by Melissa Grey
“I don’t know.” Ivy watched the man’s face. Infected humans didn’t always wake up right away. Sometimes the reaction was almost instantaneous; other times, it took hours. The man’s eyes darted beneath his lids, but that wasn’t unusual. Those who had survived bouts with the kuçedra’s toxic influence had told Ivy later that it was like being trapped in an endless nightmare, tailored to their specific fears. The thought of it sent a shudder through Ivy. She hoped the man’s torment was nearly at an end. The preternaturally aged Michael Ian Hunt had shown no improvement since their last visit, but he hadn’t gotten any worse, either. It was a frail silver lining, but Ivy counted it as one nonetheless.
Ivy had nearly given up hope for the afflicted man before her when a tiny movement caught her attention. She looked away from the man’s face and searched the rest of his body for signs of life.
His finger twitched.
He was waking up.
Ivy broke into a grin. Thank the gods. “It’s working,” she told Helios.
He matched her smile with one of his own. “That’s wonderful.” Suddenly, his gaze cut to the right, toward the door at the end of the hallway. “Someone’s coming.”
He left his post and pulled Ivy behind the tall cabinet at the back of the room. It was a tight squeeze.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, an unhurried tread approaching the quarantine room. Ivy had made sure to come to the hospital after hours—not that a hospital of this size ever really settled down for the night—and so far they had managed to avoid detection. But no streak of good luck was infinite, and Ivy began to worry that theirs may have just run out.
Her back was pressed tightly against the wall. Helios had one hand propped beside her head, the other rested lightly on her hip. It was an innocent touch, perfectly innocuous in its practicality. It was where he had touched her when he had pushed her—gently—behind the cabinet, but Ivy could focus on little else besides the warmth radiating from his palm through her light sweater.
The door to the room opened, and Ivy held her breath. Without making the slightest sound, Helios pressed closer. He bent his head so that he would not be seen over the top of the cabinet. Ivy’s hands settled on his chest. It was right there. She couldn’t think where else she was supposed to put them.
Helios had tucked the sunglasses he used to hide his yellow eyes into his back pocket when he had taken up watch by the door, and Ivy had similarly shed her own so she would be able to work with ease. Now nothing stood between Ivy and that piercing sunshine gaze. His eyes met hers as they both listened to the person who had entered the room. They were standing so close that if Ivy wanted to, she could count his eyelashes one by one. She flushed.
The sound of a clipboard being removed from the slot at the foot of the bed broke their connection. A nurse, then, Ivy mused. She listened as the nurse recorded patients’ vitals, removing and replacing clipboards with efficiency. Helios drew in a quiet breath, and Ivy’s fingertips sank into the wool of his sweater.
After an interminable amount of time, the nurse departed and the door slid shut behind her. Ivy thanked every single god she could think of that the nurse had been too lazy to do a thorough check of the black-veined skin of her patients. The bloodweed had already begun to work its magic—literally—on some of them, and Ivy had noticed a few of the dark, swollen veins diminishing in size and intensity.
Helios did not move. Ivy did not complain.
She waited a few more seconds, listening to the nurse’s footsteps retreat down the hallway and out of the quarantine wing.
“She’s gone,” Helios said.
“Yeah,” Ivy agreed.
Another moment passed before Helios stepped away. A small smile flashed across his face, as if he, too, had realized that there had been plenty of other places for Ivy’s hands to rest besides his chest. But he didn’t say anything to make the heat in her cheeks elevate to dangerous levels. If she blushed any harder, she would probably pass out. And then Helios would have to cart her unconscious body back home. And then she would never be able to look him in the eye again.
Ivy stepped out of the hiding spot and straightened clothing unnecessarily.
“We should probably get out of here,” she said.
Helios nodded, and with a knowing backward glance, he made his way to the door. “Let me make sure the coast is clear.”
Slowly, he opened the door and peered into the hallway. Ivy waited, standing a respectable three feet behind him. Satisfied that they were unlikely to run into anyone, he opened the door all the way and waved Ivy forward.
