Altered

by Gennifer Albin

  He doesn’t finish the thought and I lift my head to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

  “I was reading it,” he admits.

  “What did you think?” I ask, pulling the book of sonnets closer. I trace the gold-foil Shakespeare on the cover.

  “I comprehend about half of it,” he says honestly. “But it’s beautiful.”

  “I’ll never understand why people in Arras don’t write anymore,” I murmur.

  “You don’t?” Erik asks. “It’s easy enough to understand.”

  “Do tell,” I challenge him.

  “Why aren’t there films anymore? Beyond Stream-approved programming. Why only the Bulletin and fashion catalogues?”

  I pause and consider this. The insipid forms of art we are permitted in Arras are empty. They lack depth. There is a certain artistry to the design of clothes, the application of makeup, the structure and decor of a building, but it lacks meaning.

  “Words,” Erik says.

  Of course he’s right. The books in my parents’ cubby. I’d boasted of reading them, but I never considered why they were contraband. Words can tell a story. But they can also convey an idea.

  “Words are dangerous,” I say.

  Erik nods.

  “But they’re also beautiful,” I say, holding the book out to him. “You said so yourself. How can the Guild turn their backs on poetry?”

  “They’ve turned their backs on more than that,” Erik says.

  I know he’s right, but the realization makes me hate the Guild a little bit more.

  Erik drops down beside me and grabs the book. He leafs through it and stops on a particular page. “This is my favorite.”

  “Which one?”

  “116.”

  I shake my head. I hardly have them memorized. “Read it to me.”

  A strange look passes over Erik’s face, but he clears his throat. I don’t understand why until he begins to read.

  “‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.’” He pauses and dares a look at me.

  “Do you like it because it mentions alteration?” I tease, but secretly I hope my cheeks aren’t burning.

  “It seems very applicable to our current situation,” he says.

  “Continue,” I urge him.

  He reads the rest of the sonnet, stumbling a bit as he goes, and yet it slides smoothly off his tongue. The words curl around me, and lull me. When he finishes, the final line hangs in the air between us.

  “Why is it your favorite?” I ask.

  “Because it’s true,” he murmurs. “That’s why Dante took your mother. It’s why your father died for you.”

  “Careful, Erik,” I warn him. “You’re in danger of becoming downright sensitive.”

  He smiles but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. “Wouldn’t want that.”

  And once again I’ve disarmed the moment, cracked a joke to avoid real conversation. We slip into our familiar banter, abandoning the book and talking late into the night about plans and futures and strategies, but never about us.

  Never us.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  AT DAWN, ARTIFICIAL LIGHT STREAKS THROUGH THE room; it highlights Erik’s face, showing off the curves of his nose, the angle of his cheekbones. He’s stunning in his sleep, but soon his eyes flutter, and I turn away, not wanting to be caught staring.

  “You look lovely,” he murmurs dreamily.

  I’m caught off guard. My heart is beating so fast that it aches in my chest as I lie next to him, close enough to touch him, but not daring to. I like that he said it and it’s this realization that pushes me up on my side to face him. I stretch my fingers out, searching for the courage to reach across the space between us. Erik catches them and brings my fingertips to his lips. He kisses each softly, and tingles fall down my neck.

  “I’m sorry for what she did,” he says, keeping my fingers clasped loosely.

  “You couldn’t have stopped her,” I whisper, allowing myself to trace his jawline.

  “I should have tried. Your hands are beautiful.”

  “Not anymore,” I say.

  “They’re more beautiful now. Flaws make them perfect.”

  He lets my hand fall away as I swallow against the words sitting in my throat. The things I want to say to him—and then the door swings open. The one I left unlocked last night because I hadn’t planned to stay here.

  “Erik, have you seen Ad?”

  I’m still sleepy enough that it takes a second for everything to fall into place. Jost is back, looking tired and road weary, and he has found me on Erik’s bed. I don’t have to think hard to know what this looks like.

