“Why are all the powers so different?”
Hunter shrugs. “But no matter what the power is, it doesn’t mean a mystic has more or less energy inside. Every mystic burns as hot as a furnace.” He tugs on the bottom of his shirt. “Until they’re drained, anyway.”
Before I know it, we’re standing at the foot of the castle, underneath an enormous stone arch. From here I can see the entire carnival, the colors and the lights, the Magnificent Block ignited with festivities.
“This is gorgeous,” I find myself saying.
I think I hear Hunter say You’re gorgeous under his breath, but his eyes are elsewhere, looking up at the tower. “You know, all those things I just told you about—mystics can’t do them anymore. Because of the drainings. We used to be great people who helped build this city. Now look at us—reduced and powerless. This carnival, this bit of excitement … it’s the happiest I’ve seen anyone all year.”
It’s not fair, I find myself thinking. I don’t want to be a part of this problem—I want to help fix it. “But how can we know that if mystics kept their powers, they wouldn’t revolt against the Aeries and kill everyone? I mean, look at the Conflagration: mystics bombed a building and hundreds of people died.”
Hunter looks at me quizzically. “Aria, is that what you think happened?”
“Of course that’s what happened.” My tone is so certain that I can’t help but second-guess myself. “Isn’t it?”
“The bomb was made of mystic energy,” Hunter admits, “but it was made by mystics who betrayed their own kind, who were working for the government. It was the excuse the Aeries needed to crack down on mystics everywhere. They’re the ones to blame—those few individuals. Not the entire mystic population.”
I feel like I’ve been hit in the head. “What kind of people would be so awful?”
I think of my own parents. Of what Lyrica told me. If they’re responsible for tampering with my memories … are they any worse than the mystics who betrayed their own kind?
My cheeks feel wet, and I realize I’m crying.
“Aria, don’t cry.” Hunter takes my hand to comfort me, and a jolt of energy rushes through me. I pull away.
“I’m sorry. Let me try again,” he says. “I need to figure out how to do this without hurting you.”
Slowly, he turns his palm upward. He’s waiting for me to place my hand in his, but I’m scared. Then I look into his eyes and I feel it: Hunter’s not going to cause me any pain. I hold my hand parallel to his, letting him know it’s okay. A gust of wind sweeps around us, making the tiny blond hairs on my arms stand up.
Carefully, he touches me again—first just with one finger, tracing the outline of my hand. The initial jolt subsides to a warm sensation, making me feel like a batch of cookies that have just been pulled from the oven. Hunter’s eyes are focused, his lips pulled together tightly as he presses the tips of his fingers against mine, one by one, until our hands are pressed together.
I study the lines of his face, the curve of his neck, and realize I’ve never felt this intimate with anyone in my entire life. I feel as if I’m completely naked.
Hunter gently cups my cheek with his free hand. I can feel his breath warming my neck. “This is better, right?”
I try to speak but no words come out. I am flustered, boiling up inside.
He pulls his hand away and steps back. “Tell me about your family.”
“My family? What about them?”
“Your parents. What are they like?” Hunter leads me around the castle, past its crumbling columns. We sit, leaning against one of the walls, and stare out at the night. The light from the carnival and from the nearby spires reflects off one of the ponds below the castle, making the entire area glimmer.
“There’s not much to say,” I tell him. “All they care about right now is the election. They’re so scared Violet Brooks is going to win that they’re making my life a living hell. I can barely leave my room without an interrogation. And Thomas—”
I choke on his name. At first, I was mad at myself for overdosing and losing my memories of our relationship. Yes, there were things that didn’t make sense—the confusing flashes of remembering, the locket, which he didn’t give me—but they were never enough to make me truly doubt I ever loved him. But now that I know I didn’t overdose, that I’ve never used Stic, how do I know that anything I’ve been told about Thomas is true?
And yet: those letters. The passion there was real. How do those fit in with what I’ve learned from Lyrica?
“What about Thomas?” Hunter’s voice is rough, as though he’s holding back emotion.
“We’re engaged. There’s nothing more to say.”
The silence between us stretches on, and I wonder if he heard me.
“Do you love him?” Hunter asks at last.
“What kind of question is that? That’s none of your business.”
“You’re marrying him.” Hunter scoots closer, so that our legs are almost touching. “It should be an easy one. Do you love him or not?”
I sigh. “It’s … complicated.”
“Then help me understand.”
I try to think of something to say, but all I can focus on is the sight of Hunter’s knee next to mine. “I can’t. I don’t understand it myself.” I stare out at the Great Lawn. I feel so at home here with Hunter, even though the Block, the Depths, are as different from the Aeries as anything I can imagine. “What about your family?”
Hunter slumps against the wall of the castle. “What about them?”
“You know a lot about mine, but I know nothing about yours,” I say. “Why all the secrets?”
Hunter opens his mouth to speak, when the snap of a branch echoes in the air. He straightens up and looks around cautiously. “Come on.” He holds out his hand. “Let’s go.”
We walk back through the castle and are about to descend the stone stairs, when we look up, and there is a figure looming ahead of us, backlit by light from the carnival.
