Raya.Where the fuck is Raya?I’m instantly on my feet. If Akari’s here, then she must be, too, the Orange would have never left her behind, not unless she was—
Oh Gods.I finally spot her at the very back of the court, sprawled beside Adriel in a way that feels irrevocable, her chest still and silent with the absence of breath.
No. Absolutely not.
All I can think as I spring to action is that I cannot go through this again.
Not like this.
Not today.
Not when our story was only just getting started.
You don’t get to die, you hear me? I’m not letting it end.I blink into my gift, searching out a Green from among the mayhem. There’s still a whole rainbow of Shades in this room—and what looks like a dozen more racing towards it, which is another problem, sure, though it is the kind I’m able to prevent.
“Get the initiates out of here!” I yell for Chase and Cemmy to begin making their escape, to take Akari and Saleen with them. They might yet require their magics if they run into those Shades on the way, Shades who’ll see two illegal Hues and nothing else, who won’t understand the crucial part they’re currently playing in keeping the shadows from sickening with Adriel’s plague, who won’t care about the senseless death of a few typics.
“But, Ez—”
No, no buts.“You have to gonow, Cemmy.” I try to impress on her that this is need, not recklessness, an effort to save their lives, not throw mine away. “I’ll be right behind you.”With Raya.That’s all the time I can spare arguing while she’s still slumped lifelessly on the other side of this chamber. I also have to gonow. I have to get her a Green.
“Hey you—come with me!” I practically snatch the shell-shocked acolyte off his feet, half dragging him across the marble. He’s a slightly older Shade—sixteen or seventeen, maybe—and burly enough for the blood loss not to have left him uselessly dazed, especially now that the shadows are replenishing his color. “Heal her,” I bark, though in reply, he merely shakes and shakes and shakes, his cheeks wet and his skin ruddy. “Hey.” I snap my fingers in front of his face. “She’s one of you, understand? A Shade. And she’s the only reason you made it off that table, so pull yourself together andfix it.” My gruff method of asking finally sets his fear straight.
Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.As the Green loses himself to the healing, I try to make sense of how Raya ended up here, with only a cut to her palm but not breathing, lying next to what remains of the Divine Meridian. She wasn’t even in the room when I endeavored to attack him; I don’t think she had any charms on her and there’s no sign of a weapon, and she’s an Indigo so it’s not as if she could have hit him with a spell. Hells, I don’t even know if there is a spell that would wither a body like this, as though it’s been collapsed from the inside and then seared, wilted to ashes.
None of this is adding up.
Though for once, I don’t need it to.
I just need the Green’s magic to work.
And when, at long last, it does, I’m the one who stops breathing, and when her eyes flutter open, the rest of the court disappears. I barely notice the Green scramble away from us or the way the chamber is slowly beginning to fill; all I see is her, and me, and this kernel of possibility, what we might one day become now that the life’s returned to her cheeks.
“Did it work?” she croaks, trying to blink herself back to the present. “Adriel—did I—? Is the void gone?”
“It’s gone.” With a soft hand, I pull her up to sit. “You stopped him. I don’t know how you did it, but Adriel’s dead,” I say. And then I do the very last thing I ever thought I’d do again—the very last thing I ever thought I’dwantto do again, let alone so badly that every part of me aches—I lean my face into hers and I kiss her. It’s a tentative kiss at first, little more than a chaste brushing of lips. And it isn’t enough. The sudden hunger it ignites is insatiable, a spark kindling to a full-on blaze, burning brighter, raging hotter, dousing only when, all at once, Raya stiffens and pulls away.
“Gods—sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” I should have asked permission before assuming she felt the same.
“No, that’s not—” The hesitation in her eyes is a bucket of cold water. It’s jumping into a freezing ocean when you don’t know how to swim. “I’m not her, Ezzo.” Raya’s voice is quiet, the charge in it gutting deep. “I’m not Eve.”
No, she’s not.
Nor do I want her to be.
Because I’m not looking to replace Eve—what we had can’t bereplaced, it can only be remembered, and holding onto it too tightly almost cost me my friends. So no, Raya’s not a replacement, she’s a chance to start again. A chance at something completely unexpected—completely misguided—but as a Hue, my life has never been without risk. And this is the first risk, in a long time, that actually feels worth taking.
“I know exactly who you are, Raya Wryvern,” I say, tilting her head up by the chin. “That’s why I kissed you, and if it’s okay with you, I’d really”—really—“like to do it again.” Because it doesn’t much matter that we’re still at the Academy or that the room around us is now flooded with Shades. Right at this moment, all that matters is her name on my tongue, and my hands in her hair, and the way she shudders when my fingers graze her skin.
Because it feelsgood.
And I’m done questioning the good things.
CHAPTER 36
RAYA
I’ve never thought of the future as having a sense of humor, but mine is certainly getting a few laughs off of me. First, it gets me into a cell, then, it gets me out of it, only to conspire to lead me straight back in. It doesn’t need me anymore, I guess, not now that Adriel’s gone and the fundamental thread is safe.
