Her friends were in the streets below, in the rising waters, struggling and never surrendering. She saw Angela swinging her chain against Ruth the sorceress.
She came down from the golden house and into the High Street, and she carried the town with her as an army that could not be defeated. Never sorry, never stopping, a world within a world. She was the world. She was sorcery in the vale.
Rob Lynburn was in her way.
He turned and looked at her, his arrogant head held high. He looked surprised and offended, his lips parted as if he was going to ask what she was doing there.
The very stones cried out against him. This town was too big for him. He had never understood that.
Water came to drown him, earth to bury him, fire to burn him, and air to carry every particle of the dust that had been him away from their town.
The supernova of the elements, the whirl of air and light, was too much to look at. But Kami kept looking. She did not see any of what they told her later had happened, how Jared and Angela chased off Sergeant Kenn and Ruth, how the other sorcerers left Rob at the last. The only thing she saw was Rob Lynburn vanishing, a stain of red and gold being wiped from her town.
When it was done, Kami could not look at any of them. She turned, chasing the last of the magic, the last bright dizzying moments of exhilaration and strength that felt like the strength of stone and mountains, of the hatred turned to dust and the love that had lasted.
She went wading through the water, stumbling on the tumbled cobblestones as if they were the stones on the bottom of a riverbed. There was a blockage in the middle of the High Street, where it was the narrowest before it opened up into the town square. A fallen street sign and a tree trunk had formed a dam there, choked with leaves and branches, the water foaming and gurgling.
Kami did not dare waste a drop of magic. She tried to scramble over it, and then Jared was at her side. He stooped and slid an arm around her, put his other arm under her legs, and lifted her against his chest for a moment. Then he helped her over the obstacle in her path.
She ran down into the town square, laid her warm hand in her mother’s cool stone palm, and held her breath. All she felt was stone against flesh, her heart sinking and her blood pounding under her skin; all this magic and life, and yet she could not help her.
Nobody had ever gained anything by despair. She pressed her mother’s hands, so hard that her own hands hurt. Then she felt, so gently at first that she thought it might be her imagination and then with a stronger pressure, her mother trying to hold her hands back.
From an enchanted faraway place, she called her mother back, from stone to flesh, from grave to embrace. Kami felt her mother’s hands clinging, and slid her hands up her mother’s arm, cupped her mother’s face, as her mother’s hair turned from dead white to warm chestnut. Her skin flushed, and the light washed along the suddenly bright curl of her eyelashes as they fluttered open.
Her mother took her first breath in over a month, a gasping sob, and fell into Kami’s arms.
The sun blazed in the sky. The links between them all were strong and shining, forming a line that bound them each to each like jewels on a chain. Kami looked to Ash, and nodded.
The link snapped. The feeling of being so bound you might blend together faded. Kami put her arms around her mother and knelt with her in the water and the debris, in the center of their wrecked and saved town. The river-soaked gold of Sorry-in-the-Vale glowed in the sunlight like treasure discovered underwater and lifted out into the light.
They had lived. Beyond all hope, they had lived.
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to catch light on each?
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Chapter Twenty-Four
Written in Gold
Sometimes Kami looked back on the day Sorry-in-the-Vale had been saved, and it felt as if she was thinking of a story that had happened to someone else. Everything that had happened still felt important and vital, felt like real things that had happened to those she really loved. She did not forget a moment of it. She knew the value of all she had won, and all she had lost.
She simply could not recapture the shining certainty of it all.
She did not know if the power had fooled her into feeling love in the sun, or hearing whispers in the wind. Kami did not know if it had been spirits or simply the memory of those loved and lost, giving her strength. Kami liked to think that it had been something real, so she could feel as if Jared had been right: that nothing was lost, only changed into what was strange to her.
Rusty and Angela’s parents had come down from London, distressed at the terrible accident they believed had occurred, but Angela had not stood with them in the graveyard. She had stood between Kami and Holly, holding both their hands. She had stood with her family.
They had buried Rusty in a sunny corner of the graveyard, the kind of nook he would have liked to stretch out and nap in. His gravestone was inscribed with gold letters.
RUSSELL MONTGOMERY III
Warm summer sun shine kindly here
Warm south wind blow kindly here
Still and always burns your light
Good night, dear heart, good night, good night.
Kami had woken too often in the nights that followed and cried for missing him. She did not know how much more often Angela had woken and wept. She had to remember that there was power and magic in life: that when the sun laid a ray as warm as a hand on her head as they left the graveyard, it could be an unseen hand, reaching out to her with love. Only changed, and not strange forever.
Kami did not look to the churchyard as she rushed into the town square. She was looking to the living. She was late.
As she passed the great glass window of Claire’s, the reflection of her dress looked like a blur of gold and red. It was one of the new dresses that her dad had let her order online, with a pattern of golden pears and red cherries. Through the window, she saw her family, and waved to them through it, and waved again as she walked in.
