Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy (34 page)

The next day, Kami couldn’t find a single member of her team in school. She didn’t have class with any of them on Wednesdays, but she didn’t see anyone in the cafeteria and her headquarters were deserted.

It gave her room to think.

By the time Kami cornered Holly in the corridor at the end of the day, she had already made up her mind how to behave. She smiled, determinedly bright. Holly smiled back, and Kami wondered if the smile looked a little fixed, a little false.

“How’s it going?” Kami asked.

“Fine,” said Holly. She had the same coloring as Ash. Kami wondered how much more likely it was to be a sorcerer if you had a few drops of Lynburn blood in you. “How are you?”

Why was Holly turning Kami’s questions back on her? Kami thought wildly. Then she told herself to get a grip. “Also fine!” she answered. “Thank you for asking!”

Holly squinted at her, but she didn’t ask Kami if she was all right. Kami found that suspicious too.

“Where’s Angela?” Kami asked in desperation. She didn’t think she could bear to stand here doubting her friend for an instant longer.

Holly’s face shut like a door, leaving her eyes glittering and cold. “No idea,” she snapped. “I’m not interested in where she is or what she does.”

While Kami was still staring, Holly turned on her heel and walked down the corridor. Other people saw Kami getting the brush-off. A wave of murmurs hit her as she turned and walked the other way, trying to pretend nothing was wrong.

Kami ducked into a bathroom as she went, pulling out her phone and calling Angela. She stood in the center of the white tile floor, listening to the phone ring until it went to Angela’s voicemail.

“I’m too lazy to answer messages,” Angela’s recorded voice said, tinny and far-off in Kami’s ear. “Don’t bother leaving one.”

Kami hung up and rang Angela’s home phone. When she heard the soft click of the phone being picked up, she breathed out in deep relief. The breath froze on her lips when Rusty’s sleepy, good-natured voice said: “Rusty Montgomery’s emporium of pleasure. Tell me you’re good-looking and then tell me how I can serve you.”

“Rusty, for God’s sake,” Kami said. “What if it was my mother calling?”

“Your mother is a very nice-looking lady,” Rusty observed. “Though I’m not sure why you think she’d be calling me.”

“What if it was the grocer, then?”

“Mr. Hanley has a very individual but compelling charm.”

Kami could not force herself to laugh. She didn’t even know how to pretend to be normal, not when she couldn’t
stop seeing how sweet, friendly Holly’s eyes had turned cold. “Is Angela there?”

“No,” Rusty said, his casual drawl coming an instant too late to be natural.

“Well,” Kami said, “do you know where she is? She’s not answering her phone.”

Rusty hesitated again, the scrape of his breath sounding like another door shutting Kami out.

“Rusty,” Kami said, “Angela shouldn’t be disappearing off on her own. It’s not safe.”

“She hasn’t told you anything?” Rusty demanded. His voice was suddenly sharp, which Rusty’s voice never was.

Nobody was acting normal. Kami felt disoriented, everything familiar made strange. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” said Rusty.

“Nothing?”
Kami repeated. “Though you are a master of deceit, somehow I see through your cunning story.”

Rusty drew in a deep breath. “Look, Kami, Angela is fine. I promise you. I think she’s just gone off to be by herself for a while. She’s a little upset.”

“Angela doesn’t get upset,” Kami said blankly.

Kami had seen Angela at thirteen years old, when her parents went on a five-month trip. Angela had set up an old armchair as a punching bag in their garden and beaten it into rags and splinters before Kami’s eyes. Then she had gone and taken a nap.

Angela got angry and got even with the world by pretending she didn’t care. She didn’t run off to take some personal time and have a little cry.

“Everyone gets upset,” Rusty said, his voice soothing,
as if that was likely to calm Kami, as if generalizations ever really applied to anyone. “She probably went for a walk in the woods.”

A walk in the woods, Kami thought. The phone slid a little against her damp palm. “Rusty,” she said. “There is something you’re not telling me.”

“What would make you think that?” he asked.

