“It’s all about you, huh?” I tried a weak joke in an attempt to shake off my lethargy. This was silly. It had been inevitable.
“That’s me. Selfish as the day is long.”
He left me at the door to our room. “We’ll talk in the morning. Get some rest.”
“Wait, this was so important you traveled to get me but now I can rest?”
He glanced down the hall, as though expecting someone to catch us alone again, then turned back to me, impatience in his gaze. “I need you sharp, and you’re a mess. Get it together.”
He stalked off before my overly tired brain conjured a response, but it was just as well. I was exhausted and I did need to pull myself together.
I tiptoed into my room, trying hard not to make any noise, but my roommates weren’t there. My stomach unknotted a little. Analeigh and Sarah were my friends and I loved them, and maybe one day I would find the courage to tell them everything, to let them help me. But tonight my grief, my Caesarion, belonged only to me.
I changed quickly into my pajamas and climbed into bed without any other preparations, turning to face the wall. My body felt heavy—all of it. The outside, the inside, the blood in my veins. Sluggish, as though none of it could decide if it still wanted to work in a world without true love.
The moments I’d had with my True were so much more than most people even dreamed of, and I knew I should feel lucky. The word repeated over and over as I let loose the sobs that had been building inside me like a storm, soaking my pillow and shaking me apart.
*
Meeting Oz the next morning provided a distraction, if nothing else. I had gone through the night on autopilot, exhausted from the sleepless hours passed leaking tears and staring at the wall while scenes from the past couple of days played out in my mind.
Caesarion had to die. I knew it, and I’d accepted it. I had to move on.
Oz waited for me in the hallway, smelling fresh from a shower but wearing a less solicitous air than when he’d left me yesterday. He gave me a once-over and nodded, apparently convinced I had gotten my shit together, or at least feeling good about my not succumbing to some sort of girly meltdown.
“Time’s up,” was all he said.
Our footsteps echoed as I followed him down the hallway, back toward the restricted storage rooms where we’d gotten caught the other night. Quips and sarcastic remarks floated in my brain, comments about how I wasn’t making out with him again or hadn’t we broken enough rules for one week, but they all disappeared before they turned into words. Speaking required so much energy.
He stopped outside the door where the Elders had met the other night, then turned back to me. “I have to hold you against me.”
“What? Why?”
“I need you to see what’s inside this room, but it only admits one person per wrist swipe. My tat will work, but yours won’t. We have to walk in like one person.”
“Good gravy boats, more touching?”
“You didn’t seem to mind so much with Caesarion.”
The comment seemed to surprise Oz as much as it startled me, and red splotches grew on his cheeks. My heart throbbed at the memories. No smart reply choked out, no matter how badly I wanted to let Oz have it.
After a moment, he found his voice, but only barely. “I’m sorry, Kaia. He’s your True, and I’m … I shouldn’t have said that.”
Tears filled my eyes at his unexpected kindness. I looked away, determined not to let him see, and cleared my throat. “Let’s get this over with.”
Oz opened his arms, and I stepped against his chest. His hands found the small of my back, pressing me tight against him until the top of my head wedged under his chin. His breath moved my hair, wrenching loose more memories of Caesarion. For a moment, I wanted to cling to Oz, to break down and let him hold me simply because I needed to be held. To steal comfort.
My breakdown had to be worse than I’d thought to even consider taking comfort from Oz, no matter how easily he could cradle me against his chest.
“Step up so you’re standing on my feet.”
I did as he asked, my body shaking with the effort of not relaxing into his embrace, until our cheeks pressed together. Without another word, Oz maneuvered us both over the threshold, walking with me standing on him without any extra effort at all. Once we were clear of the doorway and close to the center of the room, he dropped his arms, leaving me both cold and relieved.
A waist-high, glass pedestal sat at the center of the room. The top held a table comp, but the base and stem were riddled with tiny pinholes. None of the other pedestal or table comps in the Academy looked like this; they were solid glass and gears. The rest of the room was empty. The holo screens that made up the walls were blank and transparent, and no dots to track apprentices, Historians, or Elders skittered across the floor.
Before I could ask Oz what we were doing here, what this place was, or why the Elders kept it a secret, he moved from my side and to the pedestal. His fingers flew over the table comp’s screen, punching in mysterious information.
His smoky eyes held mine as he finished, a quagmire of guilt, sorrow, trepidation, and maybe even concern. “I shouldn’t be showing you this, Kaia. But I know you won’t believe me if I just tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“That your actions in thirty BCE have had disastrous consequences. We have to set them right.”
My heart thudded to a stop. “What do you mean?”