So then do it, Raya. Stop beating around the fucking bush.I’m vaguely aware that I’ve started staring, tracing the line of Ezzo’s jaw, and the curve of his mouth, and the way his lashes graze the top of his cheeks like dandelions. He’s so different to Killen, more delicate than he is rugged, but every bit as beautiful. If not for the fact he’s a Hue, that would have been the very first thing I noticed about him.
“Erm . . . Raya, is everything alright?”
His question slams me out of that strange fantasy.
“Yes—uh, fine. Everything’s fine. I was just—” About to make another baffling choice. Gods, what was I even thinking? Am I so desperate to justify what I did to Killen that I would simply roll over and cede the fates control? “I may have . . . overreacted,” I say in an effort to distract from the gawking. “Killen’s clearly not in any danger here; we don’t have to stay and watch.”
“Are you sure?” Ezzo asks, stealing another glance at the echoes. “Because staying’s not a problem.”
“No, let’s go.” Now that I’ve said it, I realize it’s true. I’ve already exacted this cruelty on Killen; if I stayed, I wouldn’t be doing it for him, I’d be doing it for me—to alleviate my guilt, not his heartbreak—and that’s not something I deserve.
I deserve to live with the shame of this decision.
And helping the others figure out how to stop Adriel is the best way for me to atone.
*
Unfortunately, that’s proving to be damn near impossible. By the time Ezzo and I returned to Saleen’s house, the others werealready sequestered in the library, scouring her parents’ collection for anything we might have missed. But several hours of searching and an empty jar of charms later, all we’ve managed to find is the dawn, and one by one—page by page—our hope is beginning to wear thin.
These books may hold a ton of secrets, but they don’t contain the answers we need. There’s nothing about bleeding Shades, nothing about phasing typics, no ritual involving the seven colors or the full measure of a Shade. Hells, there’s not even a single mention of the wordtribute, so either Adrielismaking it all up as he goes along or he’s got access to a more extensive library than we do.
“So . . . is anyone else planning to admit that this is getting us nowhere?” Akari’s supply of patience is the first to wane. “Or are we going to just keep pretending?”
“I hate to say it, but she’s right.” Cemmy sighs, adding another useless tome to the pile. “We’ve been at this all night. Maybe it’s time to take a break, get some sleep, come at the problem with fresh eyes in the morning.”
Except it already is the morning—there are tendrils of light threading needles through the darkness rippling outside the window—and the longer this takes, the longer Adriel has to commit another senseless murder.
“No, we can’t stop—the future’s counting on us to do this,” I say. Which doesn’t feel at all fair when everyone in this room is exhausted, and fed up, and getting real tired of making no progress.
“Then why isn’t it helping?” Chase cracks his neck, lending voice to the question that’s been plaguing me, as well—since fate-touched or not, I assumed the fates would be more forthcoming now that I’ve joined them on the same page.
“I don’t know,” I admit, because I don’t understand it, either. I mean, I’m here with Ezzo, aren’t I? Playing by the rules of their new game? So then, why didn’t they answer a single question I asked when he and I first joined the others? How much more compliance do they really expect to get?
“When was the last time you asked, Ray?” Akari drums her frustration along Saleen’s leg. It’s hard not to notice how close those two have gotten these past few bells, how they’re both sat against the wall with their sides pressed together—not unlike the way Cemmy is pressed up next to Chase. It makes me miss the days when I shared that kind of closeness with Killen. It makes me wonder who Ezzo’s thinking about when he stares intently into the distance to avoid looking at them.
“Erm . . . three or four hours ago, maybe?” I guess. I gave up on being ignored somewhere around question twelve.
“Well, then can you maybe try asking again?” she suggests, grasping at another straw. “I know the future doesn’t like repeat questions, but if it’s not actually been responding, then couldn’t it just be a matter of timing? Waiting for all the necessary decisions to be made first?”
“It’s worth a try,” I say, since yeah, she’s right: asking a question too early is ultimately as ineffective as asking it too late—even if I’m not entirely sure what decisions Adriel won’t have already made.
How will we stop him?I close my eyes and imbue the words with every ounce of my desperation, praying that the color in my blood will finally live up to its name.And I suppose it’s a good thing we have Akari here to do my thinking, because just like that, the future relents, rewarding our tenacity with a vision that snaps my head back and sends me crashing into the desk.
A church, grand in stature, the grandest in Sarotuza. A body, shrouded in twilight, hanging from a cross of iron pitched above the gate. Crimson threats written across the flagstones. Guilt and horror. Fear and regret. The taste of violence and the smell of death. The sense that I should have prevented this from happening, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t, and I have to do exactly what the vision says next:
I have to let them take me.
“Take you where, Ray?” Akari’s shaking me back to the library, where five pairs of eyes are now anxiously trained on my face. “Who are they? Where are they taking you? What did you see?”
A future so awful I must have said it out loud, spoken it into the present.
“Adriel, he . . . he’s killed another Shade.” And my very bones are shaking with the brutality he inflicted—with thefutilityof knowing I’m destined to find the body, not spare it from its fate.
“Another Shade? How—when?” Akari’s asking the wrong questions, because there’s no use dwelling on the hows and whens when they’re already beyond change. The only thing that matters now is getting me to that church.
“We need to go.” I’m on my feet and in the Gray before they can stop me, shimmering despite the fact that only Saleen and Akari can follow me with the same haste.
Ezzo will track my trail.I don’t agonize over leaving them; there’s no point when I’m the one the future needs to trigger the next set of events.Around me, the shadows blur to dread and ring with sorrow, as though, they, too, have glimpsed the tragedy awaiting me at the vision’s end.Too late, too late, too late, they seem to whisper, though it’s actually Akari calling after me through the haze, begging me to slow down, to talk to her, to tell her what I saw in more than just a ragged exhale of panicked air.
