Altered (21 page)

I lash out at the image in front of me, flinging brushes and cosmetics across the room. They clatter to the floor, bottles shattering. The destruction calms me enough for me to break the hold of the mirror.

Erik’s shoulders drop, but his hands curl into fists. “I do.”

I stare at Erik as he bends to gather the scattered glass from the floor, wondering how he can be so certain. Of me. Of what we’re doing here. Isn’t he the boy who was angry for being ripped to Earth? How has he grown so much?

“Look, Ad,” he says, dropping to kneel next to me. “You are extraordinary.”

“I don’t want to be extraordinary,” I say softly, not meeting his eyes.

“I don’t mean your skills. You’re not extraordinary because you can weave, you are extraordinary because you have a good soul. Much better than mine. Or Jost’s. Or pretty much everyone I’ve ever known,” he says.

“A good soul who let her father die, who lets her mom sit in a prison cell. You know why Jost left, because he doesn’t think I can handle Sebrina.”

“Handle Sebrina?”

“Like be her mom or whatever.”

“That’s a lot to ask anyone,” Erik says.

“But if I loved him wouldn’t I have said I could, wouldn’t I have fought for it?” I ask.

I want him to answer me, because this is the question pressing at my chest, bearing down on my lungs. An answer would be my oxygen.

“You mean you can’t fathom how you would respond to someone you’ve never met in a situation you’ve never been in?”

I know the point Erik is trying to make, but it falls flat.

“Ad, he’s scared. Not just of not getting to Sebrina,” he says, “but of losing you.”

“Of losing me?” I repeat.

“You’re in more danger now than Rozenn ever was. People are chasing you. People who want to kill you or use you. He knows that.”

“So he’s protecting me?” I don’t buy it. The pain in Jost’s eyes wasn’t from loss, it was from betrayal. I know that. I betrayed him, and the worst part is that I’m not even sure how.

“He’s protecting himself.”

“I’m not even sure we ever loved each other. I mean, not like my parents,” I say.

“It’s not that simple,” Erik points out. “Your parents loved each other, but your mother also loved Dante.”

“I know. That makes it even harder to understand. I know she loved Benn, my father, but why didn’t she ever mention Dante?”

“She was protecting you, but she was also protecting herself, like Jost. Some things are too painful to bear. Jost can’t stand even thinking about losing you, and he almost has several times. He thinks if he shuts you out he won’t lose you.” Erik pauses and puts his hand on my knee. “But some people have too large an impact on our lives for us to imagine we can forget them. I know if I’d known you a week and lost you, I’d miss you the rest of my life.”

“I’d miss you, too.”

I see something hidden behind his friendly demeanor and the burning force of it frightens me. But he’s slipping back into our safe relationship now. The one where he doesn’t betray his brother. The one where I don’t have to choose.

“You going to be all right?”

“Yes,” I say. And somehow, despite the empty echo in my chest, I know I will be. “I’m going to wake up tomorrow and it will be a new day. Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he says.

“That you’ll drag me out of bed if I don’t get up tomorrow,” I say, stumbling a bit over the sadness creeping into my words.

Erik sighs, but agrees. “I promise. And what are your plans after you manage that?”

“I’m going to have Dante teach me how to alter.”

“You know how to have a good time,” Erik says.

“I’m quite the party girl,” I agree.

“Can I come?” Erik asks.

“Sure,” I say.

“I wasn’t invited on their little hunting trip,” he says. “And I’m getting a bit bored around here.”

“You could swim,” I suggest. “There are about ten pools.”

“No trunks,” Erik says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d have to skinny-dip.”

I know my face is on fire right now, but I grin despite myself and push him out of my room. I have plenty to do today. Like cry away this ache so I can start tomorrow in a new world.

THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF STRANDS WEAVING IN brilliant discord through the greenhouse once I focus in on them. It’s taken me nearly a week to get to the point where I can see the strands on Earth without adrenaline pumping through me, and it’s now over two weeks since the mission left, making me feel like an empty well drained of every resource. Without the organized weave of Arras, it’s been harder to command my skill—both in manipulating the natural strands of the universe and in seeing them.

