“Keep your mind clear,” Muzi shouts, his wing flapping hopelessly against the air. “I can’t do this by myself! We’re a team, remember?” And with that, they slip farther apart. Nomvula winces at the rattle their ribs make as bone pulls from bone, and the tearing and knitting of flesh as their torsos become their own again. Both wings are hers now, as she and Muzi remain attached only at the hip.
As they fall, Muzi reaches out to the cliff’s sheer surface. Rock scratches and scrapes at their skin as Nomvula makes a weak attempt to slow their descent. Muzi grabs at the leaves of an agave that’s made purchase in the slightest of ledges. He yelps as the plant’s barbs plunge into the meat of his palms. The roots hold, even as Nomvula’s mother lands in the wedge of their torsos. But the way the dirt is crumbling all around the plant, they won’t hold for long.
“I wish I could have loved you like you deserved.” The woman wraps her arms around Nomvula and squeezes tight, and then she throws herself back, her body tumbling into the surf below.
Grief overwhelms Nomvula, and her wings stop beating as she reaches out. The physical weight is gone, but her emotional weight . . . it presses down on her so hard, she can’t even catch her breath, let alone fly. The tether between her and Muzi snaps, and they become their own persons again at the exact wrong moment. Then Nomvula begins the drop that will reunite her with her mother.
Muzi feels Nomvula slip away from him. He shifts his weight, then slaps his hand around her forearm, clenching tight. “Grab on to me!” he shouts, sharp agave teeth cutting deeper into his grip as he tries to hold on with his other arm.
“Mother!” Nomvula says.
Muzi wants to help her. God, he wants to help her, but they need to get airborne, or they’re going to suffer the same fate. Mr. Tau wanted them to learn to work together, and they’d done that, their cooperation loosening their bond to the same body. It was like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. You can try to force it apart, pulling with all your might, and you’ll get nowhere. But if you reverse the action, fingers coming together, working together, then the solution is easy. Only now, Muzi doesn’t want to be apart. If she can’t fly them out of here, he’s going to have to do it. And he knows it’s going to break his heart.
The words foam up in his throat, tacky and bitter. “No one will ever love you, Nomvula,” he says.
She looks up at him startled, the gold of her eyes surrounded by bloodshot whites, like a hundred tiny bolts of red lightning.
“Your mother doesn’t love you. Sydney doesn’t love you. Mr. Tau doesn’t love you.”
She bares her teeth, curses Muzi’s name in a low growl, and only stops as their arms begin to fuse together. She shrieks and pulls away from him, her jarring movement causing the dirt around the plant’s roots to shift. “Let go of me!”
The pain in her eyes makes Muzi want to cry, but he has to stay strong. He pauses, no longer seeing the powerful being before him, but a fragile, vulnerable little girl. His words are like weapons in his mouth, they pierce through her skin, sink right into her tender heart. His words could destroy her in the most inhumane way. The words gather in his throat, he could so easily gulp them back down, but instead, he steadies his nerves and takes aim. “You know it’s true! Why else would he send you here? He wanted you to see your mother get swallowed up into the sea. He wanted you to hurt.”
“He wouldn’t! You take that back!”
They share a shoulder now. Vomit surges forward, Muzi’s insides gone hollow and icy as Nomvula reacts, bucking and writhing and cursing and crying so loud and so hard that Muzi’s spared from provoking her further. He’ll explain as soon as they’re safe. He’ll beg for her forgiveness a million times over if he has to.
They just need to survive.
Their hearts collide with a searing pain, and at last they are one. Muzi feels her wings now, both of them, and he peels back from the agave leaf and catches himself in the air. Each heartbeat wrenches his nerves, burning and coiling through him. But he keeps flapping—flapping because he knows Nomvula might be humanity’s last hope.
They reach solid ground, and on first impact, their bodies split apart. Muzi rolls, tumbling over loamy sand and dirt. The grit sticks to his skin, cakes his face, and gets caught in his chest as he gasps for air. On all fours, he scrambles back toward Nomvula, even though he feels like he’s trying to cough bricks up out of his lungs. He wraps his arm around her shivering body and presses his cheek to hers.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, their tears flowing into one unified stream. “I didn’t mean it . . . I’m so, so sorry.”
Chapter 43
Riya Natrajan
Riya Natrajan doesn’t have a whole lot of time to ask questions. The roof of the arena is about to cave in on them, and she’s having a hell of a time walking with her legs plunging through the floor with each step like it’s made out of flimsy Styrofoam. Her fans continue to breeze through her with a savage chill. She grits her teeth, struggles as Rife’s free arm reaches out for her, both his feet solid on the floor.
“Don’t fight it, love,” he says, voice calm, though Riya Natrajan sees the tension in the squint of his eyes. “Try not to even think about it. Walk like you normally do.”
“My legs are burning,” Riya Natrajan says with a groan as she tugs at the right one, freeing it from the floor only to have the left one sink down to her shin.
“Cha, mama. We’re out of phase, but just slightly. That means if that roof comes down on us, it’s still going to hurt like hell.”
“Pain I can handle,” Riya Natrajan rasps. “And stop calling me that. I’m nobody’s mama.”
Rife nods and pulls her up by her waist. Both feet firm now, she takes a moment to steady herself, calming herself as the sound of falling concrete echoes in the distance. His hand settles into the small of her back, pressing slightly.
“It gets easier.”
It’s no damn wonder Rife’s never been busted. Whenever the heat gets too close, he slips out of phase long enough to hide his stash, then disappears around a corner. Just like he slips in and out of her life.
Damn.
“This is how you know me so well, isn’t it?” Riya Natrajan snaps at him. “How you knew about my real birthday, how you knew about my multiple . . .” The words flare in her throat. “. . . my condition,” she says instead. “You’ve been stalking me, you asshole!”
Rife tips his head. “Never uninvited, ma—” He catches himself, flushes. “But the times you’ve asked me to stay, and I didn’t. Well, I did.”