Page 22 of Storm Caller

I miss him. He’s been right beside me since we left New Manhattan, but I miss him. I miss knowing who he was. Or at least thinking I knew. I understood that he hadn’t told me everything. Even during our quietest moments at Amery, I knew there were things he couldn’t tell me yet. But I still felt like I understood who he was.

I remind myself that he arrived at the academy as an outsider. As someone we were taught to hate and fear. Of course he couldn’t just open up to me. I had to earn his trust, and maybe it’s my fault that I never became worthy of it.

Maybe that’s actually what’s bothering me so much.

I should have figured out that he was more than he was pretending to be. The way he fought. The way he carried himself. His father is a leader in this strange, new world. His mother is a warrior.

Every jumbled thought sits on the tip of my tongue. I want to pour them out, dump them at his feet. Rage at each other and fix this thing curdling between us.

“Lunch time!” someone announces cheerfully as the tent flap opens, throwing me off.

Cole arrives with a set of trays and deposits them on a table near the wall. “You must be hungry.”

“Thanks,” Rook says, getting up. “Starving.”

“Good, good,” Cole says. “It’s a camp favorite today. Roast chicken and Edna’s famous fried potatoes.” He kisses his fingertips and makes a mwah sound that coaxes a smile out of me. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. A heads-up that you’ll be heading to Cloudspire after lunch. Percy’s already on his way.”

With that cryptic statement, he leaves the tent.

“What does he mean?” I ask. “What’s Cloudspire?”

Rook stands and approaches the table, picking up a potato and popping it into his mouth. He chews for a few moments before he answers. “It’s the headquarters for the Veil, where my family lives.”

That news makes me sit up straighter. “Your family? As in your high commander father and your commander mother?”

He nods and then passes me the other plate. “Eat up.”

I stare down at the food, which looks hearty and warm. It smells delicious. Yet again, I’m forced to reconcile this fact with everything I’ve been taught. This is regular food, and there’s seemingly enough to go around. No one here appears to be undernourished. Maybe there isn’t an abundance, but does it matter if everyone has enough?

“Where does it all come from?” I whisper, my voice thin as tissue.

“Farms scattered throughout the Tiera Frais,” Rook says. “It took a long time, but we’ve managed to build up our food security to a mostly sustainable level. We also trade with the Neo-Cities.”

I remember that word from last night.

“What’s a Neo-City?”

“New Manhattan isn’t the only city left on the continent. Other places rebuilt themselves, too. The only difference is that they didn’t isolate themselves from everyone else.”

He pauses, giving me a moment to grapple with those statements. I need to stop being caught off guard by all this new information. Remember that none of what I’ve been told is real.

Neo-Cities. Of course we were never the only ones left.

“And what are the Kindred?” I ask, recalling yet another new term he shared.

“They’re people that have decided against city life and taken to the wilds, where they live mostly off the land.”

A long silence. “Is that all you’ll tell me?” I ask.

Rook shakes his head and scrubs a hand across his face. “I want to tell you everything. I just can’t figure out where to begin.”

“How about: Why are they taking us to your family? Was that your destination all along?”

His shoulders drop as he takes his plate and settles on the bed across from me. We’re close enough that we have to arrange our knees so they don’t knock together. I’m acutely aware of his legs around mine as the warmth of his skin seeps through the fabric clinging to my thighs.

“Along with protecting and fostering the safety and development of the Veil, my father is also a passionate defender of the lives of Whispers. As I said, they’re never to be harmed except in the most extreme circumstances. I broke that rule yesterday.”

“And because of that, you have to go and see him now?”