She backtracked, finding the signs now useful to getting where she wanted to go, through the corridors to the hospital room. Jo kept her eyes open for the nurse she had assumed to be behind the wish. But wherever the woman was, her business had taken her far from Mr. Keller’s room.
Jo slipped through the open door, startled by a man in scrubs leaning against the wall. Even in spite of the mint green, bland hospital uniform, he moved like water—fluid, barely contained by the plebeian garb. Eslar looked to her, saying nothing.
She merely nodded.
He did the same, pulling out his watch. He activated it with a brush of his finger, the runes flaring magically underneath the pad of his thumb. He looked no different to her, but the way he moved was different. His actions suddenly seemed weighted with a gravity they didn’t previously possess.
Eslar, like her, wasted no time. He leaned forward and laid his hands on the prone man in the hospital bed. For a long moment, nothing happened, and Jo wondered if she was watching with such rapt attention for no reason. But slowly, Eslar’s hands changed.
Vine-like tendrils working their way up under his flesh, shimmering with raw magic, the elf’s usually russet skin changed to a brilliant viridian hue. It seeped up his forearms, highlighting the tendons of his long fingers and creeping toward his elbows. Jo couldn’t contain a gasp, but if Eslar heard her, he made no motion.
The elf’s eyes glowed with their own soft, emerald light, gaze intent as he stared down at the ward he was pouring so much effort into curing. There was an aura about him, one of wonder, of birth, of infinite possibility Jo barely understood. Like a firefly, the magic burned brightly with purpose, and then extinguished.
Mr. Keller’s eyes fluttered open. “Who. . .”
Eslar said nothing, quickly disappearing on the other side of the curtain. From Jo’s vantage, she could see him pressing the nurse call button. Everything after that happened like the events of a movie on a distant sliver screen, Jo standing trapped behind the veil of the fourth wall.
The same nurse she’d seen before returned to the room. The woman had a confused, elated, ecstatic exchange with Mr. Keller. Vitals were checked, and the words “full recovery” were used. Other nurses rushed in to check the work; a commotion was building, muffled and distant from Jo’s vantage just outside of reality.
“We should go.” Eslar’s voice was loud compared to the rest of the room.
“We should,” Jo agreed. “Go home.”
“Do you truly think of it as home, now?” Eslar asked, with genuine curiosity in his voice.
“I do,” she admitted, looking up at the elf. He was still wearing scrubs, clothing that would no doubt melt back into his normal garb the moment they re-entered the mansion. Green still glittered under his flesh, up to the sleeves of his shirt, and protruded like veins above his collar. He still had that lingering glow to his eyes.
There was nothing about him that was human.
But he was part of her family—her magic family.
“Then let us go, Jo.”
They departed together, hacker and healer, human and elf, walking against the commotion of the room and the steadily growing crowd, back to a nondescript supply closet. Eslar held out a hand and a familiar door appeared, the code to which Jo knew magically with only a glance.
The door opened, and the familiar smell of the briefing room greeted them.
Chapter 29
Clean Slate
“DON’T YOU HAVE something better to do than wait for people to return?” Jo deadpanned.
Snow had been waiting in his chair upon their arrival, staring at the Door with the look of a father about to scold his children. But Jo wasn’t about to take a reprimanding quietly, not when she’d just done good work.
Before she could open her mouth, however, Eslar stepped in.
“Your parameters are set, Snow,” he said, matter-of-fact. “The wish is yours to grant.”
The diversion didn’t work; Snow simply got to his feet and stared them both down. “When I barred you from this wish,” he said to Jo, before turning his attention to Eslar, “that was an order, not a suggestion.”
“Jo’s skills were paramount to the success of this mission. Without her, the Severity of Exchange had no hope of getting even close to the necessary parameters, and you know it.” For the first time, Jo witnessed Eslar’s calm demeanor shift, not so much like a fracture but like the distant tremors that forewarned of a much larger earthquake.
