Vikram’s thumbs paused. “Those people out there have been my life. Whatever’s happened, I owe them mine and everything that’s part of it.”
“I suppose my father made you a good offer.”
“I didn’t see Feodor. I saw Linus.”
“Even better. Don’t tell me it hasn’t played on your mind. Especially here. There’s only death here. And cold. So cold. You don’t like the cold, Vik.”
The abbreviation dropped from her mouth, easily, a little sadly. How hard it is, he thought, to let go the trappings of intimacy. He knew this girl; he knew the patterns of her skin beneath the dirt, the conundrum of freckles. He knew the hiccups in her breathing cycle. He knew the smell of her, as though she was made from sea- stuff, as she would one day return to it. He knew that in the aftermath of a nightmare, her eyelids flew open and she would stare at the ceiling, oxygen stopped in her lungs, before she let go the breath.
They knew each other’s loss. That was what had drawn them together; two spirits reaching into the past, whose fingertips had touched in searching.
Adelaide was shivering. Vikram’s hands had stopped moving, circling her upper arm. He let her go.
“I’m used to the cold,” he said.
“You told me you like fire. Love fire, you said.”
“I told you a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”
Adelaide lifted her eyes to his. They were bright with moisture, like oysters glistening in their shells.
“Shame,” she said softly. “I thought perhaps you were going to bust me out after all.”
“We need you,” he said. “You’re too valuable.”
Again she smiled, and the bead of blood spread. He suppressed the impulse to wipe it away.
“Don’t overestimate me. I’m as much use to them dead as I am alive. Not the best ending for the Rechnovs, two children down, but I’d become a martyr. They’re very marketable. And then other people would do other things, and gradually, they’d forget me. There’s always someone to come after.”
There was no doubt as she spoke; her tone was absolute certainty. She tilted her head to one side, looking at him as though curious to know if there could be any opposition. Single-minded, but always sure. If he loved one thing about her, it must be that. He inhabited a world of greys and doubts, a world that constantly shrank and receded. Adelaide held it still. She had made herself blinkered because she refused to look at alternatives.
Except in coming here.
“Why did you come, Adelaide?”
“I don’t think, Vikram, that you truly wish to know. Things weren’t so… agreeable… between us, when we parted last.”
“What did you expect?” he flashed. “I was sent underwater because of you. You can’t understand what it does to you, that place.”
“I tried to get you out,” she insisted.
“You had no chance. Your own family locked you up, you were fooling us both. You’re an idiot.”
A slow dripping in the corner reminded him of time ticking down.
“I’m cold,” said Adelaide.
He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. One of her hands curled around his wrist. She was too weak for tricks. He was holding what was left of Adelaide Mystik. Or Adelaide Rechnov, or whoever she was. She felt fragile, strangely malleable, and tense all at once. She felt like the scent of dried roses.
Instinctively, he tightened his arms.
“That better?”
“I was never this cold before. You were, weren’t you.”
“Yes. Yes, I’ve been this cold. Lots of times.”
He had told himself there was a way out, a way to save her and to save them. He could ask himself what Keli would have done, what Eirik would have done, even what his old self would have done. But all of those people, one way or another, were already a part of him. The decision was his own to live with-or not.
If he got her out-if he took her back east, and Linus kept his word-the guilt would corrode him from the inside out. Sooner or later he would blame Adelaide, and eventually, he would hate her.
He pressed his lips against her dirty hair. Between the roots, her scalp was chalk white.
“It was my destiny to come here,” Adelaide whispered.
Vikram’s throat was tight. He swallowed, quietly, so she would not hear. “You, of all people, make your own destiny.”
“It’s written in the stars. It’s written in the salt.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Teller told me. And Second Grandmother, a long time ago.”
“That’s why you came to the west? Because of some stupid prediction?”
“I had to come. I had to follow Axel.”
“You think he’s here.”
She didn’t answer. His eyes were wet and he blinked the moisture away. He owed her the truth, at least.
“He’s not, Adelaide. I know that because… he wrote to you. He wrote you a letter.”
The silence stretched out.
“It was before we went to Council. A woman came to your apartment with a letter for you. I don’t know who she was-a westerner, I think. An airlift. She gave me the letter. I read it.”
“And what did this letter say?” Adelaide’s voice was a tumble of hard little stones.
He told it to her, word by word, sentence by sentence. The image it of was glued to his mind. He saw Axel’s handwriting, the green loops of the y s and the g s, the paper folded into a horse’s head. Adelaide was shaking.
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Linus.”
“Oh.”
“Adie-”
“Don’t.”
“He was saying goodbye. Adelaide, it was a suicide note.”
“Don’t you dare judge him.”
“I’m not judging him. I’m not saying that what he did was wrong.”
“He would never do that. He couldn’t-”
“I’m sorry. But I think the letter makes it clear. There was no conspiracy. Axel was ill, you told me that yourself.”
She wrenched away from him. Her face crumpled.
“Don’t you say his name. Axel would never do that. He would never leave me. Don’t you understand, Vik? Axel would never leave me.”
“I’m so sorry, Adie.”
“Get out!” Her voice broke. “Did you come in here to torment me? Is this another of your people’s games? Get out!”
Vikram felt numb. Seeing her face, he wished now that he had not said anything. What had been the point? If Pekko had his way, Adelaide Mystik would be dead by daylight.
43 ADELAIDE
Vikram backed away but he did not leave.
“Stop looking at me,” she said, but no sound came out. The words stuck in a pump that refused to work. A dam built there. The ache swelled, spread through her lungs and throat until it packed against the backs of her eyes.
