Into the Still Blue (29 page)

“Did you really sneak into the compound once wearing only seaweed?” she asked.

“Had to.” He dropped the wood onto a growing pile. “Liv swiped my clothes. It was either seaweed or nothing, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of strutting into the compound completely bare.” He smiled. “For days afterward I woke up to seaweed hanging on my front door.”

Aria laughed. “The Tides wanted an encore?”

Perry knelt and began stacking the wood. “Never found out. . . . It was probably Liv again. She was like that. She could never let something go.”

Aria couldn’t see his face, but she knew from the tone in his voice that he wasn’t smiling anymore. While it hurt to see him suffer, it felt better than seeing him retreat behind walls. Liv was gone, but he was letting her back into his life in a new way.

“I wish I’d known her better, Perry,” she said, adding her wood to the pile.

“If you spent an hour with her, then you knew Liv. My sister was . . . she was . . .”

He trailed off, so she finished for him. “Like you.”

“I was going to say willful and hardheaded.” He smiled. “So, yeah . . . like me.” He took a piece of flint and a dagger from the sheath at his belt. “How’s your arm?”

“Surprisingly good,” she said, sitting on the sand.

“I knew you’d be fine. What’ll really be surprising is if I can get this lit.” He turned his back to the wind, bending over his hands. He had sparks flinging into the tinder within seconds. She watched him blow the flames to life, consumed by him. He was as wild as the fire. As vital as the ocean. His own element.

He peered up as the fire took and smiled. “Impressed?”

She wanted to say something quick-witted, but she said the simple truth. “Yes.”

“Me too,” he said, putting the blade away.

They sat, growing quiet as they let the fire warm them. Since they’d reached the magic cove, they hadn’t spoken about Hovers, or about Sable or the Still Blue. It was almost like being free. She realized the last time she’d been this relaxed, this happy, had also been with him.

Perry shifted beside her, sitting forward and draping his arms over his knees. The bruises on his forearms were fading, and his hair was drying in spirals.

She’d only meant to glance at him, but the lines that made him—the muscles along his arms and shoulders, the angle of his jaw and the crook in his nose—were lines that mesmerized her.

He glanced over. Then he moved to her side and put his arm around her. “Are you trying to kill me with that look?” he whispered by her ear.

“I was trying to get you over here—and it worked.”

He brushed a kiss over her lips and then took her hand. “You know how Roar calls you Halfy and Ladybug?”

She nodded. Roar was always coming up with pet names for her.

“I want to call you something too. Something special. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

As he spoke, Perry absently pressed his hands around hers, wrapping them in a cocoon of warmth. He ran so hot. The chill melted out of her fingers in seconds.

This was
them
, Everything that passed between them felt easy and right.

“You have?” She’d always loved that he called her Aria. She had plenty of nicknames. Her mother had called her Songbird. Roar called her just about everything else. Perry— after the initial period of
Mole
and
Dweller
when they’d first come together—had taken to calling her, simply, Aria.

It wasn’t simple, though. Spoken in his unhurried, golden voice, the sound of her name became something beautiful. It became what it was. A song. But a nickname was what he wanted, so she said, “What have you come up with?”

“None of the usual things are good enough for you. So I started thinking about what you mean to me. How even the smallest things remind me of you. Last week, Talon was showing me his bait collection. He keeps this jar of night crawlers, and I wondered what you’d think of it. If you’d find them disgusting, or if you wouldn’t mind them.”

She smiled, seeing an opportunity she couldn’t resist. “Night crawlers, as in earthworms? You want to call me Earthworm?”

His laugh was a burst of surprise.
“No.”

“I could get used to . . . Earth . . . worm.”

He shook his head at the sky. “I never say the right things to you, do I?”

“I don’t know. I think I might like Night Crawler even better. It almost sounds dangerous—”

He moved suddenly. In an instant she was on her back in the sand, pinned beneath him. She was reminded of his strength—and just how careful he usually was with her.

“Now you’re making me desperate,” he said, his eyes moving over her face slowly.

He didn’t look desperate. He looked focused. Like he knew exactly what he wanted. Her hands were splayed on his chest. Was he trembling or was she?

“Tell me what to say. What can I say to make you want me the way I want you?”

The words sent a thrill up her spine, making her shiver. She smiled. “That worked.” She pulled him down and kissed him, needing his warmth. Needing his mouth and his skin and his taste. Her fingers found the hem of his shirt. She pulled it over his head and found him smiling, his hair ruffled.

He leaned down, bracing his arms on either side of her, his lips soft as they kissed a trail from her mouth to her ear. “What I was trying to say,” he whispered, “is that I see you in everything. There isn’t a word for you that means enough, because you’re everything to me.”

“Perfect words,” she said, her smile wobbling with emotion. “Magical.”

He looked into her eyes, flashing a proud grin. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

His mouth found hers again, his kisses hungry, his weight settling onto her. She wove her fingers into his damp curls, and she was gone. Swept away. Nothing else existed beyond his body and hers, moving like strength and surrender, folded into one.

Cinder and Talon still slept soundly when they returned to Perry’s tent, but Flea was gone.

“Willow,” she said.

Perry smiled. “He stayed longer than I thought he would.”

After they changed into dry clothes, Aria curled against him, comfortable and warm.