Unlike the last time someone had attempted—rather poorly—to stick up for her in this briefing room, Jo found herself floored by the determination Eslar suddenly showed. Even Snow seemed mildly affronted, not quite sure how to handle having his supposed right-hand man take any side other than his own.
“She was not ready and had already cost us a widening of the Exchange,” Snow tried. When he crossed his arms over his chest, Jo couldn’t help but notice that his hands were clenched into tight fists. “Your recklessness could have cost us further widening if she was unsuccessful and—”
“But she wasn’t. And it didn’t,” Eslar cut him off.
Jo sighed, mumbling more to herself this time than to anyone present. “I’m right here, guys.”
“You are blindly diving into wishes with an inexperienced member who has already proven to be reckless. You had no idea how she would react or what she might do.”
“I know where this is coming from.” That statement from Eslar piqued Jo’s interest. His voice had gone soft, almost sorrowful, and his whole demeanor changed.
“Don’t,” Snow cautioned.
“I was there, then. I know that she—”
“Enough!” Snow silenced the elf with a glare. Eslar just huffed, hardly bemused.
As much as Jo wanted to see where that line of discussion was headed, she didn’t think riling up Snow further was a smart idea. She took it upon herself to step in before either could regain their footing in the confrontation.
“Look,” Jo sighed, the sound of her voice in the silence actually managing to startle the two men. She would have found it funny if not for the stress headache currently forming between her eyes. “Snow, I know I messed up, and I’m sorry. But you can’t reprimand me and then give me no chances for redemption. And I’m sorry if trying to make things right looks like ‘going rogue’ to you.”
Jo ran a hand over her face, the sense memory of a thumb wiping tears away from her cheekbone entering her mind unbidden. Why couldn’t she shake that memory? It was the first scrap of comfort she’d felt in her new world, certainly. But that didn’t permit it to creep forward at every possible opportunity.
“I wanted to fix it, and I didn’t have much to go off of, so I made my own way. It’s what I’ve always done and, frankly, what I’ll continue to do. I may not be familiar with all the logistics here—and on that note, I do recommend some actual training for new recruits. But I knew that I could help fix my errors. Eslar agreed, and we managed to get the job done.
“But even if you think it was nothing more than recklessness, at the very least, tell me you believe me when I say that I only have the best interests of the team in mind?”
Another lengthy pause followed, this one a bit more nerve-wracking than the first. While Snow’s gaze on her seemed tense and unsure, Eslar’s seemed almost proud. And that had to count for something.
“Eslar,” Snow finally spoke, his first word in what felt like hours. Despite his insubordination, Jo couldn’t help but notice the way the elf reluctantly straightened beneath the demanding tone. When Snow spoke again, however, his tone was softer, less of a demand and more of a request. “Will you excuse Jo and me?”
For a split second, Jo wanted to look to Eslar in a panic, beg him to stay, but something in Snow’s eyes seemed more docile than before. And damn it all if Jo wasn’t a slave to curiosity. Not to mention, if it was just the two of them, maybe she could finally get herself some answers.
Eslar nodded, once to Snow and once to Jo in turn
, before leaving the briefing room.
“I apologize for not making things better understood to begin with. And for making you doubt that I believe you operate with the best interests of our group,” Snow started the moment the door closed behind Eslar.
“You know—” a small smile pulled at the corners of her lips, “—your moods can really give a girl whiplash.”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“Hot and cold, distant and close.” Jo hadn’t intended to be intimidating, but Snow’s expression told her that she was succeeding in it anyway. People had always said she could channel her mother. For a Hispanic woman of 5’1” with a heart-shaped face and warm smile, Jo’s mother could be downright terrifying when she had la chancla in hand. “Level with me, since it’s just us here: who are you? The guy who takes care to explain the situation and wipe the tears from my face, or the guy who won’t even give me the time of day to redeem myself?”
