“No.”
Disappointment thumped in my chest like a heavy rock tossed into a pond. The Great Spirit only knew why I was disappointed about that. Maybe because, in some dusky recess of my mind, I’d held on to the dream of flying. I pushed that crushed fantasy away. “How did Adette survive?”
“A calidum found her after the slaughter. She was tiny, still a baby. She took her, hid her, and then carried her through a portal by pretending she was her child. They settled on the shore of Lake Michigan.”
“Was Adette the only survivor?”
Cruz screwed up his lips. “I haven’t heard of others.”
I raked my hand through my wet hair, shivering as the cold air glued the soaked fabric to my skin. Before I registered movement, Cruz had shuffled over to me. I flinched when he pressed the side of his body against mine.
“You’re freezing.”
I tried to inch away but he wound his fingers around my forearm to lock me against him. “Tell me about Lily,” I whispered. “Tell me the truth about what happened.”
“The less you know, the safer she’ll be.”
“Safer?” I sputtered. “She’s going to die.”
“She’s not going to die. I would never let her die.”
“She can come back here?”
“Not yet.”
“Ugh. Cruz. Just give me a straight answer already. I’m tired and confused and—”
“My mother can take any information from your head, Catori. The less you know, the less she can find out. Already, she could learn you are a Daneelie.”
The blood drained from my face, and although Cruz’s fire was warming me, I trembled. “But all of this—Lily, you and me—this is part of some plan?”
He nodded.
“And waking up the hunters?”
“Part of the plan too.”
“And not telling Ace?”
“Just trying to keep him out of danger.”
“You might be keeping him out of danger, but you’re also keeping him in a damn foul mood.”
“If I tell him, he’ll have to leave Neverra until our wedding day. I assumed you wanted him near.”
I side-eyed him. “Why would I want him near?”
Cruz smirked. “You forget my first gajoï was the truth about your feelings.”
“I could’ve changed my mind.”
“You could’ve, but you didn’t.”
I sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me, it is.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip.
“I’m not going to hurt him, Catori.”
As though he felt I didn’t quite believe him, he curled an arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. I let him hold me. I even leaned my head against his shoulder.
“So if I told him marrying you was a gajoï, you’d still tell me how to get Lily back in?”
“The less he knows—”
“The better. I understand.” I drew a slow breath. “I really hated you.”
“I know.”
“You think your mother will find out about me?”
“I hope not, but if she does, I have a plan.”
“And what is it?”
“Getting you out of Neverra fast. If she follows you back to Rowan, the hunters will take her down.”
I pressed away from him and looked up into his face. “Take her down?”
“Kill her.”
“You’d let them?”
“I’d rather do it myself.” A beat passed. One silent beat. “Try not to let that enter your mind when you’re around her, or she might kill me first.”
I sucked in a breath.
His thumb stroked the top of my arm. “In case anything happens to me, Lily knows the entirety of my plan.”
“Lily’s in on everything?”
“I had Gwenelda fill her in before her people woke the hunters.”
I blinked at him. “Is Lily mad?”
“Mad? She’s livid. Then again, she was livid when I took you to Neverra, so nothing really changed.”
“Will you guys get rebonded? Is that how you’ll get her back in?”
His pupils throbbed. “I’m bound to you.”
“But I can break that bond now that my Daneelie gene is activated. I can return to Rowan. And then—”
His thumb stopped moving. “That’s not how I’ll get her back in.”
“Then—”
“Stop, Cat. I’ve said too much already.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip. In my opinion, he’d shown me the tip of an iceberg.
“But I’ll tell you one last thing. I’ll tell you the reason why I can’t take you back to Rowan. I need you to undo what your ancestors did to Neverra.”
“What they did?”
He tipped his forehead toward the thick mist veiling the purple sky.
“The mist? You want me to undo the mist?”
“I’ve always longed to see what Neverra would look like without it. My father told me it was quite spectacular.”
I raised my eyes to the woolly ceiling over our heads. Could I somehow control it now? “Cruz, I don’t think I can—I’m one person. And not a very strong one at that.”
He leveled his gaze on mine. “Why do you think we gave the book to the Unseelies? Why do you think we woke the hunters? You might be the only one who can manipulate the mist, but you are not alone. We will all help as best we can.”
My stomach churned and twisted.
“You are not alone,” he repeated, giving my body a reassuring squeeze that did the exact opposite.
I wasn’t reassured. I was worried that all of his careful, intricate planning would be for nothing. How could a girl like me—so weak, so human—how could she somehow change the course of a world that wasn’t even hers?
43
The Punishment
That night, Cruz went to dinner at the palace on his own. The excuse was that I’d made a fool of him by wasting his money in the marketplace, and his punishment was keeping me from any festivities until he deemed me repentant.
“Any chance I could be unrepentant until our wedding day?” I asked him two days later.
