“Absolutely not,” Kell said. “Let’s take a closer look.”
Neither of them took the chance to test if the squares with pressure plates were deactivated. They swerved and sidestepped until Kell and Saeldian stood before the pillar holding the gem. Kell peered at it, looking for more traps. No odd gaps in the plinth. Those carved dots could hide poisoned needles? Expel a gas? Kell moved closer. A single facet flared brilliantly as a star, catching Kell’s attention.
What color was this gem? How could it be the same color of a sweetheart rose and also the lush green of its stem and leaves? How could it also look like the silvery beads of dew resting on velvety petals? It wasn’t any one of those things, or a swirl of those things, or one after the other in a blur; it was…
“Down eight minutes. Focus.”
Kell had no name for it. Kell could write a hundred songs and never capture it. It reminded him of a hedge of bloomingmoonrose in the soft cool dawn, of mist on spiderwebs, of singing from just over there, bare feet wet with dew. How could it smell like moonrose?
Don’t,something in his mind whispered, just as Saeldian said, “Kell, stop.”
He heardstopat the same instant he touched the Kiss of Enduring Love, and then the room went strange and distant.
He was acrossthe room from himself. He was out there, as if Kell were dreaming of being someone else, and the Kell that he could see held the Kiss in his hand and stared into its depths—so pretty, but the light shining on it looked different now. It flared bright in thin lines over its facets, and the lines were brilliant and strong where they met, like a fishing net or a spider’s web.
The Kell he could see smiled at Saeldian. He moved closer. He offered the gem to them.
Kell tried to rush to them, but he bumped into something, as if he were looking through a window. “Don’t touch it!”
No one could hear him. No one could see him. The Kell he could see took Saeldian’s hand, smiling. He raised the stone to drop in theirs—
“No!”
No sound. The Kell he could see smiled as he clasped the gem in Saeldian’s hand. Saeldian flinched.
Then Saeldian smiled.
“Shit!”
He hadn’t said that. Saeldian had, just at his left shoulder.
Saeldian was out there, smiling with the Kell he could see. But Saeldian was here, made of shadow—like him? Was he—
“I can’t get back in,” Saeldian said. “It pushed me out. Hells, all nine of them!”
Kell went still. That was really Saeldian’s face. Not a speck of illusion clung to them, making them oddly static and…ordinary. Curls haloed in frizz. Flawless makeup gone.
Kell had seen Saeldian like this often when they first met andbecame friends as well as partners. Near the end, though, Kell had hardly ever seen Saeldian’s unillusioned face. But this was them, exactly them, with everything they blurred, shortened, lengthened, tailored, and hid plain to see.
Kell never thought he’d see their face again.
Saeldian looked at him, and even made of shadow, their expression drained. They touched their own face; they covered it with the square and sturdy-palmed hands they were born with.
No. No time for that. “Saeldian. It’s a charm placed on the gem.”
His voice made no sound; Saeldian heard him. They shook their head. “It wasn’t the charm that got me.”
That was their real voice, the one only he had heard, only when the job was done. When they were alone. When they could let go of disguises and masks.
They covered their mouth.
He’d heard their voice. He’d seen their face. There was no time to soothe them. “You can fix it later. The charm didn’t work on you, but you’re in here. How?”
“I knew what it was. I was trying to take it away from you to break the charm. It made sense. You wanted to touch it, right? You couldn’t think of anything else.”
It did make sense. Saeldian was an elf-human. Their mother had been human, and her wheelwright husband had been human. Saeldian’s father, demonstrably, had not been their mother’s husband.
“Right. I wanted a closer look, and now we’re not in our bodies. So where are we?”
