***
We walk shoulder to shoulder down the street in broad daylight— Jonas, Apollon, and me. I keep quiet, noticing now how their eyes scan the streets, always watching what's going on. Always ready for anything. I do the same, taking in all the details I can. There are people I recognize from my days on the streets. Others I don't. One of them, a pretty girl with caramel colored curls, is flouncing down the street unescorted toward us. Seriously?
I detect the change in Apollon's stride even though I'm not looking at him, which makes me immediately want to. It's a subtle change, but enough. His gaze is steadily on the girl. As we near her, he makes eye contact and shoots her that cocky grin. He nods and says, "Hey gorgeous." He winks. I try to contain myself.
The girl, however, blushes and giggles before looking away as she passes, her chin in the air.
Apollon glances back over his shoulder as we keep moving.
After a while, trying to keep the amusement from my voice, I say, "Who was that?"
"That," says Apollon, "was Elaina Sumter."
"Sumter as in the cannibalistic butcher Sumter?" I ask.
"His daughter," Jonas informs me.
I nod. "I see."
We walk on.
After a time, Apollon says, "What?"
"What what?" I ask.
"What what do you think?" he retorts.
I laugh, but say, "Do you really think it's a good idea to be hitting on a cannibalistic butcher's daughter?" In the back of my mind I'm wondering how it is she gets to wander around by herself, and I figure somebody's probably paying Matthew for that privilege. Either that or Sumter's scarier than I realize. Cannibalistic butcher. Hmm.
Apollon just shrugs as though he doesn't really care if he ends up as a plate of sausages. "It's my personal mission in life to deflower as many virgins as possible before I die."
I glance at him.
He glances at me, just from the corner of his eye. "Interested?"
I'm turning red again, but of all the things I could say in reply to that, I find myself saying, "What makes you think I'm a virgin?"
Again, he shrugs. "Well," he says, "do you remember having sex?"
"No," I say flatly.
He grins. "Close enough for me."
"You'll find Apollon's standards of virginity to be quite flexible," Jonas adds dryly.
"Convenient," I say.
We keep walking. All the while, Apollon throws me sly grins even though I narrow my eyes at him more than once. We're just approaching the market place, when I hear them. The flower peddlers. The muscles in my shoulders tighten.
Apollon beams at me, leaning down to say something, but I don't catch it. One of them is right in front of us. An older woman, crying "Roses and lilies, roses and lilies." I slam on the brakes as she accosts us, stuffing a bouquet of lilies in my face.
"Flowers for your lady?" she asks, looking up at Apollon.
"She's not..." I hear Jonas mumbling, but I'm too busy feeling all the blood drain from my face to catch the rest.
I can't breathe, until suddenly, almost miraculously, I spit out, "Lilies are the flower of death! Go find a corpse!" I smack the woman's wrist and the flowers flutter away out of my face, a few petals spilling onto the ground.
The flower peddler doesn't like this, of course. She clucks and raises a clatter like a chicken about to be eaten.
Apollon soothes her by buying two lilies. I watch incredulously, my mouth hanging open. My fingernails dig into my palms.
"Actually," says Jonas in a level voice, "they're a symbol of resurrection."
I glance at him, and my eyes stick on his olive-skinned face, on his green eyes looking out over the marketplace.
"Eve's tears," Apollon says as the woman moves away, taking up her horrible song.
"Hunh?" I say.
"When Eve got kicked out of the garden, they sprang up from her tears," Apollon says. "They're just right for you," he says. "Eden."
"Or just exactly wrong." I eye the lily he holds out to me. Just one of them. Is he keeping the other for Elaina?
"Here," he says, making a movement like a shrug while holding the flower out. "Take it."
Reluctantly, I pinch the stem between my thumb and forefinger, and take ownership of the lily.
"It won't hurt you," Apollon mumbles. His eyes fall on Jonas.