Now as I stare at them, I try to home in on one. I could grab any number of the overlarge room’s strands; the space around me is full to bursting. A low hum fills the air from the backup generator Dante has turned on to give us more light. The old halogen bulbs illuminate the room but their constant flickering seems to warn of their impending demise. Between that and the buzzing of the generator, it’s harder to feel the strands’ vibrance. The problem isn’t that I can’t see the strands, it’s that Dante wants me to find one specific thread—the time strand located within a petite orchid.

I’m trying to slip my fingers into the weave of the flower. I hold the strand at an angle, keeping a finger on the particular one Dante has asked me to find. I’m sure it’s easier for him to point one out than for me to find and grip the precise strand he’s referring to, which is exactly what he’s trying to show me. I gingerly grasp the golden thread and tug to pull it into a warp. My touch is gentle but the thread cracks through the air, splitting a petal in two. The pieces fall bruised to the ground. My eyes meet Erik’s; he’s watching from a nearby stool. He came for moral support, but I know we’re thinking the same thing: we’re going to be here forever.

“No,” Dante says. His tone is patient, which has the strange effect of making me feel
very impatient
.

“It’s occurred to you that this is hopeless, right?” I ask, dropping the strand in defeat and settling back against a table full of pots and plants. It creaks under my weight. I know how it feels.

“Only if you tell yourself it is,” Dante says simply, but he cracks his left knuckles as he speaks.

Never mind. The Zen master is getting a bit tired.

“If you are in a fight, your skill has to be controlled. What would happen if you grabbed the wrong strand?” It’s not a question. We’ve both seen what happens, but I’m getting tired of him constantly bringing up the ammunition factory as an example.

“We’d get out alive. That’s what matters.”

“Is it?” he demands. “And how can you be certain you would, with such a cavalier attitude?”

“I haven’t killed any of us yet.” I stop fingering the strands around me and plant my hands on my hips.

“You nearly did at the factory. You weren’t in control,” he says. “I’d call that dangerous.”

“I’d call that
lucky
. It bought us time.”

Dante shrugs, rubbing the frond of a tall potted fern. “We view things with a different perspective, Adelice. Your escape from Arras was brave but too risky. When you wield your power like that, you put everyone in your path at risk.”

“No one was hurt,” I argue, but this time my argument sounds small and weak, because I know he has a point.

“Perhaps not, if that makes you feel better, but how would you feel if someone was caught in the tear? If Jost, for instance—”

“I don’t need a lecture. I need you to teach me.”

“You’re missing the point,” he says. “You already know what to do. You have to learn to control your skill.”

So I’ve been told. Repeatedly.

“I’m trying!” I explode.

Dante sighs but his face softens. The crease in his forehead vanishes. “Close your eyes.”

“But—”

“Do it,” he snaps. “You need to find the time strand moving past you. You must isolate it if you want to protect the objects and people around you.”

“No sh—”

“Feel for the pulse,” he says firmly.

“Time doesn’t have the pulse, the matter does—
the life
,” I argue, but I keep my eyes closed. I can feel the matter around me. If I concentrate I can hear its crackling vitality under the room’s ambient sounds.

“Time’s pulse is different. It’s more like the wind—ephemeral, always changing a little. Matter is vibrant, throbbing with energy. Time is like a whisper. You can only catch it if you listen closely,” he murmurs. “Accept that you’re a part of it and that it’s a part of you like the beat of your heart.”

I clear my mind and reach out with my fingers. I don’t grab anything, I caress the strands around me. They pulsate, pounding with vital life. Strands of matter. I’m shocked at the sensation in my fingertips. Maybe I didn’t concentrate so intensely in Arras, but every strand I touch throbs through me. I drop them and focus on the space around me, tuning out everything but the thrum of the world. And then it’s there—a tinny whistle that fades in and out of my hearing. Almost metallic, it oscillates between a faint rhythm and a heavy, inelegant hammering. I let my fingers reach out, trying to match the sound with the tactile sensation. They close over a thin strand and I feel the intensity of its pulse shift, growing louder and more demanding in my hand.

