The warehouse seemed different than it had when they'd left it earlier that night. It was darker, somehow, more grotesque, like it'd been haunted now for millennia. Jem knew that more than likely it was just her sour mood and the steadily worsening moods of all the others, too. A map of Naino meant nothing, not when so many people had lost their lives, not when she could still taste catastrophe on her tongue, bitter as smoke.
She sank down on one of the pallets, letting her weariness claim her, as Chike hefted Aldric up the stairs, Sorin not far behind him with Zuri dozing in his arms. Despite being so close to the blast, Aldric and Zuri were both okay. Unconscious and bruised, but okay. Still, Jem didn't think she was imagining the strain to Sorin's face, the way he kept his eyes forward instead of down, as if the sight of Zuri so weak, so vulnerable, nearly made him implode.
Their footsteps thudded up the stairs, and then faded. A hand brushed her knee; Jem looked up as Kalindi settled on the pallet beside her, gathering her rose-tinted skirts in her lap. "We're fortunate," she said with a low sigh. "It's a good thing their injuries aren't beyond what we can handle ourselves. If we went to a hospital right now—"
"They'd find some way to blame us for this," Jem said, tracing the makeshift bandage at her eye, fastened with fabric ripped from the bottom of Kalindi's dress and the laces on Sorin's shoes. Kalindi was right. After everything Enzi had said, amongst the growing fear of the war on the horizon, it was probably best to lay low. "I know."
They sat, letting the silence swell between them like an orchid in midnight bloom. Kalindi turned her head, earrings trembling, her eyes gentle, so gentle, as she traced a thumb along Jem's jawbone. "How are your eyes feeling?" she asked, in what was almost a whisper. "It's my fault. If I hadn't wasted that time getting down into the tunnel, then—"
Jem caught Kalindi's hand, closing it in her own. "Don't worry about me," she said, though in truth her eyes were throbbing in her head, like tiny fingers of fire groping at the back of her corneas. She'd rinsed her eyes in the river, but she had the feeling it would take more than that before they were back to normal again. "Everything Enzi said...are you okay?"
Kalindi nodded her head. "I'm fine. In earnest I shouldn't be all that surprised that my mother would do something like this. Say what you like about her, but she has always been overly ambitious."
Jem smirked. "Stellar performance. Your acting could rival my mom's, did you know that? Now tell me the truth, Kali."
Kalindi lowered their hands, still entangled, to rest on Jem's thigh. When she closed her eyes, exhaled, then opened them again, a rim of tears quivered at her waterline. Inside Jem, something crumbled and broke.
"This changes everything," Kalindi said, her voice quavering as it left her throat. She sniffled, swiping almost angrily at her tears, as if that did anything but make them fall faster. "It changes everything, doesn't it? We can't let my mother reach Vernon, and yet we can't let Vernon just—just do what he wants, either. So what do we do? I'm not sure where this leaves us, Jem. What am I—what are we supposed to do?"
Somewhere in the very back of her mind, it dawned on Jem that she had never seen Kalindi in this state before, so lost, so despaired, so utterly and painfully human. The princess wore her royal skin so well that it sometimes melded into something else, a sort of invulnerable armor. But that, Jem realized now, was just a facade.
Jem sighed, bringing Kalindi closer, kissing away the salty tears that lingered on her cheeks. "That's the sad part," she whispered to her. "I think we already know what we have to do, and I think we know that there's no other option."
Sunlight, warm and subtle as a kiss upon her cheek, brought Zuri out of a deep sleep. Behind her closed eyes, she'd dreamt first of hands around her, holding her close, a soft voice in her ear—and then of her mother, pulling her in, raking gentle fingers through the coils of a younger Zuri's hair. She woke not in her mother's arms but in a blanketed wooden pallet on the warehouse's upper deck, still in the tattered remains of her ballgown, an incessant headache throbbing at her temples.
She turned her head slowly, first left, then right. On one side of the pallet, Chike sat asleep on the floor, back leaned against a support beam and his head tilted back as he snored. On the other was Aldric, propped up on his own makeshift bed, a tense knit of skin between his bluish-black brows as he slept. A white bandage crept up over the torn collar of his dress shirt, but Zuri let the relief flood in that he was otherwise unharmed.
"Zuri?"
She turned her head again. Chike sat up straight now, blinking, eyes wide and alert. "Chike," she gasped. "Are you—"
He shook his head, an unbelieving smile on his face. "I'm perfectly fine. You do remember what my ability is, don't you?"
If she didn't feel so weak, she would have laughed at herself. "Of course I do. However, you're my friend so by default I'm allowed to worry."
"Right back at you," he said, but his smile dipped just enough for Zuri to notice. He scooted closer, his words warm with sympathy. "Are you okay? Do you need anything? Are you thirsty? Hungry?"
"Frankly, Chike, my head is spinning and you asking a bunch of questions isn't helping," said Zuri, though she was grinning—or at least as much as she could grin when every movement felt as though she were dragging herself through honey. "Just...tell me everyone else is okay, too, right? That's all I need."
