“There!” Julian let out a sharp, joyful cry, pumping a fist into the air. The mist shrouding the monastery had settled, as if the rain had dragged it down. It sat like the foggy surface of a lake, disguising the thousands of feet between the ledge and the sheer, rocky drop below. “Where’s the camera? Break it out, will you? No one around to see it anyway—”
The thunder that exploded overhead ricocheted like cannon fire through the mountains. Nicholas’s whole body tensed, cringing away from the deafening roar. No sooner had it faded than the heavens opened up and rain poured down from the clouds, momentarily blinding him with its strength. Nicholas let out a startled gasp as the pounding intensified into a solid sheet of water, a surge he’d only ever witnessed once at sea when his ship had drifted toward the edge of a hurricane. Rivers of rain were washing down from the ledges above, pouring around him, nearly carrying his feet out from under him.
Julian—
Nicholas spun back toward the edge of the trail just as Julian turned to shout something to him, and watched Julian’s left foot disappear as the muddy ledge crumbled beneath it.
As he dove, throwing himself across the distance, a single thought slammed through Nicholas’s mind: Not like this.
“Nick! Nick!” Julian had managed to grab on to the fractured remains of the ledge, his hand already sliding out of his sopping wet glove as his full weight dangled over a vast spread of air, stone, mist, and trees. Nicholas crawled the last few feet between them on his stomach and was reaching, reaching, and the contents of the rucksack were rattling, digging into his back—
Julian’s face was bone-white with fear, his mouth moving, begging, Help me, help me—
Why should I?
This family—they’d taken everything from him—they’d taken his true family, his freedom, his worth—
A cold, bitter satisfaction filled him to the core at the thought of finally taking something back.
Because he’s your brother.
Nicholas shook his head, feeling the force of the rain start to carry him toward the ledge. “Reach up—swing your arm up—Julian!”
A look of determination crossed Julian’s mud-smeared face as he thrust his free arm up, trying to catch Nicholas’s grasping hand. Julian sacrificed his grip on the ledge to swing himself up; Nicholas lunged forward and caught his fingers—
The weight he’d been holding disappeared as Julian’s hand slipped out of the glove, and his dark shape slipped silently down through the feather-soft mist, parting just enough for Nicholas to see, at the bottom of the ravine, a burst of light as Julian’s body broke apart into glittering dust.
There was a boom and rattle from miles away, and he knew the passage they’d come through had just collapsed. Blood roared in Nicholas’s ears, chased by his own soundless scream; he did not need to look, to search through the haze and rain, to know that time itself had stolen Julian’s broken body, and dissolved it into nothing but memory.
THE AMAZING THING WAS, EACH time she looked at them, Etta still saw something new—something she hadn’t noticed before.
The paintings had been hanging in their living room for years, in the exact same spot behind the couch, lined up like a movie reel of the greatest hits of her mom’s life. Now and then, Etta felt something clench deep in her stomach when she looked at them; not quite envy, not quite longing, but some shallow cousin of both. She’d done her own traveling with Alice, had hit the international violin competition circuit, but she’d seen nothing like the subjects of these paintings. Nothing like this one, of a mountain with its spiraling, shining path up through the trees, toward the clouds, to its hidden peak.
It was only now, leaning over the back of the couch, that Etta noticed Rose had painted two figures working their way up the trail, half-hidden by the lines of bright flags streaming overhead.