It was horrible, hearing Rusty’s voice shift into caginess. Rusty was always so simple, as if he couldn’t be bothered to be complicated. The idea that even Rusty was keeping secrets from her was a terrible one. She thought about the Montgomerys moving to Sorry-in-the-Vale, a place where they knew nobody and clearly were not very happy. She thought about Henry Thornton, a sorcerer who had come down to Sorry-in-the-Vale from the city.

“What do you know, Rusty?” Kami asked, dropping the pretense that this was an ordinary conversation. Her voice sounded tinny and desperate in her own ears.

“What do
you
know?” Rusty shot back, his voice harsher than she’d ever heard it, a man’s voice, not a lazy, charming boy’s. “I don’t know what’s safe to tell you. I don’t want to tell any of Angela’s secrets.”

So, Angela had secrets.

Kami wasn’t even curious; she just felt sick. “Rusty,” she pleaded, “she’s my best friend.”

“I know,” Rusty told her. “But she’s my sister.”

Kami stared at the murky underwater green of the bathroom tiles.

“Maybe you should come over,” Rusty suggested. His
voice sounded normal again, which was even more disorienting.

There was a knot in Kami’s throat, tightening with her fear, like a snared animal who only drew the snare tighter by struggling. “Why would I come over if Angela’s not there?”

“Come on, Cambridge. You’re my friend too.” It was the nickname that made her hang up so abruptly she found herself startled by the sudden emptiness in her ear. She couldn’t stand to hear that pet name turned against her.

The phone rang while it was still pressed against her ear. The sound made Kami jump. She turned the phone off with shaking hands and slid it into the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t want to stay in the bathroom, so she turned on her heel and left.

The first thing she saw was Ash, walking down the corridor toward her, his head bowed. The lights in the classrooms were out, only the fluorescent lights overhead illuminating their school at all. In the shadows and stark light, Ash looked more like Jared than ever.

It wasn’t just the light, Kami thought as she drew closer to Ash. It was seeing Ash through new eyes. The first time she’d met him, she’d noticed how perfectly put together he was, always saying the right thing, looking the right way, every word and movement controlled. She had admired that. She hadn’t thought it meant he was hiding something.

But now she knew everyone was hiding something.

Ash’s calm blue eyes were shadowed, dark as the lakes where Jared had almost drowned. He was walking too fast, as though he wanted to get away from something.

Kami kept walking toward him. “Ash?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Ash blinked and checked his own step. Kami reached him and stood staring up at him. He stood with the lockers in a metallic line at his back, and the look on his face sent a ripple of unease through her.

“Ash,” Kami said urgently, “tell me. I’ll help you.”

Ash stayed frozen, gazing down at her. Then he leaned down and kissed her. His mouth was sudden and hot against hers, catching the gasp of surprise she made. He grabbed her wrists, pulling her toward him and against his body fast. It wasn’t at all like their last kiss. This wasn’t sweet or romantic.

Kami had heard of having your breath taken away, but she’d never lost hers before. It was partly that it was so fast and she was so surprised, and it was partly something else. The kiss went deeper and he let go of her wrists, and she found herself sliding her fingers into his hair, stroking and trying to soothe. He drew away and looked into her face, eyes beseeching, as if he had a question and needed the right answer.

Kami, a little dazed, had a question of her own. “Why did you do that?”

That was clearly not the answer Ash had been searching for. He stepped away from her. Kami’s hand fell from his hair.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, then he pushed past her and walked away.

No, Kami wanted to shout after him. No, it wasn’t. She wanted to run after him and demand answers herself. She let him go, the front doors of the school swinging open to let
him pass, everything in Sorry-in-the-Vale made to obey the sorcerer. The doors fell closed behind him, one last slant of sunlight falling across the floor.

Kami was still trembling, cold all over except for her mouth. It had been obvious Ash was in search of some sort of comfort. She didn’t know how much of her response to him had been about who he looked like, not who he was, and that was a terrible thing to find yourself doubting. It was a terrible thing to do to anyone.

Kami had a wall up automatically between Jared and these thoughts, but there hadn’t been a wall during the kiss. So everything was even more complicated than it was already. Everything was always more complicated because of this terrible link.

Kami could feel Jared’s emotions, so tangled that even he wasn’t sure which one was prevalent, jealousy or anger or confusion, as he recognized that she’d responded to the kiss. Kami did not know what to say to him.

