I AWOKE WITH A JOLT, MY BODY STILL POISED NEXT TO LIZZIE'S, EVERETT STILL beside me. He startled.
"What is it?" he said. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, sorry," I said, sitting up, away from Lizzie. "I had a bad dream."
"No you didn't," he said bewildered.
"Of course I did. Just now. I was asleep and dreaming," I said.
"You didn't sleep, Sadie. Your breathing changes when you sleep. You sound different," he reasoned. "You were never asleep."
This puzzled me significantly. It seemed to puzzle him too, only he could explain it away by assuming my grief was escalating to hallucinatory levels.
I was too jarred now to know what to do or not to do, but since the dream — er, non-dream? — had given me a distraction from the par alyzing pain I felt next to Lizzie's body, I thought I should take the out while I could.
I got to my feet, more steadily than I thought possible and said, "I can't hide anymore, can I?"
Everett stood up. "I admit there is a great deal to address. But only if you're okay. Are you?"
I looked down at Lizzie, feeling the grief, yes, but feeling some sense of clarity. My mind was returning to the way it usually worked, the pace and rhythm of my thoughts finding their normal cadence. "I will be," I said.
"You really don't want to say goodbye?" he said, slipping his arms around me.
"Isn't that what funerals are for?"
An uneasy look crossed his face. "You need to talk to John about that . . ."
"Why?"
"Just . . . talk to him."
I sighed, rubbing my forehead. Reality was calling. I needed to emerge from this cave in what seemed like one piece, even if I weren't. "No time like the present." I took Everett's hand, and we walked down the dirt hallways to the apothecary and back into the church.
Mark was waiting for us in the meeting room. At the long table, he sat opposite Rebecca, who looked as if she hadn't moved since we left. They were very clearly not speaking.
"We need to talk," Mark said.
"Can't you see she's still trying to recover?" Everett shot. "Whatever it is, it can wait." Everett's expression was uncharacteristically hostile in the firelight. At first I was frustrated at his answering for me, but by his face I could tell it wasn't about me. It was about Mark.
I thought back to one of the last times I'd been with the two of them — the night before we went to Oaxaca and found Raven, when Mark had gone too far when taking my blood for the Fateor elixir and Everett had been the one to heal me. Something had happened between the two of them, and Everett had threatened Mark to get away from me. After that, too much had happened for me to ever find out why one was mad at the other, and after that? I disappeared. That had been over a month ago. Were they will angry at one another?
"Sorry, was I talking to you?" Mark answered. Yes, apparently they were still angry. He reached his hand out for me, and I took it. "Come on," he said, but Everett emitted a small growl behind me. There was too much I needed to process to waste mental space on whatever the hell was going on between them, so I chose to ignore it for the moment and crossed the room toward the outside with Mark. With Everett behind me, I felt anger, even a little jealousy bubbling so fully inside of him that it was beginning to escape his bulwark.
Before we reached the door, we all simultaneously realized that John was there too, hunched in a corner, his arms crossed. Had he been there moments before?
"Go with him, Sadie. I'm sure whatever the murderous leach has to say is much more important than your dead elder," he said. His words had an icy edge to them that was too much to handle as I was barely reclaiming the fringes of sanity.
"What do you want, John?"
"I just wanted to see how you were holding up," he said.
That seemed impossible.
"I'm better," I told him, unsure of how true that was.
He continued. "You know . . .since you've realized that God is punishing you for your crimes against this family. And in the most biblical of ways, might I add."
I straightened. "What punishment is it that you're referring to?"
John stepped closer to me now, causing the Winter boys to stiffen. "Surely you don't think Lizzie's untimely death is a coincidence, do you? 342 years old, and she drops dead only when your particularly questionable," he took hold of Mark's jacket lapel, "associations infiltrate our ranks? Only when you poison the world inside these walls with the sinful drudgery of all that's outside of it? Surely, my dear, sweet Sadie, you didn't think that our Lizzie's death had nothing to do with you?"
"That's enough," Everett said, stepping between us.
"Don't listen to him, Sadie," Mark said. "Come on. Let's go. It's important."
"Okay," I said uneasily, and I followed Mark outside.
John called after us softly, almost as if speaking to himself. "Run, run, Sadie. But there's no escaping the guilt or the blame that will come from this. Not this time."
I shook off his words and did everything I could to keep them from processing. It wasn't until I was outside that I realized I didn't ask him about the funeral, and with what he'd just said, I didn't want to.
In the square, there were an unusual number of people milling around in the darkness. The majority of my family must have been there, even at what felt like a late hour (though how could I be sure?) as well as Anthony's guests, who I assumed had fixed the protections around the city. If they hadn't been fixed, wouldn't someone have come and told me? Didn't I matter enough to be kept in the loop? Or was my inability to function in the face of Lizzie's death going to take me out of the position of power I'd come to have among the Survivors?
Everyone noticed as we emerged from the church, whispering to one another or watching us, voices and thoughts murmuring that I'd finally emerged after so many hours with Lizzie. Everett took my hand to calm me. It worked surprisingly well.
