Lily crooked her finger at me, and I approached.
Ace saw a picture of them in your room. They didn’t look alike apparently. Are you sure they WERE twins? Maybe they weren’t related.
Blood must have pooled into my heart, because my chest felt hot and close to bursting.
Lily whisked back the glimmering curtain of hair that had settled around her face as she typed: I’m serious though, if I am right about this, you have to keep it a secret.
“Ace knows. I mean he knows I moved water.”
He didn’t tell me. Maybe he didn’t connect the dots. Does anyone else know?
I nodded, and my head felt like it weighed more than the rowan wood caskets of my ancestors. “Kajika knows,” I admitted softly, “but he believes it’s a hunter power. Besides, I really do descend from the Gottwas, so maybe it is.”
Lily added a line of text: If it’s only Ace and Kajika, then you should…
“Cruz knows. I think.”
Lily craned her neck to look into my face. Her pupils expanded, ate up her irises. In slow motion, she lowered her somber gaze. Her fingers hovered over her digital keyboard as though unable to write the thought pulsing through her mind.
She didn’t have to write it, though, because I knew exactly what she was thinking.
If Cruz knew, then I was in serious trouble. “He’s going to kill me.”
After a very long beat, Lily typed: Or he’s going to use you.
I wasn’t sure which was worse.
20
Revelations
Over dinner the following night, I asked Dad if Ley and Chatwa were really related.
“I don’t understand your question, Cat.”
Dad had taken Lily and me to the Japanese restaurant in Ruddington where Dad and I ate the night I’d learned about Forest Print—the printing house in Detroit Holly/Ley had used to print her book.
“Holly told your mother they were. I don’t see why she’d lie.”
I saw quite a few reasons why she’d lie. To protect her sister from other faeries. Because she didn’t know the truth herself. To protect me.
“This somehow feels like déjà vu, huh?” Dad stared out the window at the inky spread of water.
“What feels like that?”
“Discussing Chatwa here. Last time we came, we talked about her too.” He studied the menu. “You girls know what you want to eat?”
We both nodded.
He signaled for a waitress. “I suppose you could exhume her body and test her DNA if you’re that curious.”
Considering Holly had turned into a flower, that was impossible. Flora DNA would probably not match human DNA.
“Or you could test her nephew. That would be less messy than digging her up.”
Lily tipped her head to the side, so Dad explained, “Kajika was her great nephew.”
Although Lily righted her head, her frown didn’t dissipate.
I gave her a look that I hoped translated into I’ll explain later, then lowered my gaze to my wooden chopsticks. I separated them, the wood splintering unevenly. When I realigned them, though, they joined seamlessly.
“Or you could get a DNA sample from a hairbrush if those gypsies didn’t toss all her things away.”
I jerked my gaze up because that could work. Unless faerie DNA disintegrated like their owners.
“They’re real busy tonight.” Dad still had his arm lifted but no waitress was coming our way. “I’ll go tell them we’re ready.” He walked over to the sushi bar.
“Does DNA turn into ash?”
Lily typed: No clue. BTW, Kajika is your cousin?
“No. He’s from another tribe.” Dad was making his way back over, so I added quickly, “But Dad thinks he’s related to my mother’s family.”
Dad dropped back into his chair. “So what did you girls do today?”
“I worked out, and Lily read.”
“You like reading? I love reading.”
“No, Dad, you love the idea of reading.”
“I have lots of books—”
“That you never read.”
“Sadly, that’s true. But I want to read more. It was my New Year’s resolution.”
“It’s your New Year’s resolution every year.”
Dad grinned. “Does Cat drive you crazy, Lily? ’Cause she drives me a little insane.”
“Hey!” I tapped my father’s hand with one of my chopsticks.
“Honey, I meant that in the best possible way.”
“Puh-lease.” I rolled my eyes. “There is no good way to mean that.”
Dad chuckled. Lily smiled. I did too, because it was a nice change from discussing my motley gene pool.
“Are you both going to Cass’s birthday party tomorrow?”
Lily looked at me.
“Yeah. We’re both going. I mean, if you want to go, Lily. There’s going to be a lot of people. Cass invited everyone on her contact list, and she has a lot of contacts.”
“You should go. I’m sure you’ll meet nice kids.”
I doubted Lily wanted to meet any nice kids.
The waitress came over to take our order then. After Lily pointed to her selection, and Dad and I ordered, he asked, “If your brother ever wants to join us for dinner, he’s always welcome. I know he and Cat are good friends.”
Unfortunately, I was sipping my iced seltzer water when he said this, and some of it shot up my nose, which was horrible.
Lily signed something to my dad.
“Don’t thank me. I like Ace. He’s a sweet and responsible kid. Unlike Kajika.”
I was still coughing. “Dad, Kajika and I aren’t in a relationship. Really. Really. Really. We aren’t. I swear on—” I was about to say Mom. Instead, I said, “On my own life.”
Lily observed me in that incisive way of hers, as though she were peeling away the layers until she could see the hidden core.
“That boy’s troubled. And trouble.”
“Dad,” I hissed.
He raised both hands in the air. “That’s my two cents.”