The door of the school creaked open again. Kami looked up from the floor. She saw fingers of shadow creep in, like the shadow of a giant’s hand. As she watched, everything the shadow touched was consumed by its darkness.

Jared!
Kami screamed silently. She backed away and the darkness came inexorably closer, taking pieces of the corridor in sharp hungry gulps. It was as though Kami’s world was made of paper and someone was hacking at it with a vast pair of scissors.

Kami backed up another step, breath sobbing in her throat. She knew Jared was coming for her, running, but he was sure to come too late. Her back met the cold wall,
and she felt Jared reach for her in his mind. It was all he could do.

It gave her a moment of warmth and calm. It was enough. She thought of facing Rosalind across a sea of flying glass. She thought of how she had felt seeing the
aosaginohi
, blue heron fire, and afterward, when she had sat at her window and looked outside. Built for sorcerers, woken woods and all, this town was hers too. She was a source of magic. This was just an enemy too cowardly to show their face.

“No,” Kami said to the shadow crawling toward her, feeling the magic flow through her, from her to Jared and back again. She held out her hand and saw light fill it as if she held water cupped between her palms. The light brimmed in her hands, glowed between her fingers. She let a little light slip from her hand. The tiny points glittered like grains of sand turning into stars as they tumbled through the air toward the creeping dark.

“Don’t you dare,” Kami commanded. “I’m not scared. I’m the source.” She let her hands fall open. The light poured from her palms and rolled down the floor, the color of sunlight on stone in her town. It washed the shadows away.

K
ami stood panting and shaking. Then the door opened again. The creaking sound sent horror flashing through her, making every nerve burn. Against the pale sky outside, there was another dark shape, casting a long shadow on the shining floor.

Kami was terrified for a split second. Then she felt the brush of emotions not her own. When she turned toward the touch, it went all through her like sunlight: relief and love and joy. She ran down the corridor, down through the fading glow of magic. For once she was simply glad that Jared was real, his feelings flooding through her and her arms sliding around his neck.

She closed her eyes and held on, as she had when they found Nicola. This time she was able to keep holding on, her cheek laid in the curve of his neck, cool leather and warm skin on either side of her face. He had his arm around her, his breath was stirring her hair, and for a long moment they were both safe and warm in a space with no walls between them.

Then Jared stepped away from her, held her back with his hands on her shoulders. “You’re all right?” he demanded.

Kami’s walls all went back up. She said, knowing he could tell that she was lying, but not why: “I’m fine.”

“Being able to hold whoever this is off with magic doesn’t matter,” Kami said, once they got to her headquarters. “Whoever this is could still go after anyone in town who doesn’t have magic, or after one of us when we’re asleep. Who has the most magic chops is irrelevant. What matters is finding out who the sorcerer going after us is. Which means that what matters, lucky for us, is elite investigative reporter skills.”

A flash of Jared’s amusement, subdued like lightning seen from far away, made Kami look up from her notebook. She was sitting behind her desk because she felt better there. Jared was on Angela’s napping couch, one knee drawn up and his arm around it, watching her.

Only Kami’s desktop lamp was on, the better to stay in school after hours without being discovered. She was sitting in a pool of light and had to blink to make him out. The light was dying outside the window, caught in the gray time between sunset and twilight. Jared was all in shadow, except for his eyes. They shone colorless as glass with moonlight striking it.

Kami brought her mind closer to Jared’s, questing. She came in contact with a wall as high as hers. She blinked again.

He never mentioned her walls. She could not comment on his.

“The problem is,” Kami said, and heard her voice crack, “I keep panicking. I thought that being a reporter would mean being able to—keep some distance from the story, that it would all be really interesting and I would care a lot, but it wouldn’t be personal. Today I couldn’t stop thinking that
Angela or Holly might be the sorcerer. I can’t suspect the people I care about, but I can’t seem to trust them either, and I have to trust someone.”

“You can trust me.”

Kami tested the wall again. She could not read a thing from him. “Yes,” she answered all the same, and they both heard uncertainty in her voice. “But I can’t just trust the people whose mind I can read. The list is somewhat limited.”