I flipped through the agenda I formed in my mind: talk to Mark about whatever it was he needed to talk about, talk to John about a funeral (This seemed infinitely less appealing after that interaction.), talk to Andrew (Where had he been in all of this? As Lizzie's love, how broken was he?) about . . . everything, and determine if we were safe from the worldwide media. Preferably in that order.
But it was Anthony who came to me first. Mark tried to stop him, but his father was not deterred.
"Tell me you have good news," I said to him.
He nodded. "I do. We believe the protective enchantments that failed in the absence of Lizzie's magic have been replaced effectively." The way Anthony spoke marveled me. In the absence of Lizzie's magic. Not since Lizzie died. It was so diplomatic. And cold.
"But your friends?" I asked. "Who are they, Anthony?"
"Old allies whose magic is similar to yours. It was a long shot, but it was all I could think of," he said.
"So we're safe?"
"The city should be hidden, yes, though it is hard to know for sure," he said.
"Why?"
"Because we can always see this place anyway. And we can't exactly bring a human out here and ask if they can see it," he explained.
Mark laughed a small ironic laugh. "Actually, that's what I need to talk to Sadie abo—"
Anthony cut him off. "Not now, Marcus." He put a hand up, silencing Mark, and resumed his talk. He began to theorize about satellite rotations, about how long it would take humans to find us on foot if the city were still visible, about the weather conditions not working in our favor because clear spring days weren't exactly the hardest for hikes, and on and on.
"Dad, actually . . ." Mark chimed in, but Anthony continued to ignore him.
Frustrated by this (and rightfully so), finally Mark yelled out and threw his hands up to the sky, and Anthony froze.
Everything froze. Everyone froze. Every Survivor and visitor had stopped mid-sentence, even the once-dancing flames of the fire in the square stood eerily still. Everyone, except Mark and me.
"Did you just . . ." I trailed, looking around the strange scene. "Is everyone . . . Can you . . . do this?"
"Yeah . . ." he responded. "I acquired it while you were gone, and I didn't feel like telling anyone. Dad and Pat would just want it, and I kind of wanted this one for myself. Sometimes I need a moment, you know?"
"I definitely know," I said. "How long does it last?" I asked, taking my hand from Everett's and touching his face, which had frozen in the same stiff glare he'd worn for the last few minutes.
"Until I undo it," he said. "At least that's how it's worked so far."
"And you've told no one about this? Not even Ginny?" I asked. He shook his head. "Then why trust me with it?"
He shrugged. "Why do you trust me with anything?" Somehow, I understood the sentiment.
"So why the need to freeze everyone around us?" I asked. The silence was unnerving; when their bodies froze, the Survivors' thoughts and feelings did too.
"I have something to tell you, and I'm pretty sure no one is going to take it well," he said solemnly.
"Because today has been a day so full of news one ought to take well," I said, half-laughing, or trying to. Trying to feel momentarily normal. Or whole.
He looked at the ground and sighed, and then, as if apologizing for something, said, "Cole's here."
"What? Where?"
"Just out there," he said, nodding to the other side of the city wall.
My mind couldn't process this. "How?" I asked, panicking.
"Who knows? He probably followed you. He got to Bigfork a few hours ago. Did you tell anyone you were coming back here?" he asked.
"Corrina," I said.
"Well, there it is," Mark said. "Whatever the case, he's here, and you need to handle it. He's not going to listen to me or anyone else," he said.
"Even though you two have been texting all this time?" I said. We were as alone now as we'd ever be. I thought I might as well mention it now.
Never one to miss a beat, he said, "Even though."
"And I suppose you had nothing to do with getting him from Bigfork to just outside the very walls the entire world is looking for right now?"
"I had to keep an eye on him, didn't I?"
"I suppose you did," I said. Cole here? It seemed so alien, so out of context. I looked at frozen-Everett's tense face, my heart breaking to realize how he would react to Cole being here. What would he think? When I met him, he'd been all smiles and happiness and California cool. What had I done to him? What did I keep doing to him?
"You have to tell him," I said, nodding toward Everett. "Him too," I said, meaning Anthony, whose frozen face looked just as condescending and ridiculous as it did unfrozen.
"No way! Everett is already ready to kill me," he said.
"And why is that again?" I asked, taking this opportunity too.
Mark hesitated, which was rare for him. Then he said, "Fine."
Before I could get any more out of him, the world began to move again. I slipped my hand back into Everett's, but I was a fraction of a second too late. He looked down at it and then back at me, his eyes narrowed. The swimming sounds of buzzing and humming from Survivors' minds filled my head, and Anthony's voice droned on in front of me. ". . . with the media attention especially, it's really too risky to involve any human who . . ."
This time, it was Mark who cut Anthony off. "Well, we're in luck. We have a human. Cole's here."
Everett and Anthony looked at me with shared outrage. Everett pulled his hand from mine, and shook his head.