  “Never mind,” Jost says, stumbling back outside.

  I’m off the bed before Erik can respond and I dash into the hall and down the stairs. A breeze brushes past me and I notice that one of the doors to the garden is propped open. I take my chances and walk into the still morning, taking in the destruction wrought the previous day. Jost stands surveying the scene, with his back to me, and overhead the Interface flashes as though Arras is peering judgmentally down.

  “Jost, wait!” I call, but he strides away.

  “Hey,” I snap, when I do catch up. I grab him by his arm. As soon as his eyes meet mine, my angry rebukes and excuses seem like too little, too late. He’s already decided I’ve betrayed him, and part of me wonders if I have.

  “What, Ad?” he challenges me. “I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about this.”

  I stare at him, weighing each possible response. They’re all lacking.

  “Don’t tell me you’re speechless,” he says. “I know that can’t be true.”

  “Erik and I are friends,” I remind him.

  It’s definitely the wrong thing to say.

  “Really?” he asks, his voice raw. “Looked like a little more than friends to me.”

  “We broke up,” I say. “You left me.”

  “To find answers. Answers we both need,” Jost says. “Did you run to Erik right away?”

  “I didn’t run to Erik.” But in the back of my mind poetry plays. The flash of Erik’s eyes meeting mine. I didn’t run to Erik, but I found him anyway.

  “I was gone a few weeks,” he says. “I’ve come back with nothing and then this. Did you do it to prove me wrong?”

  “Prove you wrong?” I repeat. It’s impossible that’s what he said. It’s impossible he thinks that’s what has happened in his absence.

  “Yes, I told you we couldn’t risk that, so you wanted to prove me wrong. Is that it? Tell me something, Ad, did you choose Erik to see if you could drive us even farther apart or was he the first guy you ran into?”

  The accusation cuts through the fragile thread holding me to him.

  “So can you still do it? Can you still catch the threads?” he asks. At that moment, I realize that my skill is more important to him than anything else. More important, even, than the fact that he believes I spent the night with Erik. More important than whether we can ever get past this.

  The back and forth of the last few months. Feeling so close only to sense a wall between us. My growing friendship with Erik and subsequent guilt. The assumptions and distrust. It all overwhelms the happiness I once felt with Jost. Memories of us, the want I felt for Jost, it’s all washed away as my shame shifts to indignation.

  “My talent—that’s all I am to you, isn’t it?”

  He stares at me, trying to understand what I’m saying.

  “Was I ever more than a Spinster to you?” I ask. “Or did you always see me as a means of revenge?”

  His jaw drops open, but he shakes his head. “If you believe that—”

  “What am I supposed to believe, Jost?”

  “If I made you feel that way, I am sorry,” he says, his expression softening a little. “I wanted to get back to the girls. I wanted to make sure we were safe, so we—”

  “Coul
d be a family,” I cut him off. “But you never once asked me if that’s what I wanted. I’m not capable of it. Can’t you see that? I’m a danger to them.”

  “I guess I assumed,” he says quietly. “But apparently I assumed too much.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I seethe. “Don’t you dare make me feel bad because I needed someone to listen to me. Don’t you dare, Josten Bell.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he says.

  “And as for my skill”—I spit the word out like it’s rancid—“I wish it were gone. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to put up with any of you anymore.”

  “So you’d give up your sister to not have responsibility?” he accuses.

  “No, I’m still going to find her. But maybe if I can’t warp or weave, then you guys will be forced to do something useful for once.”

  “I am doing something useful. I’ve been out there searching for the Whorl so we can get the girls back before it’s too late. Before time takes them away from us!” Jost grabs my arm, his fingers squeezing the soft flesh.

  “And what good has it done us?” I ask. “We’re no closer to saving the girls than we were weeks ago. We’ve lost nearly two years in Arras, Jost. Two years.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he growls. “You think that every second that passes doesn’t remind me that Sebrina is slipping away?”

