsider, and bleeding off all the energy into that until the kid’s old enough to tap into it.”

  “Ye gods,” Inola said, coming bolt upright on the couch. “Do you have the slightest clue how much power would build up in there? Those children would be sitting on small nuclear bombs.”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Like I said, none of their ideas work. But —” I hesitated, looking down at Hitomi’s fluffy head. “I thought you guys might be able to help. If you wanted to.”

  Silence followed my words. Then Louis said, “We’re trained to be Guardians. Emergency response. It doesn’t set us up for the kind of technical work you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe not most of you,” I admitted. “But Guan — you train these kids. And more to the point, you know the people at the Centers who raise them. Would they want to look into alternatives?”

  His expression had settled into the bland mask they were all taught to maintain. I read that as a good sign; it meant I’d given him something to think about. Hopefully what he was thinking wasn’t this girl is insane. His answer was neutral. “I couldn’t say.”

  There wasn’t much point in backpedaling now. “Would you be willing to ask them? Or I’ll do it myself, if you tell me who to talk to. I —”

  Pounding footsteps on the basement staircase cut me short. The wards on the room soundproofed the place, but they didn’t extend to the stairs. Guan came to his feet just as the door slammed open, revealing Neeya. “Kleenex,” she said, eyes darting around the room. “I need —” She spotted the box on a shelf, teleported it straight into her hands, and bolted back downstairs.

  I followed her in time to see her pressing a tissue to Julian’s face, while he tilted his head forward. There were bloodstains all down the front of his shirt.

  For all my speed, Guan had beaten me down the stairs. I was willing to bet he’d witnessed scenes like this more than once in his teaching career. “What happened?” he asked.

  Julian took Neeya’s hand by the wrist, gently pulling her away so he could hold the tissues himself. “My fault,” he said, his voice thickened as he pinched his nose shut. “I didn’t tend my own shields well enough.”

  “It’s my fault,” Neeya said, hovering with one hand on his shoulder. “I reflected a bolt right into his face.”

  Inola and Louis had both joined us, at a more leisurely pace. Louis went to kneel by Julian; after a moment, I realized he was applying a finely-controlled cryokinetic effect, counteracting any swelling that might occur, and helping stop the blood flow. “Thanks,” Julian said. “Nothing’s broken. It’ll be fine in a little bit.”

  “Surprisingly careless of you,” Guan observed.

  The sound Julian made probably would have been a snort, if he hadn’t still been pinching off the blood. “Bad habits, sir. A bit of one-upsmanship — we won’t do it again.”

  Which implied they’d done it before. Well, they’d grown up together, and even wilders couldn’t be sensible every waking minute. I went and sat by Julian’s feet, across from Louis. He gave me a wry smile past the tissues. I said, “At least she didn’t light your hair on fire.”

  “I only did that once —!” Neeya caught herself and subsided to a glare. I hadn’t even meant it as a dig at her. It was just the sort of thing my parents said when I had mishaps during my own adolescent manifestation.

  Guan said, “I think you’re done for the night, Julian. Once the bleeding stops, why don’t you and Kim go home.”

  I resisted the urge to ask what he thought of my request. If he was in favor of it, I would find out in due course; if not, I didn’t think pressing right away would improve anything. At least I had planted the seed. For now, that would have to be enough.

  ~

  Mostly people avoided looking at the wilders on the Metro, but the stains on Julian’s shirt earned us some stares on our way back home that night.

  I wondered what the people on the train thought had happened. Probably something dramatic involving Guardian duties. Maybe a group of anti-sidhe punks who, deprived of their Otherworldly targets, turned on the nearest substitutes available. I was half-tempted to start making up a story, talking to Julian like we’d just fought off a dragon in Dupont Circle, but it would probably just remind him that he wasn’t a Guardian yet. Instead
I sat quietly, trying not to sway into him when the train slowed at each station.

  When we got back to the apartment, Julian plucked at his bloodstained shirt and said, “I should put this in the wash.”

  “Let me grab some other laundry,” I said, ducking into the bedroom to fetch it. My parents, thank the gods, had put me in an apartment with its own washer and dryer. We didn’t have to go down to the basement or out to a laundromat.

