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“The tide turns at eleven, and the road’s only good before that. The gate floods. It’s a whole thing. The cove keeps its own schedule, which I find romantic, but I guess the insurance company finds…interesting.”
We laughed. We had become very compliant about laughing on cue.
“So we go in two jeeps, no later than ten-thirty. Let me think about who fits where.”
Aurora stood with one hand on her hip and the other at her chin, performing thoughtfulness. It was the most artificial thing she had done all morning, and the thing the four of us watched most closely.
“Marlowe with Callie,” she said, “because Marlowe looks like she could use a Callie this morning, and Callie is, in my professional opinion, the best version of a Callie I have ever met.”
Callie smiled weakly. I didn’t.
Apparently we now needed to be separated. Managed until we were in our own homes. After all that talk about sisterhood, there wasn’t going to be any that wasn’t orchestrated by Aurora.
“And Priya with Jess, because you’re both quiet people and I think you’d let each other rest. Don’t tell each other your dreams, please. Those are your personal journeys, and you must honor that journey with your own emotional sovereignty.”
I felt sick. Even the coffee was suddenly bitter.
Just as I was about to politely protest, Aurora said:
“Damian will take Marlowe and Callie, and Kai will take Jess and Priya.”
I shut my mouth.
Damian.
The name landed in my chest and sank.
I kept my expression pleasant. Receptive. Mildly interested. I looked at my coffee, picked up the mug, and put it down again. I had no idea what to do with my hands.
Across the table, Priya gave me the same look she’d given me minutes ago, but again, she didn’t pry. But she knew as much as I did that the name Damian was part of a sentence I’d woken up in the middle of.
Chapter Six
Ipacked quickly. The tent no longer felt like hospitality. Clothes flew into my bag, but the dress and the crown stayed on the bed. They’d already done enough.
Kai arrived to haul my luggage down the trail. I followed him down to the gate, where Aurora stood with her hands in their practiced, humble clasp in front of her.
“Jess, Priya.” She motioned to Kai’s jeep.
I watched Callie’s heart sink in real time, hidden behind a smile that fractured for a full second, until she rebuilt it.
Kai watched it happen, and behind all his sunshine, I saw a little piece of him fracture, too.
By this time, we were all hiding something, and what haunts me is that not one of us asked why we were allowing this. Why we’d all submitted.
Goodbyes were long. We hugged each other, talked about the group chat, and about how we’d be in touch the whole way home. About how this was just the beginning. Callie pulled everyone close, like we’d all been bridesmaids at the same wedding.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Aurora watch those hugs as if the closeness was a problem, and something in me dropped. She talked about our destiny, our responsibility to carry our gifts forward, our power to change the world, and hugged us goodbye. Her tall, bony body felt fragile.
Priya’s goodbye was clingier than I’d expected, her tight nervous energy making my own pulse tick. Jess had returned to being unreadable, still hiding behind sunglasses and giving one short wave before climbing into the front seat.
Callie and I watched the jeep disappear around the first switchback, tilting on its axle as it lumbered over the dirt road.
We waited, digging our shoes into the gravel and stuffing our hands in our pockets, our luggage at our feet, until another jeep appeared from behind the switchback. It rumbled toward us, chugging to a stop.
Damian climbed out, and the sight of him in sunlight, without the cove fog and the cacao haze, made my breath hitch. For several unauthorized seconds, my gaze wandered over him, forgetting any discipline whatsoever. It tracked the line of his jaw, his neck and collarbone, the triangle of skin at the open collar of a shirt weathered by sun and saltwater. Eyes bluer than I expected against tan skin and dark hair. A rowan branch woven around iron nails, on the inside of his forearm.
The world narrowed to him standing there and to the fact that I didn’t want this to be the last time I’d see him. The thought of letting him slip through my fingers felt like the hollow that opens up inside you after a fight. And I’d met him once. A few hours of talking to him, and he’d already made a mess of me.
