*
Convincing Ezzo to hunt the Hue with me proves easy. Perhaps if he hadn’t just watched a child die in the most grotesque way possible, his answer would have been different—perhaps then he would have decided to put an end to this misguided alliance and drag me back to his friends. Or perhaps I would have beaten him to the punch and dragged him to mine, got Akari to help keep him quiet while we sold the trackers a more flattering version of the day’s events. A version where I didn’t get myself caught and shackled. Where the iron around my wrist was a strategy not an embarrassing fail. Though right at this moment, it’s just an inconvenient problem, a reason my hand keeps grazing Ezzo’s over and over again. I would really—really—like to be rid of this cuff already.
Around us, the Gray has dimmed with the darkness, the shadows ringing with the midnight bell. Gods, I’ve been missing from the Academy for almost twelve hours, long enough that someone should have reported my absence by now—if not Killen, then Akari. Someone should have come looking.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I snap at Ezzo, pushing that thought down quick. The only thing I can control, in this moment, is my ability to shape the story the trackers will eventually hear, and that means having something useful to tell them, not letting Alara slip into the night and disappear.
“For the eighth time—yes, I’m sure.” Ezzo rolls his eyes. Which only serves to prove that he can’t actually be sure, because they’re not clouded white with his gift.
“How do you know that if you’re not checking?”
“Well, for starters, Iamchecking; I can blink in and out of the magic pretty quickly.” He bristles, tongue clicking against his teeth. “And besides, Alara’s only a few streets ahead of us; when she leaves the Gray, I’ll see it.”
“Okay, buthowwill you see it?” This time, my question is equal parts sullen and sincere. “I mean—what exactly would you see when she phases? What does it look like when you blink . . . in there?”
“Do you really care?” Ezzo asks, staring at me as though I’ve grown an extra head.
“Care? No. I’m just curious.” I shrug. “But we can keep walking in silence if you prefer.” With nothing to distract us from the gentle stir of the shadows and the forced proximity of the cuffs, the way his In-Between shudders a little every time it brushes up against my side. “Or I could keep incessantly asking if you’re sure . . .”
His answering sigh is bone deep. “It’s not the easiest thing to explain—the Gray sort of gets . . . lighter, I guess you could say. Like paint that’s been watered down. Hazy is probably a better way to describe it—everything gets a little hazy, including all the buildings, and the landmarks, and the ground. Then on top of that, you have the trails.”
“And those are different to echoes, right?” I feel like I remember him saying something to that effect, though at the time, my attention was fixed firmly on the wails screaming through the Meridian’s house.
“Yeah, they’re much less fleeting. It’s more like . . . glowing lengths of string, but the strings are made of light, and they sortof hover at eye level, and they’re the same color as the Shades
who left them behind. So basically, I’m blinking into a hazier version of the Gray that’s filled with a bunch of these colored lights, and sometimes there’s lots of them, and sometimes there isn’t, and they’re all intersecting with each other and branching off in different directions, kind of like a giant web. Except the fresher trails are brighter and more solid than the older ones, and they also end abruptly whenever their owners phase in or out of the Gray, so it’s not always as simple as following an unbroken line. And the strangest part is that I can see further than you’d expect, almost like I’m looking at a map—but only up to a certain point, it’s not endless.”
“Well, that sounds . . . confusing.” As much as I can picture the scene he’s describing, I can’t quite wrap my head around how he’d go about deciphering the mess. There are hundreds of Shades in Sarotuza, and they’re constantly shimmering, and wisping, and phasing between realms. If he’s having to sort through them all to find one light trail, then where the hells does he even start?
“It was, at first,” Ezzo admits. “And humbling. And overwhelming. And downright terrifying, if I’m honest, knowing just how many full-blooded Shades are in my general vicinity at any given time. But I got better at it with practice, same way everyone else does.”
“Not everyone.” The words escape before I can stop them, echoing my shame through the night.
“So that was true—what you said about failing?” Ezzo’s voice softens around the ask.
“Trust me, I wish it was a lie.” I wish I could have practiced my way to the right questions instead of having to gamble my future on a forbidden one. “But you were right about me: I’m not a great seer.”
“Be great at something else, then,” he says, like it’s as simple as that.
“That’s not how it works, Ezzo, I’m an Indigo; my choices are to see better or lose my magic. Those are the rules.”
“Then forget about the rules for a second.” He turns to face me with his whole body, so that he’s walking backwards in frontof me instead of at my side. “What would you want to do if the Council didn’t get a say?”
“Erm . . . I’ve . . . never really thought about it.”
“So then, don’t think about it,” he urges. “Just pick the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“Okay, well . . . this might be silly, but I’ve always loved reading the Council’s news blasts,” I tell him, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the ground. “Did you used to get them back in Isitar, too? The weekly papers they put out?”
“Oh yes, I’m familiar with the Council’s news blasts.” A wry edge creeps into his voice. “Though I can’t say I approve of their content.”
No, I don’t imagine he does. They don’t tend to be that Hue-friendly.
“Well, content aside, I’ve always thought it would be fun to write those pieces, or to research them, maybe—or even just to lay the pages out.”
“Huh.”
Every part of me reddens as Ezzo gruffs out a laugh.
