“Does this mean the challenges will be similar?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But at least, now we know it’s a possibility. And we can prepare.” Adrien rubs his jaw, swollen and blue from my punch.
I clear my throat and motion to the bruise that’s forming. “Sorry about that.”
“Hurts a heck of a lot. I’m actually surprised you didn’t dislocate my jaw.”
“I was off my game. Believe me, if I hadn’t been distracted, you’d be in the hospital right now, crying like a baby.”
He smiles. “Guess I should thank thegroac’hyou saw in there.”
“Grow-whatta?”
“Groac’h.Shapeshifting water sprite.”
A sprite? I touched a fucking fairy? “Better thank her before I get my hands on a harpoon gun.” My tone is lighter, like my mood, like the sky.
Adrien breathes out a short chuckle. We both stare out at the misty water for a moment.
Then he says, “I remember your parents. I remember you.”
I twist my neck back fast enough to get whiplash. “You do?”
“Yeah. I have this one memory of Eugenia carrying you in this kangaroo pouch thing, and your big, bald head was sticking out. I remember thinking it looked like an ostrich egg.” He gives me a mocking smile. Like it’s hilarious for him to remember me bald and tiny and helpless.
“Fuck you, Mercier.”Super Douche. Professor Prickhead.
His smile widens. “We were all at some party. I don’t know for what. I don’t even remember where it was. The only reason I remember you in that carrier is because your mother was wearing it when she gave me a gift: an illustrated book on the history of Brume. I loved that book. I think that’s what whet my appetite for my studies.”
A needle of pain pierces my chest. I hate to be petty, but it galls me that Professor here got something meaningful from my parents when all I got was a crappy stay in foster care.
“You look like Eugenia. She had the same curly hair.”
As a Bloodstone-sized lump forms in my throat, Adrien’s phone dings. He pulls it out, the color draining from his face as he reads the message.
“What?” I step forward. “What is it?”
He runs a hand through his hair, before standing. “Gaëlle just talked to Rainier. We have until sunup tomorrow morning to get the piece.”
Snow and gravel crunch under his spiffy boots as he makes his way to the door.
I haven’t moved. “I thought we had until the new moon to gather the pieces.”
He opens the little door. “As a whole, we do. But apparently, once thediwallertouches his or her leaf, it only remains visible for twenty-four hours. Then it disappears.”
I still don’t move.
“But we know how to get this one. It’ll be fine, Roland.”
When I still don’t step away from the rampart, he drags the door wider. “I know you don’t trust me, but I never make promises I can’t keep.”
“You’re not the one diving into the well.”
“I’ll be the one standing beside it, holding the rope tied to your waist to haul you back up.” He shoots me a smile that seems genuine. “You’re not alone, Slate.”
I think it’s the first time he’s used my name. It feels like an olive branch for some reason and unbolts my limbs.
As we step back into the whorl of stone streets, I say, “What if the fairy grow-ass-shit—
