Her eyes met Julian’s. “Go ahead,” she said hoarsely. She wiped her lip. It looked like whatever had struck her face had knocked out one of her perfect teeth, too.
Julian stared at her, either unwilling or unable to speak. He looked like he had in the days after they’d found out Gabriela was a spy, rather like someone had reached down his throat and tied his heart into knots.
Well, Noa wasn’t at all sorry to see Gabriela looking like a drowned rabbit. “Go ahead and what?” she spat.
“She thinks I’m going to kill her.” Julian’s knotted-heart look was fading and fury took its place. “Which is what I should do, given that you’ve been keeping my little sister hostage. Tell me again how you’re so different from me, Gabriela. How much nobler your side is.”
She looked as if he’d struck her. “I—I wasn’t going to hurt Noa.”
“Oh, right.” Noa poked her head out from behind Julian’s shoulder. “You were taking me to Xavier because we’re such great friends.”
Julian’s face was like the storm clouds. “You were taking her to Xavier?”
Gabriela opened and closed her mouth. “I—”
“Don’t bother.” Julian spoke to the sky, his voice like ice. The clouds twitched as if startled and wrapped their tendrils around Julian and Noa. Julian looked back at Gabriela. “If I was going to kill you, I would have done it already. Maybe one day you’ll work out what that means. Good luck rescuing your crew with what’s left of your ship. If anyone dies, you can always blame it on me.”
The clouds closed around them, but not before Noa caught sight of Gabriela’s face, which was pale and stricken, nothing like the careful mask she usually wore. Then she and Julian were rising into the sky, leaving Gabriela and her broken ship behind.
22
Mite Loses an Honored Guest
The storm that pounded Astrae with rain and sent the lava crickets scurrying to their burrows died during the night, and the morning dawned clear and calm. Sometime near sunrise, even Beauty went quiet, the wails that had echoed off the volcano and given the sentries raging headaches replaced by a few sniffles, then silence. Around that time, one of the mages saw a small creature that looked like a serpentine seal making its way across the open water toward Astrae. Whatever it was, Beauty shot out to greet it, and then both of them disappeared beneath the waves.
Mite opened her eyes when the dawn light touched her face. She had fallen asleep on one of the steps leading to Julian’s tower. After Noa left, she hadn’t wanted to go back to her room, but she also hadn’t wanted to stay in the tower, given that it was filled with angry ghosts. So she had decided to wait for Julian and Noa on the stairs, holding the book Julian had been reading to her. She must have fallen asleep.
Julian hadn’t come back. For the first time since Momma died, he had forgotten about her story.
Mite rose unsteadily to her feet. She left the book on the staircase and made her way to her room. Maybe when she woke up, Julian and Noa would be back. Or maybe she would wake to find that everything that had happened—Noa and Julian getting mad at each other; somebody stealing Beauty’s baby; Noa leaving her alone with ghosts—had been a dream.
Mite opened her door. She was so tired and heartsick that she didn’t even bother saying hello to her favorite pet, a moth named Fluffy that she had raised from a tiny caterpillar. Fluffy didn’t seem to notice—he was perched in a patch of sunlight on the floor, munching on one of her sweaters.
But she didn’t make it to her bed. Because the jar on her windowsill, the jar that had been Patience’s home, which she had left on the sill so the spider could enjoy the view, was empty.
Mite scrambled to her closet. Her collection of pet spiders gazed back at her, each perched calmly in a nest of webs in a different corner. They hadn’t been eaten, nor had the caterpillars in their cocoons, or the ladybugs marching along the stems of the giant lily she kept by the window.
Relieved, Mite set about searching for Patience. She hadn’t thought the spider was strong enough to open a jar, nor small enough to squeeze through the air holes, but it looked like Patience had gnawed at one of the holes until it grew wide enough to join up with another one, then pushed its way through. Mite would have been impressed if she wasn’t so scared. The spider didn’t realize that people were hunting it. And then there were the cats—though given Patience’s size, Mite wasn’t sure who’d win that fight.
Patience wasn’t in Mite’s bed, nor under it. Mite pulled out her drawers one by one and searched the contents, but found no enormous spotted spider crouched among her socks or underwear, much to her disappointment. By the time she’d finished searching, her room looked like it had been turned upside down and shaken, and her pets were disturbed. Fluffy was perched on the windowsill, wings twitching as if he could sense her anxiety.
Mite sat on her bed, trying to fight against the worry and fear inside her. Deep breaths, Julian always said when she got like this. Deep breaths. She couldn’t explode now—she’d kill her pets.