“Hunter, what are you doing here?” The voice is feminine yet strong. “I thought I saw you at the carnival, and then I watched you go up this way. If someone sees you—”
The woman stops in her tracks. I recognize her face immediately: Violet Brooks, the mystic running for office.
She takes one look and clearly recognizes me.
Hunter turns to me and gulps. “Aria Rose,” he says. “Meet my mother.”
• XIII •
A voice in my head screams, Run!
“I have to go,” I call to Hunter.
“Aria, wait!”
But I ignore him and take off, back through the carnival, over the Great Lawn, outside the Block. To the POD Hunter was going to send me to before. I don’t even glance back at Hunter and his mother to see the shocked expressions on their faces.
Not only is Hunter an illegal, unregistered mystic, but his mother is Violet Brooks. She’s running for office and attacking my family.
What am I doing?
If I tell my parents that Violet has a rebel son—a fact she’s managed to keep secret from the media so far—they’ll use it to smear her and ensure that Garland wins the election. But is that what I want? For the Roses and the Fosters to continue ruling the city, for the mystics to continue being enslaved and mistreated?
I don’t think my family is right. Or fair. But they’re still my family.
I’m not sure I can keep a secret this big from them.
Back home, I enter the passcode and take the back elevator all the way up to the penthouse, then exit into my family’s kitchen. The apartment is dark, everything turned off. There’s a tiny ding when the elevator doors close, and I wait a few seconds to make sure it didn’t wake anyone.
When I’m satisfied, I slink up the stairs, quiet as can be, careful not to disturb Kyle or any of the servants. I’m guessing my parents are asleep in bed by now, too.
Even though she’s probably sleeping, I head straight to Davida’s room. I need to talk to her
now, and I can’t risk my mother’s sending her out on errands tomorrow before I have a chance to question her. I rap gently on the door. A moment passes and it slides open.
“Aria?” she whispers. Davida is in a nightgown of simple white cotton, her black hair loose around her shoulders.
I step into the room and wait until the door closes behind me. My back is slick with perspiration, my knees weak from running out of the Block. My body is tired from the trip back to the Aeries, but I am somehow wide awake.
“What’s wrong?” Davida says, wiping sleep from her eyes.
I cross over to her bed and perch on the edge. Then I pull out the pair of gloves. Davida’s deep brown eyes widen. I lay the black gloves on the bone-white quilt and stare at her expectantly.
“Well, now you know everything, I suppose,” Davida says.
I throw up my hands. “I don’t know anything!”
“Shhh,” Davida says, rushing forward and sitting down next to me. “You’ll wake Magdalena and the others.”
“I want the truth, Davida. All of it. Why are you keeping these magical things?” I point to the gloves on the bedspread. “Who are you?”
Davida cringes, turning so I can’t see her face. The last thing I want to do is upset her, but I want answers—no, I need answers.
“Okay,” she says, her back still to me. I move to rest a hand on her shoulder, but she flinches away before I can touch her. “I’m a mystic,” she says to the wall.
“What?”
“You heard me,” she says. “I’m a mystic.”
It can’t be true. “Davida, I’ve known you since you were a little girl. You were found in an orphanage in the Depths. You’re poor, yes, but you’re not a mystic. Your parents died when you—”
“My parents aren’t dead, Aria. They’re alive.” Davida stands and begins pacing. “No one knows. Mystics—even registered ones—are second-class citizens. My parents wanted me to grow up and have a better life. So they placed me in an orphanage and lied. There was another mystic there, a woman named Shelly, who taught me how to conceal my powers so I wouldn’t have to register. The gloves help with that—when I touch people, they can’t feel my energy. Better that people think I’m a horribly scarred orphan than a mystic freak.
“When your parents took me in, I was so happy to have a home that I vowed to keep my real identity private. And you and I got along so well, I never wanted to disappoint you. I haven’t had much contact with my family over the years, but I got a letter a few weeks ago saying that my mother is on her deathbed. She can’t afford to see a doctor, so I’ve been taking her food and medicine.”
My heart nearly stops beating from shock. “I’m so sorry.”
“Aria, I’m still me,” she says, batting her dark lashes. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you would hate me. I’m sorry for lying to you, but you and your brother and your parents are the closest thing I have to a family. I was worried if you all learned the truth, they would throw me out.”
I immediately want to tell her that my family loves her and there is nothing she could do that would make us feel differently. But I know it isn’t true—as soon as my parents find out, they’ll feel taken advantage of and Davida will be without a job, her powers drained.
They might even have her imprisoned.
Davida kneels down in front of me. “Do you hate me? Please say you’ll forgive me.” Her voice breaks and she begins to cry. I reach over to her nightstand for a tissue and pass it to her.
“Of course I don’t hate you,” I say. “I’m sorry you felt like you had to keep your past hidden from me. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us. Let’s promise to tell each other everything, okay? And I’ll help you however I can.”
Davida wipes her eyes. “I love you, Aria, you know that, right? It’s improper for me to say, I’m sure, but—”
“I don’t care about being proper, Davida. I love you, too,” I tell her, and she places her gloved arms around me and gives me a hug. “I won’t say anything to my parents.”
