by Kit Alloway
Haley was examining the bottle of vodka curiously. “This is the brand Ian used to drink.”
Josh hated the idea that Ian had been a heavy enough drinker to have a favorite brand.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Will slurred, “of blood.”
“Should we take him to the hospital?” Josh asked.
“The bottle’s nearly full. He’s probably still just coming down from the Veil dust.”
As they prodded Will up the stairs, Josh asked Haley, “Have you done Veil dust?”
“No. I’m— It would be bad for me.”
“It’s bad for everyone,” Josh said. “It never did Ian any good.”
Haley frowned. To her surprise, he said, “It has its uses. But not for Will.”
As they crossed the first-floor landing, Josh said, “You never asked why I was tied up on the archroom floor.”
Haley pursed his lips. “I … try not to see other people’s business. But sometimes I can’t help it.”
“So you already know?” Josh was still getting used to having this side of Haley out in the open, and the idea that he could spy on her—whether or not he did so deliberately—freaked her out. She’d had a lot to hide lately.
“I know that you’re going to explain it to all of us in the morning,” Haley said. “I can wait.”
He gave her a smile then and guided Will into their apartment. Josh forced her throbbing muscles to carry her up to the third floor, and she found Deloise in her bedroom, sitting on her bed amid a sea of tissues.
“What happened?” Deloise asked at the sight of her sister’s burned and bloody arms.
Josh gave her a very short version of the evening’s events and promised to tell the whole story in the morning, but Deloise heard that Josh had gotten hit on the head and insisted they go to the ER that moment.
“I’m all right,” Josh insisted. “I just had a CT yesterday.”
“Either you can come with me to the ER,” Deloise said flatly, “or I can wake Dad up.”
They went to the ER.
“Haley told me what happened earlier to night,” Josh said as they sat in a curtained room waiting for the scan. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Deloise removed a packet of tissues from her purse. “I got home from Nate’s party, I went upstairs to say hi to Whim, and the living room was empty but music was playing. Then I saw light coming through the slats in the door to a laundry closet, so I opened the door, and there they were making out on top of the washer and dryer. They were even doing laundry at the same time, and Bayla had dryer lint in her hair.”
For a fleeting moment, Josh was tempted to laugh. Nobody was better at making a complete fool of himself than Whim.
“Were they naked?” she asked instead.
“No, but they had every single button undone. Bayla was— Oh, I can’t even say it.”
Josh took Deloise’s hand. “I’m really sorry they did that. And I’m sorry you had to see them doing it. I know how that feels.”
“Yeah.” Deloise picked at an imaginary pill on her skirt. “Is there something wrong with us Weaver girls, something genetic, that makes guys cheat on us?”
“No!” Josh said. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Del. This wasn’t your fault.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done what Bayla was doing to him in the closet.”
“Deloise!” Josh cried. “Don’t even think that! If Whim has been putting pressure on you to do things…”
Deloise gave her a look Josh couldn’t read. “You’re too young!” Josh said.
“I’m sixteen. You were sixteen.”
“That was completely different. Ian and I had been together for years. We were committed to each other.”
“Well,” Deloise said angrily, “obviously Whim isn’t committed to me.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, stop looking at me like that, Josh. I haven’t had sex with Whim. And after tonight, there’s a pretty good chance I never will!”
Then she burst into tears. Josh had never felt that she was the world’s greatest big sister, but she at least felt confident that the right thing to do was coax Deloise to sit beside her on the bed so Josh could hold her while she cried.
“Sorry, Del,” she said, smoothing her sister’s blond hair.
“I just can’t believe he screwed this up!”
I can, Josh thought.
The sun was rising by the time they left the hospital, Josh with a clean bill of health. Haley was already up—or maybe he’d never gone to sleep—and made them cheesy eggs with bacon for breakfast.
“I think we should have a meeting,” he said afterward. “All of us.”
Josh reluctantly agreed. She went upstairs to pull on clean clothes, but as she brushed her hair in the mirror, she wondered if Haley had been right that she was going to confess her secrets at this meeting. The thought filled her with panic, and she rubbed the plumeria charm she wore on a chain around her neck as she walked down to the guys’ apartment.
In addition to the bright red burns where the magnets had touched her skin, the points where the wires had cut her flesh were inflamed, both on her arm and on her forehead and neck. She’d managed to hide the burns from the ER doctor using her bangs and a sweatshirt, but when she entered the guys’ apartment, Mirren looked up from Haley’s tablet and immediately said, “Josh, what happened to your arm?”
“Um, I’ll explain in a few minutes,” Josh said. “Let me wait until everyone’s here.”
Will appeared in his bedroom doorway; maybe he had heard her voice. He had changed clothes, but he still looked haggard, his cheeks shadowed with stubble, his eyes blinking often as if they wouldn’t clear. Anger and defeat warred in his expression.
He fell onto the couch next to Deloise, so Josh sat beside Haley on the floor, glad for his silent support. “Who are we missing?” she asked.
“Whim,” Will said. “He’s in his room.”
All eyes turned to Deloise, who said, “Somebody else call him.”
