“I don’t think you’ll always look like this. Paul doesn’t look like that most of the time.”
“He hides it.”
“Well.” I swallow. Because this is… hard. “I can’t deny that you’re scary, Ryet. You look like a demon.”
“I am a demon.”
“Right. But… you’remydemon.” My smile is real when it comes out. “And this”—I reach for the copper disc and hold it up—“this is mine too. Two things. I have two things in this world that are mine. Just mine and no one else’s. You, and this thing right here. So… whatever you look like, it doesn’t matter. That’s what I meant when I said I see you as hot-Ryet. I wasn’t trying to say I prefer you as a man, I’m saying that all I care about is the man inside.”
He stretches his arms across the table and takes my hand in both of his, giving it a squeeze and letting out a breath at the same time. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
“It’s gonna be OK, Ryet. I really think it is.”
He doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he winces. Like he knows something. Something bad.
Which makes me want to change the subject, so that’s what I do. “I never explained what happened to me when I was in that room up in the Montana mansion. Butthisis what happened to me.” I hand him the little book of watercolor illustrations and he takes it from me, shuffling through the pages slowly, studying each one.
When he’s done, he starts over and looks through them again. Then, finally, he looks at me. “What is this?”
“A myth? The truth? I’m not really sure. But that girl—she tamed this monster and…”
I begin to tell the story, trying to recall all the little details, like how Lucia took me underwater and I thought I was gonna drown. And the ice, and the little girl who tames the sea monster that looked like a cross between a seahorse and an octopus.
“But what does it mean?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Ryet. It’s just the beginning of my bloodline. I think.”
He sighs and looks past me. “Your bloodline.” Then he looks me in the eyes. “Everything’s about blood these days. You drank me. Do you remember?”
I nod. “I do.”
“It’s… well… I have something to tell you.”
A weird feeling passes through my body. Like my muscles release every bit of stored energy inside them and it floods my bloodstream all at once. It’s a sudden burst of adrenaline, and then, a moment later, it’s a feeling of being spent. Done. Drained.
As this is happening Ryet is talking. I’m watching his mouth, his words echoing in my head. I’m hearing them: “There is a cycle happening inside you, Syrsee. And this cycle requires you to be—” I’m hearing it. But it’s not really sinking in. Because he can’t be saying what I think he’s saying.
“Syrsee?”
I blink. “Huh?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
I’m hot now. But not just now. I’ve been hot this whole time. Feverish. My stomach hurts. My head is spinning. Everything aches. And aside from that, I’m having feelings. A rush of feelings. Despair. Loneliness. Regret. Contempt. Estrangement. Fear. Shame. Guilt.
My eyes track over to the kitchen counter where all eight empty vials are lined up.
Ryet’s gaze must follow mine because he gets up, chair scraping across the floor, and walks over to them. He just looks down, stares at them. Then points at one and looks at me. “Did you drink these?”
I nod. It’s a slow, small act of acknowledgement.
“Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I was… compelled to. I worked out that you ate whatever was in the jars and…” A small breath comes out of me. And with this breath comes understanding. A realization hits me just like that adrenaline in my bloodstream a few minutes ago. And once again, I feel spent. Drained.
Also stupid.
Because I walked right into it. All of it, from that moment when I stood outside my grandma’s cabin door up in the Colorado mountains, thinking about how wrong I was to abandon her for ten years and how I was compelled to risk my life to see her again before she died, up to this very moment right here—or, actually, however long ago it’s been now since I drank the contents of those vials.