“All clear,” he said in a soft voice, entirely too intimate for the sterile surroundings.
Ivy mumbled her thanks and followed him out. Heads down, they slunk through corridors, past the watchful eyes of nurses and the less watchful eyes of doctors, faces buried in clipboards. Getting out was always easier than getting in. They snuck out of the hospital the same way they’d entered—through the morgue—and despite the covered cadaver lying on a slab in the middle of the room, not once did that small smile flee Helios’s face.
—
Adrenaline hummed in Ivy’s veins. She was beginning to understand why Echo relished the act of breaking and entering. There was no thrill quite like slipping through the shadows of a place where you didn’t belong. The pleasure of successfully evading watching eyes had a certain addictive appeal. Combined with the knowledge of a job well done—and several victims of the kuçedra healed—the feeling sparkled in Ivy’s chest like celebratory fireworks.
Helios held the door open for her as they exited the in-between via a utility closet on the far end of a subway platform near the hospital. Not one soul paid them the least bit of attention.
“Are you hungry?” Helios asked.
“I would murder someone for a cupcake,” said Ivy. Crime, she found, made her hungry. Maybe that was why nearly everything Echo ate was stolen; it was like feeding an addiction.
“Personally, I prefer my cake without bloodshed, but I’m sure we can find something to your liking,” he said as they skirted a small crowd on the platform. They went up the stairs, through the turnstiles, and out into the world. “Lead the way.”
There were few places open, so Ivy opted for a nearby coffee shop that kept absurd hours, catering to the constant flow of traffic to and from the hospital. Human eateries were still something of a marvel for Helios, and Ivy relished the chance to watch him ogle the display cases full of decadent desserts and puzzle at the menu of incomprehensible beverages.
“What do you want?” Ivy asked.
The café was quiet at this time of night—as quiet as one near a major hospital ever got, which was not very quiet at all. But the crowd wasn’t large enough to cause Helios any undue trauma, which relieved Ivy. He was growing more and more accustomed to being around humans, but large groups of them remained problematic. Ivy sympathized. She pulled the scarf around her head tighter, her feathers hidden under the silk.
She knew what she was getting. Something gigantic and full of sugar. With extra whipped cream. And maybe a cupcake. Or a doughnut. No, both.
Helios peered up at the sign, squinting at the names of drinks scribbled in chalk as if trying to puzzle out the meaning of ancient hieroglyphs. “I don’t know what any of this means. What’s a skinny mocha latte? How do you make coffee skinny?”
“You use skim milk instead of cream,” Ivy replied, suppressing a smile. This was delightful.
“What’s skim milk?”
“Milk that isn’t whole.”
He looked at her over the dark lenses of his sunglasses. It always surprised Ivy how few stares she and Helios attracted when they wore sunglasses at night; people probably just thought they were pretentious.
“How strange,” Helios said, pushing up the sunglasses before anyone spotted his unusual golden eyes. “I understand each individual word coming out of your mouth, but when you string them together like that, they cease to have any meaning.”
; “Do you want me to order for you?” Ivy asked.
He shot her a look so deadly it pierced the tinted lenses. But confusion overpowered his pride and very, very grudgingly he said, “Yes, please.”
He didn’t have the sweet tooth Ivy did, so she opted for something simple. Coffee. A splash of whole milk. One sugar. Ivy didn’t know how non-Avicen taste buds operated, but that seemed reasonable to her. She didn’t know how someone could choke down bitter bean juice without at least eight packets of sugar, three pumps of syrup, and a generous swirl of whipped cream, but that wasn’t any of her business.
Their fingers brushed when she handed him the cup and that awful blush returned, this time with even greater zeal. Ivy hid her face behind her cup as she took a scalding sip. Gods, it burned. She accepted her change with all the grace of a socially inept buffalo and buried her mortification in an unseemly generous bite of cupcake. Vanilla, with lemon buttercream frosting. Bliss.
