Page 121 of Shadows of Perl

“Do you prefer to be alone?” My pulse picks up and whatever else I was going to say blows away with the wind.

“Stay if you want, I don’t care.” Her gaze moves back out to the water. A knot in my chest tugs down sharply like an anchor. The same knot that brought me here: the enormity of her grief. It sits on me and I cannot breathe. I close the distance between us despite my best judgment—hoping, wanting, wishing I could ease this writhing discomfort that’s hers and somehow also mine.

I reach for her, and to my relief and surprise she doesn’t move.

My next breath is a stutter. I’d almost forgotten how it feels when we’re not fighting. I freeze, waiting for her to tense or give me the slightest indication that she doesn’t want me touching her this way. But she doesn’t move. So I don’t either. We stay like that, with my hand gently cupped around her arm, until my feet are buried in the sand from the tide rolling in.

Something violent rears up inside me. This is wrong.

I begin to pull my hand away. But her fingers find mine.

And the whole world seems to still.

She turns, lifting her chin, and meets my stare. Her fingers work their way between mine and we stand there. Tears stream down her freckled cheeks, and the next one that falls does something confusing to my insides. It rolls down her face, streaming across her parted lips before dangling from her chin. I tighten my free hand into a fist, resisting the urge to catch it.

But then I can’t resist anymore, and I smooth my thumb across the tear before it falls. I should have said something before about her mother. She leans into the palm of my hand. First her head, then her entire body folds into my chest. I wrap around her, holding on to her tightly, and the pain billowing inside us both eases like the calming of a raging storm. I bury my face in her hair and inhale, and it’s like taking my first breath in a long time.

She is darkness.

But somehow she warms me like the sun.

My senses abandon me, and I pull her chin up so that we can see each other fully. I start to speak but her hand rises to my face, pressing my mouth closed gently. She leans back on my chest. She doesn’t have to speak. The minute we shatter this silence, this moment will sift through our fingers quicker than sand. Stealing it is the only way it can exist.

I hold on to her tighter.

She cries a bit more, off and on, but after a long while, the tangle of her sadness unravels and she lets out a long exhale. She wriggles in my grip, and for a second I consider refusing to let her go. Holding her is the only thing that feels right in all this chaos. But I release her and she puts more distance between us.

“Thank you.”

Her words carve a chasm the size of the Sphere inside me.

What have I done?

Forty-Six

Quell

Jordan left me after I told him I needed a bit more time at the beach, alone. When I make it back to camp, the chill on my skin from the ocean has nearly worn off. It was not nearly cold enough. The sun is on the horizon. Jordan is sitting by a fire. I don’t have to ask to know he hasn’t been able to go back to sleep. I give the flames a wide berth, wanting to hold on to the damp chill on my skin as long as possible. I’m not as hot, but I am weak.

“I’ll be ready,” I tell him when his head swivels in my direction. “The sun should crest the volcano soon.”

“Quell, if you need to rest—”

“I’m fine.”

“Stop saying that. We both know that isn’t true.” A war wages in his eyes.

“I’m tracking when the sun comes up.”

There’s much he doesn’t say; I can tell by the look on his face. Resigned, he looks for his brother. “Yagrin.”

It’s only then I realize Yagrin, who still looks like Liam, is also fully awake. “There’s a split in the trees to the south that has a really nice angle. I scoped it out earlier. Tried and counted to about twenty before my magic wouldn’t let me see anymore.”

“Great. But I’m going to try here first.” I sit down and my head swims, but I hold still. Jordan calls him over for a word. They chat at a volume too low to hear. Jordan throws up his hands in frustration.

Suspend, count, flare, cloak. When the sun rises over the trees, I pull on the wedge of cold that slumbers at my side. When the brothers notice me, their fighting stops and I have all their attention again. I pour a hill of Sun Dust in my hand and toss it in the air. Iciness simmers in my veins but my toushana doesn’t move. I hold my side and try again. But the cold resting inside is like a block of ice. I shift in my seat.

Jordan watches. Liam stands over me. I resituate myself and try again, willing my toushana to move, react, do something. It stirs weakly. I pull at the faint threads of its motion and try to force it into my hands, just to see what happens. But not even a wisp of magic appears.