He looked at the rose and then again at Asher, and his face softened into sanity.
“Do be careful, brother,” he said quietly. “I will not condemn you, but the others are watching, and you remember what happened to Kiya.”
Of course he remembered. An Envoy never forgot. To his everlasting shame, Asher had destroyed Kiya.
Her demise had unfolded in short order. She had fallen in love with a human and openly displayed her affection. When the others noticed, they were appalled. Their rage came on swift wings, and Kiya had come to Asher begging for protection. But instead of protecting her, Asher handed her to the mob, and then he joined them in shredding her into scraps of energy, which dissipated into the void.
Only Cobon had tried to help her, a futile attempt at a rescue. The others shunned him after that, which likely hastened his spiral into lunacy. Insane and genius and unrelenting, Cobon would tear Hailey apart if he knew he’d killed the wrong girl.
And now Cobon was possibly Asher’s only ally—the only Envoy that would tolerate his feelings for the girl—the only Envoy that might stand with him, should the others attack him as they did Kiya.
“Strange how fate weaves us apart and together again,” Cobon remarked, as if his thoughts had followed the same course as Asher’s. He narrowed his eyes at the rose.
“Do enjoy your little pets, Brother. I so hope they don’t bite you in the end, but perhaps you’ll buy a muzzle for Pádraig or Fin or whatever the humans are calling him now.” Cobon continued muttering to himself as he faded away. “I do find yourfeelingsfor that girl utterly despicable…”
Asher returned to his thoughts, letting his mind drift into the Aether. It was becoming more and more difficult to exist there. Where three thousand years ago, he’d spent most of his time in the Aether and was pulled away to the Earth only sporadically, now it was the other way around.
How he missed his home. And how he weighed once again whether he would remain on Earth and love Hailey for the rest of her natural life…
Or tear her apart tomorrow and end his torment.
Chapter eleven
The Vanishing Rose
"And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave." - Edgar Allan Poe
Hailey tossed and turned, worried into insomnia about her return to school after her sister’s burial. At 3:13am, she flopped on her side and decided to watch as each minute flipped a digit on her bedside clock, and she kept watching until five-thirty a.m., when she decided it was finally late enough to rise. And rise she did, like a drone, inching toward the bathroom, point-focused on her next task and thinking of little else.
Brush teeth. Done.
Turn on shower. Done.
Get in shower. Done.
Wash hair. Done.
Grab towel—step out of shower. Done.
Turn off shower. Done.
Forget to wipe up a puddle so Holly can find it with a socked foot. Done.
Catch glimpse of white-haired boy in mirror...
Hailey whipped her head around, a scream stuck in her throat. There was—there really was a white- haired boy of twelve or thirteen staring at her from behind the bathroom mirror.
She stared at him wide-eyed, unable to force air, and frozen in place, hoping that if she didn’t move, he wouldn’t see her.
Several seconds passed, and neither of them blinked.
The mirror took on the sheen of an oil painting, covered in thick strokes of washed-out tones which bled together to form a frozen face.
Breathing as quietly as she could, Hailey leaned in for a closer look. Then she pulled her face back, and the white-haired boy mimed her every movement. He now stared back at her slack-jawed with one eyebrow raised higher than the other.
Hailey closed her mouth, and the white-haired boy closed his mouth.
She squinted at him suspiciously, and he squinted right back.
