Sing Sweet Nightingale (32 page)

I glare at Hudson and sign, “Now what?”

Before he can answer, both tendrils freeze midair. Their twisting shapes look like the light left over from the twirl of a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Then, both trails retreat, pulling back until they disappear into the flames surrounding the portal.

“Did a lasso of light just try to grab Mari?” K.T. asks, her voice shaky.

Hudson doesn’t look back at her, and his voice is hoarse when he says, “Yes.”

“Okay. Just checking.”

I take a breath and stand up, glancing over my shoulder. K.T. adjusts her grip on the largest stones, using their energy to hold the portal open. With rocks. I didn’t think it’d work, but I didn’t think crystals could create force fields either.

“Ready?” Hudson asks, looking at K.T. and me.

K.T. nods, the motion jerky and forced. I don’t answer. It’s getting harder to deny something strange is happening within Paradise, but I don’t want to believe it has anything to do with Orane. If I’m wrong, Orane is going to be
so angry
with me. Keeping my promise not to
tell
anyone about Paradise means nothing if I let them trail me there.

Even if what’s happening has nothing to do with Orane, he has to be told what’s going on in his world, how the others are putting him and everything he’s worked to protect in danger by taking revenge on humans. He thought no one else has ever been capable of opening a portal to Earth, but at least two have managed it in the last eight years of my life.

I take a step forward and shudder as a blast of cold air hits me. Paradise has always been a perfect seventy-six degrees, but tonight it’s closer to taking a walk through the middle of a lake-effect blizzard. Wrapping my arms tight around myself, I force my feet to keep moving.

My hands are shaking so hard. I try to tell myself it’s because of what I’m bringing with me—the bad news and the visitors—but the closer I get to Paradise, the worse the shaking is. It’s getting harder to convince myself there isn’t something
in there
that scares me. I just can’t remember what it is.

I take that last step, and my bare feet land on lush grass instead of wooden floorboards.

Everything looks the same—the lake, the mountains, the willow tree, the opera hall—but it feels different. The feedback that’s plagued my bedroom for so long has transferred here, but it’s less of a noise and more like a vibration in the air, like something is fluttering against my skin and my eardrums. It makes me twitch. Especially without the usual lavender scent to soothe me.

Did Hudson follow me? So many times, Orane has told me how few people could survive the crossing between worlds. But Hudson and K.T. know what Orane looks like. Hudson is here now, standing beside me in a world no other human is supposed to know exists.

My chest clenches, and something dark and solid and dangerous takes residence in the pit of my stomach. It coils like a snake and burns like dragon’s breath. I close my eyes as the foundation of everything I believe in trembles under the heavy stare of one relentless boy.

“I have had such faith in you for so long, Mariella. What have you done?” Orane’s voice is like a sigh, laden with sadness and disappointment. He’s so far away I can barely see the expression on his face, but his voice is as clear as if he was standing right next to me.

Most nights, this is the one place I can speak, but tonight is different. Hudson is here, and I’m not sure which rules apply—the ones I follow in my world or the ones I follow in Orane’s. Holding on to hope, I decide it’s better to play it safe for now. Just in case.

I walk faster to close the distance between us. Hudson is close behind me, and his presence blocks some of the buzzing energy hitting me from every other side.

Hudson’s hands close around my upper arms a split second before I was about to stop anyway, leaving a few feet between us and Orane. I want to run into Orane’s arms, but there are too many questions I need answered. And the answers to those questions are far too important.

Keeping my gaze locked on Orane’s glowing, violet eyes, I pull my arms away from Hudson and sign, “I told him nothing. He knew about Paradise, and his story scared me.”

Orane’s eyes narrow as he looks between us. The buzzing gets stronger, like an extra pulse of energy rolling through the air, but the stones in my pockets pulse right back. Their power sounds like a chime. The louder the chime gets, the more the buzz fades. And the easier it is to breathe. The less chilled I feel.

“You are not welcome here,” Orane says to Hudson, his eyes glowing brighter. “This place is not for you.”

Hudson snorts. “No shit. Didn’t exactly think you’d be happy to see me, considering she thinks no one else knows about this place.”