The man seemed at a loss for words, unsure how to properly handle the bed he’d made for himself. An odd expression crept into his face that Jo couldn’t quite identify. Annoyance? Anger? Confusion? In many ways, it seemed like a million expressions all at once, and somehow, Jo could tell that few, if any, were directed at her. At least, not at the moment.
“Snow. . .” Just his name pulled tension from her shoulders; Jo felt her stance relax a little. When frustration and anger weren’t getting the better of her, the man was a soothing presence to be around. So soothing, that Jo didn’t stop herself from reaching out. Her hand hovered, mid-air, as she realized all too late that she’d been about to touch him. But, as if compelled by gravity itself, her fingertips met his sleeved forearm. “You at least get why I’ve been kind of upset—or, well, at least confused. . . right?”
This time, when Snow pulled his eyes from her fingers on his sleeve to her eyes, it was in a shock very obviously marred by undeniable hurt. In fact, if Jo had to define it, in that first second before Snow managed to school his features back into place, she would have said he looked almost pleading. Maybe even a little bit desperate.
“I understand,” he said finally. “I never meant to. It was simply that you—” He frowned before resuming his neutral expression once more. A new emotion flitted through the cloudy steel of his gaze. A beat, another, and then, “I apologize.”
There was a genuineness there, somewhere beneath the awkward strain, and Jo almost laughed.
“I’ll accept your apology, if you accept mine.” She dared a playful grin. “You know why I had to, right?”
“I do.” Two words and Jo’s heart began beating once more, released from the tension that had held it locked between her ribs. Relief bled into the worry that had filled Snow’s eyes, mixing to look something like hope. “And the apology is more than accepted.”
“Then, we’re good, you and I?” she ventured to ask. “Everything in the past, clean slate?”
Snow seemed at a loss for what to do next, completely thrown in a way that Jo couldn’t deny was absolutely adorable. “I think we are.” With his other hand, he reached up, clasping his fingers around hers in an awkward—but entirely welcome—hand hold.
His palm had that same warmth she remembered on her cheek, and an enviable softness. Their fingers lingered, wrapped around each other, as if neither wanted to be the first to pull away. When the contact was eventually broken, a pall of mutual embarrassment seemed to hang over them.
It looked like there were three Snows to worry about now: the gentleman, the asshole, and the man-shaped ball of awkwardness.
“Well, then,” Jo started, taking a step away. It was as if she suddenly couldn’t trust herself around him. She had no idea what she’d do if he stayed in such close proximity. “I’m glad we could clear the air.”
Snow merely nodded.
Even though their hands felt like they’d parted a millennia ago, he still held her there without touch. “I should go. . .” Jo whispered. “Let you finish up this wish.”
Another nod. Jo searched his guarded eyes. Say it, she wanted to scream, though she had no idea what “it” was.
Jo side-stepped around him, starting for the double doors that led back into the manor.
“Wait.”
Her feet had stopped before Snow had even opened his mouth.
“Will you come with me a moment?” Jo turned, but Snow didn’t look at her when he spoke. “I want to show you something.”
“What is it?” she asked, ignoring the new weight that was suddenly placed on her with those words.
Snow motioned to the Door and Jo walked over, as if in a heart-stuttering trance. “Trust me,” he whispered, when she was just barely close enough to hear.
I have all along, was what her heart said. Her lips formed different words. “All right, lead the way.”
Chapter 30
Obsidian Circle
IT SEEMED THAT, with Snow, there was always another moment to feel like she was on the set of a movie.
Jo stepped through the Door into the crumbling husk of a great structure made of obsidian and stone. Twilight streamed through the collapsed holes in the rooftop opposite where she stood. A billowing mist accompanied the low-light, shrouding the room and blurring the details at the edges. Vines stretched out leafy arms toward the moisture, collecting the dew before rolling it down onto the carpet of moss below.