"You brought him here?" he cried.
"No! No!" I said quickly.
"He followed her," Mark said. He was calm.
Everett was not. "And you know this how?"
"I saw him. Ran into him in Bigfork a few hours ago," he said coolly. He was lying. He had a tell, I'd learned. A slight kink of his eyebrow, almost undetectable. I was sure Cole had called him, but he wasn't about to tell Everett that.
Anthony eyed Mark suspiciously. I wonder how much of the truth he knew or guessed.
"I brought him to the walls. With the media attention and all, I figured it'd be best to have him near, if he insisted on coming," Mark said. "So what do we do?"
"Tell him to go back home and leave my girlfriend alone," Everett seethed.
"As great of an option as that sounds like, may I remind you, bro, that you've already been more than a little rude to this kid? The more you come across as a jackass, the harder he's going to fight for Sadie," Mark reasoned. This angered Everett considerably, but I recognized it as rather sound advice. "Or . . . so I'm guessing," he added sheepishly.
"I'll handle it," I said.
"You'll do no such thing," Anthony said. "You can't be trusted to fix anything in your state, Sadie, especially not when it comes to this human who so horrifically clouds your judgment."
Now it was my turn for defiance. "Anthony, I'm sorry, but you aren't in any position to tell me what to do or how to handle my situation with Cole — or with anyone, for that matter."
"Is that how you see it?" he asked. "Fine. Let's at least look at the bright side: If he can't see the city, our protections are working. Mark, bring him close enough that he'd be able to."
"Whoa, no way," Everett protested. "That's too risky. If—"
Mark cut him off. "It's too late. I already brought him, and he could see the city immediately."
"Dammit! If Kutoyis's charms didn't fix the barriers, I don't know what will. He and the others were the best chance we had," Anthony said. "Now it's only a matter of time before they reach the City. We have to alert the Survivors. We're going to have to leave."
"Leave the city?" I asked, dumbfounded at the suggestion. "Just because Cole can see it?"
"Because the whole world can see it," Anthony cried. "Without protection, it's visible to anyone, just like it was yesterday when the satellites caught a view of it. Before, only the Survivors could see it."
"How could you see it when I brought you here if you weren't a Survivor?" I asked, never having had the faintest clue that this is how our magic and the protections worked.
"Because you told us about it," Anthony said. "You passed us into the charm by telling us about it."
"Of course, that only works if you touch them . . ." Everett trailed off. Then he put it together. "Jesus, it's not that the enchantments don't work. It's that he already knows about the city! You told him!"
"Tell me you're not that stupid," Anthony said through gritted teeth.
"I did . . . tell him." My voice was small.
I let the words hang there as they all stared at me in disbelief.
Everett just shook his head, so hurt I couldn't stand to look at him.
But Mark laughed. "Oh, Sadie. You've got balls, that I must admit."
"I had to tell someone!" I argued.
"That isn't how this works. You're a supernatural. You don't reach out to humans with human weaknesses like needing to talk. If you need someone, you lean on one of us. Not one of them," Anthony said firmly. "This human has negatively affected your judgment more times than I can count. You don't need to go near him. Everett, get Ginny, and you two deal with the human. Sadie, you don't leave the City walls."
"What makes you think I'm going to listen to you?"
Anthony stepped just too close to my face to be acceptable, and stared me down. "You don't have a father of your own to keep you from making mistakes. Why don't you take the only one who's offering to take the job?" he asked. I couldn't read the sentiment of his words, no matter how I repositioned them in my mind. Was that a dig, or was there some worried love under his hostility?
"I'll handle Cole," I said again. "It's my fault he's here."
"No. This is not negotiable," Anthony said.
"Watch me negotiate," I said, and I launched myself in the air toward the city walls. But Anthony grabbed me faster than I could clear them and I tumbled to the ground.
"Dad, whoa, unnecessary," Mark said, getting between us. "I'll go with her. We'll get it straightened out."
"Yes, because Mark is so widely known for his peacemaking skills," Everett shot. "I can't believe you knew about this and didn't come tell me. What is it now? If you can't have her, you making sure I can't either?"
"What?" Mark and I said in unison.
Ginny appeared, having heard her name. "I'll go with them," she said. "That'll keep Mark from starting any trouble, and maybe I can keep Ev from eating Cole." This unnerved me. I had never actually worried that Everett would turn violent on Cole, which suddenly seemed like gross oversight on my part.
I jumped in. "He's standing out there in the cold. We need to do things like get him a place to sleep and to be warm. He's a human. We need to treat him like one. I'm going to take him to Bigfork and get him a hotel room because I sure as hell can't bring him in here around all of you. And all of that, believe it or not, I can handle on my own," I said. I couldn't tell if I were trying harder to convince them or myself.
"Sadie," Anthony said, "you've made it perfectly clear to everyone, that you're so lost right now that you can't be trusted to handle a damn thing on your own."
I swallowed hard, wanting to fight him. But one glaring thought stood out in my mind:
What if he was right?