She deposited the bag on top of the mini fridge and, as she went to root around inside it, toppled the small vial of special medicine that Dr. O’Donnell had left, stoppered, for Lyra’s morning dosage. Lyra shouted and Caelum made a dive for it.
But it was too late. It hit the ground and opened, liquid seeping out into the carpet. For a second, Caelum stayed there, his hand outstretched. Then he drew back, and Lyra felt a sharp pain: as if something hot had gone straight through her lungs. Unexpectedly, tears came to her eyes.
The blond girl stared from Lyra to Caelum and back. “What?” she said. “What is it?” She followed the direction of Lyra’s gaze then, and gave a quick laugh. “Oh,” she said. Carelessly, she snatched up the now-empty vial and tossed it once, catching it in her palm. “Don’t worry. It won’t stain.” Lyra could only stare at her.
“I mean”—the girl sighed and slipped the vial into her pocket—“it’s just saline, anyway. Salt and water never hurt anybody.”
“She lied to me.”
They were alone again. The girl had left them, promising to get Dr. O’Donnell, frightened perhaps by Lyra’s stillness. This hole was worse than any yet, because she was conscious, she was aware, she was remembering. But she felt that enormous walls of darkness had grown to enclose her. She was shivering at the very bottom of a pit. Caelum was speaking to her from somewhere very far away.
“We have to go. Lyra, listen to me. We have to find a way out of here, now.”
“Why did she lie to me?” She was so cold. Her hands and lips were frozen. Corpses grew cold, she knew; she had touched one before, the day that she had found number 236 dead, her wrists cabled to her bedposts. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does.” Caelum grabbed her shoulders. “They’re all liars, Lyra. Didn’t I tell you? Each and every one of them is the same.”
She didn’t want to believe it. But when she closed her eyes, she saw memories revolving, taking on new dimensions. She had overheard Dr. O’Donnell fight with Dr. Saperstein, and had always believed it meant that Dr. O’Donnell loved them. But if she’d really loved them, why hadn’t she tried to end the experiment? She had once tried to convince Emily Huang to stand up to God. But she hadn’t stood up herself. She hadn’t exposed Haven.
She had just left.
She had left to do her own experiments, to do whatever it was they really did at CASECS. To license. All the times that Dr. O’Donnell had read to Lyra and the others, had taught them about the stars—was that simply its own experiment?
Maybe all people were the same—they all wanted different things. But they all demanded the right to want whatever it was they wanted. They all thought of it as their birthright.
Caelum let Lyra go. He turned back to the door and tried the handle: locked, from the outside. He aimed a kick for the door and Lyra didn’t even startle at the noise. Dr. O’Donnell had lied to her.
All people were the same.
There was nowhere to go, nowhere for them to run, no time left for her. What did it matter whether she died here or somewhere else?
“We shouldn’t have come here.” Caelum’s voice cracked, and Lyra wanted to tell him it was okay, that it didn’t matter anymore.
“What choice did we have?” Everywhere Lyra turned she hit walls and more walls. “I’m running out of options, Caelum. I’m dying.” It was the first time she’d ever admitted it to Caelum.
When had she become so afraid of dying? For most of her life, she’d seen death as deeply ordinary, almost mechanical, like the difference between having a light on or off. She was afraid that death would be like falling into one of the holes, except that this one would never end, that she would never reach the bottom of it.
She couldn’t stand to look at him, at the angular planes of his cheekbones, at his beautiful eyelashes and lips, all of it undamaged, pristine, beautiful. She was unreasonably angry at him—for being so healthy, for being so beautiful.
Because she knew, of course, that Caelum was the reason she was afraid. She’d never had a reason to care about whether she lived or not. Caelum had given her the reason. Now he would continue, while she would end.
“Don’t,” she said, when he tried to touch her. But he got her wrist before she could turn away from him.
“Hey,” he said, and put a hand on her face, resting his thumb on her cheekbone, forcing her to look at him. “Hey.”
They were chest to chest, breathing together. His eyes, so dark from a distance, were up close layered with filaments of color. She felt, looking at them now, the way she did when looking up at the dark sky, at the stars wheeling in all that blackness.
“I would trade places with you if I could,” he said. He moved his hand to her chest, and her heartbeat jumped to meet his fingers. “I would trade in a second.”
“I know,” she said. She was calmer now. He had that effect—he softened her fears, blunted them, the way that when night fell it softened corners and edges.
“I’ll stay with you, always,” he said. “I want you to know that. I’ll never leave you again. I’ll go with you anywhere. Anywhere,” he repeated, and then smiled. “You tamed me, remember? Like the little prince tamed the fox in the desert. And you named me and made me real.”
She wanted to tell him she loved him. She wanted to tell him she was afraid. But she couldn’t get the words out. Her throat was too tight.
Luckily, he said it first. “I love you, Lyra,” he said.
“Me too,” she managed to say.
He kissed her. “I love your lips,” he said. “And your nose.” He kissed her nose, then her eyebrows, then her eyelids and cheeks. “I love your eyebrows. Your cheeks.” He took her hand and gently brought her pinkie finger into his mouth, kissing, sucking gently, and now the distinction between her body and his began to erode. She was his mouth and her finger, his breath and her heartbeat, his tongue and her skin, all at once. “I love your hands,” he whispered, moving finger to finger.
“Me too,” she said, and closed her eyes as he knelt to kiss her stomach, explored her hipbones with his tongue, naming all the places he loved, all the inches of skin, the seashell parts spiraled deep inside of her, filled with tides of wanting.
But her wanting wasn’t a right. It was a gift. It was a blessing. She came to it on her knees, holding out her arms.
“Me too,” she said, and every place he kissed her, her skin came alive, and told her she had to live.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 18 of Gemma’s story.
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