Firelight

Seeing Will again makes my chest tighten and lungs burn. I breathe air deeply through my nose, trying to cool the heat rising inside me.

I must have made a sound, a gasp maybe. I don’t know, but Tamra looks back at me. Maybe it’s just the twin thing. It reminds me of when we were still connected. She gives me a funny look, and then peers out the window. I can’t help it. I look, too. I can’t not look.

Will stops, lifts his face. Like he’s scented me on the air, which is impossible, of course. He can’t sense me the way I sense him. But then he finds me.

For a moment, our gazes lock. Then his mouth curves into a smile that makes my stomach flip. He resumes walking. Brooklyn skips toward him. He doesn’t break stride for her and she falls behind him, struggling to keep up.

Tamra mutters something beneath her breath.

“What?” I ask, defensive.

“You’re not manifesting, I hope.”

“What?” Mom demands in her old voice. The high-pitched anxious tone that I’m so used to hearing. No more pep.

“Jacinda nearly manifested at school today,” Tamra tattles in that singsong voice of whiny kids everywhere. It reminds me of when I would take her dolls and give them haircuts.

Mom’s eyes find me in the rearview mirror. “Jacinda?” she demands. “What happened?”

I shrug and look back out the window.

Tamra is nice enough to answer for me. “She started to manifest when she saw this cute guy—”

Mom asks, “What guy?”

Tamra points. “That one over—”

“Don’t point,” I snap, fresh heat washing over my face.

Too late, Mom looks. “You just…saw him?”

“Yes,” I admit, sliding lower in my seat.

“And started to manifest?”

I rub my forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Look, I didn’t try to do anything. It just happened.”

Through the grimy window, I watch as Will gets behind the wheel. His cousins hop inside, too. For not liking them much, he definitely spends a lot of time with them. It’s a needed reminder. He belongs with them.

Brooklyn watches him, too, next to her friends, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Jacinda.” Mom says my name softly, with such disappointment that I want to throw something. Yell. It hurts that I’m such a frustration for her. It makes me feel like she can’t love me as I am.

Dad loved me — had been so proud when I first manifested. And beyond proud when it became obvious I was a fire-breather. The first in generations.

Not Mom. Never Mom. With Mom there had only ever been wariness…as if I were some dangerous being she gave birth to. Someone she had to love, but wouldn’t have chosen.

Our car moves at last. I resist staring after the Land Rover as it pushes through the throng of cars.

Tight lines edge the sides of Mom’s mouth as she pulls out of the school. She nods her head, as if the motion is convincing her of something.

“It’s okay,” she says. “As long as you don’t actually manifest…which shouldn’t be easy to do here.” She tosses me a stern look. “It’s like a muscle. It will lose strength if you don’t exercise it.”

Like with her. I have only vague memories of Mom manifesting. It’s been years. Even when she could, she rarely did, preferring to stay home with Tamra and me while Dad flew. She gave it up altogether when Tamra failed to manifest. “I know.”

Only I’m not like her. As stifled as I felt with the pride, uncertain of myself around Cassian…living in this desert, deliberately killing my draki, is worse.

“Just to be safe, keep your distance from that boy.”

It’s my turn to nod now. “Sure,” I say, even as I think no. Even as I think I might hate my mother just a little bit. Because even though I know I should stay away from Will, I’m tired of her making all my decisions. Could what the pride had in store for me have been so bad that we needed to come here to be safe? Is Cassian really that bad? It’s not that I didn’t like him. I just didn’t like him being chosen for me. Especially since my sister had wanted him from the age of three. He always gave Tamra piggyback rides even though Mom would shout at him to put her down. Me, I just tried to keep up. And then I didn’t have to anymore. Cassian manifested and forgot us both. He didn’t notice me again until I manifested. And Tamra…well, never manifesting sealed her fate. Cassian forgot her completely.

Safe. Safe. Safe.

That word comes up a lot with Mom. Safety. It’s everything. It’s led me to this. Leaving the pride, killing my draki, avoiding the boy who saved my life, the boy who awakened my draki in the midst of this scorched sea — the boy I want very much to know.

Can’t she understand? What good is safety if you’re dead inside?

8

Mrs. Hennessey stares at us through her blinds. She must have been waiting for us to come home. We enter quietly through the back gate, careful not to let it clang after us.

And yet, as quiet as we are, she is ready, peering at us from the security of her house. She’s done that a lot since we moved in. As if she’s not sure she didn’t rent her pool house to a family of convicts.

Apparently I’m not the only one who notices. “She’s watching us,” Tamra hisses. “Again.”

“Don’t stare,” Mom commands. “And keep your voice down.”

Tamra obeys, whispering, “Isn’t it kind of creepy living in some old lady’s backyard?”

“It’s a lovely neighborhood.”

“And all we could afford,” I remind Tamra.

We skirt the pool, walking one after the other. Mom leads, balancing a small bag of groceries on her hip. I’m last. I look down into the cerulean blue pool to see a shuddering reflection of myself. The chemical odor stings my nostrils.

Still, the water looks refreshing in this dry, skin-shriveling heat that makes my thirsting pores contract. We don’t even have a tub. Just a shower stall. Maybe I can sneak a swim later. I’ve never been good at following rules.

Tamra grumbles, “I just hope she doesn’t go through our stuff while we’re gone.”

What stuff? It’s not like we smuggled out much in our haste. Clothes and a few personal belongings. I doubt she could find our gems. I haven’t even been able to find them. And I looked when Mom left us to job hunt, hungry for the sight of them. Just a touch. A revitalizing brush against my skin.

Mom unlocks the door. Tamra follows her inside. I pause and take another look over my shoulder — find Mrs. Hennessey still watching. When she sees me looking, the blinds snap shut. Turning, I walk inside the moldy- smelling pool house, wondering what time she goes to bed.

That water is calling my name. And for now, it’s closer than the sky.

As Tamra and I wash dishes, Mom changes for work. The smell of rich butter and cheese lingers in the tiny kitchen. Mom’s five-cheese macaroni with her unique blend of herbs is my favorite. Not that she’s not a fantastic cook in general. She’s a verda draki—was, I mean.

Verda draki know everything there is to know about herbs, specifically how to optimize them into food and medicines. She can bring the blandest dish to life. In the same vein, she can also concoct a poultice that gets rid of a pimple overnight or draws poison from a wound.

Tonight’s dinner was for me.

She’s trying to be good to me — feels sorry for me, I guess. It’s me Mom worries about. Me she wants to be happy here. With Tamra, it’s a given — she wanted to leave the pride years ago.

Dinner tasted good, delicious. Like home. My stomach is pleasantly full from too much food.