There's a split second where Jonas' face changes, though I still can't read his expression. He starts shaking his head slowly.
Apollon holds out the other lily to him.
Jonas' jaw clenches. He looks like he's going to say something. Then his head tips back just the slightest touch— defiance— but he takes the lily. He looks decidedly uncomfortable doing so. And pissed, too.
Apollon beams.
I'm still trying to figure out what all this means when Apollon takes both of us by the arm and starts us walking again. As we get going, his hands drop to his side. There's an easiness to his stroll that says he's quite pleased with himself. I glance at his face. He looks happy. As if things couldn't get any weirder, he suddenly starts spouting poetry.
"'The modest rose puts forth a thorn,'" he says, looking at me and my uncomfortably clenched flower, "'The humble sheep a threat'ning horn.'"
My mouth has fallen open at this point, but he's looking at Jonas now.
"'While the lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.'"
Jonas is clearly ignoring him, his eyes scanning the marketplace.
Apollon glances at me. "William Blake."
I say nothing. I'm just looking at him in disbelief.
After a while he looks at me again. He smiles, touches his chest, and says, "Apollon, god of poetry."
I already know the punch line. I say it with him. "Among other things."
That earns me a grin. Thankfully, we've arrived at our destination.
It doesn't take long to determine that something is wrong. We stand in a group with two peddlers under an awning stretched on four metal poles. Apollon and Jonas inform them that they’ll have three sets of nightglasses, with compatible microthermogenors, and at least four, maybe five, aether traps ready for delivery tomorrow. But the peddlers insist the regular price is too high. Apollon and Jonas don't agree. The price is fair. The parts cost money and they need to make a profit. They haggle for a while, and then it comes out. The peddlers have had another offer. Someone is underselling Miranda. Not only this, but they're underselling by so much that there's no way we can match them and make any kind of profit. Apollon is furious. Jonas takes him by the arm and pulls him back, thanking the peddlers and saying we'll get back to them. But as we move away, Apollon shakes Jonas off.
"This is ridiculous," he hisses, turning on his friend.
Jonas remains calm and measured, but I can see his anger beneath the level exterior. He opens his mouth to reply, but Apollon talks over him.
"You know what's happening, right? No one is going to make a profit off prices like that. It's aimed directly at us. At Miranda."
The idea makes me shiver. Donegan.
"We can't assume anything," Jonas begins.
"Don't be stupid," Apollon snaps. "You know exactly who's doing this."
Jonas starts to shake his head, but Apollon is already walking away.
"Apollon," Jonas calls after him, "don't you be stupid."
Apollon waves him off. We watch him go.
Jonas sighs. After a moment, he looks at me.
I sigh, too. I glance down at the lily still in my hand, and hold it out to him. "Here," I say. "I really don't want this."
He takes it from me passively, his eyes following after Apollon. Switching it into his right hand with the other lily, he grips the two stems in a fist, swinging at his side as we walk.
"How bad is this?" I finally ask, when we're about halfway home.
His eyes dart to me, scan my face. "It's b
ad."
I purse my lips. We march on. I try to mimic Jonas' self-possessed awareness, scanning our surroundings, feigning confidence. My eyes fall on a man mad-dogging us from the end of an alleyway. I scowl at him rather than avoid his gaze. He scowls back. A wooden club suddenly connects with the back of his head from the dark of the alley. He goes down. Hands grab him by the shoulders, dragging him back. His feet disappear.
My steps have faltered. "Wh—" I stammer.
Jonas grabs my arm. "Keep going," he mutters under his breath.
"Did you see that?" I ask in disbelief. I'm shaking with adrenaline.
"No," he says, releasing me. "And you didn't either."
I swallow, and keep walking. Try to think of something else. Anything else. After a while, I can't stand the silence. "So, Apollon..." I say lightly, though it takes a good deal of effort to manage it. "What's with the god complex, anyway?"