  “I’ve been training,” I say. “I can alter, unwind. Don’t tell me that I’ve done nothing.”

  “You have done something,” Jost says. “You’ve become a weapon. Did you fight yesterday? Fulfill your purpose?”

  I hate that word—weapon. But I hold my ground and don’t miss a beat. Jost won’t win this argument. I won’t let him. “I’m no one’s weapon. No one is using me. I’m not being dragged around looking for a mythic answer to our problems.”

  Jost gives me a rueful smile. “Enjoy your pedestal, Ad.”

  “You’re the one who put me up there.”

  Jost turns to go, but it’s at exactly that moment that Erik appears, dressed only in his jeans. He must have heard me chasing after Jost, which means he’s been listening to us fight.

  “The problem isn’t the pedestal, Jost,” Erik says. “It’s that when we fall off, you won’t help us back up. We can’t all live according to your rigid moral standards.”

  “So you slept with Adelice,” Jost counters, “to prove me right? To show you’re as good as the dirt you landed in?”

  Erik’s eyes meet mine and I see pain in them. “You have it wrong. Nothing happened, but from now on what does happen is between Adelice and me,” Erik says, edging closer to his brother, “because I’m in love with her.”

  Well, that’s out in the open.

  “You’re in love with yourself. You’ve never cared more about someone else’s happiness than your own. You wanted her so you took her. Like you wanted to leave Saxun, so you did. You never consider anyone else,” Jost accuses.

  I know what Erik has gone through. I know he’s struggled with what might have been if he’d stayed in Saxun. I know it. But Jost doesn’t. Because Erik and Jost barely talk to each other unless they’re arguing, and I’m sick of it.

  “Don’t stop now,” Erik says. “Tell me how I should have stopped what happened in Saxun. Tell me how I could have stuck around and wasted my life fishing. Tell me that I should have stood in the shadows while you ignored the only good thing you had going instead of falling in love with Adelice.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about love.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” Erik admits, “but I know a thing or two about fighting. When are you going to step up and fight for something, little brother? I never held it against you that you didn’t share my ambitions. When you came to the Coventry, I didn’t judge you for watching and thinking. And when you went after Adelice, I didn’t blame you. But there comes a time when you have to figure out what to fight for and actually do it.”

  I might as well not even be here, because their gazes are locked on each other.

  “And what do you fight for?” Jost asks.

  “Adelice,” Erik says without hesitation. “You had your chance. I’m not waiting around any longer. I’ve held back because I felt bad. But this time you lost, and it had nothing to do with me.”

  “Anyone care what I think?” I ask in a quiet voice.

  “No!” they respond in unison without turning to me.

  “Fine.” I walk away, leaving both boys in the dim glow of halogen, but before I can flee to my quarters, two Sunrunners step into my path.

  “We’re going to need you to return to your room, miss.” A row of stitches runs up the side of one’s face. He must have seen some action last night.

  “I’m on my way,” I tell him, maneuvering around the pair toward the door.

  “You too,” the man calls to Jost and Erik, interrupting the brothers’ heated argument.

  “In a minute,” Jost responds, not bothering to look at the Sunrunner.

  “This estate is on lockdown. Our orders are to shoot anyone who resists us,” the Sunrunner warns. “If you have a room, I suggest you go to it.”

  I wait long enough to see both Erik and Jost slinking back toward their rooms before I disappear into the safety of mine.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING MY DOOR IS LOCKED from the outside. I try the windows, but none of them open. I can’t even exit to the adjacent sitting room. When my breakfast arrives under heavy guard, I know that I’m Kincaid’s prisoner.

  “When will we be allowed out?” I ask the guard, who has brought me a plate of cold boiled eggs and dry toast.

  “They’re sweeping the area. There’s been a breach of our perimeter,” he says, already moving to leave.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I mutter.