  By the time I’d gathered enough to fill the washer, Julian had already tossed his shirt in and was standing bare-chested in the hall. I dropped the other clothes at his feet and slid past him into the living room, eyes averted. It wasn’t so much that I was embarrassed to see my boyfriend with his shirt off—though it was a little awkward, given how uncertain our physical interactions still were. But when I looked at him, I saw the scars: a knife cut along his chest, burns on his abdomen. I’d done those things to him. And physical healers like my father were rare enough that nobody was going to waste their talents on erasing the scars from one wilder, just for my peace of mind.

  Julian wasn’t nearly blind enough to miss my reaction. He stayed in the hall for a moment, loading the wash; then I heard him go into the bedroom and put on another shirt. I sat on the couch and wrapped my hands around my knees, knowing he was going to come in, unsure of what I would say when he did.

  He paused in the doorway and asked softly, “Is it the scars?”

  “Yes,” I said—and then, realizing the truth, “No.”

  He waited, letting me fight my way through to the words. They were surprisingly hard to get out: I was suddenly on the edge of crying, and really didn’t want to give in. It felt manipulative, like I was trying to use my emotions as leverage against him. And I wanted to keep my dignity.

  At last I said, “It’s Neeya.”

  The room was quiet enough that I heard his indrawn breath.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. My gaze was fixed on my knees. “I don’t think you’re in love with her, and I’m not jealous. Not—not like that. But you’re different with her; did you know that? She’s the one person you don’t avoid touching. I know I need to keep my distance, and I do my best . . . but it’s hard to do that, and then to see you so comfortable with her, and not feel the lack.”

  Silence. It lasted for long enough that I finally looked up. Julian was still in the doorway, one hand on the frame, eyes closed. He only did that when he didn’t trust himself to keep his emotions in check, hidden from view. I bit my lip, feeling the distance between us grow.

  Then Julian shook his head and opened his eyes, and I saw what he’d given up on concealing.

  Anger.

  At himself.

  “I am a gods-damned idiot,” Julian breathed.

  I didn’t know how I’d expected him to react, but this wasn’t it. I rose from the couch, not sure whether I should approach or give him space. “Julian—”

  “Wait. Please.” His mouth twisted in something like a smile. “You’re right. We’re taught from childhood to avoid touching bloods and baselines, since it has such a bad effect. And not everybody at the Center is a wilder, you know—a lot of the people around us aren’t. So we learn to keep our distance.

  “But Kim . . . we’re still human. Mostly. And we still need human contact, just like anybody else.”

  I thought about how isolated I felt these days, with everyone avoiding me—Julian included. I spent half my time at Toby’s with Hitomi in my lap, just for the warmth of another living body. “So with Neeya . . .”

  “Not just her. We touch all the time,” Julian said. “Casual stuff, mostly, but it’s constant. You see it with Neeya because she was my little sister, and because she’s fresh out of the Center. I didn’t even notice it until you said anything. Normally we’re less demonstrative in public. But when it’s just Fiain, and we’re by ourselves—” He grinned, a sudden lightening of expression, though the anger wasn’t gone. “Exactly the opposite of what everyone else sees.”

  Like theatre people, I thought, remembering some high school friends of mine, their casual attitudes toward contact.

  Julian hesitated, grin fading. Then he came forward and took me by the hands. Gentle pressure led me back to the couch; he sat close enough that our knees touched. Which was wildly out of character for him—except that apparently I’d been wrong all this time about what his character really was.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said, still holding my hands. “Ever since you got to D.C., before you even met Guan and Neeya, I’ve been telling the others that I accept you, that as far as I’m concerned you’re one of us. But they can see the truth. Whatever my mouth says, my behavior’s been telling them the exact opposite.”

  Because he didn’t touch me. Now I understood the self-recrimination. He’d been undermining me all this time, without meaning to. Worse: it was proof that on some subconscious level, he didn’t accept me yet.

  I swallowed, trying to ease the sudden lump in my throat. His grip was tight on my fingers, as if by sheer force he could undo the error of these past weeks. “It isn’t all you,” I said. “Every time I think about touching you—even casually—I’ve been holding back, because I thought it would make you uncomfortable.”

