White Heart of Justice (29 page)

“Wait!” I cried suddenly, laughing. “Where's the clapper?” After a few fruitless minutes of searching, we admitted defeat. Until Rafe reached forward and grabbed the iron coin from around my neck and gently pulled. He held it up by the few pieces of hair that I'd used to tie it around my neck and dangled it in front of me.

We grinned at each other and then Rafe crawled under the bell with it. I stood at the wheel for a moment, waiting for Rafe to stand up. When he did, I spun the wheel. The bell rang . . .

And everything changed.

At least it did for us, even if nothing changed for the rest of the million or so people in Halja. The metallic
GONG
sounded in the tiny stone room, much louder than it should have been with only that small iron coin making the sound. Clear and bright, it was the audio version of a shooting star. It was the opposite of discordant in every way. I felt the sound, acoustically, physically, and magically. Because it wasn't just sound; it was perennial magic.

It knocked us right onto our butts.

And when we got up again, we weren't the same. Or rather, we were exactly as we had been previously.

That feeling that I'd had last semester—when we'd passed through Ebony's Elbow and my “anchor” memory had been ripped out and replaced with Rafe's—was back. It felt like someone had plucked a piece of hair from underneath my scalp, not on top of it. And the memory I'd had of Rafe's brother's funeral—of Bhereg's/Ari's
premature
funeral—was gone. All I had left was the memory of having Rafe's memory, not the memory itself. To say that the whole experience left me feeling disoriented and confused was an understatement.

I looked over at Rafe, who was also sitting on the floor. He met my gaze with an unreadable expression on his face. I had no idea what he was thinking.

When our heads cleared as much as they were going to clear, I got up and ran to the windows. Outside, all was not as it had been previously. Instead of the remains of men and their machines, the courtyard and the Fiddleback were now full of flowers. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. They were lilies and they shined like stars.

When I picked the White Heart up off the floor where it had fallen, it felt infinitely heavier. In fact, I could barely lift it. And its glow was gone. Now, it just looked like a dirty, dull blade. It could have been carved from an opal, marble, or concrete for all anyone could see under the coat of grime that was now on it.

The White Heart's magic was gone with our borrowed memories.

Perennial magic,
I thought, gritting my teeth.
You turn it on; you turn it off.

I ran over to the wheel and gave it another crank. Rafe stood at the north window, his back to me, legs wide, arms crossed in front of him.

The bell did not ring again.

I finally climbed beneath it to see what was stopping it.

The clapper—the iron coin with the hole in it—was gone.

Chapter 27

R
afe and I said very little to each other as we retraced our steps across the Fiddleback. Mostly, it was that we were tired. Exhausted really, physically, emotionally, and magically. By the time we reached the southern base of Septembhel, we collapsed and crawled into our bedrolls without even pitching our tent. Luckily, the weather was cold but clear and our magic, though depleted, was strong enough to keep us warm while we slept. At some point that night, I woke up screaming—shouting someone's name, I think, although once awake, I couldn't remember who or what the dream had been about.

The next morning I awoke with Rafe's arm draped across my middle, but that was the last time he touched me that day. The next day was similar. Despite our having accomplished our objective (I'd found my target and we would likely make it back to New Babylon in a little under two weeks; I had a real shot at winning the Laurel Crown), things between us seemed strained. Rafe was detached and quiet, reserved and withdrawn. We reached Corterra by nightfall.

It was an odd, though not unpleasant, experience seeing the wreckage of Corterra's bailey gaol and the area where we'd made our stand against the
monstrum metallum
and the ice basilisks now that the worst part of our journey was over. Snow still covered the ground, but the sky was clear and the wind wasn't as punishing as it had been the last time we'd been here. Though the urge to press on was strong, we realized we'd have to sleep at some point. The trip was far too long to make without resting. In fact, without Telesto and Brisaya, we'd be lucky if the return trip north took only twice as long as the trip south had.

So we crawled back inside Corterra's bailey gaol to sleep for the night. As he'd done previously, Rafe cast Impenetrable over the top of the stairwell and then cast a spell of warmth below. The effect of being in such a comparatively warm and safe place would have been extraordinarily comforting but for Rafe's unusual silence.

After we lay down, I spread my cloak over both of us and he tensed immediately. I finally asked him what was wrong. He sighed, relaxed, and pulled me close. But he held off kissing me. He hadn't kissed me since we'd rang that blasted bell. Until now, I hadn't really thought about it because for the first twelve hours after that I'd slept, and for the next twelve, I'd hiked. But now that we'd stopped again, and we were in a relatively safe place and not quite as exhausted, it was time to address the loss of our borrowed memories and what that might mean.