“No one is supposed to.” Orane’s eyes narrow further, and he looks at me, immeasurable sadness in his face. “I have not wanted to worry you, Mariella, but for some time I have known that the others are fighting a centuries-old war. They do unspeakable things in the name of retribution, and my orders have not stopped them from leaving a path of destruction in the human world.”

The knot in my chest loosens a little. It makes sense, but there are other questions I need to ask. Too many things I don’t understand.

“Why did you tell me humans can’t survive the crossing?” I sign.

“Because it is true. Most cannot.” Orane’s eyes flick to Hudson, and his lips thin. “The odds of being a passenger on a crashing airplane are extraordinarily low, but that does not make it impossible.”

Hudson is shifting and muttering. I can tell he’s on the edge of calling bullshit and saying something stupid. Reaching back, I touch his arm to tell him to calm down. I don’t expect it to work, but it does. The instant my fingers brush Hudson’s arm, he settles. The muttering stops.

“Though it was unlikely for you to meet another human who could survive—” The slight sneer to Orane’s smile becomes a little more pronounced. “—let alone one who
has
—the prospect was never impossible.”

His answer nags me.
Like snow in Bali
, he’d said. So unlikely as to be nearly impossible.
Impossible
. But now that I’ve met two people who’ve survived the crossing—seen two days of snow in Bali—he’s changing his song.

There are too many changes to Orane’s story, too many holes in the rules he’s drilled into my head since I was a child. Too many holes in
my
head.

“The life I remember doesn’t match the one they showed me,” I sign. Orane’s eyes widen, and his entire body goes tense. “I don’t remember people I went to school with for ten years. I don’t remember my own friends. It’s like I don’t remember the right childhood.”

I step forward, and my hand forms the most important question yet.

“Why?”

There’s a hesitation. It’s brief, but it’s there. Enough to put me on guard when Orane finally opens his mouth.

“Some things, some moments in life, are better forgotten, Nightingale. There were so many nights you came to me in tears, and I did what I could to take away your pain. You would have done the same in my place. Anyone with a heart not carved from stone would have.”

I want to believe it, but there’s something in his eyes, a calculating light like he’s trying to gauge my response so he knows what to say next. Piled on top of the evidence Hudson and K.T. provided, and the holes Orane’s poked in his own stories tonight, the scales tip.

I take a breath and speak.

“You’re lying.”

Hudson stiffens, his head whipping around to look at me. I barely spare him a glance. My attention is too focused on Orane.

His purple eyes darken, but the glow is brighter, stronger. The chime gets louder as the energy swirling around us tries to break through the defenses the stones have woven. The energy of Orane’s world is attacking us, and if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that everything in this world obeys Orane’s commands. He is God of his own little universe, which means one thing.

Orane is attacking me.
Orane
, the man I thought
loved
me, has been lying to me for years. Now, he’s actually
attacking
me?

My arms hang like dead weights by my side, and my lungs feel like they’re made of stone, making each breath a struggle. The world in front of me blurs, and for a second I see it for what it is—an incredibly beautiful but fake dream Orane constructed to keep me enthralled. Underneath the surface, there’s nothing. Endless darkness. The mountains are like a painted set, and with the slightest push, they could all come tumbling down.

I can see it all, and the more I see, the more I remember.

I remember the last twenty-one nights in Paradise. I remember telling Orane about Hudson’s first visit and the lightning that struck me from his eyes when I found him standing under the willow tree. I remember the kiss he gave me that felt more like a claiming, that dropped me into the blackness underneath the façade of this world. The way his eyes changed color and trapped me where I stood. Each memory is another weight dropped like an anvil onto my shoulders until it’s all I can do to stay standing as I stare at the face of someone I don’t recognize.

The tremor starts in my chest as my heart shatters. The shockwaves make my knees buckle, but Hudson catches me before I hit the ground. I shake him off as soon as I’m back on my feet. The last thing I want right now is someone—
any
one—touching me. My skin flushes and cools in a cycle so quick I can’t adjust. I think shock is all that’s keeping me from sobbing harder than I’ve ever cried for anything in my life.