“Ash!” she exclaimed, surprised. He was the one person she had not expected.
She had not seen him since the night last week when they had gone down to the woods, to the Crying Pools, with Ash and Jared both bearing a golden burden. Jared had drawn his arm back and taken aim, and Ash had mirrored the action. With two silver splashes, the twin golden knives of the Lynburns were gone forever.
“How was the Royal College of Art?”
Ash was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, Tomo sitting at his feet. His hair was mussed and he had somehow acquired an air of glamorous travel, despite having only been a few hours away.
“Good,” he said. “I think I will like it there. Lots of girls offering themselves as excellent models for photography, which is very welcoming of them and I appreciate it.”
He smiled, and Kami knew it was meant to be reassuring. She smiled back. It wasn’t that she didn’t see romantic potential in Ash. She’d always been able to see that. Looking at him was like looking at a beautiful stretch of land and imagining the towers that could have been, if they had chosen to build them. The land was still beautiful without them.
Ash regarded her affectionately, and his eyes were free of the burning intensity and the unhappiness she had seen in them once. They had been clear as summer skies ever since the day the town was saved.
“I hear the London girls are terribly interesting models,” said Kami. “Also, if I may use an artistic term, babelicious.”
Ash shrugged. “Well, since Jared is going to help Mom handle things at Aurimere, this is my chance to live life with no responsibilities and lots of artistic models.”
Jared and Ash had agreed that they would not talk about, or listen to Lillian’s proclamations about, a single heir of Aurimere. The Lynburn legacy could be changed with the story of the town, c
ould be whatever they decided they wanted it to be.
“We’re very happy for you and we very much don’t want to hear any of the details,” said Holly, laughing. She was sitting on one of the workbenches at the far wall.
Nobody looked like they were being much help with the painting, but Angela looked like she was being the least help of anybody. She was lying on the bench, her head in Holly’s lap and her eyes firmly closed. Kami could tell she wasn’t asleep, though. When Holly carelessly stroked the dark hair spread over her knees, Kami caught the fleeting curve of Angela’s smile.
“I thought we were going to help Dad painting,” she said. “Not lie around discussing nude models.”
“Nobody is helping me, because none of you have true artistic vision. And you’re the one who just brought up nudes,” said Jon Glass.
“I thought ‘artistic’ was cunning code for ‘nude,’ ” said Kami. “Is that not true? Have I been lied to? Do I have a tragically perverted mind? Oh well, I guess that’s a shame.”
Jon had decided that he wanted to paint a mural on the wall of Claire’s. Kami had thought Dad and Mum would be reunited, as simply and beautifully as the sun coming out, but her mother was living above Claire’s, and the rest of the family were living at the Water Rising while the house was rebuilt. Yet Jon was painting this, making something beautiful for his wife. Kami did not know what would happen with them next. It was their decision. She knew that much.
The mural unfolding on the wall was beautiful. Kami saw her mother peep out of the kitchen and admire it. Kami went over to kiss her cheek.
“Nice to have a piece of art here that won’t get eaten,” Claire said, pressing Kami’s hand. She still wore her wedding ring. Dad was still not wearing his, but Kami knew he carried it around in his pocket.
“Thank you for bringing up eating,” Kami said. “We were promised cookies if we came to help. I intended to come and help, and as it’s the thought that counts, I feel I’m still owed cookies.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Mum.
Kami was going to be milking this “changed you back from stone” business for baked goods for a solid decade. That was the kind of person she was. She accepted this truth about herself.
“Are you people still not done?” asked Lillian Lynburn from the door.
Ten looked warily up from his book, but when he saw her doing nothing more than pulling off her black leather gloves, he returned to the story. Jared had given him the book, and promised him there would be explosions. Kami was not sure how many explosions Edgar Allan Poe would really provide, but Ten seemed to be enjoying it.
In the meantime, Lillian was looking speculatively at the mural. Kami saw her lift her hand. With sorcery, the mural could be done in ten minutes.
“I see you, Linnaea,” Jon called over his shoulder. “Don’t even think it. I have eyes in the back of my head, and all my eyes have artistic vision.”
“ ‘Linnaea’ is not a name,” grumbled Lillian, but she lowered her hand.
“It is a name,” said Jon. “I looked it up.”
Linnaea was the name of a flower, also called the twinflower. Kami knew it because she had seen pictures of all the flowers Jon was painting: call-me-to-you, daisies, goldeneye, wild daffodils, Lazarus bells, honeysuckle, and burnt orchids in the deep woods and by the shining lakes, nestled into the hollows of tree roots and trim gardens alike. Twinflowers were pearl-pale bells with lilac hearts, two flowers growing from a single fragile stem.
The woods in the heart of town. Kami thought it was a lovely idea for a mural.
Lillian walked over to Ash, who caught her hand as she went by. Lillian smiled and let him keep it, pulling herself up on a stool and regarding the mural with a critical eye. Kami was prepared to bet that either criticisms or more offers of magical help would be along in less than five minutes. She was prepared to bet a lot, if she could find any sucker who would take it.
