“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from me.”
“Soren?” Aria asked, scanning the men around her. They wore top hats and suits with coattails, while the women wore bustled skirts and held colorful parasols. She looked for thickset shoulders. The aggressive tip of a chin.
“I’m here,” he said. “You just can’t see me. We’re invisible. People think you’re dead. If anyone saw you, there’s no way I could keep that from my father. Even I have limits.”
Aria looked down at her hands. She didn’t see them—or any part of herself. Panic washed over her. She felt like she was nothing more than a floating pair of eyes. In the real, she wiggled her fingers to shake off the feeling.
Then she heard a voice she’d known all her life.
“Pixie, you’re blocking my light.”
She followed the sound to the source, her heart thudding in her chest. Caleb sat on a red blanket just a few paces away, sketching in a notebook. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth—a habit he had when swept away by his creations. Aria took in his gangly limbs and ruddy hair as he moved a pencil across the page. He looked so much like Paisley. She’d never realized how alike they were until now.
“Can he hear me?” she whispered, her voice high and thin.
“No,” Soren said. “He has no idea we’re here. You’ve been saying you wanted to see him.”
She wanted much more than that. Aria wanted hours, days to spend with Caleb. Time to tell him how sorry she was about Paisley and how much she missed spending every day with him. Caleb was there with other people now. Pixie sat beside him in silence, watching him sketch, her jet-black hair trimmed shorter than Aria remembered. Aria wondered how Soren felt seeing her. Less than a year ago, they’d been dating. Rune was there as well with the Tilted Green Bottles’ drummer, Jupiter. They were tangled in a passionate kiss, oblivious to anyone else.
Something about them—about all of them—seemed distant and desperate.
“Congratulations,” Soren said. “You’re officially nothing.”
She panned the empty space beside her. It was strange hearing his voice and not being able to see him. “Soren, this is eerie.”
“Try it for five months, then tell me how you feel.”
“Is this … is this really how you spend your time?”
“You think I like skulking around? My father banned me, Aria. You think you were the only one he sold out after that night?” He made a snorting sound, like he regretted his last words. “Anyway … whatever.” He sighed. “Check it out. Jupiter and Rune are, like, mega into each other. Saw that coming. Jup’s a good man. Decent pilot, too. We used to have fun racing D-Wings before … you know. Before. And Pixie, she and I were … I don’t know. I don’t know what we were. But Caleb, Aria. What do you see in him?”
She saw a thousand things. A thousand memories. Caleb used words like audacious and lethargic to describe colors. He loved sushi because it was beautiful. When he laughed, he covered his mouth. When he yawned, he didn’t. He was the first boy she’d ever kissed, and it’d been a disaster—nothing like the breathless thrill of kissing Perry. They’d been on a Ferris wheel in a carnival Realm. Caleb’s eyes had been open, which she hadn’t liked. She’d kissed his bottom lip, which he’d found odd. But the main problem, they’d decided, was that the kiss had lacked meaning. Or gravitas, as Caleb had called it.
Now when she looked at him, all she saw was meaning. All she felt was sadness. For him. For how they’d been. Things would never be the same.
Aria’s attention moved to his drawing, curious to see what absorbed him. The sketch was a side view of a skeletal figure in a tight crouch, knees and arms bent, head down. It reached to the very edge of the page, so the figure looked trapped in a box. The drawing was somber, menacing, and nothing like his usual loose sketches.
Suddenly, silence closed over the Realm. Aria looked up. The trees were still. No sounds drifted up from the river. The Realm was as motionless as the painting it’d been modeled after, except for the anxious, subtle shifting of the people. Caleb’s gaze lifted from his sketchbook. Pixie squinted at the sky and then at the river like she couldn’t believe her eyes. Rune and Jupiter drew apart and looked at each other with confusion.
“Soren—” Aria began.
“It usually comes right back.”
He was right. A second later, the sound of birdsong returned, and a breeze stirred the leaves above her. Out on the lake, sailboats resumed their progress over the water.
The Realm had unlocked, but it hadn’t returned to normal. Caleb snapped his sketchbook shut, sticking his pencil over his ear. A man nearby cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, resuming his walk along the path. Slowly, conversations around them picked up again, but they seemed forced, a little too enthusiastic.
Aria had never dreamed until she’d been cast out of Reverie. Now she saw how similar the Realms were. A good dream was something you clung to until the last moment before waking. Caleb was clinging. They all were. Everything about this place was good, and they didn’t want to see any hint of it ending.
“Soren, can we get out of here? I don’t want to watch this any—”
They fractioned back to the opera hall before she’d finished speaking. Aria looked down, relieved to see herself.
Soren stood with her onstage. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think of your old life? Different, right?”
“That’s putting it lightly. The glitch just now—how often is that happening?”
“A few times a day. I looked into it. Power surges. One of the domes that houses a generator was compromised this winter, so things are … glitchy.”
A wave of numbness rolled through her. It was the same thing that had happened to Bliss, the Pod where her mother had died. “Can’t they fix it?”
“They’re trying. It’s what they’ve always done. But with Aether storms getting worse, they can’t patch the damage fast enough.”
“That’s why your father is pressuring me for the Still Blue.”
“He’s desperate—and he should be. We have to get out of here. It’s just a matter of time.” He smiled darkly. “That’s where you come in. You wanted to see them, and I told you what’s happening in Reverie. Now you have to help me when I come out there.”
She studied him. “You’re really ready to leave everything?”
“What everything, Aria?” He glared at the audience seats. “You want to know what I’m leaving? A father who ignores me. Who doesn’t even trust me. Friends I can’t see, and a Pod that’s an Aether storm away from ruin. You think I’m going to miss any of that? I’m already on the outside.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. Calming himself. “Do we have a deal or not?”
He was a long way from the cocky, controlling Soren she remembered. That night in Ag 6 had transformed both of them. “Things aren’t any easier out here.”
“Does that mean yes?”
She nodded. “But only if you look after someone until you come out here.”
He froze. “Caleb? Done. Even though he’s a worthless piece of—”
“I wasn’t talking about Caleb.”
Soren blinked at her. “You mean the Savage’s nephew? The Outsider who broke my jaw?”
“He did it because you were attacking me,” she snapped. “Don’t forget that part. And you better think again if you’re coming Outside for revenge. Perry would destroy you.”
Soren put his hands up. “Easy, tigress. I was just asking. So what do you want me to do—babysit the kid?”
She shook her head. “Make sure Talon stays safe—no matter what. And I want to see him.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
Soren worked his jaw side to side as he stared down at her. “Fine,” he said. “I’m curious. Let’s go see the little Savage.”