“I know. I’m just—it’s silly, right? That I’m scared? Terrified, frankly.”
“I won’t leave you stuck in here,” I said, because thatdidsound silly. “Whatever’s going on with this garden, I’ll get you out, I promise.” He didn’t look very believing. “You should feel lucky. I never break a promise, Cyrus.”
If I did, I wouldn’t be here at Lilymoor at all.
His shoulders rounded a little in realization. “Rus, if you don’t mind.” Then he laced his fingers together and leaned his back against the wall. “All right, up you go, Sophie.”
Now wasn’t the best time to tell him about my abysmal balancing skills, but he soon figured it out anyway when I almost toppled off.This is easy,I told myself.Perfectly easy.It wasn’t that high—absolutely not. It was not high at all.
Except when I glanced down and the ground spun, I changed my mind. It wasveryhigh. Desperately, I caught a vine on the wall and pulled myself back toward it. The vineslooked familiar. Oval leaves two at a time. They’d even infested this garden, too, huh.
“Ah, my old enemy,” I muttered—andtheseeven had little buds on the ends. Ones that I finally recognized.Honeysucklevines. “You’re kidding.”
“What?” he called from below.
“Nothing—um—thiscan’tbe comfortable for you.”
“Just get to the top and help me up,” he groused. I was glad he couldn’t see my hands white-knuckling the vines. They weren’t strong—I’d pulled up enough of them to know that tragically well—but there was little else to find purchase on. He pushed me up a little farther, and I found myself straddling the wall.
The second I did, the world went woozy. I heard Cyrus call my name, but he sounded distant. A thousand miles away. The sun flared one last time, the last rays leaking across the tree-lined horizon, blinding.
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed, but it didn’t stop the spinning.
“Sophie,” Cyrus called from somewhere below me. “Sophie, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I forced out, and cracked open my eyes, and the spinning only got worse. Less like vertigo, and more like colors themselves were fracturing apart. Greens broke away from blues, from pinks. I tried to concentrate on his storm-colored eyes, though I couldn’t tell anymore if they were blue or green or gray. I reached down to him. “Take my hand!”
He backed up a few feet and took a running start. Planted one shoe on the wall, reaching up for me.
I should have caught him.
I was supposed to.
He was right there, so close—as I felt his hand pass mine. Passthroughmine. His eyes widened. He’d seen it, too.
Then he was falling and—
And so was I?
I scrambled for purchase on the vines again, but something was pulling me, tugging me, wrenching me off the wall—and I went tumbling over the other side with a scream.
17
kilig
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. At least it was soft, so gravity didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. And the sky was pretty, at least, the dusk-colored fingers of light having faded to a lovely purple.
Something underneath me groaned. Or rather, someone.
Someone with blond hair, brown eyes, and a dazed look on his face. His arms were still half wrapped around me, which was why the fall hadn’t hurt so much—he’d caught me. Or, at least, he’d tried to. The boxwoods had done the rest.
I quickly rolled off Oliver and pushed myself to my knees.
“I amsosorry,” I said, helping him sit up, picking a leaf off his shirt, another one off his cheek.
Oliver rubbed the back of his neck sorely. “Don’t mention it.”
“Are you okay?”