Jonas laughs softly through his nose, not looking at me. Finally, he says, "Erasure is harder on some than on others, I guess. If you're not anything— if you can be anything— why not decide to be a god?"
I consider this for a moment, ponder the choice of my own name. How will it shape me? Is it all there is to me now? After a while, I ask, "Do you think it's true? That there's nothing left when you wake up?" The question does not actually break the Tenth Law, attempting to uncover your previous life following an erasure, but it pushes the edges of acceptable conversation. I don't care. I want to know the answer.
There's a certain uneasiness in his glance this time. "Do you?"
I hate it when people answer questions with questions. I tell him so, then add, "So is that new, or is it just me?"
He laughs, his face actually forming a smile this time. I like the way that feels. I want to make him laugh again. But he says, seriously, "You'll be asking those questions for the rest of your life."
We're walking down the main street now, coming up on the Rustler. As we start to step off the curb to cross the street, I take a moment to surreptitiously study his face. I open my mouth to say something, when his arm flies out in front of me, making me jerk to a halt.
"Whoa," he says, but his voice is quiet. He's looking across the street. I follow his gaze. There are three groups of Matthew's thugs. Standing at the entrance to the Rustler is another small group, talking and laughing. I know or recognize most of them. Jacob and Taylor, a couple more card players whose names I don't yet know... There's a young man standing in their midst. He can't be much older than Jonas, if at all. He has golden brown hair, an easy manner, and a broad smile on his face. A pot-bellied pig sits at his feet. He's telling a joke, it seems, and everyone is busting up, including the two beautiful women— one white-blonde, and one a blazing redhead— attached to his arms. Everyone looks like they're having a great time. Part of me wants to join them.
But Jonas' fingers are pressing into my arm, pulling me back from the curb. "Not that way," he says as we turn down the nearest alleyway, which actually takes us in the wrong direction.
"Why not?" I ask, glancing back over my shoulder.
"Matthew," Jonas says. That's all.
"Matthew?" I ask, blinking. "You mean, that was...?"
He nods.
We walk in silence. None of this fits. The dreaded Matthew is a guy who looks like he'd be a fun drinking buddy? Really? I find myself shaking my head, frowning.
Jonas glances at me. "Looks can be deceiving," he says.
And suddenly I remember the old woman who blackmailed me. He's right. I need to be more careful in summing people up.
We circle around to our previous path. We're only a few blocks from home, and the streets are quieter. Maybe Jonas will be more willing to talk. Sentries are less common on the back streets.
"So what do you think?" I ask. "About when we wake up."
He gives me that same uncertain glance. After a moment, he says, "It doesn't matter what I think. We are all what we are, whether it’s something new, or something old."
"You think it's that simple?" I spout, before I even have time to consider his answer. I'm not sure why, but it annoys me. "Don't you care who you were? Or is that just it, three years and you don't care. Just get through three years of wondering, and you'll be fine."
He glances at me again. I'm really starting to dislike that glance, mostly because I don't know what it means. If Jonas has some sort of tell, I don't know what it is. I can't seem to figure him out. He looks away from me, his eyes scanning the road in front of us. He says, "Some things get easier with time, yes. Not all of them. But enough."
I stop myself before I reply again without thinking. I take a deep breath, and sigh.
He glances at me yet again.
"What?" I say.
He shakes his head.
We walk on in silence. I fight down my annoyance, concentrating on where we're going. Soon, we're walking up to the wall of junk that denotes our front yard.
Jonas stops as we hit the opening in the wall and turns to me. "No," he says.
I frown. "No?"
He sighs. "No, I don't think everything is just gone. Not for all of us." And he heads for the door.
He has gone a few steps before I follow after him.
Oscar and Miranda greet us inside. Without turning toward her, Jonas holds the two lilies out to Miranda. She makes a little noise as she jumps up and takes them, beaming a smile.
Jonas and I exchange glances, and I can't help but think that she won't be smiling when she hears about what happened in the marketplace.