Drinks—and doughnut and cupcake—in hand, they made their way to the subway station at Seventy-Seventh Street. Helios, seemingly determined to assuage Ivy’s obvious embarrassment, asked her questions about things he spotted on the way. Unusual architecture. Poems written on the sidewalk in multicolored chalk. A dog wearing a sweater and walking down the street, sans owner. Ivy couldn’t explain that last one.
The cell phone in Ivy’s pocket rang, startling her. No one ever called it. Only three people had the number, and if it was one of them, then she was about to get either very good news or very bad news. She thrust her hot chocolate into Helios’s hands and fumbled for the phone. Once it was in her hand, she looked at the caller ID flashing on the screen.
Echo.
Ivy swiped the screen with her thumb. “Echo?” Her voice came out in a rush. “What happened? What is it? Are you okay?”
“We found him.”
Relief cascaded through Ivy in a powerful flood. She had lived each day since Echo’s departure dreading the worst: that her best friend would be hurt or that someone she had come to care about would be lost to them forever, ensnared in a madwoman’s trap, that one or more of their party would fail to return home.
As if sensing Ivy’s need for reassurance, Echo added, “We’re all okay. We’ll be heading back to Avalon in mostly one piece once Caius wakes up.”
Ivy frowned. “Mostly?”
A weary sigh hissed through the phone. “Tanith took a few chunks out of Caius’s back with a whip. And there’s a constellation of bruises and scars on the rest of his body.”
“Holy shit.”
Helios arched an eyebrow in question, no doubt puzzled by the half of the conversation to which he was privy.
“Yeah,” Echo said. “That about sums it up.”
“But you’re okay, right?” Ivy asked. “Like, really okay?”
“I’m fine,” Echo assured her. “I’ll see you soon. Just wanted to let you know. I know how you worry.”
Ivy thought she could hear the tired smile in Echo’s voice when she said that.
The news made Ivy feel lighter. Perhaps there was a sliver of a chance of things looking up. Maybe they’d be able to fight the bad guy, save the day, and have all their lives go back to whatever normal meant for them now. After everything.
A thought occurred to Ivy suddenly. “We missed your birthday,” she blurted before Echo could hang up. “We should do something when you get back. Celebrate. I’ve always wanted to throw a Great Gatsby party.”
Echo laughed, and it sounded more genuine than any of her laughs over the past few months. “Did you even read that book?”
“No, I just think I’d look cute in a flapper dress.”
“I don’t want a birthday party where someone dies in the pool at the end.”
“Fine, fine. Have it your way. But I’m still going to wear a flapper dress. Maybe a fascinator.” Ivy squeezed her eyes shut. “Just come back in one piece, okay? Then you can spoil The Great Gatsby for me, ’kay?”
“Okay,” Echo said. “But I’m still going to make you read the book and not just watch the movie.”
They said their goodbyes and Ivy slid the phone back into her pocket. Helios offered her cup.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” A knot of anxiety that Ivy hadn’t even realized had formed at the base of her neck began to loosen. “They found Caius. He’s okay. Echo’s okay. Everybody’s okay.”
Helios tapped her cocoa with his coffee, a travel cup toast. “Good,” he said. “The day has been kind to us.” He offered her his arm as they descended the steps to the train that would take them north, toward Avalon. The city had worked hard to get the trains up and running again after the attack on Grand Central, but the 6 didn’t go any farther south than this. Ivy pushed the thought away. Much better to focus on the good. The day had been kind, and Ivy prayed their run of luck would last just a little bit longer.
The problem with prayers was that sometimes, no one was listening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Echo watched in fascination as Caius shoveled another forkful of pancakes into his mouth. It was his eighth or ninth so far. The first words he’d spoken upon waking were “We have to talk about Tanith.” The next were “But not before I eat something.” His stomach had emphasized the sentiment with a well-timed growl. Fair enough. Echo had neither the desire nor the energy to dive headfirst into a discussion of the machinations of his insane sister on an empty stomach either. It was bad for digestion. It had to be.
