How could this place be bad if it allowed Justice to be good?
“Feeling better?” He brushed a hand over my hair, and I smiled at the fluttering jasmine breeze stroking over us.
“Much. Thank you.” I rested my head against his chest and studied our surroundings.
“I thought you would. You just needed a little time to adjust.” Then his smile grew, and instead of a midsummer morning, it became a full-sun afternoon. “And you’re welcome.”
He’d carried me to the city. We were past the gate and walking down a wide road made from giant white paver stones. It was wide enough to span twenty people across. The stones—maybe quartz?—sparkled with a golden hue from the reflection of the glowing clouds.
There was a great crowd of people all walking in the same direction as Justice. No one noticed us—not even to ask why he was carrying me—but that was because everyone was enthralled with the festival atmosphere. A man carrying a woman wasn’t worth a second glance.
The road was surrounded by two- and three-story white stone buildings. The clouds drifted over the rooflines and puffed around the houses, and sometimes, they drifted low enough to fluff over the people. When they did, people sneezed or laughed as if they’d been tickled.
I widened my eyes. “Everyone’s so happy here.”
There were memories in my locked room of Finn, Luvic, and me at street fairs, wandering the booths, buying funny T-shirts or vanity buttons, and gorging on pizza on a stick, all rolled up, dipped in batter and fried. The fairs were always a mashup of jostling crowds, hot, sticky weather, amped street bands, a haze of smoke and fried foods, and the hungry hum of hundreds of people who’d come out for a good time but were—inevitably—tired, hot, and irritable. I went for the weird and wonderful foods. Finn went for me. Luvic went because he couldn’t resist pranking crowds into believing they’d spotted a rat dancing to a band or a pigeon reading poetry.
Those street fairs were similar to this but different in one key way. Everyone was happy here. Everyone.
It bubbled around us and filled the air like fairy dust. There were musicians weaving through the crowd strumming guitars, shaking tambourines, and singing in dulcet voices. People danced, waving long silk ribbons or swaying in each other’s arms.
There were jugglers tossing golden apples through the air, gymnasts cartwheeling and handspringing through the crowd, and tumblers somersaulting past.
The buildings along the street had their doors open. People wandered in and out, carrying pink fizzy drinks and plates piled high with golden fried food. The scent of star jasmine mixed with the delicious smells of fried dough dusted with powder sugar, cinnamon and sugar, or golden syrup. Nearly everyone in the crowd was also carrying a bouquet of lacy white flowers, and when we passed a man with buckets full, he threw a bouquet into my arms.
I laughed when it hit my chest and breathed in the sweet scent. “No wonder no one ever leaves.”
Justice looked around. “Why would you?”
“Excuse me?” I called to the man who’d tossed me the flowers.
He threw another bouquet into the crowd. “Yes?”
“Where is everyone going?”
“To the festival. It’s festival day. Have a lovely one!”
“Oh.” I smiled at him and accepted another bouquet of flowers. He was middle-aged and gray-haired, with a content, warm countenance. “Thank you! You too.”
“Do you want me to put you down?” Justice asked, moving with the crowd.
The number of people seemed to grow the further into the city we walked. The crowd had become a current flowing toward the city center. It would be impossible to turn around or walk the other way. Not that you’d want to.
“No. I like it when you hold me. It reminds me of when we were kids and you used to tell me and Griff stories about our cabin in the woods. You’d always throw your arm over my shoulder. But this is better. Do you know, I always thought of you as a brother and a friend?”
He nodded. “I know.”
“But what if . . .?”
Finn!
I blinked. Frowned.
What about Finn?
Who cared about him?
This was real. Not that. Finn claimed he loved me, but did he really? If he did, wouldn’t he have found me when I became a mine? Wouldn’t he have stormed Hell Gate and done whatever was in his power to free me from Jagger? Instead, he’d killed my dad, killed Griff, and told me he was coming to destroy everything I loved. Not that it mattered. The whole thing felt unreal. A movie I’d turned off. I wanted to forget it.
