I’m sorry, I whisper, if only in my mind, not knowing if he can hear me.
I’m already beneath the covers of the top bunk when Luka emerges from his shower. I watch him pad to the door, check the lock, and then wedge the desk chair beneath the handle. Does he do this every night before he sleeps?
“Luka,” I say as he reaches for the bathroom light. He glances up.
“Am I safe with you?”
“With me, or from me, you mean?” He sounds worn.
“Either.”
He looks away. “Yes.”
I turn onto my side facing the wall, pillow already damp beneath my hair.
“Wake me up if you can’t sleep,” he says and turns out the light.
He undresses in the dark. The frame of the bunk shudders briefly as he slides into bed. I listen to him sigh. Imagine, even, that he has folded his arms behind his head to stare up at the bottom of my mattress. And I wonder if I’ll ever be free from fear again.
19
* * *
Breath cools my ear in gentle waves. I am instantly awake, staring wide-eyed in the darkness. Aware of the arm beneath my head, the one curled over the coverlet around me. Smell of skin.
My name is Audra Ellison. I am in a marine hostel in Rijeka, Croatia . . . and I am not in bed alone.
If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend that these arms are as safe as they feel. And I do, for all of three seconds. Any longer and I will stay.
I inch up with supreme slowness, glance back with only my eyes, not daring to turn my head. Slide out from under arm and coverlet both. Reach a foot for the ladder, find the floor instead. I’m on the bottom bunk.
But I’m clothed, at least—having gone to bed fully dressed beneath the covers.
Luka’s breath is slow and even. I ease up from the edge of the bed, swipe my sneakers from the floor nearby. Glance at the clock.
6:11 A.M.
There’s a light blinking silently on the phone—a message I don’t dare check. I pad to the door, feel for the chair. Lift it out from beneath the handle and set it carefully aside. Grab my hat off the desk, pull it onto my head. Turn the lock with painful slowness and a soft, alarming snick before depressing the handle.
I slip out the door and catch it until it quietly clicks. The moment it does, I turn down the hallway—
And run right into Claudia.
She’s leaning there, shoulder against the wall. Her arms are crossed. Gone, the sweater dress, replaced by a pair of jeans rolled around the ankles and a simple shirt I recognize as Piotrek’s. All of it is. His fedora dangles from her fingertips.
“Good morning, Audra,” she says and smiles. Her hair is wet. “I take it you’re not just slipping out for coffee.”
I purse my lips.
She lifts her chin, glances at me sidelong, and then sets the fedora on her head. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to make the first ferry,” she says and starts off down the hall.
After a stunned beat, I tug my shoes on and start after her, noting that her butt looks better in her brother’s jeans than most women’s do in yoga pants.
There’s a cab waiting at the bottom of the ramp. A moment later, we’re headed down the road.
“So . . . was Piotrek planning to cross-dress today?”
“It will keep him put until we get back. There’s a message waiting for Luka when he wakes up. Maybe it will stop them both from running off and doing something almost as stupid as we are.”
“How’d you manage to shower without waking Piotrek?” I ask.
“I didn’t.” When I look pointedly at her wet hair, she smiles. “I enjoy a bracing swim before dawn. Don’t you?”
My adrenaline is running high by the time we arrive at the ferry. The line is shorter this time, the ferry itself—industrial white with Korean lettering on its side—open for business as though it had never stopped for the night. The driver takes the cab directly into the hull as more cars file in behind us.
We climb the metal stairs to the main deck. I glance below just once, picturing an old white Peugeot sitting alone in that metal cavern, a body slumped at the wheel. I can see the spot from here.
The ride to Cres isn’t half as magical for us as it seems to be for the couple snapping photos from the railing. The island, obscured by haze, creeps closer until it becomes a hulking coastline of stone and shrub.
Claudia’s phone rings. Standing three feet away, I can hear the irate enunciation of every word on the other end. Piotrek.
Claudia’s tone is strangely conciliatory—even as what sounds like a chair crashes in the background.
“How mad is he?” I say when she hangs up.
“He’ll let Luka know you’re with me. And he’s very mad. Rightfully so. On top of everything, I took his phone since I got rid of mine. We’ll have to get rid of this one now that he’s called it from the hostel.”
“He’s your brother. He has to forgive you,” I say. “He’s probably more mad about having to wear a dress.”
She turns to face me against the rail. “You don’t know anything, do you? His job is to protect me. With his life, if necessary. And I’ve just thrown that in his face. For you.”
“I didn’t ask you to come!”
“Yes, but now that Ivan’s dead you need me.”
“He’s your brother, not your warden.”
“He’s my sibling. Not my brother.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I have no brother. He’s my sibling by choice.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The hunters target females because the legacy passes through them.”
“How can you say that? They just killed Ivan.”
“Yes, for what he knows! You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” I snap.
“A male line dies on its own—any children he has with a normal woman are not Utod. His only value to the hunters is what he may know. They will always target a female first to halt the legacy—the gifts she passes to her children. So she adopts a sibling if she doesn’t have one to protect her. And that bond will be deeper than if they had come from the same womb.”
