Through the Ever Night (13 page)

“We should double the night watch,” Reef said.

Perry nodded. “Do it.” He looked across the hall. In two days, the Tides had seen a rogue Aether storm, an attempt on Aria’s life, and a rebellion. Was a raid next? He knew it would happen. Double the night guard or not, they were too vulnerable. It wouldn’t surprise him to see Wylan return to make a play for the compound.

The clearing felt too quiet and empty as Perry returned home. He was anxious to check on Aria. Was she well enough to go north? Reef’s words from last night echoed in his mind.
The Tides need you here
. How could he leave them now? How could he stay, when the answer to their safety might be out there?

He entered his house and found Gren and Twig yelling at each other in front of Vale’s bedroom. They quieted when they saw him.

“Per …,” Twig said, guilt flashing across his face. “We searched everywhere—”

Perry shoved past them, bursting into the room. He saw the bed. The rumpled blanket. He looked to the nightstand and didn’t see the falcon carving. Didn’t see Aria’s satchel. Didn’t see her.

“Roar’s gone too,” Twig said. He stood at the door with Gren, both of them watching him.

Cinder slipped between them, his hat dropping to the floor. “I saw them leave. They said to tell you they’d take care of Liv and the Still Blue.”

Perry stood, absorbing the truth, his ears roaring with the sound of rushing blood.

They had left without him, but he could track them. They’d only be hours ahead. If he ran, he’d catch up to them, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Reef shouldered his way inside. He looked around the room, cursing. “I’m sorry, Perry.”

Unexpected and sincere, the words snapped Perry out of his trance.

She was gone.

Pain edged in past the numbness. Perry pushed it back. Pushed with everything in him, until he’d buried it. Until he was back to numbness.

He walked to the door and picked up Cinder’s hat.

“You dropped this,” he said, handing it back.

Then he went outside and stepped into the clearing, heading nowhere.

H
ere. Have some water.”

Aria shook her head, pushing away the water skin. She took breath after breath through pursed lips until the urge to vomit passed. The grass rolled in waves before her eyes. She blinked until it stopped. She didn’t know how she could feel worse than just hours ago, but she did. With poison still flowing through her veins, her body rebelled against every step.

“It’ll be all right soon,” Roar said. “It’ll leave your system.”

“He’s going to hate me.”

“He won’t.”

Aria straightened, keeping her arm tight to her side. They stood on a hill that overlooked the Tide Valley. More than anything, she wanted to see Perry striding toward her.

That morning, she’d woken to the tribe’s shouts in the clearing. The Tides were splintering. People were leaving, yelling at Perry. Yelling obscenities about her. She’d stepped out of Vale’s room, panicked to get out of there quickly, before Perry lost everything. She’d found Roar with his satchel packed. Liv was at the Horns. He was leaving, too. It’d been easy to escape unnoticed. With dozens of people streaming out of the compound, she and Roar had simply crept the other way.

She wished she could’ve seen Perry before she’d gone, but she knew him. He wouldn’t have let her leave without him. That decision would’ve cost him the Tides. She couldn’t let that happen.

“We should keep going, Roar.” If they didn’t keep moving, she’d change her mind.

She walked in a daze through the afternoon, her legs shaking, her arm burning beneath its bandage.
This is for the best,
she told herself over and over.
Perry will understand
.

At night they found shelter under an oak tree, a steady rain creating a blanket of quiet noise around them. Roar offered her food, but she couldn’t eat. Neither could he, she noticed.

He moved next to her. “Let me check that.”

Aria bit her lip as he took the bandage off her arm. The skin at her bicep was swollen and red, crusted with dried blood and smeared with ink. It bore the ugliest Marking she’d ever seen.

“Who did it?” she asked, her voice shaking with anger.

“A man named Gray. He’s Unmarked. He’s always been envious of us.”

