He blinked. “Know what?”
She took a moment to answer. “There was that line… about feeling guilty for others’ mistakes. Well, I do.”
“Really?”
“When I was a little girl, I thought I was the reason why my mother got sick. She took care of me too much, and it exhausted her, so she went to the hospital. My father used to tell me that she went because of the way me and my brother ran her ragged. I thought I was the reason why my father drank, because I was so much trouble.” She paused. “I feel like I’m the reason why Niall was unable to be a part of his own daughter’s childhood, because he was too busy training recruits like me, because his job—me—took him away from his real family.”
In a flash, Winter understood. “You think Niall leaving Panacea is a punishment that you deserve.”
She looked at him, and in her eyes, he thought he saw surprise. It faded away quickly, and she tightened her lips before turning back to the cityscape. “My fault for thinking it,” she said. “He’s my boss, not my parent.”
“There you go, feeling guilty again,” he said, and she let out a humorless laugh. Then he added, “It’s not you, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “Still. I can’t help thinking it.”
“I think my mother is the way she is,” he said, “because of me. I think, sometimes, if she could have broken it off with my father before I was born, then she could have healed from him, could have moved on more easily with her life. But here I am.” He held his hands out.
Sydney nodded, although she didn’t respond. And somehow, Winter was grateful she didn’t, that she didn’t try to say something reassuring, that she didn’t try to sugarcoat his words.
“I didn’t know that about you,” he explained carefully. “I just knew that about me. And I guess I felt like knowing you made me face those thoughts. You are my meditation, you know?” He smiled a little, apologetically. “You weren’t supposed to see those lyrics. They don’t mean anything, I promise. They’re just for me.”
Sydney didn’t respond, but in the darkness, he thought he saw a subtle nod of her head. They sank back into silence, the air between them somehow lighter now that they had both gotten something off their chest.
“I’ve never told anyone that before,” Sydney finally said, her eyes turned out to the city.
“Same,” Winter replied, his attention also on the nightscape.
And even though they stood on separate balconies, it felt a little like they were side by side, like he could feel the warmth of her nearness. It made him want to stay out there a little longer, want to rack his brain for something else to keep their conversation going, anything to keep her with him a little longer.
“Winter?”
Then he heard Gavi’s voice behind him, and when he turned around, he saw her silk-robed figure emerge onto the balcony, her hair in disarray and her eyes sleepy. She glanced over at the adjacent balcony at the same time he did.
But Sydney was already gone, like a ghost, and her balcony looked as if no one had ever been there.
Gavi looked at him with a skeptical smile. “Talking to yourself out here? It’s two in the morning.”
“Can’t sleep,” Winter answered, forcing himself not to look back toward Sydney’s balcony.
Gavi turned around and put her hands in the pockets of her robe. “Well, you’d better get some rest before tomorrow, unless you want more rumors spreading about what we might be up to at night.”
Winter forced himself not to look back toward Sydney’s balcony. He hadn’t even heard her leave, she was so quiet—even Gavi probably hadn’t seen her, even though she must have guessed that Sydney was there. So he followed Gavi inside, his own lyrics haunting his mind.
You are my meditation
Am I ever yours, too?
12Spiraling
It didn’t matter how many years Sydney had spent as a Panacea agent—she still felt like a new recruit whenever she was with Niall.
“Tems still isn’t answering,” she explained the next morning, as they sat across from each other at a table in a bustling hawker market. All around them, people wandered from stall to stall under the massive, open-air building, balancing trays of steaming hot food and glasses of ice-cold sugar cane drinks. “Have you heard from him since you landed?”
“No,” Niall replied. With his sunglasses and tropical shirt and cheeks flushed from the heat, the analyst looked less like an agent and more like a grumpy tourist. He picked up his chopsticks and took another bite of chicken. “Although his phone’s tracker still pings in the city. Did you call him?”
She nodded through a bite of stir-fried rice noodles. “No answer for the last twenty-four hours, although my tracker also places him in the city.”
“Where, exactly?”
