Otherbound (14 page)

His eyes shut, turning the world black. They opened again. Shut, open, shut, open, and black every time. Nolan's black, not Amara's black.

He darted away from the sink, sending suds dancing through the air. Of course. Of
course
! The problem had always been that Amara didn't know she pulled him in. Nolan had thought she'd need a mage's help to kick him out—but she'd just needed to be aware.

She could control it.

Nolan closed his eyes again for good measure, just for a moment, just to revel in the black. He felt dizzy. He wanted
to—oh, he could sleep now, sleep without feeling
her
blanket on
her
skin and
her
irises against
her
eyelids, he could close his eyes and hear only his own breathing, he could—

Nolan turned, almost walking into Dad. “Whoa. Do you need to lie down? I know dinner went badly.”

And then Nolan couldn't contain his smile, wide enough to hurt his cheeks. Just like the smile he'd made on Amara's face. Just like the smile he often saw on Pat's and could never imitate.

Surprised, Dad smiled back just as broadly.

“I want to watch that movie,” Nolan said.

s Nolan still there?” Maart's hands formed silhouettes in the dark.

Jorn had long ago crawled into his bedroll, snoring like a grunting boar. Amara eyed him cautiously as she signed, “I assume so.”

Maart shimmied free from his covers and padded over. She edged away to make room, and he lowered himself beside her, staying on the other side of the blanket. He propped himself up on one elbow. It'd slow his signs, but she welcomed the heat of his body through the thin cover, close enough to reach and kiss. Right now, when he eyed her with nothing but curiosity and concern, his lips curved in a smile, she still cherished the hope that things might go back to the way they were before. Silly jokes, sniping about Jorn. Rolling dice together after tasks. Maart always won.

The hope never lasted. He'd changed. She missed laughing and kissing and futilely beating the walls when Jorn got to be too much to bear. That—that had helped. Now there was talk of Cilla, and of running and standing up to Jorn and other stupid fantasies that'd get them killed. It trickled into every conversation, weighed down every glance, until it was easier to
keep Maart at a distance or crush him so closely there was no room for anything else.

Not now
, she asked him silently.
Not now.

She couldn't ignore all difficult topics, though.

“About the blackouts …” She explained what she'd done, from tracking the mage to leaving her message on the temple, and the corners of Maart's mouth twitched into an almost-smile. “This is not a smiling matter, you know,” Amara signed.

“I know.” Maart leaned in and kissed her anyway. Once they'd separated, leaving enough space to see each other's signs, he said, “I thought you'd given up.”

“No.” A smile stirred on her face now, too. “I'm just being smart about it.”

She couldn't run yet—not without a plan, not without knowing the truth, not while their tattoos remained, not while it meant leaving Cilla to die—but she saw Maart think,
One step at a time.

“Tomorrow is market day,” she said. “I need you to pretend you're sick, so Jorn will send me.”

“Done. Should I start coughing now? Tonight? In the morning?”

She laughed under her breath.

Maart turned more serious, but a different serious than the kind she dreaded. This didn't come with frowning eyebrows or a hard jawline. This came with a relaxed smile, curious eyes. “No more blackouts, though?” he asked.

“A brief one when …” They had spelled Nolan's name up to now. She thought for a second, then came up with a sign for him, pushing the tips of three fingers on her left hand into the palm of her right hand, a hard movement, angry. It hurt the tips of her fingers. Maart knew instantly what she meant; she saw it on his face. “… when
Nolan
took over earlier. It must have been an adjustment. I don't think it'll happen again.”

She bit her lip as Maart studied her. He looked at her so differently from the way anyone else did. Warmly. Now, though, she knew what he was looking for.

“I hate that I need to learn to control it in the first place,” she signed. The confession came easily. This was the Maart she knew and loved. “Jorn won't teach me. I know I'm useless as a mage, but the spirits must smile on me, or I wouldn't heal—”

“You're
not
useless,” Maart interrupted. “Jorn won't teach you magic because then you could fight back or identify his anchors and run. His magic is the only advantage he has over you.”

“He's taller, too,” she teased.

“I wish I could help.” Maart brushed his lips over her forehead.

Amara's own lips parted with wanting, but she pushed Maart's chest, separating them. “You
are
helping.” She hesitated. Maart finally seemed to get what she wanted and what she couldn't yet deal with, and still she had to push him away. “Nolan is watching.”

It wouldn't be the first time. That only made it worse. Nights should be just her and Maart. Something Cilla couldn't complicate, something Jorn couldn't beat down. Now there was this Nolan, watching, and feeling—the thought alone nauseated her. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. This Nolan thing … it's pretty screwed up.”