She never found out.
There was another tap on the door.
“Oh, good,” said Mum, disappearing into the kitchen. “Another Lynburn.”
“Hi, Mrs. Glass,” Jared called after her.
“That is how I shall always greet you from now on,” Angela informed Jared, without opening her eyes.
Jared stayed standing in the doorway, hands on either side of the doorframe. It was almost summer, almost too warm for his battered leather jacket. There was something about the set of his shoulders that she thought looked tense.
“Kami,” he said. “I came to ask if I could talk to you outside.”
Kami looked around at her friends, at her family, for a hint as to what she should do. Her treacherous friends and family stared innocently and unhelpfully back. “Yes,” she said at last. “All right.”
They had not been alone in weeks. Kami had thought that it was because there was so much to be done, to be rebuilt, to be arranged, and then she had started to wonder if Jared had been avoiding being alone with her.
Now they were alone, and Jared did not seem to have much to say to her. There was no statue in the square any longer, her mother revived, Matthew Cooper and all his history gone. Jared paced silently in the sunlit square that was left.
Kami watched him. Jared looked up, and visibly nerved himself.
“Here’s the thing,” said Jared. “I thought it was obvious. I thought it was embarrassingly obvious, but—when we did the ceremony I saw your mind, and I saw the way you’ve seen the past few months. When you told me we were going out, I went along with it. You were calling me silly names, it was clear you weren’t as serious about it as I was. I figured you could see that I would have taken anything you would give me, and you thought I was kind of ridiculous and desperate. But you didn’t, did you?”
“No,” said Kami. “I felt like I had to bully you into going out with me. So no. I did not think you were the pathetic one in that scenario.”
Jared bit his lip. “Then I’ve been messing up everything, the whole time. Well. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. I didn’t realize how I must have seemed, to you. I’m sure I’m going to mess this up too, but there is one thing I thought was more obvious than anything else. There is one thing I thought you knew, and if you don’t I have to tell you. I am utterly in love with you. I’ve been in love with you my whole life. I’ve been in love with you your whole life. I don’t know how to live without being in love with you, and I don’t want to know.”
He held her gaze for that long, then looked down at the cobblestones.
“I don’t want to sound like my father. Like either of my fathers. My feelings aren’t more important than yours. I don’t want to act as if they are.”
“You never thought they were, not really. You didn’t think anything about yourself was important at all.”
He had thought his life was worth so much less than hers, so much less than Ash’s. But he had decided to live without them if he had to. She was so glad they had all lived, but she was glad to think of his decision, even now. She was reassured and warmed by it, by how far he had come.
“It’s cool,” said Jared. “I think I’m awesome now. So awesome. You should definitely go out with me.”
Kami laughed and hesitated, leaning against the wall and watching him, his Lynburn profile outlined against gold stone and a summer sky. She was not sure if now was the time to act.
“I always thought that you could never love me,” said Jared, and his voice was stark, not self-pitying, just stating facts. “Not really. Nobody ever did but you, for so long, and you weren’t real. I thought nobody real could love me, and then you were real, and I still thought that. I resented you for not loving me, and I tried to accept you not loving me, and I am so sorry I hurt you. I hardly even believed I could. I don’t ever want to hurt you again. And I can accept you not loving me, but I had to tell you how I felt. I want to love you, and I want you to love me back. I came to find out if that could ever be possible.”
Jared hesitated, as if hoping for a
n answer, but when he did not get one he plunged desperately on.
“I said once that my idea of happiness is to always be with you, and it is. I’m always going to think of you as the source of everything. To me, the sun rises and sets on you. You make all things true. I am in love with you, and I cannot imagine being in love with anyone else. It would be like becoming someone else. Your name was the first word for love I ever knew.” He broke off, and set his jaw, looking frustrated. “I don’t want to talk like Rob, saying that you owe me something because I love you, or that other women are worthless because I’m not in love with them. Love isn’t some kind of debt. That’s not what I mean.”
“I know,” said Kami. “You always thought Holly was great.”
“She is great,” said Jared. “And beautiful. She’s like a star to me, something bright and lovely seen from another world. She’s someone else’s sun. That’s how all other girls are to me. You’re my sun.”
It was a nice recovery.
“Your courtship method of arrogance, self-loathing, and then telling me how beautiful other girls are is pretty unique,” said Kami. “I like it. I don’t know what that says about me.”
“You like it?” Jared asked, with a shy glance up at her.
“I’m glad you told me the truth.”
“That’s all I intended to do,” Jared said hastily. “I don’t expect anything from you. That was what I’ve been trying to tell you. I want you, but I don’t need you to give me anything you don’t want to give. You existing in the world is all I need.”
“I’m glad you told me the truth,” Kami repeated. “Because I have something to tell you now.”
Kami straightened up from the wall and looked into his eyes, those pale clear eyes, like mirrors, like pools.