“I was trying to protect you, Mariella,” Orane whispers, his eyes wide and his voice low. “It was for the best.”

His words slam into me like a heat wave, burning away my desperate, heartbroken agony and leaving raw fury behind.

“Protect me? From
what
?” My voice sounds harsh, foreign to my own ears. “Parents who love me? They’ve never been anything but kind, even when I suddenly wouldn’t
speak
to them anymore.”

Each word that falls from my mouth is like a knife slicing through my heart. The man I loved has been using me.

“I have a friend who’s introduced herself so many times she’s lost count. There are pictures of a childhood most people would
envy
. And you’re trying to tell me my life was secretly hellish? That it’s for the
best
I don’t remember my own
childhood
?”

By the end, I’m nearly screaming, the words burning my throat and my hands clenched into fists.

“I never asked for
protection
.” I shudder and rub my hands over my face, cringing when I notice how icy my skin has become. Something Hudson said earlier runs through my head and I laugh, a laugh that sounds more like I’m choking. “Hudson was right.”

I look into Orane’s eyes in time to watch his irises darken. “About what?”

“Someone who—” My throat closes completely. I have to force the words out, practically throwing them across the few feet that divide us. “Someone who loves me wouldn’t ask me to give up my life, give up the things that make me happy.”

Orane’s entire body is as rigid and silent as the cherry tree he’s standing next to. He doesn’t protest or explain or agree. He simply stands there, waiting. And the last little flame of hope I’d kept buried deep in the center of my chest dies.

“I’m done, Orane. I’m not—”

My mouth keeps moving, but the rest of the words are lost. Hudson looks at me, waiting for what I was trying to say, but no matter how many times I try, the words won’t come. My chest contracts, and panic knocks my thoughts into disarray faster than a tornado.

For years, I was silent by choice. Now, choking and straining and silently screaming, I actually know what it’s like to be silenced.

Across from me, Orane begins to smile.

This smile isn’t like any I’ve ever seen on his face before. It spreads across his face like a shadow, darkening his eyes and revealing the malice barely hidden below the surface.

“Give it back,” Hudson growls, stepping forward. “Whatever you did, undo it.”

“Or what? You will throw more pebbles at me?” Orane laughs, and the sound intensifies the buzzing against my skin, sending shocks through my chest. “You were smart to come here so heavily guarded—smarter still to leave the door open behind you—but you know nothing about this war. You have no chance of winning, boy.”

“I already took out one of you.” Hudson stands strong, his voice steady, but he reaches behind himself and nudges me backward. Toward the portal. “I can do it again.”

Orane grins and spreads his arms open wide. “You are more than welcome to try. Which of us do you think will prevail first? Are you quick enough and strong enough to protect Mariella while confronting me? You could never touch me.”

“Maybe not. But she can.”

Orane’s smile freezes on his face.

“Mariella could tear your world apart if she wanted to, couldn’t she? And you just gave her every reason to try.”

Without warning, Orane lunges, his hands extended to rip out Hudson’s throat. I scream silently and try to pull Hudson out of the way, but he tears out of my hold, his fist slamming into Orane’s chest and sending Orane flying backward like he was blasted with a cannon.

Before I can process anything, Hudson’s arm wraps around my waist and I’m lifted into the air as he hurtles toward the door.

“Faster, faster, faster,” he mutters to himself.

The ground rumbles, and the buzz of Orane’s energy turns into the roar of a freight train. I grit my teeth against the pressure. The crystals’ chime makes it bearable, but I have to lock my hands around Hudson to keep from jumping down and running on my own. It would be stupid to try. I’d slow both of us down.

“Hurry up!” K.T. screams.

I close my eyes and hold my breath, trying to pretend we’re running from a monster. Not the angel I gave my heart to so many years ago.

There’s a jolt and Hudson shouts, “Close it!”

Cracks and crashes and shudders. I don’t know what any of it means or where we are. With my eyes shut tight, I concentrate on the chime hanging in the air, the way Hudson is cradling me against his chest like something precious and fragile, anything else that will keep thoughts of what is
really
happening at bay for a few more moments.