“Let’s say I believe you.” The pitch of her voice tells me that’s still a pretty biglet’s. “If the Council really are lying and your parents really are working against them, then why are you so outspoken? Why draw so much attention to yourself?”
“Because I wanted them to stop wanting me, Ari,” Saleen says, falling back against the cushions. “I’m a promising Red with two tracker parents; the guild’s been courting me for years—theyexpectme to join them andnoisn’t a word they like to hear. But I’m not like my parents; I can’t compartmentalize my conscience and I won’t go hunting Hues in the hopes that maybe I can help a few escape. I don’t want that life, and my parents don’t want it for me, so we decided that I should play the problem child for a bit, ruffle some feathers until the guild decided I was more trouble than they needed.”
“Saving a Hue from execution is hardly ruffling some feathers, Sal.” Akari’s head shakes with disbelief.
“I know, I wasn’t actually supposed to do that. My parents are going to kill me when they find out.”
She’s assuming the Council won’t find out first, that their investigation won’t connect the dots between the Gold wielding stolen magic and the rebellious Red in their midst.
“So, this is something you’ve known for a while, huh?” Akari asks, glancing up at Saleen through her lashes. “The whole time we were together?”
“Not the whole time, no.” Saleen worries at her bottom lip. “I only got read in a couple of years ago, when I was old enough to keep the secret.”
That’s right around the time the two of them started fighting, when Saleen’s views on the Council shortened the fuse on her temper and turned her barbs mean.
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“It wouldn’t have been fair to, Ari.” Saleen’s words are as sad as they are convinced. “It would have put you in an impossible position and you were so intent on being a tracker that I didn’t—I couldn’t—trust what you’d do, whether you’d choose to hand me in.”
“You thought I would hand you in?” Akari reels back as though she’d slapped her. “Seriously?”
“No, I—yes, maybe. I don’t know.” A frustrated rush of air deflates Saleen. “That’s the point, Akari, I couldn’t take the risk.”
“Is that why you broke things off, too? Because you didn’t trust me?”
I suddenly feel as though I’m trespassing on something private, something weeks—if not months—in the making that isn’t meant for me.
“Trust had nothing to do with it, I just couldn’t lie to you anymore.” Saleen aims that truth at the rug. “It hurt too much, okay? Being with you. Knowing that come graduation, I’d have to watch the person I love most turn into a mindless killer.”
“Then it’s a good thing you had a whole castle of girls to cry it out with.” Akari lurches to her feet, her anger rippling through the shadows like spilled ink.
“They didn’t mean anything, Ari.” Saleen springs up after her. “I just figured it would be easier if I gave you a reason to hate me.”
“Well, it wasn’teasier.” Akari bats her away. “It actually made things so much worse.”
“Then I’m sorry.” Saleen’s voice is as soft as I’ve ever heard it. “It was stupid of me to lie, and it was stupid of me not to tell you, and if I could go back and do it over, I would. All of it, including the girls. If you believe anything, then believe that.”
As much as I’m glad Akari’s finally getting some answers—not to mention the apology she was so desperately owed—there’s still a bigger problem at hand and this conversation has veered way too deep into the personal.
“Look, I hate to interrupt but”—I honestly think you’ve both forgotten I’m here—“you have three Hues in your house right now, Saleen, and the Council isn’t going to upend four centuries’ worth of thinking on nothing but their word—or yours, for that matter—so can we maybe focus on that for a second?”
“Gods, there’s nothing to focus on, Raya.” It’s comforting to know that while some things change, Saleen’s disdain for me remains as solid as a rock. “They came to raid the library and get a top-up of magic, that’s it. I’m not looking to pick a fight with the trackers or reform the Council all on my own. I’m just trying to keep them alive until they leave Sarotuza. So, unlessyou’replanning to turn me in, there’s nothing for us to do.”
“Except that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I say, meeting her tone for tone. “I don’t think they can leave Sarotuza. Not yet, anyhow, the future won’t let them.” I feel that truth in my gut and the marrow in my bones.
When they escaped from the castle, the fates sent me after Ezzo.
When we escaped from the tavern, they kept us tied together and led us to Akari in the laundry hall.
Then when Ezzo escaped me and Akari, they wasted no time in steering the five of us to Saleen’s door.
So while the future can be changed, this particular path seems inordinately stubborn—and if fighting it won’t get us anywhere, then maybe we should be embracing it instead—while we can still avert the parts of the vision I can’t allow to happen—try to understand the task it’s setting us before we collide over and over and over again.
“Raya’s right, I don’t think it will.” It’s Ezzo’s voice that jumps to my defense, resigned as it is unexpected. “That’s why we came here, to try and figure out what it wants.”
The sight of him is like an iron fist to the jaw, a sudden blow I’m entirely unprepared for. When I told myself I wanted to thank him, I didn’t imagine that this mess of revelations would be the circumstance involved, or that Chase and Cemmy would be standing on either side of him. I don’t even know what I imagined, to be honest, but I guess I was hoping that his expression would be a touch more . . . warm. Not that it has much cause to be.
“Wait—did you just call her Raya?” Saleen seems more surprised by that than by their sudden appearance in the living room. They must have left the library and phased while we were still arguing. “Do you two . . . know each other?” she asks. “How? When?”