"Jem got some debris in her eyes, but she's doing fine," Chike answered after a moment. He paused, gesturing at Aldric. "Aldric over there probably fractured a rib or two judging from the bruising, but as we know, he's tough, so that's nothing to him. The rest of us got out unscathed."
Zuri nodded, letting the words sink into her being. Everyone is okay. And even if they are not one hundred percent okay, they are alive, and that is enough. "I just don't understand," she said, when she was ready, when her soul had stilled enough that she was now prepared to face what stood before her, before all of them. "Who would do this? Who would kill so many people, and—and why?"
Even before he spoke, Zuri knew the answer wouldn't be a pleasing one. She saw it on Chike's face, the way he leaned forward, nervously interlacing his fingers.
"You're not going to like this," Chike told her, slowly, "but it was the Queen's doing."
He was right; she definitely didn't like this. It was a gelid, unsettling shock, like stepping unprepared into a blizzard. The Queen? If the Queen had turned against them, where did that leave them, then?
Chike filled her in on everything Enzi had explained before the bombs went off, and Zuri listened intently while he did, her unease growing and growing like black mold with every word. The Queen hadn't called them for this honorable task because no one else could do it; she'd done so because there was no one better to exploit.
"Kalindi," she said when Chike was done. "How is Kalindi dealing with this?"
Chike frowned, giving a bewildered shake of his head. "As best you can deal with finding out your own mother wants you dead, I suppose. Jem's been with her all night."
"Good," Zuri said, and she meant it. It wasn't the sort of event someone should be left alone to process. "In the mean time we need to figure out a plan. Did they find anything at Mulaim before it...before it was destroyed? Did we—"
"Zuri, Zuri. Please," Chike said, regarding her gravely, and only as he reached to settle her back against the blankets did she note the dark, plum-colored skin beneath his eyes. "We need a second. Just a second, to breathe. Then we can pick up the pieces, okay?"
Zuri wanted to. She wanted to take a break, she wanted to close her eyes, she wanted to pretend. But they were running out of time, weren't they? How much longer could they wait before it was too late to fix anything?
She sunk down on her back, even as anxiety set everything inside of her buzzing. Pushing out a long, tired breath, she said, "Chike?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you," she said. "For taking care of me."
Blatant confusion crossed his face, before it cleared again. "Ah," he said. "I believe you owe Kircher the credit for that. He carried you all the way here, and even for a while after that he refused to leave you alone until he knew you were alright."
"Sorin?" Zuri's cheeks flushed. She recalled, vaguely, the feel of his heart beating beneath her ear, his softly murmuring voice. That was a dream, she'd thought, a version of him that didn't exist in this world.
Worst of all, it meant she'd actually said all of that—Why am I alive?—right in front of him.
"Oh, by Kiro," she muttered. "Where...where is he? I need to talk to him."
Chike frowned at her. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea for you to be moving about yet—"
"Chike, please," she said, dragging herself upright. "I'm begging you. Tell me where Sorin is."
She found him outside, sitting by the stream.
He was a tall, dark silhouette, rising like a shadow out of a bed of wind-strewn daisies. Zuri paused a breath, leaning against the outer corner of the warehouse, just watching him. The way the line of his shoulders slumped, how one ear was slightly higher than the other, how the wind ruffled the tiny black hairs at the nape of his neck.
Zuri was afraid to interrupt his solace, but not too afraid to wonder what it was he was thinking so deeply about. And yet—she already knew, somehow.
"You shouldn't be out here," Sorin said then, startling Zuri so badly she might've fallen over if not for her grip on the wall. "One, you just got blown up not even twelve hours ago, so you need to be resting. And two, I don't need company."
"Chike told me," Zuri said, taking one step away from the wall, and then another, and another, slowly, all the while watching Sorin's rigid back. "He told me you carried me back and that you looked after me. I appreciate that, Sorin. I really do."
He made a flippant noise in the back of his throat. "Anyone would've done that."
"Well, not just anyone did. You did," said Zuri, and now that she was close enough, she sank down beside him, folding her legs. Grass, supple and damp with morning dew, brushed her ankles, the quiet babble of the stream ahead of them like a melody singing in her ears.
Zuri sighed, trying not to think too hard about the gap of space between her and Sorin's shoulders, how the air between them thrummed as if with the subtle beat of a hummingbird's wings. "If I said anything last night..."
"Don't mention it," Sorin said. She glanced at him, but his eyes were trained straight ahead, the wind gently moving the blond streak of his hair back and forth where it spilled over his forehead. "It's between you and me."
"No, you don't understand. I didn't—"
Softly, Sorin shook his head. "You did mean it. Otherwise you wouldn't have said it."
Zuri closed her mouth.
"I meant what I said, too. There's no sense questioning why you're still here and someone else isn't. Chances are it doesn't matter anyway; there's no logic to this shit. So just keep going," Sorin said. His eyes flickered towards the ground; Zuri watched the flutter of his eyelashes—even the lashes on his left eye were lighter, like wisps of spun gold. "And sure as hell don't throw your own life away for anyone else's sake."
Zuri's eyebrows twitched; there was a harsh bite to his voice that hadn't been there a second before. "What do you mean?"
