“All righty, then.” I poise my hands over the keys, making the gesture large and overdramatic. “Count us off, Major.”
“One, two,” Jay breathes. His eyes are shining. “Three, four.”
We come in at the same time, but that’s about where our luck ends. I continuously find the keys a split second too late as my fingers’ habitual memories take over and the treble and bass lines blur into one in front of me.
Jay is even worse off. He stumbles over the notes, often hitting two at once. The keys’ placement is probably fuzzy for him after so many years. At least I had the piano in the prison to practice on, however infrequently I actually did.
Our elbows keep knocking into each other, and when it’s not our elbows, it’s our hands or wrists or fingers. The melody is buried by dozens of wrong notes, and I’m pretty sure we’re not even playing at the same tempo. It couldn’t be worse if a hundred Ferals were clawing at glass. I’m surprised my ears aren’t bleeding.
When we hit a rest and Jay plays straight through it, I start laughing. And then I can’t stop. I laugh until my stomach hurts and I can’t play, and then Jay bursts out laughing, too, and we’re both incapacitated for a ridiculous amount of time given how unfunny the situation is.
When I can breathe again, I say, “That was terrible.”
“We didn’t even get to the second page.”
“That might be a good thing.”
“The gods would have struck us where we sat.”
“Only if we hadn’t already killed them with our demonic noise.”
And then we start laughing again. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this. Not since Luke and Sara.
Jay is the first to recover this time. “I haven’t played seriously since I left my father’s home a million years ago. The person who taught me there was so uptight; all he cared about was technique and style. I don’t think he could even hear the music.”
I feign a shudder. “That sounds awful. My mom taught me how to play. I was the worst, but it was fun because she didn’t care.” Looking back on it now, those were probably the happiest moments of my childhood. “I would sit in her lap on the bench, and she’d put her hands over mine. That was when I was really little. When I got a bit older, and better, we would play simple pieces together.”
I’m suddenly struck by how much I miss Mom. I wonder how she’s doing. Better, probably, now that I’m gone.
“Your mother sounds like a warm person,” Jay says softly. His head is bent as if in prayer as he traces his fingers over the keys.
I want to tell him it’s okay he never met his mom. That she would have loved him even though he is a Nyte. That his dad is a coward and a sorry excuse for a parent. Mine was, too.
But I don’t say any of these things. They wouldn’t do anything for him in the end.
“I’m glad you’re a Nyte, Jay,” I say. “Maybe you aren’t because of how things went in life, but I don’t think you’d be who you are today if you weren’t born a little differently.”
His eyes fall. I put a hand on his shoulder.
When he looks at me again, it’s over the tops of his glasses. They’re skewed slightly. “Hey, Lai? Will you tell me a secret?”
“A secret?”
“Yeah. Anything is fine. I just … Do you remember when you asked me if I trusted you?”
“Of course I do. It was only yesterday.”
He smiles slightly. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it was.”
I make sure to meet his eyes when I say, “I trust you, Jay.” I kick my heels against the ground. “How about this one, then? Me being in prison was my own choice. I never committed any crime. Austin just helped me pretend I did so I could get sent out there. It was all fake.”
His head snaps up. “What?”
“Yup.”
He stares at me as I flex my fingers over the keys but don’t touch them. “But why?”
I flip to the next page of the piece and move my right hand along with the treble line without actually playing the notes. The keys are cool beneath my fingertips. “I wanted to leave the military to help the Order, but of course the military would never let a Nyte just go. So I left in my own way and then snuck out of prison to Regail Hall as often as I could. If I had been in the military, I wouldn’t have had time to do what I needed to.”
He’s silent for some time. “Why bother? Why care so much about the Amaryllis Order? You’ve never struck me as someone who was so passionate about nondiscrimination between Nytes and Etioles. Yet you went to such lengths for it.” He’s still struggling with his own decision about joining the Order. He doesn’t think it was the wrong choice, but he’s not sure how to feel about how it may or may not have affected his loyalty to the military. “And after all that, why come back to the military?”
“I mean, why not, right?”
“Lai.”
My breath slides out between my teeth. I know I shouldn’t be talking about this at all, but when it comes to Jay, I just can’t help it. I want to confide in him. It’s been so long since I’ve met anyone like that. Fiona doesn’t count. Even though we work so closely together, and we’re there for each other when need be, we’ve never really gotten along outside of work. And Trist and the twins and Syon, I love them, but I’ve never wanted to go to any of them about my personal problems.
I might consider Al, but she’s too honest, and too reckless. She could accidentally spill my secrets. Plus, if I’m being honest with myself, I really want her to like me. Telling her more about myself would ruin any chance of that. Mendel is far too similar to me for my own liking, not to mention his perpetual suspicion rules him out as someone who would honestly listen. As does the fact that I don’t really trust him. Besides, I want to tell Jay. He’s self-conscious and too much of a perfectionist, but he’s earnest and honest and straightforward. My total opposite.