  The man’s eyebrow cocks, but he doesn’t say anything else. I manage to stomach the cold egg and toast, if only because I’ve had little to no food for the past two days. It’s definitely not up to Kincaid’s standard cuisine, but then again, there’s probably no one to cook after the attack.

  I try my door after he’s left, but it’s still locked. I could attempt to alter it, but without having any clue what is waiting on the other side, I decide against it. My alteration skills are dicey at best, and I’m as likely to destroy half of the wall as I am to get the door to open. I’ll give it a day before I start to rip the place apart.

  Jax arrives with my afternoon meal, and I sigh with relief when I see his friendly face. He brings my plate into the room, closing the door until only a sliver of light is left, so it doesn’t lock behind him.

  “Jax, thank Arras,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  “Kincaid is furious. He thinks the breach came from the inside,” Jax tells me, setting my plate down on my vanity.

  “And he’s keeping us in lockdown until he figures out who it was,” I guess.

  “No,” Jax says, his face sagging. “He’s already decided who it was.”

  I bite my hand so I won’t scream. If Jax is walking around with the other Sunrunners, and I’m locked in my room, that must mean I’m the prime suspect. Or Jost and Erik are.

  “Dante’s gone,” Jax continues. “And so is your mother.”

  “I know,” I murmur.

  “Kincaid thinks you had something to do with it.”

  “I didn’t.” I tried to stop him, but I don’t tell Jax this. The less he knows, the less likely he is to get in trouble himself.

  “I can’t stick around,” Jax tells me, “but I’m working on something.”

  “And I’m supposed to wait?” I demand, balling my fingers up so tightly that my fingernails pinch into the soft skin of my palms.

  “You don’t have a choice. I’ll get you out of this, but I need you to listen to me. Don’t eat your dinner.”

  “I couldn’t eat if I wanted—”

  “Don’t even touch it.” Jax stops me. “Throw it out. Hide it. When we come for you, pretend you are asleep.”

&nbs
p; They’re coming for me. I can’t quell the rising panic at this thought. Tonight they’re coming for me. “Who is coming? Why?”

  “I can’t stay, but you can trust me,” Jax says, pulling open the cracked door and disappearing. It clicks behind him.

  I don’t have any other choice.

  * * *

  I stay in bed, the contents of my dinner stashed in a drawer in the vanity. I’m too afraid to move for fear that they’ll come without warning and catch me awake, ruining Jax’s plan. When the lock to my door finally clicks open and feet shuffle across my floor, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to stay still.

  “She’s out.” I hear Jax’s voice, which puts me at ease.

  “Be sure, I hear she’s dangerous,” another man says.

  “I said she’s out. Don’t worry, I’ve got her.” Hands slide under me and lift me up. I’m cradled against Jax’s chest.

  “Keep quiet,” he whispers.

  The sensation of being carried off is surreal. I can’t open my eyes to see what path he’s taken or where I’m going, but my mind involuntarily guesses each step of the way. The light filtering through my eyelids grows brighter and the air cooler.

  “Put her down there.”

  “Okay.” Jax squeezes my hand when he lays me back on a metal slab, and I struggle to keep my breathing slow and rhythmic. Where am I? What’s going on?

  “You can go,” the other man commands.

  “One thing first,” Jax says. A moment later something crashes into the exam table and falls to the floor. My eyes fly open—I’m unable to keep them shut. Jax rushes over and helps me off the table. I have to step over a body when I do it.

  “Is he dead?” I ask, staring down at the man.

  “I knocked him out,” Jax says. He squats to riffle through the lab coat the man is wearing, pulling a thin plastic card from the man’s pocket.

  “What is that?”

  “Security clearance,” Jax says. “We don’t have much time.”

  I follow him out of the exam room and into one of the corridors of the estate’s lower level. It looks like the hallway that leads to the cells, but I’ve never been here before. Nondescript steel doors line the corridor.