“They’re not… ready.” He shuffles his feet. “I told you. I’m alone.”
I suppose I should say something likenot anymoreorstick with us, kiddoand slap a smile on my face, but that’s not me. I nod. “Same.”
“No parent in this realm wants their kid around past the first year, not since the Separation,” Eli says as he rises, either an unexpected attempt to comfort him or simply a tragic fact.
Atom swallows down feelings with a visible gulp, as though he’s no stranger to pain. “Let’s go. He needs us. And Milo too.”
Eli’s blue tinge remains, a post-death haze in his eyes as he speaks. “I don’t know where you think Kelter is, but he says he’s fine. We’re getting out of the Underbroke and looking for the others in the teva fields. I told them to meet me there.”
“Then he’s lying.”
I stop rubbing layers of drying mud from my arms and kneel in front of him. “What makes you think that?”
“I just know, okay? Please. Zandrite has this huge room where the main roots of the teva plants come through the ceiling. He feeds them bodies, and they give him special drops to keep him alive. His mortal body was never supposed to last this long. And the Centress has been working with him so he would share the drops with her. That’s how she’s lived longer than all the other adults and doesn’t act like a Half Link even though her link died years ago.”
“I thought he kept you locked up.”
“Yeah.” Atom’s lower lip trembles. “He did.”
“I’ve known him for hundreds of thousands of years and never seen any of that.” Eli looks around the dim, muddy room as though it held answers.
“It’s true. He feeds the teva roots the losers from the Scrape, but first he drains their blood and takes out their bones. That’s how they like it. But it’s not enough for them. So he only feeds the Half Link women the blood of the men to make them weak, but I’ve seen some sneaking meat.”
Saliva gathers beneath my tongue. Nausea rolls through me. Down to my toes. “And that makes them live less time?”
“Yes.” He nods his head slowly, reluctant to continue. “He adds something to it that eats their bones.” A tear escapes, streaking through the light layer of mud and revealing fair skin and freckles on his cheek. “They can’t move to eat or drink, so they die. It takes the work out of it for Zandrite. He only has to drain their blood.”
I grab hold of Eli’s leg to keep myself from swaying too far. I try to stand back up and fail. “We have to find Kelt.”
Eli pulls me up with a yank. “He wants to stay here a while.”
“He can’t. He’s not a Half Link. I’m still alive.” I make a move toward the passage, but Eli captures my wrist with a bone-bruising strength and pulls me back to him. I’m about to complain, but his eyes are not his own. Only specks of dark brown show through the hazel spattering of color. He twists my arm behind my back and tugs me into him.
“He’s your link, but he’s inmyhead.”
My throat tightens. “I can’t leave him. Tell him to come with us.”
Brown filters back through his eyes, drenched in so many emotions I can’t pick one out. “He wants us to go without him.”
I nearly buckle at the blow he delivers. The room shifts, and a crack slithers down the wall. Everything external seems to shove Kelter and me together, but we push ourselves apart. He wants to stay here? With hairy Zandrite and Paisel? I don’t know if he wants to be away from me because of Eli or because I wouldn’t give in to my urges with him. Or because I push him away and still expect him to be close. Whatever the reason, it hurts. Like a piece of me is trying to rip itself free from mybody, and I need it to breathe. He’s my friend. I know he is. Everything is just all messed-up right now.
“That’s not true!” Atom tries to pull me out of Eli’s grasp. “It’s not his choice.”
“There’s no point in going after someone who doesn’t want to leave. I’m meeting the others.” Eli moves his hand to my hair, wrapping it around his fist and splattering water to the ground. He tips my head back and kisses my neck. “Are you with me?”
Always.Except that’s the last thing he wants to hear. I push away. “Never.”
He groans, so quiet I feel it more than hear it. He tugs my hair back harder and hisses in my ear, lips cold as death grazing my skin. “It’s so much more fun when you resist.”
Chapter 39
KELTER
It’s only a matter of time before they come for you,” Zandrite reminds me again, his mantra of reassurance. More for himself than me. I was almost out of this place when he found me in a passage after the flood and dragged me to his chambers. And maybe a part of me let myself get captured rather than leave. Because I’m not ready to give up on why I came to the Underbroke to begin with—to get Eli out of my head.
“I told you they want nothing to do with me.” I let my head fall to the side and lean against my arm. The weight pulls down on my wrists chained to the wall above my head, but I can’t hold it up any longer. The stab wound in my hand throbs. I’ve been staring at these marble walls since yesterday afternoon, smooth black. Massive purple roots extend down from the ceiling, thicker than my waist where they enter, ending as thin as my pinky finger. They twine and reach, always active, as if more alive than the standard plant. Conscious almost.
Zandrite rips the last bit of raw flesh from a rib bone and swallows it whole. “She came for you once—she’ll do it again. You hang there until I have her essence.”