  Julian looked down. Then he went still, and I knew he’d noticed the same thing I had: that it was the way he would react around a non-wilder, avoiding their gaze. He drew in a slow breath, then looked up and met my eyes.

  All the breath went out of me. I’d suspected that Julian was sometimes lonely at Welton; he had no real friends there beyond me, Robert, and Liesel. But now I saw another layer to that loneliness, one whose existence I never guessed at. It was the hunger for simple contact, the starvation of someone cut off from the only people in the world who didn’t flinch away from him.

  “Don’t hold back,” he whispered.

  Reluctance still dragged at me, the habit of years. I told habit to go to hell, and kissed him.

  The difference was immediate, and electrifying. Julian was still awkward; I was the only person he’d ever kissed, and the distance between us these past months meant he hadn’t gotten much practice. But I felt him give himself over to it, dropping all the barriers that had restrained him before. Not just the metaphorical ones, either, the instinct to pull back. His mind brushed mine, and I lowered a few of my own shields to let him in.

  I had guessed at the hunger. Now it came in a wave, drowning me. His isolation, his love for me—they’d been eating at him all this time, but Julian was too used to controlling himself, to the point where he didn’t even let himself realize how badly he craved this. One moment we were sitting next to one another, knees touching; then, with almost no transition, I had molded myself to him, touching not just with lips but shoulders, hips, rising and turning to kneel over him and cup his face between my palms. Julian’s hands explored my back, one rising to bury itself deep in my hair. His breath was hot against my cheek as I broke away to kiss his throat.

  Then my shirt slid up, and Julian’s hand touched bare skin. He froze.

  I drew back. The look in his eyes was one I’d never seen before: a new kind of fear. He was on a precipice, one step away from falling, from letting go of control. And that was the one thing he never let himself do.

  I’d gone this far once, with a boyfriend in high school. Never any further. But one of us had to be the first to take that step.

  “I’m ready,” I said, almost soundlessly. “If you are.”

  For a moment I thought he would refuse, pull back, turn away. It was too soon; this honesty between us was too new.

  But then his hand returned, drifting down to rest on my hip, and he nodded.

  I kissed him again, then slid off the couch, catching his hands in my own. “Follow me,” I said, and led him to the bedroom.

  ~

  Julian lay on his back, staring at the dark shadow of the ceiling, and tried to separate himself from the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. r />
  At his side, Kim lay peacefully asleep. He thought he’d kept his reaction from her; he hoped he had. There was no good way to say that this had been one of the most wonderful nights of his life . . . and also one of the most terrifying.

  His gut twisted with remembered pain. Every time he lost control, let instinct take over, there had been one response: the deep shield. This wasn’t magic, but he couldn’t separate the two. He didn’t think he could have let go even now, except that Kim had wrapped herself around him, body and mind, and carried him with her. Just thinking about that sheer vulnerability made his breath come faster. He forced it to slow, repeating a calming exercise over and over again, shaping it silently with his lips.

  He craved contact so badly . . . and that was the problem. Two and a half years at Welton, training himself to stand alone, without other Fiain to lean on. Then Kim, and his feelings for her—feelings he had tried to renounce, except she wouldn’t let him. And as he had said earlier tonight, he was still human. The starvation of the past two years took the simple response of his body and multiplied it a hundredfold.

  The others would know. Julian didn’t think he could hide this from them if he tried; they would see the difference in how he behaved around Kim. He wanted them to see the difference. They were never going to accept her if he didn’t do it first.

  And it would take more than one night to do that. He had to unlearn the habits of years: not just the basic protocols of his childhood, but all his interactions with Kim since he met her. He’d thought he was succeeding, until Kim pointed out the truth.

  Neeya. Julian knew how she would react. Us versus Them; to her, Kim was Them.

  He couldn’t leave it for her to guess. That would only make things worse, leave her feeling betrayed. They’d see each other again at Toby’s the next night — but that wouldn’t be private enough. If he wanted to explain things before everyone else found out, he had to do it now.