Once I wake in the night, at least I feel that I’m awake, and see Tucker standing by the window, looking out at the dark sky. I will him to turn, to look at me, but he continues to stare out silently. This is what the dead become, I think, grim sentinels who see and hear nothing, who watch the stars. Maybe if I die, I’ll see Tucker again.
Another night, after a few days of floating in this fevered world, I lose myself. It takes only a moment. One minute I’m aware, a brief twinkling of lucidity, that my fever has reached some place beyond life and recovery. It’s a kind of psychic dressing room where I strip off everything that makes me myself so I can enter into a world where only naked spirits can go. I let go of anger. Anger at my parents, anger at Tuck and Emily, anger at myself. Anger at the Nahx. I let go of them too, my parents, Tuck, Emily, all of them. Even Topher, though he is hard to release. His fingers lock on to mine, but in the end the gravity of what awaits is too strong. He slips away. I let go of rage, and then everything slips away. I slip away from everything. I have no shape, no size, no memory, no name. All I have is what is immediate, what I feel and see. I feel hot. I see fire. I see a shadow move in the fire.
Then nothing.
EIGHTH
She wakes up screaming. My first instinct is to hold my hands over my ears.
The pills aren’t working. She’s going to die. All I can do now is watch.
Not quite right. I could leave her. Go back to my people. No one would know.
I should leave her.
I should.
Leave.
Her.
But I can’t. I kneel at her bedside, finding her scorching hand. She clutches at me, but weakly. As her scream subsides, her trembling spreads up my fingers and arm, into my mind.
Beautiful human. Don’t leave me.
I choke. My throat spasms around the tube. The thick fluid pulses through me. Suddenly, I’m angry, so angry at the heat in her, the fire that is killing her. I could crush it, break it down, kill it, kill . . .
Human. Brave girl, get better. Please. You must. Obey me.
Think. Try to think.
If she dies, I’ll jump from the terrace. We’re forty floors up. The fall would kill me, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t just walk away from her if she doesn’t get up. I can’t go back to the mission. I close my eyes and think of that other Eighth burning on the road and wish I could trade places with him. Or that I had stayed with him. I don’t want to be alone. And no one would miss me.
Missing. Important.
Sixth? What do I do? Tell me what to do. I have to do something.
Ah, my mind is dripping, slipping away. She is as transparent as a cloud. Her hair lies in wet tendrils around her head. Her face is still black-and-blue and swollen. She smells of death, tears, waste, soap, and pine needles. She’s more beautiful than a spiderweb or a dandelion. Or a snowflake.
A snowflake.
The terrace.
Snow.
The terrace door has been open for hours, to let the cold night air in. I carry her outside. A thick layer of snow spreads around us.
There’s a little twist in my thoughts. I could leap over the railing with her in my arms. But she would never choose that. She chose life before. She has chosen life over and over. She wants to live.
I was supposed to put a dart in her.
You don’t have to do this, she said to me.
Yes, I remember.
You can just walk away.
But I can’t, pretty Dandelion. I can’t walk away from you.
Please don’t kill me, she said. I shook my head. I told her no. I made a kind of promise.
I could never kill her. I could never dart her. Anything but that.
She sags in my arms. Over the wind blowing around my ear sensors, I can no longer hear her heartbeat.
Please don’t kill me, human girl.
As I lay her down, her arms flop up by her head. I move them, making wings for her in the thick snow.
Angel.
The word creeps out from behind the door, mocks me with possibility, then slams the door behind itself.
Sixth was an empty green angel in the grass, with blood-black wings. This one is a shimmering ice angel, with snowflakes in her hair.
I never even learned her name.
RAVEN
When the dream starts, it is cold and dark. But as light seeps in, I see I am floating in the lake, with snowflakes drifting down around me. I turn my head to the dock and see Tucker standing there. Or Topher. I can’t tell them apart anymore. I try to move, to swim to shore, but the water is frigid. I’m numb, paralyzed. And scared. So terrified. Because there is something under the water coming for me. I can see the ripples getting closer, closer.
On the dock, Tucker yells, but his voice is wrong. He’s too sad, too dark, too tense. That’s how I know it’s Topher yelling. He jumps into the water and swims toward me, as the unknown ripple approaches from the other direction. I float, naked, unable to move or scream. Something emerges from the ripples in the water. A Nahx, the Nahx. He reaches me as Topher flails in the cold. The Nahx gathers me and holds me. He says things to me.
I will take you anywhere.
I’m not sure how he has a voice. He has no lips. I want to go to the shore, to the dock, to Topher. But Topher is drowning. I try to tell the Nahx. I try to entreat him to save Topher, but my own lips are numb and swollen. My hands can’t move to make the signs.
Please, please.
Topher sinks in the dark water, leaving bubbles on the surface.
I relax my body as the Nahx releases me and sink down, searching for Topher in the murk. The cold permeates my skull and my brain.
Tucker, I will never get you back. You’re gone. Like the world, the one I never really appreciated. It was imperfect but all we had.
Topher, loving me would only ever hurt you. All we can be is partners in grief and revenge.
Mom? Can you ever forgive me?
Jack? Can I start calling you Dad?
An armored hand closes around my wrist and pulls me to the surface. “Who are you?” I say. He slips his arms around me again, grasps me tightly, and together we sink to the bottom of the dark lake.
I wake up, lake water choking me, drowning me, though when I cough, it is cold air that comes out. I open my eyes. I’m lying outside, half naked in the cold, in a puddle of water, melted snow, and tears. It is daylight, the sun beats down on me, and I feel almost normal. Numb and cold, really cold, but normal.
Through the glare I see the Nahx kneeling a few feet away, his head resting in his hands on the floor in front of him.
“H-hey.”
His head shoots up.
“I’m kind of cold.”
He lunges forward and scoops me up.
The sickroom stinks of vomit and other worse things. He steps right through it and along the hallway, setting me down on the wide leather bench in the living room.
Wait, he signs. Like I could go anywhere in my condition. I can barely focus my eyes.
He returns with piles of clean towels and blankets. Wrapping me in a blanket, he dries my head, hands, and feet, holding my fingers and toes for a few extra seconds. His hands are unnaturally warm.
There is still pain in my side, but no longer the acute ache throughout my whole body. My leg feels slightly numb but not too sore. My broken arm is splinted and bandaged, but feels almost normal. But I am parched and dizzy, and also something . . .
“I need to pee,” I croak out. “I need . . .”