She turned in place, looking to see Snow closing the Door, and could not contain a gasp. The circular room had no exits, so the industrial portal floated a finger’s width off the ground and in mid-air, connected to no other walls—as though it could not touch anything. The moment the Door was closed, it faded from view.
Jo reached out, holding her hand, expecting the Door to be there, merely invisible. But there was nothing. There was no collection of magic, no firming up of the essence of the Door at her will.
“It won’t work for you,” Snow said softly, as if trying not to startle her. The sudden sound breaking the silence startled her anyway, though, and Jo swiveled. “Not here.”
“This place. . .” Jo struggled to form complete sentences. She’d thought she’d understood magic, felt magic, but everything paled in comparison to the atmosphere here. Like the low hum of a speaker, the world seemed to buzz with an energy that rattled Jo to her core. The Door was gone now. It usually disappeared, but this time it left only the skeleton of a window beyond where it had been. There was nothing but fog to be seen through its panes—so dense that it gave birth to a waking fear of what it might obscure. “What is it?”
“It’s the room where I died.”
“What?” Her heart was in her throat at the mere mention of Snow’s death. Whatever weird things he made her insides do aside, he was still their leader and—as far as Jo could tell—a very important glue holding the Society together.
“It was here that the Society of Wishes was born.”
“Do you even know how to speak in a way that isn’t cryptic?” Jo tried to laugh, but like a spark to wet tinder, the sound didn’t catch. It was as hollow as the crumbling, circular room in which they stood.
Circular.
Jo took the room in once more—the vaulted ceiling, collapsed in over a quarter of the room, single tiles of obsidian glittering on the floor. Three windows were obscured by fog, glass hanging onto them like snaggle-teeth. She walked forward, toward the center.
There, at the center of the room, was a line—so thin it almost blended in with the cracks of the stone. The obsidian circle hid behind the shards of roof tile (what civilization in history used obsidian for roof tiles anyway?) and the patch of moss. She already knew what she would find but, using the toe of her shoe, Jo cleared away the debris and greenery to confirm that the circle of inlaid, shining, black stone was complete.
“A circle.” Jo looked back to the man with questioning eyes. A man who, despite his modern attire, looked like he truly fit in more here than he ever had at the Society.
“The very first.”
“What happen
ed here?” She had so many questions, but they were sluggish to roll off her tongue. In some odd, impossible way, the place seemed almost. . . familiar?
“What happened here is no longer relevant. It’s what happens here now that’s important.” Snow started for the center of the room himself, but Jo did not stand and wait for him to meet her.
She spurred her feet to motion, meeting him at the edge of the black circle. Her hands reached up, clutching the opening of his shirt. He was taller than her, likely physically stronger, and quite obviously magically superior. But Jo held on anyway. She held fast like her life depended on it.
“Don’t say that!” She gave him a small shake. “Don’t say that,” she said, softer. “What happened is relevant. What happened in the past is all we have now. We don’t exist anymore, right? So, the only things that really make us are our memories and our magic.”
Snow seemed startled, unsure even. He stared down at her with those steely eyes that suddenly felt as though they were seeing a new corner of her very essence. A place Jo hadn’t even known existed before that moment.
She swallowed hard, but she didn’t back down.
“You don’t have to tell me the details of it. . . Not now, not ever, not if you don’t want to.” Jo eased back onto her heels, not remembering when she’d risen to her toes. “But don’t act like it’s not important.”
She felt the muscles of his chest tense under her knuckles. Snow’s hands rose, no doubt about to push her away. Jo uncurled her fingers. She had at least a little bit of dignity; she wasn’t going to force herself on someone who very clearly did not want her touch.
His hands closed around hers, holding her there. With the wrapping of those long, elegant fingers, it felt as if he’d woven a spell across her whole body. Jo swallowed hard.
Would her heart ever catch a break around this man?
“Very well,” Snow whispered. “I will, so do not despair.”