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The pools were huge twin black eyes. They stared at Kami in the glen full of whispering trees. The surfaces of both pools were still as spilled ink. Kami could not tell which pool to choose, so she just sent out an appeal to Jared, lashing out at the same time as reaching out.
Jared broke the surface of the pool on the left. He shook his head, droplets flying out into the rain as he held on to the muddy bank of the pool. His shoulders bunched and she felt his mind focus again, preparing to dive back down.
Kami lunged, on her knees in the dirt, grabbed his arms, and tried to haul him up out of the lake. Jared looked at her, his eyes not focusing. She held on hard, her fingertips biting deep into the muscles of his arms. “No,” Kami said. No. “You’re not going back down there, you’ll drown, I said no.” No.
Jared was breathing in hoarse, shallow pants: she could actually hear the scrape of his breath catching in his throat. His body was caught too, in a continuous tremor. There’s something down there I have to get, he said. There are people down there who want me to stay with them.
“Well, you’re not going to,” Kami said. “You’re going to stay here with me.”
Jared said nothing, but when she tugged him up out of the water again, he dragged himself out onto the ground. He bowed his head as if it was too heavy for him to hold, and the water from his hair dripped onto her shoulder like cold tears. Kami put up a hand, her palm hitting his chest, the icy material slick over his skin.
His breath came harsh in her ear. “With you,” he said. “And why would you want that?” He lifted his head and watched her, the lightning in the murky sky touching his hair with electric-pale glints. His eyes were gray hollows set in his strained face. “You were right all along,” he said. “We shouldn’t be—it shouldn’t have happened. It’s twisted and evil. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Kami demanded. “You weren’t even born! Your mother did it, and m
y mother agreed to it. You didn’t do anything.”
So, she did it, terrified your mother, trapped you in a cage you can’t escape. She got what she wanted. She didn’t care who she hurt. That’s what she is. I got what I wanted too. I was fighting with my father and I wanted him blotted out of the world. I threw him down the stairs and snapped his neck. That’s what I am.
As Jared spoke inside her head, the rain cascaded down in the silence, thudding into the earth and crushing the fallen leaves, breaking the blackness of the lake with glints like hidden needles.
Jared had been angry and thrown his father down the stairs, without even meaning to. He’d been angry with her the night someone threw her down the well, and she did not remember hands on her: magic could have hurled her down. Just as magic had hurled down Jared’s father.
No. She wouldn’t believe it.
“I’m not sorry,” Kami told him. “I wouldn’t go back to a time before we were born, make it right, and lose you. I wouldn’t be me without you. I wouldn’t, I never want to—” The crashing drum and rattle of the rain ceased, with a suddenness that made it seem like silence was echoing through the woods. Kami sat on the wet ground looking at Jared and said, on a breath—“Lose you.”
Jared studied her face. The air between them felt new, the world remade by the storm. He leaned away from her.
Kami threw up walls, forbidding him to touch her mind, wanting to die if he heard this, and thought: He’s never going to kiss me. He’s never going to want to.
Jared’s shoulders tensed, as if bracing for an attack.
Kami felt him misread the way she’d withdrawn. She couldn’t tell him what was really going on. Instead she said, “So, we’re all right? We’re going to work out this magic stuff together?”
“Yeah,” said Jared. “What do you want to do about it?”
Kami told him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
These Three
Holly was the last one to arrive at headquarters, humming and carrying her motorcycle helmet under her arm.
By then Kami was already sitting behind her desk, where she retreated when she wanted to feel more secure. She was wearing a blazer because she wanted to be taken seriously, though it was possible the matching headband with the bow ruined the effect.
Angela was standing on the other side of the desk, a tower of orange silk and outrage. Jared was behind Kami, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he was her bodyguard.
“No,” Angela was saying as Holly walked in, “I don’t believe you. And encouraging her to spin some crazy story isn’t helping me like you,” she added, to Jared.
Kami stood. “He isn’t encouraging me,” she said. “I make up my own mind, and I’m not crazy. Neither of us is crazy. It’s true.”
“Oh, magic is real?” Angie said scornfully. “That’s true?”
Holly’s helmet slipped out from under her arm and tumbled to the floor. Everyone turned to look at her. Holly stared at the gleaming blue helmet rolling at her feet.
“Do you know something about this, Holly?” asked Jared. There was an edge to his voice that made Holly look at him and flinch back.