A face appeared in Aria’s mind. Gray was the stocky man she’d seen in the woods during the Aether storm when she’d found River. “A Mole was getting Markings and he couldn’t bear it,” Aria said. “He couldn’t let that happen.”

Roar rubbed the back of his neck, nodding. “Yeah. I guess that’s about it.”

Aria touched the scabbed skin on her arm. “A half Marking for a half Outsider.” She’d meant to make light of it, but her voice wobbled.

Roar watched her in silence for a moment. “It’ll heal, Aria. We can have it finished.”

She pulled her sleeve down. “No … I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be Marked.”

She had no idea where she belonged. Out here? In Reverie? Hess had banished her in the fall, and now he was using her. The Tides had tried to kill her yesterday. She didn’t fit anywhere.

She scooted closer to the fire and lay down, pulling her blanket around her shoulders. She’d been cold all day, racked with chills. Time would help, she told herself. The poison would work itself out of her blood, and her skin would heal. She needed to focus on her goal now. She had to get north and find the Still Blue. For Perry and Talon. For herself.

As tired as she was, she couldn’t stop thinking of the way Perry had felt against her that morning, warm and safe. Was he sleeping on the roof tonight? Was he thinking about her? After an hour, she sat up, giving up on sleep. Though Roar’s eyes were closed, she could tell he wasn’t asleep either. His expression was too strained.

“Roar, what is it?”

He looked over, blinking tiredly at her. “He’s a brother to me … and I know how he’s feeling right now.”

Aria gasped as it struck her: by running away with no explanation, she’d done exactly to Perry what Liv had done to Roar. “It’s different … isn’t it? Perry will know I left to protect him—won’t he? You saw how many people left the Tides because of me. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been there in the first place. I
had
to leave.”

Roar nodded. “It’s still going to hurt.”

Aria pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, keeping back the tears. Roar was right. When it came to pain, reasons didn’t matter. She took her hands away. “I did the right thing.” She wished she could convince herself.

“You did,” Roar agreed. “Perry needs to be there. He can’t leave now. The Tides can’t afford it.” He sighed, resting his head on his arm. “And you’re safer out here with me. I can’t watch you come that close to dying again.”

The rain had stopped when Roar woke her at dawn for another day of walking. They’d had a reprieve from the Aether after the storm, but now she saw thick streams of it running behind a scrim of gray clouds. The blue light filtering down gave the day an underwater quality.

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Roar said, looking up beside her. They were traveling in the open. If another storm built, they’d need to find shelter in a hurry.

Apart from the soreness in her arm, Aria had recovered. They’d leave Perry’s territory behind soon, and she needed to be alert to danger. Every step took her closer to the city of Rim. To what she needed.

Late in the afternoon, she stood at the lip of a valley and looked south to the rolling hills stretching to the horizon. Last fall, she’d camped with Perry somewhere out there. She’d worn book covers for shoes. She’d lost her best friend. And she hadn’t known it yet, but she had lost her mother, too.

Aria reached into her satchel and found the falcon figurine. She’d grabbed it as she left Perry’s house, needing something real to remind her of him.

“I was there when he made that,” Roar said. He sat against a tree, watching her with bloodshot eyes.

“You were?”

Roar nodded. “Talon and Liv were there too. We were starting a collection for Talon, each of us making a different one for him. Liv nicked her finger barely five minutes in.” He smiled faintly, lost in the memory. “She’s a brute with the knife. No finesse at all. She and I quit after a few minutes, but Perry kept at it for Talon.”

Aria ran her thumb over the smooth surface. Every one of them, at one time, had held the falcon resting in her palm. Would they ever be together—all of them?

She spent the next hour adjusting to the sounds of the woods, staring at the figurine in her hand, taking the first watch as Roar drifted asleep. There were wolves out here. Bands of drifters and cannibals. She picked out the patterns in the wind and the rustle of animals, listening until she was sure they were safe. Then she put the falcon away and found her Smarteye.

