Adrien smiles. “Graphartist? I hadn’t heard that one.” He puts a hand to his head as though to thrust his fingers through hair. When he realizes he has none, he grimaces and rubs his palm over the burnt, buzz-cut instead.
“She died at the same time as your mom, didn’t she?” Alma asks.
Cadence elbows her.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so insensitive, Adrien.”
“It’s okay. And yes. Her funeral was the week after my mother’s.”
I can hear the grief in his voice, and despite myself, I feel for him.
“And your mother’s was when exactly?” Bastian asks.
“June.”
The word stokes the alarm. Cadence’s jackass of a father knew I was alive when he “borrowed” my money since Vincent was out of my life on March 4th. I remember the date because I celebrate it each year without fault.
“Your parents have tiles here, too, Slate.”
“Yeah?” My gut twists and twists. I put Rainier out of my mind—for now—and scan the floor.
“Their tiles are over by that bookcase.” Cadence points to a cracked ochre tile bearing the names EUGENIA & OSCAR ROLAND. Underneath them, in smaller letters is RÉMY.
My knees go a little rubbery.
Well . . . fuck.
Bastian grips my upper arm to keep me from keeling over. “You all right, Slate?”
“Fucking fine,” I grumble. I’m not the dead boy; I’m Slate Ardoin.
Bastian doesn’t seem convinced. He keeps glancing between the tile and me.
I shrug him off and then shrug off the little zaps bursting along my spine.This isn’t aheadstone or an omen, Slate.
Cadence must sense where my mind has gone, because she says, “It’s proof that you have roots in this town.” Her teeth dent her lip. “That you have every right to be here. To stay here, if you want, no matter what anyone else says. That you belong in Brume.”
Between the revelation about Rainier and my honorific tile, I’m incapable of stringing two words together. I hope she doesn’t interpret my silence as reticence about belonging to her town. It may not feel like home, but I’m willing to stick around for a while.
After sifting through my expression for something—confirmation that telling her I was staying wasn’t just a trick to get her to trust me again—she turns on her heels and heads toward the trapdoor on the opposite side of the temple. As though the shelves of books release a collective exhale, I’m struck by wafts of dust, mildewed paper, and old incense that makes my nostrils twitch.
Bastian cinches my wrist as the others patter away, their footsteps resonating against the curved walls. “He knew. When heborrowed”—he air-quotes the word—“the money, he knew about you.”
“Were you really expecting he didn’t?”
“You should tell Cadence.”
It’s impossible that she’s heard her name considering she’s on the other side of the temple, yet she turns, one eyebrow peaked.
“Not yet. Not until I understand why he lied.”
Bastian’s fingers slide off my wrist as we go after the others. He walks with his head tipped so far back I expect to hear the cartilage of his trachea crack.
“Here I thought you’d be salivating over the books.”
“Trust me, I—” He comes to a violent halt by the recessed centerpiece: the clock. “Whoa. It’s massive. Way bigger than I thought it would be.” He doesn’t move for a long time, and then he’s lunging around the guardrail, eyes sparkling behind glasses that keep slipping down his nose.
Last time I came here, I didn’t pay close attention to it, too worried about my finger falling off. Now, I take the time to absorb each detail—the four elemental signs carved into the thick gold band, the golden quatrefoil outline that spans the entire enameled face, the larger of the two dials that runs from white to navy and the smaller one embedded with diamond-like constellations. Last but not least, the hands fastened to the smooth golden disk at the heart of the clock, one tipped with a star and the other with a crescent moon.