Yes, two entire days. I’d stayed locked up in his apartment with only Veroli as a visitor. She brought me food, clothes, and offered to give me baths that I kept turning down. I’d bathed once since my swim in the glades, thanks to Cruz warming the water in his bathroom. He’d left me alone to steep in the blisteringly cleansing bath, alone with my blistering thoughts. Although my skin had glimmered in the water, no scales had appeared. Desirous to grasp the mechanics of my nature, I’d spent the past two hundred hours poring over books from Cruz’s library, deciphering the Faeli language with the help of Veroli.
I’d gleaned a few interesting tidbits.
Cruz dropped into the armchair opposite the one I was sitting in and raked his hands through his black curls.
“I managed to read an entire book today. I didn’t get every word, but Veroli was helpful. Apparently water used to cover the Hareni. It’s the water the Daneelies used to create—”
Cruz sighed.
“What?”
His eyes were closed.
Pulse skittering like a broken strand of pearls, I asked again, “What?”
“I had to do something today.” His eyes flicked open, gleaming so bright they looked slickened by starlight. “Something”—even the flames in the hearth crackled louder than his voice—“awful.”
My mind flashed to Ace. “What did you have to do?”
The answer didn’t come from him.
The answer came from the window.
From the wails penetrating the glass.
I stood up. On wooden limbs, I approached the sound.
Harsh sunlight glared on the metal bars of the cupola floating just outside the apartment. Inside the cage kneeled an old woman. She clutched the gold bars, knobby fingers wrapped so tightly around them I half-expected her to wrench them open, but the bars would sooner wrench her open than allow her out.<
br />
She lifted her face toward me, toothless mouth agape, a black hole in her too-white face.
I raised a palm to my mouth to stifle my horror, then tore it off and spun toward Cruz. “You have to get her out!”
“I can’t, Catori.”
I stalked back toward him. “She doesn’t deserve this! I’m the one who chose to pay her. I should be the one in there.”
“You wouldn’t survive in there.”
“She won’t either!”
He scrubbed his hands down the sides of his face. “In all battles, there are casualties.”
“Casualties? Cruz, this is unfair! This woman has nothing to do with your fight. She doesn’t deserve to be tortured! To die over a pair of earrings!”
Another devastating cry sounded outside. My brain crawled in shame inside my mind at the sound of the woman’s misery. “Cruz…please…get her out.”
“I can’t. It’ll show weakness. I need my mother to trust me.”
For a long second, I stared at him and tried to figure out if he was telling the truth. Was he really only pretending to be a monster, or was he one?
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know me. You know me.”
“Do I?”
He smacked his palms against his thighs, and the sound made me jump. “Who raised me, Catori?”
I frowned.
“Borgo and Veroli. They raised me.”
I pressed my lips together. I understood what he was trying to tell me. That if he resembled anyone, it wasn’t his mother. Finally, I sighed. “I saved your life. In the glades, I saved your life.”
“I wasn’t dying. I was just stunned.”
“Still, I got you out. Don’t you owe me now?”
“I never asked for you to get me out. Besides, only Seelies can strike bargains.”
“Ugh!”
“Catori, if I could unlock those gates, I would. But I can’t. I can’t. So please, stop looking at me like that. Cover your ears and sit. Ingrid’s old. She won’t last long.”
“Ingrid…” I whispered her name.
I didn’t cover my ears, and I didn’t sit. I walked back to the window, palms pressed against the glass, gaze pressed against the calidum suffering because of me. I murmured her name. Over and over, as though saying it could somehow lend her strength to survive the cupola.
But she didn’t survive the faerie prison.
Blood foamed out of the black void that was her mouth, pink and red. It dribbled down her chin, stained her green tunic, plopped down on the floor beneath her empty face.
Black leathery wings swooped next to the cage, and then green eyes with elongated pupils met mine. Tendrils of smoke puffed out of the draca’s wide nostrils, billowed up the sides of her long, scaly muzzle, rounded her pointed horns.
I sensed her delight, her feeling of triumph. I wondered if she sensed my hatred. I hoped she did. She chuffed and then flapped her wings and flew away.
Lucionaga in human form arrived shortly after her departure. Their gold eyes traveled over my tear-stained face. Unlike the draca, their faces remained impassive. If they’d enjoyed the calidum’s punishment, it didn’t show. Their fingers wound around the gold bars of the cage. With little effort, they dragged it away.
“Will they bury Ingrid?”
“They will return her to her family.” Cruz’s voice came from over my shoulder.
I turned to find him standing beside me, his face as stony as the lucionaga’s.
“Take me to them.”
His lips thinned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Would visiting them put them in harm’s way?”
“No.”
“Then take me to them. You can tell your mother it was part of the punishment, to make me witness the devastation my pettiness caused.”
He was quiet like a wolf was quiet, rolling my plea over in his mind.
In the end, he agreed to take me.
When night fell, he flew me through the grove of calimbors, swooping past branches and bridges, then darting underneath the mist, and flying lower still. We finally landed in front of a small door three stories from the roots of the tree.
Cruz lifted his hand to rap on the door, but his fist froze inches from the wood. He frowned at me. I self-consciously rubbed at my cheeks. “What?”
His squint accentuated, but then he blinked. “Did Veroli put makeup on your skin?”
