Wasn’t that what the sprinkling raindrop song was telling us?
We should stay here. It was lovely here.
“What about Griff? Rou?” I asked, struggling to find any reason why we shouldn’t stay.
Finn. I swallowed, clutching the invisible rope in my hand. Finn.
“They’d want us to be happy.” Justice bent close, his mouth a breath away from mine. The sweet jasmine fragrance coiled around us. “If someone loves you, they want you to be happy. Don’t you think? When was the last time we let ourselves be happy?”
He was right. I couldn’t remember. When had it been?
Was I happy with Finn?
Had Luvic made me laugh?
Was it happiness?
“I wouldn’t be the Knife. You wouldn’t be a lockpick. We’d stay here, outside of Jagger’s control. We’d . . .” He took a deep breath, his chest expanding. A low shudder worked its way through him, and his pupils dilated, the black swallowing the green. “Be free. Free to do everything we’ve ever wanted.”
He was still kiss-close. I pressed my fingers to the freckles on his cheeks. He shivered at my touch.
Then I took a step back, pulling away.
Past Justice, I could make out the circle of stone columns, and beyond that, a gleaming white city. A figure in a long black dress hurried toward the walls.
“What’s she doing?”
“Who?” Justice frowned, turning toward Last. “She’s almost to the gate.”
Sure enough, Last had already walked across the field, past the columns, and made it to a tall white stone gate. Beyond it were white stone buildings clustered together. They were classical in style, rectangular and elegant. It looked like Pompeii before Pompeii was destroyed.
“We should go after her,” I said, starting forward. “We should stay together. We . . .” I shook my head, holding tight to the rope that connected me to Finn. “We have to go back.”
Justice sighed. “I was worried you’d say that.”
“Why?”
“Because then I’d have to do this.”
“Do wha?—”
I was cut off as Justice’s hand shot out and struck the side of my neck. I dropped to my knees, my muscles frozen, and pitched forward into Justice’s arms. He scooped me up, his finger digging into the bundle of nerves that left a person temporarily paralyzed. I tried to struggle, but my hands fell limp at my sides, and my head lolled against his chest.
He smiled down at me, striding across the flower-strewn meadow like a man carrying his bride across the threshold.
My lips were numb, my body tingling. “You . . . yo . . . y . . .”
“You’ll thank me later.”
He pressed harder. Darkness fell like a sledgehammer.
26
I woke curled in Justice’s arms, as content as a cat in the sun. When I stretched, he gripped me closer and grinned with a boyish exuberance I hadn’t seen in him for . . . too many years. The carefree smile transformed his features from a man who looked like the ominous gray horizon before a violent tempest to a man who was the golden calm of a midsummer morning.
Was this what he would’ve looked like if he’d never been a nine and then a mine? Would the gentle, soft-hearted boy have grown into this smiling, soft-eyed man?
If he had, would he still save mice from traps, carry spiders outside rather than squashing them, and turn off lights so moths wouldn’t burn themselves in the electrolier’s flame?
