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“I felt like half of myself in Arras—always hiding my gift instead of embracing it. Here, I thought I might be able to do something with my skill,” Dante admits.
“How did you find the courage to leave?” I ask.
“Stories,” he answers in a conspiratorial whisper. “Stories are dangerous and useful things.”
TWENTY-FIVE
THE POOL STRETCHES OUT BEFORE ME. A dozen squat white lampposts line the space, their soft glow mirrored in the water below. It’s the indoor pool’s only light source now that no sun shines through the windows overhead. The water is as smooth as glass, gold-flecked tiles peeking through the cerulean surface. Although it’s quiet, I spot a shape moving forward under the water. Erik strokes evenly acr
oss the pool, the barest ripple following him. His hair is a golden halo flowing behind him. I wait by the side, surprised by how long he can stay under the water.
His head breaks through, shattering the water’s surface. He rubs at his eyes and smiles at me. “Ad, you scared me. What are you doing here?”
“I see you found swimming trunks,” I say. I’m not ready to address the real reason that I’ve come.
“Sort of. I’m using the fishing-village version,” he says. His arms perch on the side of the pool, and his eyes are as bright as the brilliant tiles.
I slip my shoes off and roll down my stockings. “And what does this version consist of?”
“Sorry,” Erik says, pretending to fan himself. “You’re distracting me. What did you say?”
I frown at him, sitting down and dipping my feet into the water. It’s warmer than I would have expected.
“When I was a kid, working the fishing boats in Saxun, we took off as much of our clothes as possible, without revealing our, uh, treasure, and jumped in,” he says, his lower lip inching up into a crooked grin.
“You have a treasure?” I say, widening my eyes in feigned innocence.
“You gonna pillage it?” he asks.
“I walked into that one,” I admit with a groan.
“Yes,” Erik says, “you did.”
His finger traces a spot on my calf, leaving a trickle of water on my bare skin, and I swat his hand away.
“That’s one huge scar,” he says. I frown and look to see what he means. A thin, pale line slants across my leg. “Where did you get it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, drawing my knees up and clutching them to my chest. “It’s probably from my retrieval night. They used a claw to pull me out of the escape tunnel. The renewal patch must have left a scar.”
“It shouldn’t have,” Erik says, squinting to get a better look at it. I don’t care about the scar. It’s only a remnant of a past life.
“Erik.” But I stop on his name, searching for the right way to ask him about what Dante told me about the tracking device. It doesn’t take me long to realize there is no right way.
“You’re going to chew off your lip,” Erik warns me, and I relax my mouth into a tight line. “Just ask me.”
“I want you to tell me how you wound up at the Coventry, how you got out of Saxun,” I say. The words jumble into one long exhalation.
“Why?” he prompts, seeming to disappear from the conversation. I know he’s upset. Erik distances himself, asking questions, when he feels cornered.
“I need you to tell me the truth,” I say in a quiet voice. He’ll vanish entirely if I push too hard.
“I can’t,” Erik says.
“Why? I promise it won’t change anything.”
Erik turns from me and stares up at the glittering ceiling. His arms spread wide against the the lip of the pool, revealing the sharp sinews of his upper body, built by years of handling fishing boats. “You can’t promise that. It will change things between us, Adelice. There are things in my past that I’m not proud of—”
“You think I don’t have regrets, too?” I ask. “My father was murdered. My mom is a monster. My sister is in Cormac’s clutches as we speak. And that all happened before I got to the Coventry and started messing things up.”