“Better,” Dante says, breaking my concentration.

As I open my eyes, he fingers a glowing strand of time.

“I’m glad you approve,” I say. “But I can’t stop and concentrate in a fight.”

“Of course not,” he agrees. “That’s not what I’m trying to make you understand. You must let go to unleash your ability. You are strongest when you aren’t trying.”

I try to hold back a groan, but I can’t. “Then isn’t training the exact opposite of what I should be doing?”

“Don’t think of it as training, think of it as honing.”

“A differentiation worthy of a politician,” I mutter. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

“You were made for this,” Dante says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We both were. Weaving and altering skills aren’t accidental. They’re your genetic legacy. But you have to accept your gift. Once you do that—once you make it a fundamental aspect of who you are—it will be as simple as breathing.”

Something I’m looking forward to, especially if it means I can stop training and get some sleep. It’s going to be tricky, considering my parents trained me to ignore my weaving ability, not to accept it. I practiced that for years, and now Dante thinks he can undo that preparation.

“What happened to your hands?” he asks.

I hold out my hands and he inspects them.

“A Spinster punished me,” I say.

“By trying to destroy your fingers?”

“I wove razor wire and steel.” I pull my hands back, suddenly self-conscious about the scars that are still visible from Maela’s revenge.

“You’re lucky to have fingers at all,” he says. “But, Adelice, your skill lies as much in your mind as your hands. Stop being so tentative, it’s making you clumsy.”

“That’s what’s holding me back?” I ask.

“I’ve seen you let go when you need to. In that alley to save your mother and in the ammunition factory.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of my use of my skills,” I say.

“I didn’t. You reacted brashly,” he says. “But you relaxed and channeled your ability in those instances. Your hands didn’t stop you. Don’t let that stop you now.”

I nod, embarrassment growing a lump in my throat.

“I think we’re done for the day,” he tells me. “There’s a problem with the photovoltaic array at the power plant that I need to look into.”

“Is Jax helping you?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him in a while.” Jax and I aren’t exactly friends, but after Erik he is still the friendliest person on the estate.

A shadow passes over Dante’s face. “He’s on the mission.”

“He is?” I ask. “Sorry, I thought he had stayed.”

I consider accompanying Dante to the power plant, but even the sight of the smokestacks makes me cringe. I’m still embarrassed by my mistake at the ammunition factory. If Jax isn’t going to be there, I’m not sure I want to go with Dante. Thinking of the plant, I recall what he said earlier. “What happens if I catch someone in a warp?”

“In the best-case scenario, you merely trap them in the caught time.”

I know that from experience. I count on it actually.

“What if it’s more serious?” I ask quietly.

“You could damage their thread. Maim them. Kill them. That’s why it’s imperative you learn to focus on time. Grabbing matter uncontrolled is too risky. You know how delicate we are. One wrong move and you could rip someone in half.”

“What I really want to know is how to alter,” I admit.

Dante stops and gives me a heavy look. “I assumed so. It’s not as glamorous as it looks.”

“I saw what they did to Deniel,” I say. “I’m aware of how
glamorous
it is.”

“You saw the worst thing that Tailors do,” he says.

The worst?
Yes, what happened to Deniel was horrible, but what about removing people’s souls or altering their memories? What about the other ways Tailors and the Guild take away people’s lives? Take away the very essence of who they are?

“Tailors can help people, too, Adelice. A trained Tailor can patch a thread and heal someone,” Dante says.

“I’ve only seen them do that to people
they
hurt in the first place,” I say, planting my hands on my hips. It’s true. My only experience with renewal patches is seeing them misused by men like Cormac and Kincaid.

“I need to know what I’m doing,” I say. “You’ve been teaching me this so that I don’t hurt anyone, but what I did to Deniel when he attacked me—that could have been worse. I need to understand how alteration works.”