Ash moved his hands and the paper clips rose, folding themselves out into little hooks that danced through his fingers. The threat was clear.
“You’re not the only one who’s a sorcerer, cousin.”
Kami took a step closer to Jared. His mind reached for her, welcoming as a hand held out to catch hers. It was the only way she knew that he registered her move toward him, because he was still glaring at Ash.
One of the paper clips unfolded completely, stretching into one long needle-thin, needle-glittering strip of wire. It moved like a tiny bolt of lightning, a too-bright flash in the air and across Ash’s face. It left behind a dark streak of blood, welling from the same place Jared’s white scar stood raised against his cheek, and Ash flinched back.
“No,” said Jared. “But I’m the only one with a source.”
Kami stumbled away from him, wrenching her mind from his, not putting up any walls, just wanting distance. She lifted a rejecting hand, and map, paper clips, and pens all hit the wall. She took three more strides, making for the door, and threw a furious look back at Jared. “You might not have one much longer.”
Chapter Thirty
Source of Light
Kami couldn’t go home to the mother who loved her but had lied to her, and she certainly couldn’t go into town. So she went into the woods where she had seen her first death instead. There was nowhere safe left, and she could think there at least.
She sat down by the lip of what Jared had joked was called “Really Depressed Quarry.” The hollow of Cotswold stone looked like half of a pear with its flesh scooped out. On her other side, the trees stretched out, plum and yellow and red in the graying light. She could hear though not see the Sorrier River, water rushing and leaves rustling together like people whispering secrets: Shhhh, shhh, shhh. Sorrier, sorrier, sorcerer.
Kami drew her legs up to her chest, under her long skirt patterned with yellow bees and red flowers. She pulled the material tight around her ankles.
You shouldn’t be out there alone, said Jared.
But I’m never alone, am I?
Her constant companion was silent. He was sorry, and still angry, and Kami could understand both those things but she couldn’t understand him lashing out and making Ash bleed for no reason.
For trying to separate us!
He’s entitled to an opinion, Kami said. So am I.
Jared had no answer for that but fear that she would want to be separated, and his rage. The rage that had cut Ash’s skin. The rage that had sent his father tumbling down those stairs to his death.
No, Kami said. I didn’t mean that. You didn’t know what you could do then. It wasn’t your fault. But now that you know what you can do, you’re responsible for it. You can’t hurt anybody else.
I’ll do whatever you want. As long as she didn’t leave him. And I won’t let anything happen to you, Jared promised. You do not need to worry about anyone coming after you because you’re my source.
I wouldn’t cut the connection because I was afraid. I wouldn’t do anything because I was afraid.
Yeah, said Jared. I know that.
Kami was as close as she could get to alone, but she still sat wrapped in someone else’s thoughts, his watchful affection and concern. It was not so bad at this precise moment.
Shadows were gathering in the gold cup of the quarry. Kami looked down and could not see any of the curves and spikes of the quarry where she and Nicola Prendergast had played hide-and-seek when they were kids. When Nicola was alive. Kami closed her eyes for an instant and then rose.
Now she could see the river through the trees, a snake of silver motion fringed with the jewel colors of the leaves. She saw something else as well. Delicate as something painted on china, balanced on one leg at the edge of the river. It was a heron, but not an ordinary heron. Each line of it, the thin legs and the curve of wings and neck, burned bright blue, like the hottest flame from a Bunsen burner.
Sobo had not been the kind of grandmother
who loved to tell stories, but Kami had heard one or two and interpreted them in her own way, shaping the legends of a country she had never seen into her private personal stories.
Aosaginohi. Blue heron fire. A night heron, softly illuminated against the darkening sky.
She had not thought much about Ash’s words to Jared, about waking the woods. Certainly not in connection to herself. Only here was the aosaginohi. Now Kami thought about the little creature made of eyes. Hyakume, guardian with a hundred eyes.
Jared had not woken the woods alone. She had done it too. Source and sorcerer, creating a storybook land out of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Only the stories were different this time, because they were her stories too. For the first time, Kami saw what Rob Lynburn had feared she would see: the lure of power.
Kami’s mother was home for dinner every Tuesday, so the rest of the family was always home then as well. Dad had made lasagna, and they all sat around the table and fought over the dregs of the lemonade. Tomo won, of course.