Back in my room, I strip off my sweaty clothes and cap and take a shower. I comb my wet hair with my fingers and tie it back with a ribbon. I slip on a nightgown my mother brought me last year from Paris, blue silk with white lace trim.
I’m about to roll back my comforter when I hear a knock on one of my windows. The wind, I think, but the knocking repeats, more persistent.
I pull back the curtains. There, outlined against the night sky, is Hunter.
I blink. Am I dreaming?
But when I open my eyes he’s still there, smiling at me and pointing to the latch on the window. I flick it open and slide the panes apart. Warm air immediately fills my room.
“What are you doing here?” I ask in a harsh whisper. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m here to see you,” he says, his hands gripping either side of the windowsill for balance. “And yeah, I’m a little bit crazy. But nothing you can’t handle. Why’d you run off before?”
I glance toward my bedroom door. “You might wake everyone up if you stay. I doubt they’ll be too happy about a mystic sneaking in my window.”
Hunter holds up his hands. “I’m not sneaking. You opened the window. That counts as an invitation, doesn’t it?”
“No,” I say. “It does not.”
“Look,” Hunter says, “I need to explain. Just let me talk to you for a few minutes and then I’ll go. I promise.”
I stare at him and am surprised by how familiar his face seems. Something about him—his easy attitude, perhaps, or the way he looks at me—makes me feel I can trust him.
“Fine.” I roll up the sleeves of my nightgown. “A few minutes, that’s all.”
“Thanks,” Hunter says, fanning himself with his T-shirt. “Damn, it’s hot.” For a second, I can see the tight muscles of his stomach, his golden tanned skin. Then he holds out his hand—I let him grasp my fingers, and he pulls me out onto the balcony.
“Your time starts now.”
“I don’t want to talk here,” he tells me. “We could be overheard.”
I look out at the city—the view from up here is spectacular. The network of high-wire bridges and covered arcades that connects the buildings is swathed in yellow-white light from the spires; the sky is a murky blue, with gray clouds that look like the wisps of cotton candy at the carnival.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask. “The moon?”
“Nah,” Hunter says, letting go of my hand. “I have a better idea.”
Carefully, Hunter raises one hand into the air, and his fingertips begin to radiate the same bright green color I saw when he saved me in the Depths. The glow quickly turns into rays of light jetting out from each fingertip, so electric they are nearly blinding.
At first there are five, each like a stretched-out saber. Then Hunter flexes his fingers and the rays coalesce into one thick mass that pierces the sky. He throws back his arm like he did earlier at the carnival, only this time he’s harnessing his energy and blasting it toward the roof of my building.
The green light from his hand is resplendent. Hunter lassos it around one of the pillars at the top of the roof like he’s some kind of otherworldly cowboy, the lines and muscles of his face pulled taut as he concentrates, his skin tinged from the glow.
Then he extends his free hand to me. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
He winks and curls his fingers, beckoning me. “Come on, Aria,” he says. “Have a little faith.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going to … swing onto my roof with you, or whatever you plan on doing.”
“Why not?”
The ray seems securely wrapped around the roof post. But really, how could it hold the two of us? Everything about Hunter is improbable. Still, he hasn’t failed me yet.
“Okay,” I say.
As soon as our fingers touch, something shocks me, making my blood simmer and rushing through my limbs as though I’ve been struck by lightning. “Hunte
r!” I cry out, but his eyes are barely more than slits, and he’s focusing on my hand. Quickly, the jolt of electricity subsides; I’m left with a warm sort of buzz that makes my skin feel prickly.
“I’m trying,” he says. “I want you to be safe with me. Always.” He pulls me into his arms; our chests fit together like puzzle pieces. I wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to his shoulders.
“Hold on,” he says.
“Oh, I will. Don’t worry.”
And then I can feel us moving.
With one swift jump, Hunter is off the balcony. For a second, we seem to freeze midair, as though time has stopped.
And then we drop.
My stomach feels like it might fall right into the Depths. I suck in some air, but that only makes me cough. I squeeze my eyes shut—if I’m going to die, I don’t want to see it happening.
But then I feel us shooting upward, swooping around the sky as though we’re riding on the clouds. I open my eyes. My heart races—it could catapult out of my rib cage at any moment.
“Aria,” Hunter whispers. “Look.”
I stare out into the Aeries—we are suspended midair, wind moving all around us. “Wow,” I manage to say. We’re surrounded in midnight blue. The glass façades of the skyscrapers glitter like gems. The spires swirl majestically, and the silvery grid of Aeries bridges is like a web of light laid on the city.
And then the top of my apartment building is so close that Hunter yells, “Jump!” and I do, letting go of him and hopping onto the roof. My knees buckle but I don’t fall. I straighten and wish I weren’t in a flimsy nightgown.
Immediately, the light dissipates, and Hunter tumbles onto the roof, as well.
It takes a minute for him to regain his strength. He leans over and breathes deeply.
“That was incredible,” I say, barely able to speak.
“That?” Hunter says casually, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Nah, just a parlor trick, really.” He gives a tiny shrug. “But I’m glad you liked it.”