“The Order was founded by Luke,” I say, trying to make the words light, but falling flat. “He was an idealist, you see. He really thought Nytes and Etioles could get along. But he died before the Order could become anything. Then Walker took over and made it really something.” I look down. “Since it was Luke’s dream, I’d do anything for the Order. Even pretend I committed a crime to leave the military. The reason I came back is because I thought it’d be better for the Order for me to be inside Central, where everything is happening. Where I can get information.”
I chance a glance at him. He doesn’t seem mad.
“You said you’d do anything for the Order since it was Luke’s dream,” Jay finally says. “Were the two of you…?”
I laugh, but it doesn’t sound right. “No. I mean, I had feelings for Luke, but he only ever saw me as a little sister. He and Fiona were head over heels for each other.”
“And the Nyte who gave you all neutralization power crystals? What was he like?”
I hadn’t thought my heart could drop any lower, and yet, here we are. I can’t hold back a sigh. “Gabriel. He was like an older brother to all of us. Always watching over us, always gently scolding us when we’d do something wrong.” I laugh. “Actually, maybe he was more like our mom.”
“And you think he went to the rebels?”
“I could never imagine him joining their cause. He’s too … good for that. And yet all evidence seems to indicate otherwise.”
He doesn’t say anything right away. Then, partly to change the subject, partly because he wants to know, he says, “May I ask what your gift is? I still have no idea.”
“It’s a rather revolting thing, really.” I trace my finger over the sheet music, outlining the treble clef, not looking at him. “I’d prefer not to say if I don’t have to. It sort of drives people away.”
“I’d still like to know,” Jay says.
I start playing the treble line on the piano for real now, using the right amount of pressure to make the notes hang between us. It isn’t a slow section, but I play it that way.
He gently grips my wrist and lifts it so I c
an’t play. I stare at it as the notes fade. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But know that I won’t leave you. I already promised you that, didn’t I?”
Telling Mendel I could hear others’ thoughts wasn’t hard. I needed something from him in return, and it was fun messing around with him. Jay is different. I have nothing to gain by telling him, only things I could lose. He might not trust me anymore, which wasn’t a problem with Mendel because he didn’t trust me to begin with—he doesn’t trust anyone.
But I don’t know that Jay would mind like others would, either. He knows what it’s like to be isolated because of his gift. He knows what it means having to struggle to please others. It’s made him more accepting. If anyone was going to put up with me after they found out I could hear their every thought, it would be him.
I finally look at him. “I’m a telepath.”
I wait for the flash of betrayal, the disgust, or the running through of past thoughts he had while I was around, analyzing them, but the only thing I get from him is blank surprise. Oh. That’s certainly a difficult gift to admit to others. No wonder she hasn’t wanted to share it with us. Wait, is she—are you reading my thoughts right now? Oh. Probably. Well, it’s good to know for future reference.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I say. Our eyes meet, and he doesn’t look away. I’m not sure if he understands. The thoughts are all in his head, but he isn’t connecting them like he’s supposed to. He’s not reacting like he’s supposed to.
Then again, he’s very aware of how important this is to me. He knows how he reacts could hurt me if he’s not careful. He’s always considerate of others like that.
“Thank you,” he says. “For trusting me.”
A thought crosses his mind, and now he really does take the fact I can tell what he’s thinking to heart. He looks down. What little I can see of his face is red.
I lean over to cup his cheek in my hand. Our eyes meet and hold. And then I kiss him.
I’ve never kissed or been kissed by anyone before. I don’t really know how it works. I always wondered what it would feel like, always knew I’d be awful and awkward at it. But somehow, with Jay, I don’t mind.
His lips are soft against mine, and when they part, there’s a warmth that fills me. His hand comes up to hold my cheek. I both want to read his mind and am terrified to know what he’s thinking.
His hand, still on my wrist over the keys, shifts to tangle his fingers through mine. He grips them tightly before pulling back first. We watch each other for a long moment.
He turns to the sheet music, but with a smile intended for me. “Well. Let’s give this piece another shot. Try not to sound like you’re skinning a Feral alive this time, okay?”
21
LAI
TWO DAYS AFTER Jay and I played piano together, I’m tasked with the most unfortunate role of messenger.
I find Mendel working away in the woodshop, as usual, but unlike usual, his thoughts are distracted from the work at hand. Something happened recently. Something with Al.
I knock on the woodshop’s doorframe. He doesn’t hear me the first time over the wood saw, so I do it again when it’s stopped, and he looks up, startled.
He opens his mouth with the intention of telling me to get out. Instead, he says, “You have to wear goggles when you’re in the woodshop.”
“The general is calling us.”
“Another mission?”
“He didn’t say any specifics.” A disturbing fact, but one I couldn’t change.
“I’ll be right there.”
When I don’t make any move to leave, he raises an eyebrow.
“Something happen recently?” I ask.
“Odd of you to care.”
“You are my teammate, you know.”