“I've just been thinking about where we go from here, that's all, Onyx. If you win the Laurel Crown, is your plan still to work for the Jayneses on board the
Alliance
next semester?”

I stiffened. I didn't think Rafe was asking because he thought it odd I wanted to work for Hyrkes. Rafe was the last person who would care about social distinctions or civic ambitions. Rather, I feared he might be asking because
he
might be having second thoughts about next semester.

“Is there someone else you'd rather work for?” I asked. “Or someplace else you think would be a better fit for us?”

Us.

That word suddenly seemed to take shape and hover in the air. Was there still an “us” now that I'd rung the Angels' bell? Had Rafe's
madly, deeply, fiercely
feelings for me disappeared along with his borrowed memory of Ari's loving me that way?

Luck, I hoped not. How cruel, twisted, and unfair would that be?

But Rafe's hesitation in answering my questions told me something was wrong. That
something
had changed.

“Noon,” he began slowly, looking away, unable to meet my gaze. “There's nothing more I'd rather do than spend next semester with you on the river . . . or anywhere else . . . battling
rogares
or doing whatever else you felt needed to be done . . .”

His voice trailed off. By then I was stiff as a board and barely breathing.

“But?” My voice sounded angrier than I intended. I think I was already starting to gird myself for whatever hurtful news I sensed was coming. I slipped out from under my cloak and stood up. I rubbed my arms and paced, trying to ignore the panic I was starting to feel. After a few moments, I stopped in front of Rafe and leaned on the wall behind me, looking down at him. Finally, he looked up, meeting my gaze once again.

That look.
I'd never seen Rafe look so somber. Or so serious. I swallowed.

He stood up and leaned on the wall opposite me. We stared at each other in the bluish blackness.

“But . . .” he repeated, clasping his hands behind his back, almost as if he were afraid of what he might do with them if he kept them free. “I'm not sure I could live with myself if, in addition to almost drowning Bhereg, I kept you away from him too. Ari might not like me, but he's never wronged me either. How could I justify treating him so horribly not just once, but twice?”

Suddenly, I wanted to scream. There were so many things wrong with what Rafe had just said but by far the biggest was: “
You're
not keeping me from Ari. I am.”

I clenched my fists and looked away, worried about how revealing my words had been.

Why had I let this happen? Why had I given in to the temptation to kiss Rafe?

I'd raced this race partly for the privilege of continuing to work with him. Had I ruined our friendship and professional relationship by giving in to my nascent romantic feelings for him while still dealing with my latent feelings for Ari? Nascent romantic feelings I might have been able to ignore if it had not been for Rafe's gentle prodding. My eyes stung and I was unaccountably angry. With myself. With Rafe. With Ari. With Luck.

“Nouiomo,” Rafe whispered. My head snapped back toward him. “You still love him, don't you?”

We stood there for so long, I'm pretty sure time stood still with us. I became numb. With cold and the desperate desire to
feel nothing
. Then I became hot—so hot I thought I'd burn the half-destroyed bailey gaol with us in it. Turn the area within which we were standing into one big crematorium. My feelings of love, loss, injustice, bitterness, and longing became overwhelming and nearly impossible to control. Throughout this endless expanse of time, Rafe just stood there. Looking at me. Waiting.

He either had more faith in me than I did or he was perfectly willing to burn to death with me.

“I'm going to train as one of the Ophanim knights when we get back,” he finally said, transforming his face into a perfect mask of nonchalance, as if he was telling me what he was going to order at Empyr or the Black Onion for his first home-from-the-trail meal.

“Neither of us is sure anymore if my feelings for you are real. Right?” Rafe continued softly, “That's what you've been thinking about and wondering since the bell rang, isn't it? Well, this will give us a chance to sort things out.”

“Sort things out apart, you mean.”

“Were we ever really together?” His voice was almost a whisper now, as if he was just as afraid of asking the question as hearing the answer.

It hurt a lot more than I thought it would. I hadn't realized until that moment how much I truly cared for Rafe—as more than just a friend.

I turned my face so he couldn't see how upset I was. If he wanted to join the Ophanim, I wasn't going to stop him. If he wanted to use my feelings for Ari—feelings I often wished I didn't have—as a reason to leave, I wasn't going to beg him to stay. And if he wanted to suggest that the Angels' bell had taken away his feelings for me . . . Well, I wasn't going to argue.

Because it must have. Because no one could be strong enough to walk away from someone they loved that much.