“Can you please cut him some slack? He was married, and his wife died. Out of everyone, you should understand how that feels.”
I hadn’t meant for it to come out as brutally as it did.
Dad blanched. “What?”
“And then he lost his family in a”—I looked at the ice cubes floating in my glass—“in a fire.”
“What?” Dad’s voice was a mere whisper.
“He’s had a tough life, which has made him tough. But he’s not a bad person.”
Dad knocked over his beer. “Oh! Oh…” It trickled onto his jeans. “Oh Great Spirit…that’s…that’s…I’m…” He flung his paper napkin on the fizzy yellow puddle to sop up the liquid.
I covered his shaking hand with my own. “You didn’t know.”
“But— Oh, Cat, why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would it have changed?”
“I wouldn’t have had so many negative thoughts about him for one. Ugh. Poor kid. Is that why he fights for a living?”
I nodded. “But, Dad, he doesn’t like pity, so don’t ever mention any of the things I told you, okay? Actually, pretend you don’t know anything.”
Dad’s cheeks were still pretty pale. “Did you know, Lily?”
She nodded.
Dad scraped a hand over his face. “I feel like a jerk.”
“You’re not.” I squeezed his other hand.
“If he ever needs to talk about his loss, I’ll listen. Will you tell him?”
“He doesn’t like talking about Ishtu.”
“Ishtu?” Dad asked. “Was she also of Native origin?”
“Yeah.”
“Your mom wanted to name you that—”
I knocked my knee into the table. “What? She did?”
“Uh-huh. Apparently, you had an ancestor called like that. It means sweet in Gottwa. Was Kajika’s wife Gottwa?”
“Yes,” I said, my throat as hot as the air pulsin
g from the vent next to me.
“I didn’t think there were many Gottwas still living.”
Even though I always wondered why my parents had chosen a Hopi name for me, I was incredibly glad it had won over the Gottwa possibility.
“What happened to her?” Dad asked, as the waitress deposited a bowl of edamame on our table.
I glanced at Lily. “She was killed in a freak accident.”
Dad gasped. “Great Spirit, what a life!” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m hungry anymore.”
He still ate the edamame and his entire platter of sushi, but he was uncharacteristically quiet during the entire meal. Even though I felt bad for burdening my father with this knowledge, I was glad he finally knew, if only to stop being so critical of the hunter.
21
Birthday Party
“Are you sure you want to go?” I stood in the doorway of Lily’s bedroom, watching her tie the laces on her white sneakers embedded with sparkly stars. The shoes looked new, like everything Lily wore.
She stood up and signed something, but remembered I had no knowledge of sign language, so she seized her phone off her made-up bed—maybe I was prejudiced, but for royalty, I found Lily quite tidy—and wrote: If you don’t want me to go, I’ll stay here.
“It’s not that. I’m just worried you won’t have much fun. Human parties are…” I attempted to fit the correct words: loud, messy, reek of beer.
I like human parties.
“Okay then, let’s go.”
Lily picked up a large white box tied with a black ribbon.
“You got her a present?”
She shrugged. It’s not much. Just clothes.
“Which is Cass’s favorite thing.”
I’d crafted a lariat with beveled amethysts—apparently, they were the stones for protection—and three feathers from the tin Mom and I had filled over the years. I was never a woo-woo sort of a girl. Mom and Aylen were the ones who believed in the magical capacity of minerals. But since I’d discovered that opal contained magic—it made things and people invisible to faeries—I was willing to risk ridicule. Maybe amethysts were just pretty purple stones. In that case, Cass would have a pretty purple necklace.
“You might want to grab a jacket, it gets cold at night.”
Lily smiled at me. My fire hasn’t burned out yet.
Guilt amassed in my throat, formed a large lump. “I’m sorry, Lily, I—”
She waved her hand as though it wasn’t a big deal, but it was a big deal, because Lily’s life was a blazing wick that was burning down.
“So you’re never cold?” I asked, as we walked out to my silver Honda.
She shook her head and climbed into the passenger seat.
I started the car, and a loud Kygo song blasted out of the stereo. I lowered the volume and drove out of the cemetery.
“Are there lots of parties in Neverra?”
Lily nodded, then tipped her phone toward me. Almost every night. Fae LOVE reveling.
“Are they fancy?”
She bobbed her head. Caligosupra parties are, but not caligosubi parties. Those are more human-like. And way more fun.
I presumed caligosupra—faeries who lived above the mist—were wealthier than those who lived below the mist—caligosubi.
“Do you miss your home?”
She relaxed her head against the head rest and looked out her window. After a while, she nodded.
When I’d left Rowan to go to college, I hadn’t missed home much, but comparing leaving my small town for a big city in the same country to being expelled from your only home was ludicrous. Lily hadn’t left out of boredom; she’d been kicked out…locked out.
“Kajika’s coming,” I told Lily.
She glanced at me. In the obscurity, her eyes glinted like a cat’s. “Hopefully alone, but maybe Cass extended the invitation to his new friends.”
She twirled a lock of hair around her index finger, and the ring she wore cast tinsel over the dashboard.