“It's only until I can control him,” she said, but they both knew that meant nothing if she couldn't find her mage. Maart was older than Amara. If Jorn followed Alinean laws, Maart would complete his duties and be free to leave within a year. Amara had longer to go. And after, when their tattoos were removed and they could walk freely as barenecked servants, they'd have an entire world to discover. What would they mean to each other if not escape?

Amara had chosen to love the Maart of yesterday and today. She couldn't look beyond that.

Maart could—did. Meeting his eyes, Amara knew he'd already chosen every version of her.

For a while they stayed there, nothing but the heat of their skin, the feel of their breaths, their whispered grins as Maart's fingers played across her skin to form newly learned letters. He left too soon, leaving one side of her body cold.

Amara curled up to recapture his heat. Her fingers touched her forehead where he'd kissed her.

Amara checked the airtrain seats for sharp angles, anything Cilla might cut herself on, then stepped aside to allow Cilla and Jorn to sit while she kept an eye on the other passengers.

She'd overlooked two vital things Ruudde had told Jorn: One, that he'd send silver to the Teschel harbor, meaning Jorn ought to pick it up. Two, that Jorn should keep Amara in his sight—and where Amara went, so did Cilla.

Amara's plan looked worse by the minute, but it was all she had.

At least she got to ride an airtrain. She used to love those. Underfoot, she felt the hissing of pipes squishing together air or letting it escape—she couldn't tell which—as the train shook into motion. She looked through narrow, sandblasted windows at the island landscape of hills and heather, but she couldn't enjoy it the way she had in the past.

Amara was still jittery when she stepped onto the boardwalk. She wished for the safety of the granary, or that of a city like Bedam, with canals beside her and gentlemansions towering over her and alleyways barely wide enough to shuffle through sideways. Harbor towns like this felt too open, even with market stands lining the street, even overlooked by dunes and squat houses, the colors washed from the sand stuck in every pore. The windows, too, were coated in a layer of beach dirt that must've been brand-new, since yesterday's storm would've washed the glass clean.

The sun hung low in the salt-tinged sky and cast an orange
glow. That sun did nothing to stop the wind from blasting chill into the folds of Amara's topscarf. She ignored it, keeping close to Cilla as she scanned the crowd for her mage. The woman had been sturdy, wide-shouldered, broad-hipped, small-chested, with a bright wrap. Amara saw no trace of her.

Jorn reached into his sidesling for silver. “Amara.” She expected instructions to buy kommer leaves or red carrots or thicker topscarves to take them into winter. “Stay here, and stay close. It's too crowded for you to buy anything. You'd have to shout to get anyone's attention.” He made for the nearest stall, with dried fruit and imported bugs, then to a stall too blocked by crowds for Amara to see its wares. Raw voices shouted in a dozen dialects of Alinean and Dit and Jélis, and a snatch of Elig Amara recognized but could no longer translate.

“Hey,” Cilla whispered, nudging her. “That stand Jorn's at.”

When she made no attempt to elaborate, Amara made a questioning noise. If Cilla wanted to talk, Amara was expected to participate. Did Cilla even realize that?

“What does its sign say?” Cilla asked.

Reluctantly, Amara took her eyes off the crowds and craned her neck. The stall had a sign with two lines of cramped, painted handwriting. She recognized the simple Elig figures on the left row, but nothing beyond that. The other row was in Dit. Amara had known since she was a kid which letters made which sounds—mostly—from needing to fingerspell the occasional name, but reading was different. Words were never
spelled the way you'd think when you heard them, and there were a dozen ways to write each letter, slanted or blocky, with an extra elaborate slash or one too few. She could make out the first couple of letters on the stall sign, but the next … Were those two strokes or one?

Jorn walked toward a stand selling fierce-smelling fish. He looked over at them briefly. Amara's head snapped back. If he'd caught her reading the sign … But, no, he kept moving and indicated for them to follow. Amara guided Cilla through the center of the boardwalk, keeping a close eye on spaces to flee to and on people who risked bumping into Cilla.

She sneaked another look at the earlier stall. “Genuine.” She kept her hands close to her belly to hide them. People whose ears or voices failed them used signs, too, puffing up their cheeks, sweeping their arms wide, even their lips moving along, but there was no mistaking those signs for the subdued movements of servants. “Eligon?” No, that was the wrong word. “Elig?”

Cilla nodded, encouraging. Amara felt like an experiment, something for Cilla to occupy her time with. But that smile on her face was so, so sincere.

“Furs.” Amara's hands fell. She looked away, though she wanted to read the rest of the stall descriptions and see how far she'd come. This was the best time to practice. Real-life scenarios, with Cilla by her side to help if she got stuck. She needed to find the mage, though.

And if she did, Cilla would find out exactly what she was
doing. What she'd heard. She should explain it now and get it out of the way.

Amara's mouth dried. She turned to keep her hands out of Jorn's sight, but the words wouldn't come.
The man who saved your life is working with the man who murdered your family?
No.