She listened to his heartbeat grow steadier and slower, but she couldn’t fall asleep. They had escaped their problems for a few hours, but now reality settled over her again, burying her with worries of this shelter, with its dwindling supplies and combustible politics. The world outside, with its fires and storms. No matter how much she tried to push them away, the problems wouldn’t leave her alone.

“I think you might like this piece of metal more than I do,” Perry said.

“Sorry.” She realized she’d been toying with the Blood Lord chain at his neck. “I didn’t mean to keep you awake.”

“You didn’t. I can’t sleep either. We should try talking. . . . We’re getting so good at it.”

She gave his ribs a gentle nudge for his sarcasm, but accepted the suggestion. “We need to figure out our next move, Perry. We’re stuck here. The only way that’s going to change is if . . .”

“Is if . . . ?”

“We go back to Sable. He has the Hovers we need.” She instantly wanted to take the words back. The thought of going back to Sable couldn’t have repelled her more, but what other choice was there? If they didn’t try something, they were no better than Caleb and Rune, resigned to waiting out their last days.

“You’re right about the Hovers,” Perry said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. But we won’t have to chase Sable. He’ll come to us. I was going to tell you that earlier.”

A chill rippled down her back. “Why do you think so?”

“Cinder.” After a pause, he added, “And it’s what I’d do.”

“Don’t say that, Perry. You’re nothing like him.”

“He told me I was, in the Komodo.”

“You’re
not
.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he kissed the top of her head. “Try to sleep. Tomorrow’s coming, whether we worry about it or not.”

She dreamed of a fleet of Hovers, perched along the bluff and crowded along the cove’s beach, their iridescent exteriors catching the light of the Aether. And of Sable, a dark figure against the pale sand and the foaming waves, only the jewels at his neck sparkling.

In the morning, that was exactly what she saw.

36

H
e wants to talk to you alone, Peregrine,” Reef said. “No weapons. No one else. He said he’d clear the cove or meet you on neutral footing of your choice. There’s one other thing. He wanted me to tell you that he gave his people orders to storm the cave if you kill him.”

Perry rubbed the back of his neck and found it damp with sweat. The Tides stood around him in the central cavern, murmurs of agitation rising from them.

Perry had expected Sable to come, but he wasn’t sure if he was capable of negotiating with the Horns’ Blood Lord. The last time they’d been together, he had sworn to rip Sable apart with his bare hands. He wanted that more than ever, but he was cornered. He had no other options.

“I’ll go,” he said.

Everyone spoke at once.

The Six, cursing loudly and protesting.

Cinder, yelling, “You can’t go!”

Roar, stepping forward. “Let me go with you.”

Perry’s eyes went to Aria, quiet amid the chaos. Marron stood beside her. They watched him with worry in their eyes. They understood. Talking with Sable was his only move.

Less than ten minutes later, he walked outside, weaponless as requested.

Sable stood by the water, his stance relaxed as he waited. His territory was in the mountains—jagged peaks, topped year-round with snow—but he looked comfortable with his shoes sinking into wet sand.

As Perry neared, Sable lifted his eyebrows, amusement flashing over his face. “You know, I did say alone.”

Perry followed his gaze. Flea padded silently over the sand a few steps behind him. Perry shook his head, but it actually heartened him to see the dog.

Sable smiled. “You’re looking well. Almost healed. Wearing your chain proudly in spite of everything.”

Every one of his words carried a darker meaning. A hidden jab. It reminded Perry of his brother. Vale had spoken this way too.

“What’s going through your mind right now, Peregrine? Is it the way you’d like to beat me as I did you?”

“It would be a start.”

“We should have taken a different path, you and I. If you’d come to Rim with Olivia, as Vale and I had planned, it could have changed everything between us.”

The look on Sable’s face was so rapt, so absorbed, it made Perry’s stomach turn. “Get on with it, Sable. You’re here to offer us passage?”

Sable crossed his arms, turning to the water. “It had occurred to me.” Beneath the vibrant red and blue of the sky, the water looked gray, the waves like hammered steel. “Striking a deal would be easier than me having to force my way into that den of yours to get what I need. I hope we can find a way to compromise. The only way we survive is together, which you realize or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I have four hundred thirty people,” Perry said. “If you can’t accommodate all of them, then I have nothing more to say to you.”

“I can. I have room for all of them on the fleet.”

Perry knew why Sable had space on the Hovers—but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “What happened to the Dwellers from the Komodo?”

“You were there,” Sable answered without looking away from the ocean.

“I want to hear you say it.”

Sable’s temper heated at Perry’s tone, and a low growl rumbled from Flea.

“Quite a few were lost during the insurrection. More than half, in fact. Hess’s fault, not mine. I was trying to avoid bloodshed. Of those who survived, I kept the useful ones. Pilots. Doctors. A few engineers.”

He had kept them and killed the rest. Fury washed over Perry, though he wasn’t surprised.

“How many weren’t useful?” he asked. He didn’t know why he needed a number. Maybe it was the only way to grasp the loss. To connect with people who’d died senselessly. Maybe he wanted to quantify Sable’s ruthlessness. Futile, Perry knew. He could drop a stone into the black well of Sable’s heart and never hear it hit the bottom.

“I don’t see how it makes any difference, Perry. They were just Dwellers. Ahh . . . wait. I see now. Aria. She’s made you sympathetic to the Moles, hasn’t she? Of course she has. Amazing. Three hundred years of segregation undone by a single girl. She must be as incredible as she looks.”