And so she had found herself on breakfast duty, cobbling together a respectable meal out of the meager supplies in the cabin’s pantry. She didn’t mind. Cooking gave her hands something to do and her mind something on which to focus that wasn’t related to kidnappings, malevolent shadow monsters, the voices in her head, or the possible end of the world. It was a nice reprieve. She was glad they had enough flour, sugar, and milk to make it happen.
Dorian had pushed aside the plate Echo offered to him. Once Caius had finished his first serving, he’d taken Dorian’s and devoured that, too. When it was clear that his time in captivity had left him with a hunger that would not be satisfied until he’d eaten everything that wasn’t nailed down, Echo offered him her pancakes as well. Jasper, being Jasper, didn’t share his.
Tidying up the mess she’d made of the kitchen gave Echo a moment to think about the previous night. Something had changed between her and Caius. Something about her had changed. She was no longer the Echo who had been Rowan’s girlfriend. Rowan belonged to a part of her life that was now so foreign to Echo, it felt like it had happened to someone else. Rowan looked at her and saw the girl she used to be.
But Caius saw her as she was: an amalgamation of disastrous events, a mess of a human being whose head was occupied by ghosts. He didn’t expect her to be anything other than what she was. There was no pressure for her to be the same Echo whose chief concern was picking enough pockets for the money to buy a slice from the pizzeria on the corner of St. Marks and Avenue A when her hands had been clumsy and untried. He understood the complexity of her life. He was living it with her. And that was why it had been so easy to give in, to let him slide his arms around her waist and pull her close, to luxuriate in the feel of his warm breath against her neck as he slept, wrapped around her like she was the only thing keeping him afloat. They had slept like that, twined around each other. It had been too warm under the layers of blankets, but Echo hadn’t felt the slightest desire to move. It had felt right, lying next to Caius. It had felt like where she was supposed to be.
Not even the sight of him scarfing down pancakes like there was no tomorrow was enough to dissuade her of that notion.
“When was the last time you ate?” Echo asked, picking up the cooling mug of coffee she’d left beside the sink. She sipped it, taking a strange pleasure in watching Caius eat. If his appetite was this ravenous, then it must mean that he was all right. She didn’t have much of one herself. Now that she’d washed the flour off her hands and left th
e pan to soak, she found herself thinking once again about kidnappings and shadow monsters and how bad things would turn out if Tanith was left to rampage unchecked.
“What day is it?” Caius said.
“Wednesday.”
“I don’t know why I even asked. I don’t remember.”
Dorian’s eye narrowed. “As if kidnapping you wasn’t bad enough. She couldn’t even be bothered with feeding you.”
Caius set his fork down on his empty plate. He looked around, as if scouting for more food. There was none. “To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything left of my sister to speak of. What she’s become…what the kuçedra has made her…”
“There’s no excuse,” Dorian said. “Not for what she did to you or for what she’s going to do.”
“I know that,” said Caius. “I just…every time I looked at her, I couldn’t help but try to find some semblance of the woman she was, of the person I knew. And there was nothing.” He sighed. “Do we have any fruit?”
“Only some sad overripe bananas. I’ll go get them,” Jasper said. He was in a much better mood after the night he’d spent with Dorian. Echo assumed they’d worked out…whatever it was between them, if the state she’d found them in that morning was any indication. She hid her smile behind her coffee mug. Today was far less dire than yesterday. Caius was safe and eating them out of house and home. Jasper and Dorian had cuddled. Echo had managed to use her powers for something besides raining death and destruction down on her enemies. Things were looking up.
As Caius ate, he told them what he knew: Tanith had a plan. A well-organized one. Her endgame was a mystery to him, but once Echo had informed him of the increasing instability of the in-between, he began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“I think she’s attempting to destroy the in-between,” Caius said. He frowned, then amended his statement. “Actually, not the in-between, but the veil between this world and the in-between. That’s what she’s trying to unmake.”
