My heart stilled. “Why?”
“You know why, Trifecta.”
When I finally shuddered, he stroked my jaw, careful not to graze the bruised flesh.
“I’ll be right back.” Another slow caress. “Wait for me here, okay?”
I looked at the ashen sand, not wanting Remo to leave. “If he’s really dead, a plant will grow.”
“Maybe it doesn’t work like that here. Besides it would take time, and I don’t want to waste another minute on Kingston.”
I bit my lip, but it stung, so I released it. My uncle had broken my skin but hadn’t broken me.
Remo called out Giya’s name, and I turned toward where she now sat, silver eyes blinking from behind clumped locks.
She rose and took Remo’s place next to me. And then she curled her arms around my back and held me as he vanished from my line of sight. He must’ve stayed in hers, though, because, a gasp pulsed from her mouth just as a wet grunt followed by a quiet thump sounded behind me. My chest tightened, and I shut my stinging eyes.
When I dared a glance over my shoulder, Remo was gone, and in his place, was a mound of dust sprinkled through with drops of scarlet and topped with a soiled machete and a bloodied pen.
My lashes clumped, which was ridiculous, because I knew he was coming back.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing someone die,” Giya said, as she helped me stand. Her gaze skipped from one patch of gray sand to the next. When I shivered, she tightened her grip on my shoulders and tugged me closer to the water. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to steep in this little pool until I wrinkle like a dried gladeberry.” She sniffed her arm and shuddered fiercely. “I reek of Kingston and of fish guts, although that may be one and the same. Gejaiwe, how did I not make thetigriflee?”
My teeth chattered behind a fleeting smile. “Aloe. S-Soap.” I pointed an unsteady finger at the curly yellow plants.
When she slipped away from me, I locked my knees so I wouldn’t fall. My hand thumped limply against my thigh, and my gaze, like my fist, drifted downward, landing on the red apple. On her way back, Giya crouched and picked it up. The carved flesh had filled in and the crimson skin reformed.
I wanted to smash it.
Burn it.
But Quinn would be back. And perhaps Kingston.
A flicker of the Daneelie shoving his dirty spear through Remo ignited a spark in my chest. Wordlessly, I reached out and took the tainted fruit from her.
A distant roar rose over the crush of water, and Giya’s face whitened. I hoped it was the sound of the lasttigriimpaling itself on someone’s spear.
“Are you planning on using the apple on Quinn?” Her voice cut through my throbbing temples.
“I don’t know.”
We stared at the apple for another long beat, then walked toward the frothing water, slipping inside its cool, cleansing depths until we were completely submerged. When I came back up for air, the concept of needing oxygen underwater still so foreign to me, I found Giya dripping yellow gel into her palm.
“It floats,” I said.
She frowned, so I gestured to the aloe spear.
She set it on the water and watched it bob. As she lathered up, I returned to the beach and sat, knees bent into my chest, toes curled in the sand, apple stowed securely inside my palm. I shut my drained eyes, but the memory of all that had happened spooled behind my lids, so I fixed them to the boulder I’d sat on yesterday.
Was it yesterday?
How I hated the continual white sky.
“Whose dust did you magnetize, and when?” Giya worked her rope of hair into a lather.
“Karsyn’s. The night of the betrothal revel. He attacked me. Tried to kill me.”
Her eyes darkened like thunderclouds. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