After a moment of silence, during which no one made any move toward Whim’s room, Will hollered, “Whim! Get in here!”
Whim emerged, looking like he’d slept well and awoken refreshed, and except for an underlying sheepishness in his expression, he appeared no different from the way he had the day before. “Did I hear someone ever so sweetly call my name?”
He dropped onto an oversize beanbag chair that—because of his height—looked proportionally normal in size. “What’s up, friends? Why the official summons?”
“Why do you think, Whim?” Deloise asked.
Whim made an exaggerated wince while shrugging his shoulders. “I guess it might possibly be because Will and I got a little carried away last night.”
“A little carried away?” Deloise repeated at the same time Haley said: “We’re here to talk about a lot of things.”
But Deloise was going to have her say. “You used a sacred substance to get high and then got your freak on with Bayla in the laundry closet!”
Genuine alarm flashed on Whim’s face. “I don’t actually remember that last part. Although it would explain why I woke up reeking of fabric softener.”
“This is not a joke!” Deloise snapped. “I’m angry at you, and I have every right to be!”
Mirren was looking everywhere except at Whim and Deloise. Haley was staring at the floor. Josh wondered if she should suggest her sister take her conversation somewhere private, but she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“I’m not saying that you don’t,” Whim told Deloise. “Obviously, I screwed up last night. I don’t know what Bayla was doing here or why I didn’t shut the front door in her face—”
“Stop,” Will said suddenly. “Just stop it.” He took a deep breath, and the weariness of the movement almost made Josh get up and go to him.
“He’s been seeing her for weeks, Del,” Will said. “Ever since the last Grey Circle meeting. I’ve known almost the whole time, and I should have told you, but he kept saying he wa
s going to break it off, and I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry. It was my fault she was here last night, though. I called her and asked her to bring over some Veil dust.”
“Weeks?” Deloise cried. “Weeks?”
Whim cast a pleading glance Josh’s way, but she had no intention of helping him, not after seeing Deloise break down in the ER earlier. The only reason she wasn’t breaking his nose right now was that she didn’t want to take the opportunity away from her sister.
Or maybe not the only reason. She also felt stunned that Will had known and not told her, and that he had initiated the Veil dust party the night before.
I thought I was the one keeping secrets.
“Thanks, bro,” Whim told Will, his usual lightheartedness gone. To Deloise, he said, “Okay, so, I’ve been seeing her for a few weeks. At first we were just sorting through some emotional stuff from the past, and then I guess we got sort of caught up in memories—”
“Oh, shove it,” Deloise said. “Unless some part of this story involves you taking a blow to the head and forgetting I exist for the past month, I don’t want to hear it.” She crossed her arms. “Next topic, please.”
“We aren’t done with this one,” Will said grimly. “Bayla is a spy for Peregrine.”
“What?” Josh cried, and she wasn’t the only one.
“That’s ridiculous,” Whim said, though the defensiveness in his voice had been replaced with surprise.
“Think about it,” Will said. “How did the junta know that a dream-walking trial would be harder for Mirren than a Tempering? Someone told them she’d already passed an informal Tempering, but didn’t have much dream-walking experience. Is it coincidence that the junta picked three water nightmares for her to resolve, or did someone clue them in that she just learned to swim? Who told the protesters we were going in through the side entrance? Whim called them, or else he called Bayla, who called Peregrine.”
“Whim,” Deloise said, “how could you?”
“I didn’t!” Whim told her. “Will’s making all of this up!”
Josh wanted to believe that Will was making it up, that he was seeing things that weren’t there, but … If Whim’s been cheating on Deloise, she thought, who knows what else he might have been up to?
“Why?” Mirren asked Whim, her voice trembling. “Why would you do that? What have I done to you?”
“Nothing, you’re awesome,” Whim told her. “I’d never screw you over like that.”
“Not on purpose,” Will said, his tone sour. “That much is true. Our Whim doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. But he does have lots and lots of vain bones; I’m sure he told Bayla those things to impress her. He didn’t know she was a spy.”
“She’s not a spy,” Whim said, but he sounded less sure than he had before. “That’s crazy talk. Why would she be a spy for Peregrine?”
Because Peregrine has always suspected I’m the True Dream Walker, Josh realized. That’s why he tricked me into entering Feodor’s universe, so Feodor could test me. And that’s why he sent Bayla to spy on Whim—because he thought Whim knew about me.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Will conceded, and he shrugged. “I’ve only met Bayla twice. And I’ll be the first to admit that I came up with this theory while on Veil dust. So I’ll put it to those of you who’ve known Bayla for years. Do you think she’s capable of something like this?”
There was a long silence, and then Josh said, “Shit.”
“I second that,” Haley said.
“You told me you hadn’t heard from her in years!” Deloise raved at Whim. “She’s a—a bad person! I remember what she was like!”
“Del, you were twelve years old the last time you hung out with her,” Whim protested.
“That’s right, and she laughed at me when I wouldn’t smoke with her.”
“That doesn’t make her a spy for Peregrine!” Whim argued. “That just means she’s a terrible babysitter!”
“She wasn’t babysitting me!”