“Do they ever get . . . involved? I mean if they’re not really related?”
“Sometimes, of course. But it becomes complicated. And makes both parties vulnerable.” There’s something like reproach in her gaze. I haven’t forgotten her statement that I wasn’t worth risking more lives.
I decide to just come right out with the question. “How did we know one another, Claudia?”
She studies me for a moment.
“We met in the Budapest court—”
“Court . . .” I recall Ivan using that term as well.
“The Utod underground.”
“Which is in Budapest.”
“In many cities. But Budapest, naturally. And Zagreb. The Prince of Zagreb himself sent me to Opatija to see for him if it is true that you are alive,” she says with a tilt of her chin.
I lift my brows slightly. “Why would he care?”
“Really, Audra, why did you do this?” She truly seems troubled. “No. You don’t know,” she answers for herself and shakes her head.
“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t. So we met in Budapest.”
“Through a woman named Katia, yes. Piotrek was her biological brother. Her twin.”
“Then why is he with you?”
“Because she’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
Claudia leans her forearms on the rail, lifts her face to the breeze. “I had just run away from home. I was sixteen. Katia found me digging in trash cans for food. She felt me in that alley, knew what I was. I remember that night, so perfectly. She had just come from court, and I thought she was the most glamorous and exciting girl I had ever seen. She taught me how to survive. I loved Katia. But you were important to her in ways I never understood. I looked to her. She looked to you. I could tell there were secrets between you I never knew.” Claudia glances ov
er her shoulder at me.
“What happened?”
“You were the last person to see her the night her hunter found her. You came and took me into hiding with you. Three weeks later, you were gone. But you brought Piotrek to me first, and for that, I suppose I should thank you.”
I hear her words, yet somehow I feel like “you’re welcome” might get me slapped.
“You don’t approve of Luka.”
“I saw him with you once, before you disappeared,” she says.
“You did?”
“It was obvious you were lovers.”
I don’t move. I barely breathe.
“It’s amazing what you learn living as an adopted stray, always looking in from the outside. I had seen Luka with you. I thought he was your hunter. I even warned you.”
“Why? Why not wait to see if you were right?”
Her head swivels toward me. “I’m not a murderer, Audra. I only wanted you to leave. And after Katia was killed, you did leave. Two more Utod died—friends of Katia’s—three months later. And then Andre, Katia’s lover, disappeared. I thought he was dead until we heard this summer he committed suicide before his memory could be stripped and served to the Historian like meat.” Her lips curl. “A month ago, everything in Zagreb fell apart. And I realized it wasn’t because Katia or Andre was dead, but because you were.”
Her gray eyes are as chilly as the sea. And I can’t tell if she’s wounded or if she hates me.
“What happened?”
“Piotrek and I stayed on in Zagreb. After the underground broke, it became the safest place to be. I was angry at you. I didn’t understand how you could throw it—us—all away. Not when you had access to what you did.”
“Access to what? I don’t even know why I did it, Claudia.”
Her laugh is brittle as glass. “No one does. But what Ivan said is true. He died for you, Audra!”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true! Many people have died for you. And because of you. The underground court has just returned to Zagreb, and you have much to make right.”
I turn and look out over the water. I don’t blame her. I don’t like her much, but I feel for her.
I also can’t help her.
“There are a lot of rumors,” she says, leaning closer. “That you had information from your mother. Maybe even the diary itself. A lot of people feel betrayed. For every person who talks about you as the daughter of Amerie Szabo, there’s one that calls you a traitor. But Ivan had unshakable faith in you. Enough to risk his life. And now Ivan is dead. So here I am. I’m going to help you.” There are actually tears in her eyes, but her jaw is like steel. “And you will prove that his faith, at least, wasn’t misplaced.”
I don’t know how to tell her that I can’t prove anything to anyone. That I’m only here because I don’t know how to go back to—or move forward with—my life like this. This isn’t about some Progeny agenda or righting some centuries-old wrong. It’s about staying alive.
She pushes away from the rail. “I’m going to get us some coffee.”
I watch her go to the snack bar inside. And for a moment, I really do wish I could be what she and Ivan hoped I was, once.
But that girl is gone.
* * *
The brightly colored buildings of Cres go right to the quay, their walls rising from the water to red-tiled roofs. Boats are docked everywhere. Rolan would have had no problem returning to Rijeka, or anywhere along the coast, in the middle of the night. Might even now be in Zagreb. In that regard, Luka was right.
Claudia has suggested the cabdriver spend a few hours wandering the outdoor market, taking breakfast at one of the seaside cafés. And he actually looks quite content as we drive off in his car.
Claudia takes us through the center of town past restaurants, produce and fish markets. And then we’re headed south toward the western ridge of the island as I navigate the map on her phone.
It rings as I’m peering at the screen. I glance at Claudia, who takes it from me. Her answer is abrupt.
“Yes. She’s fine,” she says. “We’ll call you soon. Good-bye.” She hangs up just as the voice on the other end demands to speak with me.
Luka. No doubt going out of his gourd. Which I feel bad about—unless, of course, he’s been lying to me.