"You're too reckless, Zuri," said Sorin. He picked up a pebble from the ground in front of him, arcing it across the water, watching it skip, skip, fall. "You're so dedicated to being a 'good person' or whatever the hell that you never consider your own needs. That's why you nearly died last night, you know that?"
Something in Zuri's heart pinched. "I don't think trying to lead others to safety is reckless. Have you ever considered that maybe you're just selfish?"
"Oh, just admit it." He looked at her, eyes burning yellow. "You know you made a mistake. If you'd agreed to just follow me last night, then far less people would've been killed in the blast. But no, you have to convince yourself you're worthy of being here even if it costs you your fucking life. It doesn't add up, Zuri. What the hell are you thinking?"
It should've hurt her. In a way, it did: a low, dull throb of pain the very bottom of her heart. But she knew better than that. Most of all, she knew Sorin better than that.
"I know what this is."
"What what is?"
"This," Zuri said, lifting her chin. "What you're doing."
Sorin rolled his eyes, starting to get up, but he stopped when Zuri caught him by the lower hem of his shirt, furling her fingers tight in the fabric.
His eyes lowered to her hand, her knuckles brushing the golden brown skin of his stomach, which rose and fell with his breath. He lifted his eyes, narrowed slightly, to her face. "Zuri." His tone was warning, but of what? "Let me go."
"You're scared," she said without releasing him, "aren't you? Because there was someone else in your life once who would've done the same thing I did. You're not angry with me, Sorin. You're worried about me."
Sorin didn't reply, but his gaze cut away towards the ground.
"It's okay, Sorin," Zuri said, watching his face, how it changed, softening like clay beneath an artisan's loving hands: brows lifting, lips easing out of their frown, pupils dilating. "It doesn't matter how difficult it gets. It may feel damn near impossible, even, but all of us are going to figure this out together, okay? It's how we got into this mess, and it's how we're getting out of it. We—I am not going anywhere."
"How do you know that?" he croaked. "That isn't up to you."
She thought for a moment.
Then: "It's simple. I can't leave my fate or anyone else's up to Vernon. I refuse to," she said. "Besides, weren't you the one who just told me I have to keep going anyway?"
He turned his head, stared at her. He wanted to say something, she thought, but he didn't. Never was silence so impeccably loud.
"Aldric will probably be waking up soon," Zuri said finally, softening her grip on Sorin's shirt, starting to rise once more to her feet. "I should—"
She gasped, the rest of the words escaping her as her foot slipped against a slick pebble. Her balance wavered, and she reared backwards. Sorin cursed, reaching for her, but he wasn't fast enough. She met the ground with enough force to knock the breath momentarily from her lungs, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again, Sorin was on top of her.
The ends of his hair brushed her forehead, his arms on either side of her, legs straddling her hips. His breath quickened, and so did hers; soon enough, they were in sync.
Zuri swallowed, not sure what to do. Did she reach out? Did she touch his face, his hair? What was allowed here and what wasn't? The moment was fragile, so fragile: a porcelain vase teetering on the edge of the table. She couldn't bear to see it tip.
His gaze slipped to her mouth, then up to her eyes again, a silent, timorous request for permission.
It was a very stupid question.
Zuri seized Sorin's collar, pulling him down to her, her head easing back against the cottony grass as Sorin's lips swept down over hers. They collided with a fierceness Zuri had never experienced before, but regardless she knew was so...right. His body fit against hers as though they were two halves of one sculpture, molded perfectly for the other. Her hands tightened around his collar, then loosened again, exploring the velvety strands of his hair, the warm skin of his neck, the svelte planes of his stomach.
She loved the way he held her, the way he kissed her. Not as though she was something weak or brittle, no—he held her as though she were sacred, something to be revered.
Sorin's fingers trailed down the slope of her neck and across the well of her collarbones, sending a prickle of goosebumps rising along her skin. Then he exhaled sharply and pushed himself off of her. "Zuri," he said between gulps for air, "oh, fuck, Zuri, I can't do this. I'm sorry."
There were a million things she wanted to ask him—why not? at the very top of the list, of course, resting at the tip of her tongue—but she never got the chance. She'd barely sat up, the curls of her hair mussed and unruly where she'd laid on them, when a flash of concern crossed Sorin's face and he jolted, whirling around.
"Sorin?" Zuri said. "What is it—"
She stood, and that's when she saw him. Aldric lingered beside the warehouse, standing stock still, his shoulders hunched as if he'd just taken a lethal blow.
"Aldric," Zuri said, but it was too late by then. Aldric's face was already falling, shattering like a mirror dashed upon the ground. He turned his back without another word, ignoring Zuri's cries. "Aldric, wait!"
They watched him disappear around the corner, and Zuri deflated, once again not sure what she was supposed to do or say or be.
She reached for Sorin, but he hesitated, shrugged her off. Half-turned away from her, he said, "I'll go talk to him."
"You'll—" Zuri shook her head in disbelief. "Okay, sure. And then what?"
He set his jaw.
"Then we forget this happened," he said, and left her standing there, the soles of his boots leaving dense imprints in the meadow grass as he got further and further away.