“Oh!” I blink. “Do we not?”
Then he rolls his eyes, big and exaggerated. “Bow, let me have a fucking day afore all hell breaks loose.” He sighs dramatically. “I just want ye a day.”
I purse my lips, supposing that’s a reasonable enough request. “Fine.”
Jem extends me his hand, but before I take it, I dart over to Brodie, throwing my arms around him.
“I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding, but I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Brodie nods. “I’ll see you around, Daph.”
I wave to Orson and then run back over to Hook. “Have you seen Rune around lately?” I ask Jamison.
“No.” He gives me a smile. It’s breezy, unworried. “She’s probably just giving us space.”
“Yes, but I haven’t told her there is an us.”
He gives me a look. “Sure, as though she daesnae know herself anyway?” He rolls his eyes, and up the mountain we trek.
The walk up is spent learning about each other, more than we already know.
Jamison’s dad died five years ago,* at the hand of Peter, but Jem doesn’t hold that over him. He said his dad deserved it.
He’s close with his mother, obviously. Raised by a Scottish nanny. Controversially, he did not attend Eton like his father; instead he went to boarding school in Armagh, Ireland, because the principal there was an old friend of his mother’s. I asked “How old?” and he laughed and said, “Very.” After, he attended Oxford to study literature, which is probably why he’s so romantic and beautiful.
To the best of his knowledge, he’s inherited none of his mother’s magic, but he says she says if he tried, it’d be in him. His favourite food is a Sunday dinner. His first kiss was a girl from the village called Claire. His best kiss is me. He likes winter best; it reminds him of his mum. He didn’t want to be a pirate, but it was the family trade. He’s killed more people than he’s slept with, which was a fact that elicited quite the look from me. He insists it’s not as severe a crime here as it is back on Earth but that he’s “trying to cut back.” He said that as though he was talking about smoking.
We kiss our way up the mountain, against trees, against boulders, in fields of wildflowers, in the snow— I pause, looking around us, then back at him.
“Do you know what this place is?”
“I might do.” He nods, a small smile spreading over his face. “Do ye ken what this place is?”
“Aye.” I nod, imitating him with a big smile.
“Aye.” He laughs, hand around my waist. “D?dnae ye put it away?”
“I remembered,” I tell him, cheeks going hot.
He nudges my nose with his, then kisses it. “Did ye?”
I nod.
“When?”
I do my best to squash away a smile, but it doesn’t work, and I just start laughing.
“Ah!” He nods knowingly. “I ken bedding ye would be a good idea.”
I keep laughing, and his arms slip all the way around me before his mouth brushes over mine.
“Why do ye like this memory so much?” he asks, looking around us.
“You don’t know?” I pull back a little, surprised. “The wind didn’t speak to you?”
“Nae?” Now he pulls back. “Daen it speak to ye?”
“No!” I shake my head quickly, laugh once like he’s being silly. “No! Of course not.”
Jem ducks so we’re eye to eye, and he squints at me. “Does the wind speak to ye, Bow?”
“No!” I laugh airily. “Don’t be crazy!”
He grabs me by the waist, a hand on each side. His eyes are wide and fascinated. “Aye, it did, d?dnae it?”
“No.”
He has this confused smile. “What did it say?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.” He smiles, his hands moving up towards under my arms, as though he might be able to tickle it out of me.
My cheeks are iron hot now. “No!”
He grabs my chin and kisses me, that cheat. “Say!”
“She’ll tell you if you tell her what’s in your cute little bag up in the cloud,” says Itheelia Le Faye from behind us.
“Mum,” Jamison says, tone warning her quiet.
“Oh yeah.” I pull back, looking up at him. “What is up there?”
“Nae. No.” Jem shakes his head, letting go of me to walk over to his mother, pointing at her. “D?nnae.”
“But—” I start, and he looks over at me.
“You, stop. Quiet now,” he tells me. “Conversation’s done. You and me irnae* talking about the same thing.”
“Or are you?” Itheelia says, peering between us.
I go rather still as I glance over at Jem and our eyes catch.
I feel nervous suddenly, that weighty feeling he has to him—a bit like I could cry, a lot like he’d be worth it if I did. He gives me a tiny wink, and all the butterflies living in my stomach fly away, freed now.
He looks at his mum. “Pot-stirrer,” he says as he kisses her on the cheek.
She flashes him a quick smile, and I follow them farther up the mountain, past her house.
I don’t know where we’re going.
She glances back at us. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Jem tosses his arm around me proudly, and his mum gives us a quarter of a smile.
For Itheelia, I’m gathering, that’s practically a parade thrown.
“Very good.” She nods.
Jem rests his chin on top of my head.
“When?” she asks.
“Just recently.” I shrug demurely.
“Last night,” her son tells her uncouthly.
She rolls her eyes. “Jammie.” She then shuffles me over towards her, not letting me go.
“I go’ her kiss, Mum.”
“Did you?” She looks up at him quickly before searching my face for it, but it’s gone. She tilts her head. “You know, there’s a legend about that.”
“Is there?” Hook looks between us.
“Do you know it, Daphne?” Itheelia asks me, her gaze sitting on me, heavy.
There’s that weight again, thick in the air around us.
I swallow, nodding quickly.
“Anybody going to tell me what it is?”
I don’t look away from his mother but shake my head all the same, and Jem rolls his eyes.
“Go on.” He nudges me.
“Don’t pry, darling,” Itheelia scolds him. “It’s unbecoming.”
Thank you, I mouth to Itheelia.
She nods back, then motions her head towards something up ahead.
“What’s that?” I squint at it. It looks like a—
“A well,” Jem tells me with a smile. He takes my hand, leading me over to it.
Whatever’s in the bottom, it’s glowing, swirling, moving around like mercury.
Jem reels up a bucket and dips his finger in it, then holds his finger out to me. “Try it.”
I frown at it, confused, but he lifts his eyebrows, waiting.
I lick it quickly and barely, and then my eyes go wide.
It tastes like—
“Hope.” Jem nods. “The island runs on it, remember?”
I look over at Itheelia. “Like a fuel?”
“It runs all under the island, like a current, feeding everything.”
I look between them. “But where does it come from?”
Itheelia tilts her head as she tries to explain it. “Your atmosphere is made of oxygen and nitrogen. Ours is made of hope and wonder and also a little bit of oxygen and nitrogen and another chemical called Luxithogen that your lot don’t know about—”