Three days had passed since she’d contacted Hess on the beach. She glanced at Roar, asleep, and then applied the device. The Eye attached as the biotech activated, and her Smartscreen popped up.

She chose the Hess icon and then felt the familiar tug of fractioning, that moment when her mind adjusted to being here
and
here. She’d appeared at a café in a Venetian Realm. Gondolas glided along the Grand Canal just steps away, roses floating in the sparkling, clear water. It was a beautiful, sunny day, golden and warm. Somewhere, a string quartet played, the notes thin and brittle.

Hess appeared across the small table. He had modified his clothing this time, wearing an ivory-colored suit with light blue pinstripes and a red tie. He’d given himself a tan, but the effect was odd. He looked strangely older—or, rather, closer to his true age of well over a hundred—and his skin was orange. So unlike Perry’s bronze skin.

Hess frowned at her clothes. Before she could utter a word, she felt a jolt, like her entire body had blinked. She looked down. A royal-blue silk dress clung to her like a second skin.

Hess smiled. “That’s better.”

Her heart started drumming with anger. “Much,” she said.

A waiter arrived with a tray of coffees. Dark-eyed and handsome, he could have been Roar’s brother. He smiled as he set the drinks on the table. A warm breeze blew past, carrying the spicy scent of cologne and shifting Aria’s hair on her bare back. It was all so normal and safe and charming. A year ago, Paisley would’ve been kicking her under the table over the waiter’s smile. Caleb would have looked up from his sketchbook and rolled his eyes. She was suddenly furious at how
difficult
life was now.

Hess sipped his coffee. “Are you well, Aria?”

Did he know she’d been poisoned? Could he tell through the Eye? Through her body chemistry? “I’m terrific,” she said. “How are you?”

“Terrific,” he said, matching her sarcasm. “You’re on your way now. Are you traveling alone?”

“What do you care?”

Hess’s eyes narrowed on her. “We detected a storm near you.”

Aria smirked. “I detected it too.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you really can’t. I need to know if something’s happening in Reverie, Hess. Were you hit by the storm? Has there been any damage?”

He blinked at her. “You’re a smart girl. What do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. I need to
know
. I need proof that Talon is all right. I want to see my friends. And I want to know what you’re going to do when I give you the location of the Still Blue. Are you moving the entire Pod? How will you do that?” Aria leaned across the table. “I know what
I’m
doing, but what about
you
? What about everything
else
?”

Hess tapped his fingers on the marble tabletop. “You’re quite fascinating now. Life among the Savages suits you.”

Suddenly the Realm plunged into silence. Aria looked to the canal. The gondola had frozen on water that was as still as glass. A flock of pigeons hung in the air above, caught in mid-flight. People looked around them, panic on their faces; then the Realm snapped back, sound and movement returning.

“What
was
that?” she demanded. “Answer me, or we’re done.”

Hess took another sip of coffee and watched the traffic in the Grand Canal like nothing had just happened. “Do you think you can fraction if I don’t want you to?” He looked back at her. “We’re done when I say so.”

Aria grabbed her coffee and flung it at him. The dark liquid splattered over his face and his pale suit. Hess jerked back, gasping, even though it hadn’t hurt him. Nothing in the Realms could inflict true pain. The most he would feel was warmth, but she’d surprised him. She had his attention now.

“Still want me to stay?” she asked.

He disappeared before she’d finished speaking, leaving her to stare at an empty chair. Though she knew it would be pointless, she tried to shut off the Eye. She was ready to be back—completely—in the real.

UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND
flashed on her Smartscreen.

Now what? The waiter peered through the café window, interest sparking in his eyes. Aria turned away, looking toward the canal. A couple embraced at the top of the ornate cement bridge, watching the water traffic below. She tried to imagine that she was the one pressed against the rail. That it was Perry brushing her hair aside and whispering in her ear. Perry had hated the Realms. She couldn’t form the picture in her mind.