“Well, that was rude.”
“Slovaks.”
I don’t say that I meant her.
“How well did you know Ivan?” I ask.
“Not as well as you,” she says, the reproach back in her voice. She adds, a beat later, “But enough to mourn for him.”
We pass sheep grazing by the roadside, a few men in woolen coats who look about as old as the stony soil itself. The road is more than winding; it is a labyrinth ascending higher and higher until the ocean has all but dropped away beneath us.
When we finally arrive at Lubenice, I am slightly queasy from the drive, but awed by the view. The sun has begun to burn off the haze and as I stand at the very edge of the ancient fort town, I think one could practically paraglide from here back to the mainland in an emergency.
A tiny whitewashed chapel stands near the edge of the settlement, which doesn’t even qualify as a town; only a few houses look like they’re actually in use. Everything seems to be made of the same white stone as the island itself, the rock that once supported an eastern gate having long since tumbled back down the hill. Shrubs grow in crannies in walls, grapevines and bougainvillea beautifully threatening to reduce anything still standing to rubble in coming years. A lone tree stands in the town center, which is nothing more than a cobbled courtyard between buildings.
“Now where?” I say, glancing at her.
Claudia sets her jaw and looks up, gaze lighting on an old woman setting a pillow to air in the window above us.
“Dobro jutro!” she calls up to the woman in a voice more cordial than I’ve ever heard from her.
The woman echoes her greeting. Claudia asks her a question, and the woman gestures with a rambling and increasingly agitated answer. After several minutes the older woman abruptly stops, wipes her eyes, and disappears.
“What just happened?” I say.
“She’s upset—she heard the news about Ivan this morning. She says he moved in earlier this month to the room above the wool museum back there.”
“Wool museum?”
“It’s open only during the summer. Ivan’s been renovating a wall on the edge of the cliff and made some repairs for the two old ladies living here. They liked him very much.”
I follow her between buildings toward the edge of the hill.
“She said two men were here last night,” Claudia says. “She heard them drive in and assumed one of them was Ivan, that he was up late drinking with a friend. Obviously, she has no idea we don’t drink.”
“We don’t?”
“It dulls the senses.”
“Which is why most people do it,” I say, droll.
“It dulls persuasion. And we can’t afford to be without our gifts,” she says pointedly. “The old woman said she went to check on Ivan this morning when he didn’t arrive for breakfast at her house. The latch was broken on his door.”
We come to the small building near the far gate. Claudia steps to the threshold, pauses to listen, and then swings the door wide.
What little furniture there is looks in order, samples of brightly colored wool crafts and some kids’ artwork hung neatly on the wall. I glance up at the open staircase and start toward it. Claudia catches me by the wrist, listens for a moment, and moves up the stairs ahead of me.
We emerge into a sparse apartment with a desk and a single rumpled cot. A dresser stands with its top drawer open, but nothing looks openly ransacked. I search the desk, find pens, a ferry schedule, a calendar with nothing written on it. In the dresser, nothing but a few pieces of clothing that look like they came from a secondhand shop. I rifle through pockets, feel along hems, check the linings. Finally I pull out the drawers, upend them
one by one before descending on the cot. Empty-handed, I turn out the small cabinet in the bathroom.
Sweat dampening my nape, I retrace my steps across the floor. None of the boards are loose. With a last look around me, I hurry down the stairs to flip over the rug, overturn a chair, even stick my fingers in a pair of green woolen slippers on the wall—all the while knowing that anything Ivan would have hidden has long since been found.
I can’t breathe; the air in the old building is stifling. I lurch out the front door into the unforgiving sun.
“Audra,” Claudia says, following me outside. A breeze blows up the hillside smelling faintly of sage as bees buzz around a patch of purple flowers near the gate.
“Ivan was smart. I didn’t know him, but I could tell. He would’ve known his memory was at risk . . . found a way—”
“Audra!”
“What?”
“You’re right. Which is why we aren’t looking for anything hidden, but for what seems to be missing.”
“How was he supposed to give me anything?” I demand. “It would have to be something or somewhere he himself couldn’t have known! How could he say he was going to tell me everything? How could he?”
“Audra.” She lays her hand on my arm. “Ivan was very good. Very experienced. He was nearing the end of his age.”
“What do you mean?” He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five.
She tilts her head. “The Utod lose their gifts in their thirties.”
I blink. “You mean they can no longer—”
“Yes. Don’t speak of it here.” She gestures toward the apartment. “Whatever Ivan had for you wasn’t taken from here as far as I can tell. Which means it’s waiting somewhere else.”
“How do we know whoever killed him hasn’t gotten to it first? They have his memory!”
“There are ways. Even with computers, though it’s risky. But Ivan was old-fashioned. Which is far safer when it comes to information, if not to those involved.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if we cannot find anything on our own, we must wait for it to find us.”
But I don’t know how long I can wait.
I had thought the crumbling buildings with their vines and shrubs growing out of every cranny hauntingly quaint when we arrived. Now they look as abandoned as Ivan’s apartment, as forgotten by the ages as the stones themselves.