Tobiah smoothed his hair down with both hands, and linked his fingers behind his neck. He let out a strained sigh. “Wil, do you remember the trip to the Indigo Kingdom?”
“Not really.” Was he about to tell me how I’d died, too? “Some of it, I guess. The way the wagon jumped over rocks. The other children crying. Trying to calm the babies. I don’t remember much until the orphanage.” I’d just seen my parents slaughtered in the courtyard, cut open by one of Tobiah’s rescuers. Everything after that was a wash of nausea and terror.
“The journey back to the Indigo Kingdom was slower.” Tobiah turned back to James. “I kept getting questions about you—whether you’d been with me. But I couldn’t answer. On the second night, when I was alone in my tent and wishing I didn’t have to tell your mother what happened. Or my own. Or anyone. I wished so hard that you were still with me, and then—”
Silence rang through the study as Tobiah caught his breath. He couldn’t even say it. So I did. “You wished so hard, and then he was there.”
Tobiah closed his eyes and hung his head. He seemed to deflate. “Yes.”
“You’re a flasher,” James whispered.
“Yes.” Tobiah crossed his arms, shoulders hunching. “You were just there. I wondered if I’d somehow transported your body from the cliff, but you weren’t scratched up or broken.”
A new James. He’d made a new James.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I went to find the only person I knew who might be able to help. The girl who could bring things to life, and make them do what she said. The animator.”
Me.
More voices sounded in the hall, some raised, but Oscar held them off. When it was quiet again, Tobiah continued.
“Wil, I sneaked through the camp to find you. You didn’t want to use magic, but I insisted it was an emergency. I was exhausted from using my power. That must have convinced you.” Tobiah licked his lips and looked at me like he was waiting for me to remember, but I couldn’t. I didn’t remember that at all. “You said you couldn’t wake the dead, so I wasn’t sure if it would work—whether I’d made something new or transported something to me—but I asked you to try anyway. You did. You said, ‘Wake up. Be Tobiah’s friend and cousin. He is the one who commands you.’ And that was it. You’d transferred control to me, just like that, and James was awake. Alive. After that, Wil, I took you back to the wagon and never saw you again. Not that I realized anyway.”
James spoke quietly. “I’m not real.”
“You are.” Tobiah’s attention snapped to James. “You are real. You’re my best friend. You always were.”
“No, he was. He was your best friend, that boy General Lien threw over the cliff. I—I don’t know what I am.” James surged to his feet, blinking rapidly. “Do I even make my own decisions, or do I do everything you say, like Wil’s notebooks or the cathedral? Am I any different from the wraith boy? Just a little more tame. More useful.”
“You’re my friend. My best friend.”
“No, I’m not.” James strode out the door without a backward glance.
Tobiah started after his cousin, one long stride and his hands curled like claws.
“Don’t.” I reached, but didn’t touch him. “Let him go.”
“I need to explain.” He faced me, looking desperate and haggard. Red rimmed his eyes.
“You’ve already said everything. Now let him absorb it.”
Tobiah dropped his gaze. “I never wanted to hurt him. I didn’t want him to feel like a replacement.”
“Give him time. One day he’ll understand that nothing has changed. He’ll forgive you.” He would. There was no one James loved more than his cousin. They’d work it out.
“Will it be his choice? His question was legitimate: has anything been his choice? What if I’ve been unconsciously commanding him all this time?”
Like the wraith boy sensed my wants. It was a fair question. “Maybe if he doesn’t forgive you and you really want him to, that’ll be proof enough.”
“Or because I know I don’t deserve it.” He lifted his eyes to watch me through his lashes. “What about you? I took advantage of your power. I hunted you and other radiants. All along, I had a secret of my own.”
It would have been so easy to condemn him for his hypocrisy, but I wasn’t angry with him. Curious, concerned, and confused: yes. But not angry. “I don’t want to fight.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Me neither.”
“I want to hear all about it. Your power.”
A weak smile warmed his face. “It’s funny. I’ve seen you struggle so hard to suppress yours. It’s like tying a hand behind your back. You have it. Your natural inclination is to use it, even though you know how dangerous it is. You accept it as part of you.”
“Sometimes I wish I could change that,” I said.
“But for me, magic is the opposite. I learned to suppress it early. After James—” He glanced at the door. “I wouldn’t make James go away, but I didn’t want to admit that I’m a flasher, too. That’s probably why I fought so hard against magic in Skyvale.”