“Yes,” she said, the sound caught on a breath.
Jason leaned forward, and she felt her own weight shift as if snared by his gravity, by the shape of his lips, by the shift of muscle beneath his skin. His mouth met hers, warm and smooth, the first summer plum, ripe with promise, and hunger bloomed in her like an eager vine, its tendrils uncurling low in her stomach. He slid his hand into her hair, drawing her closer. But beneath his strength and speed, she could feel how very mortal he was, his life as fleeting as a kiss, a captured spark. He would not last. And so she let herself feel the fierce beat of his heart, the heat of his skin, the ferocity of a life that would shine for the barest moment, there and then gone.
Alia woke at dawn to birdsong—and a crescent moon visible on the horizon, a slender, perfect scythe. The reaping moon. Hekatombaion had begun. We’re almost there, she reminded herself. We just have to reach the spring before sunset.
Either binding Theo and Nim during the night had done the trick or the gods of battle had found some other group of people to harass because no one seemed to be screaming or trying to commit murder. Diana and Jason were already awake, the last of their food stores set out on a rock as they debated the merits of which route to take to Therapne and how they hoped to find the spring once they were there. They sat close together, their shoulders almost touching, the animosity that had hummed between them since that first meeting at the Good Night seemingly gone. Maybe it wasn’t animosity, she considered as she rolled her head, trying to work the crick out of her neck. Ugh. If Jason was making moves on her friends, she didn’t want to know about it. Though he could definitely do worse.
Alia left Nim still snoozing in the reclined driver’s seat and went to wash her face and hands in the upper pool of the falls. She heard Theo before she saw him, the happy whistle of some song she didn’t recognize floating around the bend in the path. Before she could turn and run, he was rounding the corner in his shiny, battered trousers and the stolen blue button-down that now seemed to be missing its sleeves. He was carrying the full water jug in front of him with both skinny arms and stopped dead when he saw her. His crop of locs looked more awake than he did.
“Hey,” he said.
Well, this isn’t going to be awkward at all. “Hi,” said Alia, making her best effort to sound normal. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good, good. You?”
“Great,” she said, continuing past him toward the falls. Easy. Now you just have to spend a few hours crammed in a car with him. No problem.
She heard a thunk and his footsteps and realized he’d set the water jug down and was jogging to catch up with her. Maybe she could just stick her head underwater and hold her breath until he went away.
“Listen…,” he began.
“Theo, whatever you’re going to say is only going to make it worse. It’s not a big deal. I was thirteen. I had a crush.”
“Because my eyes are golden as a sunset sea?”
For a second Alia was just confused, and then the memory came back to her with gut-clenching clarity. Your eyes are golden as a sunset sea. I could drown in them a thousand times. That horrible letter.
“Oh God,” Alia groaned. “I was hoping you never read it.”
Theo grinned. “I read it.”
“Well, it was a long time ago,” she said with an awkward laugh. “I wrote like ten of those. One was to Zac Efron.”
“Oh.” He actually looked a little disappointed. “That’s too bad. It was pretty much the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Alia thought of the string of girls she’d seen with Theo the last few years. “Sure.”
He ran his hand back and forth over his locs. “Do you even remember what you wrote?”
“Not exactly. Every time my brain tries to go back there, I cringe so hard I have to stop or risk an aneurysm.”
Theo looked down at his pointy-toed dress shoes. They were scuffed beyond repair, the houndstooth pattern on their sides nearly hidden by dust. “You said I was smart and that if people didn’t always get my jokes, maybe it was because they couldn’t keep up.”
“I did?” Well, she’d been right about that. Alia remembered how much she’d hated the way Michael picked on Theo, how kids at school had called him weird and goofy. As they’d gotten older, everyone had seemed to realize that Theo’s taste in music and clothes and everything else wasn’t so much weird as interesting. She’d watched girls start to fawn over him and had felt like a disgruntled hipster. I knew he was cool before you did.
“You compared me to a pistol shrimp,” he said.
Alia closed her eyes. “Are you trying to get me to drown myself?”
“No, it was amazing. You said the pistol shrimp was tiny, but it has this claw that can produce a bang—”
“Louder than a jet engine,” said Alia. “Yeah, I remember. I was really into marine biology that year.”
“Right,” said Theo eagerly. “So it makes this bang that can shock big fish or whatever, but you said it survives by being noisy, not by trying to blend in.”
“How do you even remember all that?”
Theo’s grin went lopsided. He jammed his hands into his pockets and bounced once on his heels. “I kept it.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “It was a good reminder. When things weren’t going great.”
Alia folded her arms. “If it meant so much to you, why didn’t you say anything?”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Because there was a lot of ridiculous kissy stuff, too, and you were thirteen and my best friend’s sister. I thought you might pounce on me in the TV room and ask me to marry you. I mean, there’s half a page dedicated to all the signs that we were soul mates. One of them was we both like ketchup.”
Alia covered her head with her hands. “Stop.”
“Lotta loopy stalker talk, some seriously convoluted metaphors.”
“Okay, that’s enough. Go away and leave me to enjoy my humiliation in peace.”
“But that’s what I’m saying—I’m sorry that note embarrasses you.” She lifted a brow. “Okay, I’m not that sorry, because you’re kind of cute when you’re embarrassed, but that letter meant everything to me. You told me you liked the way I wasn’t like anyone else, and that was really what I needed to hear right then.”
“Then…I guess, you’re welcome?” said Alia, unsure of what else to say. She supposed she could live with a little embarrassment. “But you still have to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I really need to go.”
“Right, to the spring!”
“No,” she said, cheeks heating. “To go.”
Theo gave her the thumbs-up. “And I’m out.”
He headed back down the path, but when he picked up the water jug, Alia said, “Hey, Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“The night of the party at the Met, how come you complimented everyone but me?”
He grinned. “Because you in that gold dress turned my brain to mush.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right.”
He took a couple of steps, then paused. “Alia?” he called back.
“What, Theo?”
“That night, at the party? You looked like buried treasure.”
—
Alia took her time getting back to the car, mostly because she couldn’t shake the goofy grin from her face, and when she finally returned to the clearing, Diana was pacing and Jason looked suitably grouchy. He opened the Fiat’s door to usher them inside, and Alia was pretty sure that if he’d still had a watch he would have tapped it impatiently.
They squeezed into the same formation they had the previous day: Nim behind the wheel, Jason in the passenger seat, and the rest of them wedged into the back, Diana sandwiched between Alia and Theo like the really gorgeous filling in a pressed panini. Alia felt almost guilty for the room she had behind Nim and silently blessed her friend’s short legs.