“If you want to go home early, just tell me and—”
She placed a hand on my arm, then moved it off and typed. Her white screen filled with quick words: Don’t worry about me. I know I look eighteen, but I’m ninety, Catori.
Right. “Sorry.”
She shook her head, and a half smile crept over one side of her mouth. It resembled her brother’s smile so much that my heart compressed. You’re much nicer than you seem.
“Thanks?”
She laughed, which loosened the tension that had coiled around my limbs the night Lily had appeared on our doorstep. Not that I thought having her live with us would be the worst possible thing, but I had expected it to be strange.
And it hadn’t. Which was the strange part.
A couple minutes before we reached the beach, the throbbing music overpowered my car’s low stereo. The frenzied rhythm pumped against the tree trunks nearest the beach and echoed over the smooth lake, along with peppy chatter and raucous laughter.
I parked behind a long line of cars, grabbed the velvet jewelry pouch, and waited for Lily before making my way onto the beach. We walked toward the blazing bonfire surrounded by swaying, scantily-clad girls and shorts-and-baseball-cap-clad boys. So she could place the people she was about to meet, I told Lily some stories about my high school days, stories I’d pushed into dusty recesses of my mind. One of them was about Blake. I had to stop midway through, because a ball of grief as thick as a cork jammed up my throat.
Lily brushed my arm. I didn’t dare look at her until I was certain I’d reined back the tears. This was Cass’s big night. I needed to be happy tonight—at least pretend to be happy. I realized I hadn’t been happy for a long time.
“Cass will have more exciting stories,” I finally croaked. “She was popular.”
As though she heard her name on my lips, Cass sprinted toward us, tossing herself and her drink over me. Most of her beer landed on the sand, but some sprinkled my cut-offs and legs. I suspected it would be the first of many drinks spilled over me tonight.
“Happy birthday, sweetie.” I pressed the pouch into her hands.
She opened it instantly, tipping the contents over on her palm. “Oh…my…freaking…God. I LOVE it!” She wrapped it around her neck, then hugged me again. The stones glimmered against her bare throat, and the feathers quivered in the placid wind.
Lily handed her the big white box, and Cass tore it open. Her eyes snapped open so wide, they seemed to eat up all her face. Or at least what could be seen of her face behind her long bangs.
“You didn’t!” she gasped as she held out a pair of fire-engine red leather pants and a black lace top. She tackled Lily, giving her a hug that would’ve knocked her over if she hadn’t been a nimble faerie. As Cass raved about her new clothes, I scanned the beach for familiar faces. Found many. Two held my attention.
Kajika had come, but not alone. Alice was with him. Where she looked at ease, he looked like a weed in a flowerbed.
Once Cass had departed to greet more guests, I nodded toward him and asked Lily, “Want to stay here or—”
Lily shook her head and tagged along. I circled the driftwood arranged around the blazing flames. I touched Kajika’s arm, then said, “Hey.”
His eyes went straight to Lily. Alice’s too. Where Kajika’s stare didn’t bother me, Alice’s did. I couldn’t explain what it was about her, but the huntress made my skin crawl. Perhaps because she was unpredictable and new and vindictive. Kajika never did anything fast.
Except moving.
He moved fast, but he thought and acted on his thoughts slowly.
“She brought a faerie?” Alice wound a hand around Kajika’s forearm.
He shrugged her hand off. “Lily Wood comes in peace, Alice.”
Alice glared at Lily; Lily glared right back.
Alice pressed up on her tiptoes to reach Kajika’s ear, and still she didn’t reach it. “She’s a faer—”
“I know what she is.” His voice was rough and
deep, and as fierce as a whiplash.
“We’re making exceptions now?” she asked disdainfully.
“Lily is not here to cause us harm.”
Alice’s eyes darted to mine. She must not have liked what she saw in them, because she looked away, eyes so thin they were mere slits. “I need a drink. This party reeks of adolescent hormones.”
When she walked over toward one of the coolers spilling over with ice and beer bottles, I asked Kajika, “Did you find anything?”
Still staring at Lily, he pulled a Ziploc from his jeans’ back pocket. “A comb. It had a hair. I do not know if it is hers, though.”
I studied the ivory comb.
“For all it is worth, Catori, I never believed Ley to be a part of your family, even though Gwenelda insisted she was.”
I bit my lip. “I guess I’ll know in a couple weeks.”
“If you want to leave now,” I told Kajika with a smile, “you can. You look like you’re about to have an aneurism.”
“Aneurism?”
“Like your head’s about to explode,” I explained.
He folded his arms that were ridged with muscle. “I am fine.”
I smirked. “You look really uncomfortable.”
The hunter kept staring around him, unsmiling. Yeah, this was torture for him. Alice returned with two bottles. When she offered one to him, he raised his hand. Told her he did not drink. She shrugged. Chugged one bottle, cast it into the lake with a throw that was too powerful to be human, then started on the next.
I caught a couple people staring at the huntress’s toss, discussing it in loud whispers.
“Tone it down, Alice,” Kajika growled.
She rolled her eyes and downed the second beer which she tossed a couple feet away. “Better?”
“You should not dull your senses with alcohol.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “It barely gives me a buzz anymore.”
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