“Makeup?” This was about makeup? Had she applied any? I dug into my mind but drew a blank. “Probably. Why? Did it smudge?”
“You…glitter, that’s all.”
I guess that wasn’t a bad thing. I swiped a finger across my cheek, then checked my fingertip. It did glitter a little.
Frowning, Cruz finally knocked. A latch clicked, and then a small, round face jutted out. The child’s gaze grew wide as it landed on Cruz, then wider still when it landed on me.
“Could we come in?”
The child gulped as he raised his gaze back to Cruz. “My”—Cruz cleared his throat—“bride-to-be would like a word with your mother.”
“Quid est, Ranka?” came a thin voice from within. And then the door opened wider, revealing a small woman with a mop of red hair. When she saw me, she froze. “Come to tyke anudder one of us away?” She had a strange accent, the accent of someone for whom English wasn’t the mother tongue.
Cruz spoke to the woman in Faeli. She eyed him suspiciously, then eyed me suspiciously. Finally she let us in.
I stepped over the threshold, but Cruz didn’t. Something in the dark apartment made him halt. “I’m needed at the palace.” His voice was loud, borderline arrogant. “I hope this visit teaches you not to toy with people from our kingdom. I’d hate to have to kill more because I cannot keep my future wife under control.”
I frowned at him.
If he noticed my confusion, he didn’t stop his strange act. “I’ll send Dawson to fetch you once you’ve repented enough. Now go and make amends for the life you cost this family.” He levitated, then soared heavenward.
What was that all about? Was a lucionaga near? I looked for a lighting bug, but besides a few calidums walking around on the ground below, eyes darting my way, there was no movement.
Unsettled, I walked deeper into the abode, and the woman shut the door. The interior was so dark, it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust.
“Take the earrings off.”
I jumped at the sound of the voice. And then I stepped back when a familiar face loomed over mine.
“Unless you came to rub the reason Ingrid died in their faces.”
Ace was here.
Here in front of me.
I blinked at the deep scowl marring his face. And then, with trembling hands, I touched the dangling earrings. “I wore them in her honor.”
“Honor? What honor? She’s dead. Because of those fucking earrings, she’s dead!” He ripped them out of my lobes and chucked them so hard on the floorboards, they fractured.
My ears burned in shame, just like my cheeks and my eyes. I touched my lobes, felt something wet. Had tears dripped into them? My fingers came back sticky, red. Ace had torn my skin.
My pulse rapped the walls of my chest, igniting my brand. His hand glowed too.
Deep grooves flourished between his eyes as he took in my bleeding ears.
A wet towel was placed into my hands. It was the red-haired woman. She had no reason to be kind to me, yet she was.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I turned toward her, cleaning my lobes. “What is your name?”
“Sarsay.”
“Who was Ingrid to you?”
“My mudder.”
“I didn’t come here to apologize, Sarsay.”
“Course not,” Ace muttered.
I ground my molars together, resisting the urge to spin around and tell Ace to shut up. “I came to promise you that I will avenge her death.”
Ace snorted behind me. The
quarters were so tight I could feel his hot breath on the nape of my neck. “Planning on killing your future husband?”
I turned and glared up at him.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he added.
“I will seek retribution.”
A long beat passed.
The little boy stepped under his mother’s arms. I looked around the small room for others, but found none.
“Is it just the two of you?” I asked.
“My hoosbund died a long time ago.”
“And guess how he died, Catori?”
I didn’t dare ask. Plus, I knew Ace would tell me whether I wanted to hear it or not.
“In a cupola too. But he wasn’t as lucky as Ingrid. His agony lasted days. Not minutes, days!”
His tone made me wince and squeeze my earlobes tighter. Sarsay’s husband’s death wasn’t my fault, yet he made it sound as though, somehow, I was to blame for it.
“Know why he was killed?”
I shook my head.
“The harvest he delivered to the palace didn’t please the wariff. Gregor was convinced it was measly because he’d sold off his crops to marsh-dwellers, instead of reserving them all for the sky-dwellers.” A terrible smile curled Ace’s lips. “Gregor was right.”
The woman pulled her little boy harder against her side.
“Sarsay’s husband had kept the best from the caligosupra, but not because he’d sold anything to the calidum. He’d distributed it for free.”
“It’s in de past noo.”
Ace’s Adam’s apple jolted in his unshaven throat. Days-old stubble cloaked his hard jaw.
The little boy sniffled. I crouched before him, touched his arm that was wound tightly around his mother’s waist. “Ranka?”
He turned wary, glassy eyes toward me.
“I’ll try to make the world you’ll grow up in better.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Ace asked darkly.
“Your father still rules, so if you tried, you gave up too soon.”
His nostrils flared with a breath. “Will you kill my father too?”
“I’ll try my best.” I leveled a smile on his disbelieving face. “I must leave now. I do not want to arouse suspicion. Take care of your mommy, Ranka.” I touched Sarsay’s shoulder. She stared up at me, a mix of fear and incredulity flashing in her eyes. I gave her the soiled towel and thanked her for her kindness. And then I stepped back toward the door and let myself out.
Rising Silver Mist Page 25