“Stop!” Josh ordered. She sighed. “Whim, get out of here.”
“What?” Whim said, nonplussed. “What does that mean?”
“It means we need to talk about some sensitive things and we can’t risk you relating them to Bayla.”
Whim threw his hands up in the air. “Okay, so I bragged a little to Bayla. I didn’t know she was working for Peregrine!”
“Nobody’s accusing you of being a traitor,” Josh said, to which Will added, “Just a patsy.”
Whim glared at him. “You have been a lousy friend to me today.”
“So? I’ve been a lousier friend to Del,” Will snapped.
As Whim reluctantly made his way toward the hall, Deloise added, “Oh, and in case you weren’t sure, we are officially broken up.”
He gave her one look—angry and desperate and frightened all at once—and then left. He didn’t quite slam the apartment door, but he shut it hard.
Josh ran a hand through her hair and tried to think of what to say next. She wasn’t ready to admit her own misdoings yet, so she said to Will, “Can I ask you about the Veil dust?”
He shrugged again. “Yeah.”
“It was your idea?”
“Yeah,” he said flatly.
“Was last night the first time you’d done it?”
“Yeah. And last.”
“And the vodka? Did Bayla bring that, too?”
“No.” He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “This is going to sound crazy, but … what I remember is Ian giving it to me.”
Josh and Haley looked at each other, and Josh knew they were both recalling what he had said about the vodka being Ian’s brand.
“I thought he pulled it out of a heat vent in Whim’s room,” Will added. He dared a glance at Josh. “How much did I drink?”
“A little more than two shots,” Josh told him. She’d actually measured out how much was missing from the bottle before deciding whether or not to take him with her to the ER.
“That’s something, I guess,” he said.
Josh tugged on strands of carpet. “Why did you do it?” she asked.
Will released a deep breath, but it wasn’t so much a sigh as the beginning of anxious breathing. “Ironically, I thought the Veil dust would keep me from drinking.”
Will, Josh thought, taken aback. Had he been struggling not to drink? When had that started?
Then she remembered how upset he’d gotten at Young Ben’s barbecue and realized that Will had tried to tell her how much he was struggling. She’d been too caught up in her own secrets to hear him.
“Why did you want to drink?” Deloise asked, her voice gentle and sympathetic.
Will’s lower lip trembled for half a second; Josh had never seen it do so before.
“Because,” he said, “Mirren and I saw one of Josh’s nightmares through the archway downstairs. She was dreaming she was killing people and … kissing Feodor.”
Josh didn’t mean to move—her body just did. Like a violent, squirming attempt to escape Will’s words, she jerked back against the TV stand, uncrossed her legs and pulled them to her chest, and grabbed her forehead with both hands as if she would have torn it off.
“It was a nightmare,” she heard Mirren say firmly. “It wasn’t a daydream about something she wanted.”
Josh had thought she was going to come clean about everything that morning, but now she knew that she never would have admitted to the strange romantic component of her nightmares. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes.
No wonder Will had been avoiding her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” she asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice quivered.
Josh hid her face against her knees again briefly before forcing herself to push forward. “I don’t know why the nightmares are like that, and I was afraid you’d think they mean … you know.”
“That you’re in love with the man who tried to kill us both?”
“But I’m not.
I’m sure I’m not!”
“She wakes up every night crying from those dreams,” Deloise said. “Whatever she and Feodor are doing in them, I don’t think she’s enjoying it.”
“Every night?” Mirren asked. “Why haven’t you seen a doctor?”
“Because it isn’t a medical problem!” Josh burst out. “It’s not a psychiatric problem! It’s—” She stopped on the precipice of admitting how deeply her encounter with Feodor had changed her. She had known she might never go back to the way she was before, but only then did she realize how afraid she was of letting other people know.
“When he sent all his bad memories into my mind,” she admitted, “somehow the bad memories weren’t the only ones that I got. I got his happy memories, too, and his ideas, and his education.…”
“You remember his whole life?” Deloise asked.
“No, not nearly all of it. But I think that all of it might be in my mind somewhere.”
“You said you have his ideas,” Will said. “Which ideas?”
This is the last moment he’s going to love me, Josh thought, and whatever words she might have said dried up in her throat.
“Yeah,” was all that came out.
Haley put his arm around her shoulders.
“Yeah?” Will asked.
She ducked her head beneath Haley’s arm and pinched her eyes shut.
“Yes, she remembers his inventions,” Haley said. “Yes, she remembers how to build them.”
“Did you build them?” Will asked.
Josh, eyes still closed, nodded.
Will cursed, and she heard the floor squeak as he got up from the couch. “Josh!” Deloise cried with a gasp.
“What were you thinking?” Will asked.
Josh wanted to hide beneath Haley’s arm and behind her closed eyelids forever. Her shame burned like a snakebite.
“Why, Josh? Why?” Will shouted.
Haley nudged Josh to face her friends. “S’okay,” he told her. “Tell them.”
When Josh forced her eyes open, black lines flickered across the room. She blinked a few times, and when her vision cleared all she could see was Will, standing behind the couch and clenching the back edge as if he would hurl the sectional across the room.