Except that I had.

Thank Luck Rafe couldn't sense how upset I was by my signature. All I had to do to survive the rest of this night was get my emotions under control and make sure that my face reflected none of the anguish I was currently feeling when I turned back to face him.

It took more than a few minutes, but I did it. I dug a deep well inside of me. A well so deep Orcus would have been slack-jawed with envy. And then I dumped my sense of betrayal (which wasn't fair), my sense of loss (which was enormous), and my utter panic (I'd gotten used to having Raphael Sinclair in my life; thinking about his absence now caused my throat to seize) over its edge. Off they went, tumbling down into the darkness.

I turned back to Rafe, my face as nonchalant as his.

Glashia would have been proud.

*   *   *

I
t took us almost nine days to reach Maize from Corterra. By that time I was so sick of auster hare meat, I thought I might become a vegetarian. I'd restrung my snowshoes a total of seven times, lost my snow goggles, and ironically become sunburned. But, due to our magic, Rafe and I were able to avoid some of the risks that are more dangerous to other hunters who come to the Old Trail. We were never in any serious danger of frostbite, exposure, or freezing to death, although we did have one run-in with a yeti. Luckily for both us and it, a few fireballs and a blast of Angel light convinced it that running was preferable to fighting.

As we neared Maize, it occurred to me that likely no one would be at the springhouse. That guest house was reserved for waning magic users and I doubted Demeter had many. So I asked Rafe to hike to the hospital to let the Mederies know we were back. It was early evening and the last train to New Babylon had left. We'd be spending the night regardless of how quickly we conducted our business here, so our ever-present sense of urgency to return to New Babylon was temporarily quelled.

I walked up the dirt path toward the barghest pen in a contemplative mood. My hood was down, my pack was light, and, while the White Heart still felt heavy to me, I'd gotten used to its weight in between my back and my pack. I rounded a bend in the trail, came out of the woods, and stepped into the clearing where the barghest pen was. And that's when I saw her.

The barghest with the white star on her forehead. She was full grown now. What had Linnaea said the night before we'd first come to this pen?

“I'm looking forward to it. And if the barghests knew you were coming, they would be too. If they had a motto it would be
paratus sum. I am ready.
Barghests scoff at being ‘born ready.' They are
conceived
ready. Conception to birth in less than twenty-four hours.”

And apparently, birth to full grown in a little over a month. Impressive.

As I came closer to the pen the no-longer-little whelp started wriggling and whining. Instantly, I felt a crushing sadness.
She was waiting for Telesto and Brisaya,
I thought, as my throat grew tight. The “whelp” glanced from me to the trail once before I entered the pen. She yipped and then let loose a full-fledged barghest howl. After that she came rushing toward me—a huge, slobbering, grinning beast with a star on its forehead and the most enormous canines I'd ever seen. It was the penultimate vision-come-true from the perennial magic spring here.

She bounded up to me and I sank to my knees. She plopped herself down in front of me, belly up, tongue lolling out of her mouth, her breath as disgusting as any barghest's breath I'd ever smelled. And yet it was the sweetest homecoming I'd ever had. I decided right then and there to take her with me when I left.

*   *   *

Y
ou want to do what?”

My brother looked at me as if I were that mythical barghest breeder's nightmare, Cerberus, the barghest with three heads. He and Linnaea exchanged a look that clearly questioned whether I'd lost my sanity off the Old Trail along with the poor whelp's parents and the sledge they'd loaned me.

“I want to pay Demeter for the lost sledge, barghests, and for this young one here. I want to take her with me.”

“You want to take a
barghest
to
New Babylon
?” Linnaea repeated, still unconvinced of the soundness of my plan.

When Rafe had first brought Night and Linnaea back from the hospital where they'd both been working, Night had scooped me up in a great big bear hug. It was so amazingly demonstrative for Night that I realized he really had thought I wouldn't come back. In fact, he was quite choked up about my return—until he found out that Rafe had dug the cursed arrow tip out of my heart with a steel knife and magic and that Peter Aster had been the one who had cursed it. I think if Night had not already taken an oath to try and save lives, he would have sworn to kill Peter right then and there. And he was livid with Rafe for having performed such a risky surgery, in the bowels of a dirty dungeon no less, which raised Rafe's ruff, not a little bit, until I explained to Night in no uncertain terms that I would have cut it out myself, so Rafe had really
saved
my life, not risked it. And then, to make sure the topic was well and truly changed, I put forth my plan to adopt Telesto and Brisaya's whelp.