Vanish

At first it simply looks like an imposing tangle of vine and bramble, but on closer inspection you can see that it’s actually a wall. Behind it, my world hides in safety. The only place I ever thought I could live. At least before Will.

A guard stands on duty at the arched entry. Nidia’s mist flows in a thick vapor around him. I recognize Ludo at once. One of Severin’s flunkies, an onyx draki that likes to flaunt his muscles. His eyes round when he sees us. Without a word, he takes off into the township.

A guard is a peculiar sight. Nidia’s cottage is positioned at the entrance for a purpose — so she can mark the arrival and departure of anyone. We have her and the watchtowers. A guard is an added precaution, and I wonder at the reason. Did we do this? Did our unsanctioned departure trigger a hypervigilance in security?

Cassian parks in front of Nidia’s cottage. She’s already outside her door, waiting as if she sensed our arrival. And I guess she did. That’s her job, after all.

She stands so serenely; her hands clasped at her waist. The thick rope of her silvery hair hangs over one shoulder. Hair almost identical to Tamra’s. My gaze involuntarily swings to my sister in the backseat, now a shader, too. Mom touches a tendril of her hair as if checking to see that it’s real. I’ve watched her do this several times now.

“You’ve come home to us,” Nidia murmurs as I step from the car. The smile on her lips fails to meet her eyes, and I recall the night we slipped away from the pride — her shadow at the window and my certainty that she had let us go, let us escape. “I knew you would. Knew in order for you to stay, you would have to go so you could learn that this is where you belong.”

I soak up my surroundings, my skin savoring the wet air — and I guess she’s right. My body thrums at the reenergizing feel of the earth beneath me. This is home. I scan the streets involuntarily for Az, eager to see my best friend, but nobody is out.

Mom wraps an arm protectively around Tamra as they emerge from the car. Nidia moves forward to assist. My sister can barely walk. Her feet skim the ground between them.

“So you finally decided to come around, eh?” Nidia strokes a lock of silvery hair back from Tamra’s pale cheek. “Thought it was just a matter of time. Twins are such a rarity among our kind — I knew Jacinda couldn’t possess a talent and not you.”

Cassian gives my sister a measuring look, a girl that he — the entire pride — dismissed as worthless. I can only guess at his thoughts. Now, with one of the most powerful, coveted talents among our species, she represents the future security of the pride.

As though he feels my stare, Cassian looks at me. I shift my attention to the others and follow them inside.

Within the cottage, the familiar scents wash over me. The lingering aroma of sauteed fish mingles with the comforting smell of herbs drying by the kitchen window. An easy warmth curls through me, and I shake off the sensation, reminding myself that this is a strained homecoming. I still have Severin and the elders to face. When I left they were on the verge of ordering my wings clipped. That’s not something I can forget.

“There now. Aren’t you the chilly one? I remember the early days of my first manifest. I never thought I would feel warm again.” Nidia places a delicately veined hand against Tamra’s brow. “Let’s get you some root tea. Fluids will help restore you. And rest.” She moves into the kitchen and pours the steaming fluid from a kettle into a mug.

“Restore me to the way I used to be?” Tamra rasps from the couch, her voice rusty from disuse. These words are the most she’s said since we left Chaparral. I release a ragged breath, relieved to hear her talking again. Silly maybe, but my heart lifts, glad to hear that this part of her is unchanged at least.

Nidia holds the steaming mug to Tamra’s lips. “Is that what you want?”

Tamra’s gaze darts to me, Cassian, and then Mom, her icy eyes wary. “I don’t know,” she whispers before taking a sip from the mug and wincing.

“Too hot?” Nidia waves her hand over the mug, sending a cooling mist over the hot tea.

Mom lowers herself down beside Tamra, sitting close, almost as if she wishes to shelter her. Her gaze locks on Cassian. “What now?” Her voice is defiant, as if he were the reason and not I that we’re back. “They’ll be here any moment. What’s going to happen? Will you see us punished?”

As the son of the pride’s alpha, Cassian bears significant influence. He’s next in line, primed to take control of the pride.

Sinking into a chair, I watch his face. Something flickers in his liquid, dark eyes. “I promised Jacinda I would protect her. I would do the same for Tamra. And you.”

Mom laughs then. The sound rings hollow and dry. “Thanks for throwing me in there, but I don’t think for a moment you really care about me.”

“Mom—,” I start to say but she cuts me off.

“And that’s okay. As long as I have your word you’ll keep Jacinda and Tamra safe. They’re all I care about.”

“I give you my word. I’ll do everything in my power to protect your daughters.”

She nods. “I hope your word is enough.” Looking down again at Tamra, she seems full of regret, and I know she’s mourning the loss of her one human daughter.

I shift, slide a hand under my thigh, and trap it between me and the seat, suddenly uncomfortable in the conviction that she mourns me, too. That she has for years.

It’s a difficult thing, listening to my mother negotiate and plead for our safety — for mine. Because I screwed up. The memory of my final night with Will replays through my head. The pride has every right to be mad at me. I nearly killed us, all of us, everyone in the pride — and for a boy I’d known only a few weeks. If it wasn’t for Tamra’s shading, our secret would be in enemy hands — our greatest defense gone.

Cold washes up my back and slides over my scalp as a sudden realization presses down on me. Will won’t remember. Even unconscious in the car, he was in close proximity to the mist. He would have been shaded. I desperately hope that some part of our last night together remains with him, enough so he knows I didn’t just vanish from his life. He has to remember why I left. He must.

I’m still shaking, battling the idea that Will won’t know what happened to me, when the elders arrive, walking into Nidia’s little house without knocking. They fill the living room, overcrowding the small space with their towering forms.

“You’ve returned,” Severin declares, and I start at the deep sound of his voice even though I expected it.

Ever since we fled Chaparral, I’ve been hearing it in my head, imagining his voice ringing in my ears as he sentences me to a wing-clipping for my crimes. It’s with dull acceptance that I face him.

Several elders loom behind Severin, their postures alike in their rigidity. They wear nothing special to mark their status. Their inherent bearing, the features schooled into impassivity, identifies them. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know how to pick out an elder from the rest of us.

Severin scans us in one broad sweep and his gaze comes to rest on Tamra. His eyes flicker, the barest movement, the only outward sign he gives that he’s surprised by her changed appearance. He examines her, missing nothing. Not the silvery gray eyes. Not the shock of pearlescent hair. It’s the same way he’s looked at me for so long. I’m seized with the mad impulse to move between them, to block her from his drilling gaze.

“Tamra.” He breathes her name as though he were tasting it for the first time. He steps near to rest a hand on her shoulder. I stare at his hand upon my sister and something churns in my stomach. “You’ve manifested. How wonderful.”

“So I guess she matters to you now.” It’s too late to take the defiant words back. They rip from my lips with the speed of gunfire.

Severin glares at me. His eyes cold, dark pools of night. “Everything — everyone — in this pride matters to me, Jacinda.” His possessive hand still lingers on Tamra as he says this, and I want to wrench it off her.

Yeah. Some of us just matter more.

“It’s very unfair of you to imply differently,” he adds.

I resist the urge to press close to Cassian, hating to appear intimidated as his dad stares me down. I hold my ground and keep my eyes locked on Severin. My heart aches, a twisting mass in my chest. I’ve betrayed my kind. I’ve lost Will. Let them do their worst.

A corner of Severin’s mouth curves upward with slow menace. “It’s good to have you back, Jacinda.”