“Since when does that mean anything?”
“What happened with Al?”
He sighs and sets his goggles on the bench next to him. I think I hear a muttered “Stupid mind reader” before he stands and starts cleaning up the wood shavings from his time on the saw. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he says, “but we got into a fight.”
“When aren’t the two of you in a fight?”
He pauses in his sweeping long enough to give me a sarcastic, “Ha ha.”
I throw my hands up in fake apology. “All right, so what was the fight about?”
“Something stupid.” He half shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“Clearly it does.”
“Johann asked me about that rebel, Devin,” he says. The admission comes on so suddenly I’m not sure he meant for it to come out at all. He bites his lip but continues. “He said I wasn’t taking the rebels seriously enough and we started fighting. Then he asked why a rebel knew me personally. I think he’d been waiting to ask for a while. But when I said I didn’t know, he just … dropped it.”
Al, waiting to ask something serious? And then dropping it so easily? That sounds unlike her. But then I think of when we spoke of our pasts and her hesitation during that conversation. I wonder if she had already gathered that Devin was a touchy part of Mendel’s history. She doesn’t know about Mendel’s missing memories, and Devin certainly didn’t talk to Mendel like a friend, so maybe she thought they had fought before. I doubt she suspects Mendel having potentially been a rebel himself given that she let the matter go. And if she didn’t think Mendel was a threat, then she wouldn’t dig where she wasn’t welcome—especially since that often invites digging in return.
“Does that bother you?” I ask. “That Al let it go?”
He shakes his head. “No. I guess it’s just … I wasn’t expecting it.” He struggles for a moment with the words. “I wasn’t expecting him not to pry. I didn’t think he’d trust me enough not to ask any more.”
“Isn’t that a good thing, then? That Al’s trusting you? What is it you’re so bothered about?”
Cathwell is the last person in the world I want to talk about this with.
I cross my arms. “You got someone else to talk about this with?”
He throws a half-hearted snarl my way. But we both know the answer to my question, so he goes on. “When someone looks like they have a connection to the enemy, normally you push to find out what kind of connection it is so you don’t end up with a knife in your back.”
“So you’re worried Al’s not taking this seriously enough?”
“I’m worried he shouldn’t trust me.” The words are so quiet I almost miss them. When he speaks again, his voice is back to normal. “I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone here—you especially, in case you had any doubts. It feels wrong for him to not be at least a little suspicious of me.”
“Feeling the responsibility of someone placing their trust in you?” I tease. “That certainly is a heavy thing to bear.”
He doesn’t snap a comeback this time. Instead, he bends down to sweep his small pile of wood shavings into a dustpan, taking his time to think while he does it.
Finally, he asks, “Have you ever trusted someone who doesn’t trust you in return? Or the other way round?”
He asks the question with a rare seriousness, and so I consider it seriously. It’s difficult. “I’ve had people trust me who I didn’t trust,” I finally say. “Or I guess, it’s less that I didn’t trust them and more that I didn’t choose to share everything with them.”
“And it didn’t bother you at all?”
“It’s rare that I find someone I’ll tell everything to.”
He picks up my meaning immediately. Telling someone you can hear their every thought is a big leap of faith to take. It’s not something you do for everyone who thinks they trust you.
But it’s not the answer he wanted. His thoughts on the matter are still uneasy, and it’s difficult for me to understand why. Shouldn’t Al putting a little trust in him be a good thing? There’s something more going on, something I can’t understand.
“There’s actually something else I wan
ted to talk to you about, too,” I say. “I spoke with my friend about his power crystal.”
His thoughts instantly pick up, though with a sobering edge of wariness. “And?”
“He doesn’t know why his crystal acted like that.” I struggle to get the next words out, because I really, really don’t want to say them. “But he offered to use his gift on you himself to see if we can get better results.”
“Really?”
I try not to let my unease show as I nod. I don’t like Peter going out of his way for me for this. I don’t know that I like him and Mendel meeting, either. I don’t think Mendel means any harm to anyone—for now. But what if it turns out he was a rebel? What if he goes back to them? The less he knows about me and anyone related to the Order, the better.
But I made a promise to Mendel, and I don’t break my promises.
Mendel’s silent as he finishes cleaning up the room and putting the tools back in their places. He doesn’t speak again until we’re exiting the woodshop. “You really were serious about helping me get my memories back, weren’t you?”
“No, I just said it for kicks,” I say. This part of Central Headquarters isn’t as tidy as the rest. Paint droplets trail the concrete floor, and water stains ruin every surface. The air is humid and damp, despite the fact there’s no water around. “Of course I meant it. I don’t waste my time on things I have no intention of following through on.”
Mendel rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because your actions always give me so much reason to believe what you say.”
“I told you before, I don’t lie. If I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it as best I can.”
“People always lie.”
“How can you really know? Maybe you just think everyone lies because you always lie.”
He doesn’t answer.
A Soldier and a Liar Page 20
