Unraveled
Page 23
I find a hodgepodge of rooms that I build into a home and I open it to my strange, collected family.
Sometimes in the crowded streets of our fledgling metro I think I spot my mother watching me. Other times whispers follow me. I don’t go out for weeks at a time after those days, but I’ve started telling my story to Amie. She listens in our cramped living room, without questions. But every now and then she gasps at a revelation, and I’m taken back to our bedroom in Romen. To two sisters whispering gossip in the dark. I leave nothing out, because she deserves to know everything.
A day will arrive when others come for this story and I am determined to remember it.
I will face that moment to protect my family—Sebrina, Jost, and Amie.
And when I’m finally ready to believe again, I will pull a relic of a former life from the high shelf in my closet. A small crystal box—a gift from Pryana, the girl who gave me everything that I took from her, and salvaged by Alix, the girl with a broken heart—that holds the very humanity of my mother.
Maybe one day I’ll seek the answers I haven’t found—from the woman who spies on me from the outskirts of life. I’m certain she has those answers, just as I am sure that she watches Amie and me when she thinks we’re not looking. But I’m not quite ready to hear that story from my mother.
But I share other stories—less dangerous ones. I read stories of heroes who don’t wear faces I know. Stories captured by people long since dead. I slide into books and lose myself in pages.
“Read more,” Sebrina begs as I shut the worn book. She could listen to stories all night.
“You have to sleep sometime, little night owl.”
Sebrina makes a hooting noise and I grin at her, brushing her hair back and giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. We’re settling into this quiet life at a rate I wouldn’t have thought possible. It has its difficulties, but given the choice between tilling soil to plant food or facing the Guild, I’ll gladly choose this life.
“Ad, when will Jost be better?” she asks me, and my heart skips a beat. She still doesn’t call him Dad. I wish she would.
“I’m already stronger,” Jost calls from the doorway, leaning against its frame.
“You two will have your own home soon,” I tell her, “because your dad is healthier every day.”
Sebrina screws up her face. “I like living with you. Don’t you like living with Adelice?” she asks him.
There’s a pained pause.
“Yes, I love it, but she might want her own space,” he says.
“Do you want us to leave?” Sebrina’s eyes are wide and bright. I think they look more like Erik’s eyes than Jost’s, and I shake my head.
“I want you to stay as long as you like.”
I pull the covers up to her chin and tuck them tightly around her like a cocoon. Then I sing my mother’s lullaby, aware that Jost is still here. I close the door softly behind me when Sebrina’s breathing slows into a rhythmic snore.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jost says when I step into the living room.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I tell him, moving past him to sit down.
“She’s getting attached to you.”
“And you don’t like that?” I ask him.
“No, I do.” He dares a glance at me. There is a mournful sadness in his eyes. “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Adelice. You aren’t the one who’s responsible for her.”
“A lot has changed, Jost,” I say.
But we don’t talk about the gulf between us or the loss we’ve endured. There can be no moving forward for Jost and me. The past has left a wound in both of us that can never heal. We both know that.
And yet, things have changed. Jost has changed. He’s quick with his smile and silly with his jokes. But the fire has gone out of his eyes. He’s no longer consumed by guilt and duty. Now a calm wisdom reflects from them. Perhaps he’s more like Erik than I realized. Maybe he needed Sebrina around to show me. But there’s something else. Something I don’t let myself think about even though it niggles into my dreams and lodges in my unconscious mind, playing tricks on me during the waking hours when I catch Jost looking at me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks. He stretches out his hand and runs a finger along the outline of my techprint. The scarred skin tingles and something pushes against my mind—a thought I refuse to acknowledge even as it trembles through me.
I draw my hand away. “Ghosts.”
Our eyes meet and a chill creeps up my neck.
“No ghosts,” he says, extending his hand again. “Dance with me?”
“There’s no music.”
“I know,” he says.
I take his hand, curiosity getting the better of me and something shivers through me at his touch. A familiarity. An instinct. I stare into his calm blue eyes and swallow the question that wanders onto my lips as he leads me into a sweeping waltz. He meets my gaze and I know him.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
THE END
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I need to thank the readers for seeing this through to the end.
As this is my last chance to thank the people who saw this trilogy from beginning to end, this is going to be a long one. I have to begin by thanking my editor, Janine O’Malley, for being my literary doula through this adventure. We birthed one big baby.
Special thanks to the entire team at Macmillan for their enthusiasm and support of my books. Thank you, Simon Boughton, Allison Verost, Elizabeth Fithian, Ksenia Winnicki, Caitlin Sweeney, and the rest of the team. You are truly like family!
This book wouldn’t be in your hands without Mollie Glick, who picked this story out of the slush, fought to represent it, and held my hand through the whole whirlwind. A big thank-you to Katie Hamblin, former assistant and forever genius, for many wonderful notes on all three books.
We wouldn’t have shelves for books if not for bookstores. My utmost thanks to the many booksellers who have welcomed me into their stores, especially my hometown shops: Rainy Day Books and Liberty Bay Books.
Growing up, I got my books from the library. Now that I’m an author, I have even more love for libraries, particularly the Johnson County Library system. Here’s looking at you, Joshua Neff!
If it weren’t for friends, I would live in my own made-up world. Thanks for getting me out of my head: Lindsey Barjenbruch, Ashley Fuller, and Bethany Taylor.
I’m especially grateful for my writing friends, who understand that characters can break your heart and frustrate you to no end. Thank you, Michelle Hodkin, S. J. Maas, Lissa Price, Josephine Angelini, and Jen Armentrout, for words of wisdom and shoulders to cry on. I was incredibly lucky to go on this wild ride with some Fierce Sisters: Jessica Brody, Anna Banks, Ann Aguirre, Emmy Laybourne, Marie Rutkoski, Caragh O’Brien, Marissa Meyer, Lish McBride, and Leigh Bardugo.
To my inner circle of critics and cheerleaders, thank you: Bethany Hagen, Robyn Lucas, Laurelin Paige, Tamara Mataya, Kayti McGee, and Melanie Harlow.
And finally, I wouldn’t be writing this at all if not for my family. Thank you to my parents for letting me read and providing me with transport to the library. Jessica, I think I’m responsible enough to check books out from your private library. Elise, I see amazing things for you. Josh, pop the question already! Thanks, Aunt Kristi, for sneaking me books and CDs under the radar. I’m blessed to have the best in-laws in the world. Jim and Robin, thank you for welcoming me as your daughter. To my oft-neglected children—James and Sydney, you are my world. And to Josh, who always believes. You are my patronus.
GENNIFER ALBIN is the author of Crewel and Altered. She holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Missouri and founded the tremendously popular blog theconnectedmom.com. She lives in Poulsbo, Washington, with her husband and two children. Learn more about her at genniferalbin.com.
Also by Gennifer Albin
Crewel
Alt
ered
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Copyright © 2014 Gennifer Albin
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2014
eBook edition, October 2014
macteenbooks.com
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Albin, Gennifer.
Unraveled / Gennifer Albin.
pages cm — (Crewel world; 3)
Summary: Adelice returns to Arras, where the Guild’s control is slipping and Cormac Patton needs her help to reestablish order, but she soon discovers that she is not alone and must choose between an unimaginable alliance and a war that could destroy everyone she loves.
ISBN 978-0-374-31643-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-374-31646-4 (e-book)
[1. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A3224Unr 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2014008406
eISBN 9780374316464