“If you would have been patient and welcoming and compliant, you would’ve seen that I was getting to it.”
I grab the transmitter out of her hand and read through hernotes, scrolling down to a list of questions.
What does the Truth-Teller look for in a woman?In a woman? We’re just going to pretend I’m not bisexual? That’s the angle they want?What is the Truth-Teller’s impression of the half witch, Ember Blackburn?Pretty. Quiet. Shouldn’t wear her sister’s clothes.Has the Truth-Teller expressed his Witch’s Limit?My seed? Fuck off, Farrah. I’m not talking about my Witch’s Limit in a magazine that’s going out to the entire fucking realm.
I hand the transmitter back. “Yeah. I’m not answering those.”
“Look. This magazine is going out whether you participate or not. Obviously, if you won’t cooperate or talk to me, there are plenty of witches in Everden who will. Vyra. The Echelon Charley Starvos. Maybe I’ll even get the half witch to do an interview.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. I spend the remaining hour dissociating. Then I wait for Jaxan to release me from thestayhe put me in so I can port the hell away from here.
* * *
In Hartik’s Hollow, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a black blur sprinting up the hill that separates Odessa Hall from the downtown area. I turn, and my eyes home in on a woman jogging by in black leggings, but it’s not Ember.
Not Ember.
My heart rate lowers. Then another blur races by, producing another spike of adrenaline. Every vague silhouette could be her, and not only do I forget I’m supposed to be going downhill, toward the palace, I also can’t stop myself from pulling out my transmitter to message her.
Leland Stray:Farrah Prolix may try to reach you today. I don’t suggest speaking to her.
She doesn’t answer.
CHAPTER
TEN
EMBER
How do you detect when something isn’t real? First, you must have the sense to question it.
— Aurora Gallatine, Echelon to the
School of Illusions
The room spun, the thick wood beams blurring into the steep pitch of the vaulted ceiling. I’d been on the living room floor long enough that the planks of hardwood now jabbed my shoulder blades every time I breathed in. Day three in Everden. Day two-hundred-and-something of the phantom flu. Weak, exhausted, I rested my cheek on the floor and thought of Gray to distract myself.
He’d called me on the morning of my seventeenth birthday from a bus stop in Spain, the first time I’d heard from him in two weeks.
I’d picked up the phone, smiling. “Hello?”
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello?” I said again. “Can you hear me?”
“Hello? Hello? Who is this?”
“You calledme!” I shouted.
“That’s right,” he said, laughing. “I did call you. Are you havinga good birthday, Ember Rose?”
I twirled a strand of hair around my finger. “Sort of? I’m home. Just had breakfast. Without Ash, it feels . . .”like the only place I have to talk to anyone is in my head. “It feels kind of sad.”
“Things can only be sad when you let them,” he said, tsking like he’d unlocked some great wisdom, an ability to squeeze from the world exactly what he wanted out of it. “Do you want to come to Spain?” he asked.
“I can’t go to Spain,” I said, though I assumed he wasn’t being serious.
“Oookay. I’ll tell my host you’re on your way.” He sounded like he was moving, smiling and moving. “Happy Birthday, Ember. I will look for you in Toledo, Spain.”
