It gives me the push to answer Sel for myself, because he is many things, but he is also my friend. And right now, in this world that is just for us, our own sort of protective dome in time, away from danger, he needs to hear it from both of us. “I do, too.”

Their heads turn to me. Nick’s gaze goes soft and fond. Sel flushes, but doesn’t say a word.

And that’s okay.

The scene around us crackles, goes fuzzy, then crisp.

“What’s that?” Sel asks. His eyes go alert, assessing. “What’s happening?”

I inhale shakily, uncertainty creeping into my chest. “I don’t know….”

“You brought us both here,” Nick replies. “That’s a big disruption of Arthur’s memory.”

The bricks beneath our feet tremble and begin to go transparent. Overhead, the night sky grows unearthly dark. “This world is unstable…” Sel’s lip curls. He looks between us. “Can we be hurt here? Die?”

“I don’t know,” I say. But I can’t leave yet. I look to Nick. “Nick, please let us come to you—”

He gnaws at his lip. “There are other ways to live than what the Order has shown us.” He shakes his head. “I’ve… I’ve seen it.”

“Seen what?” Sel exclaims.

But before Nick can respond, the blood walk cracks like a mirror. Jagged lines through space and time appear among the three of us, dividing us back into our own bloodlines, back into the real world.

“Nick!” I lunge, stretching to reach Nick, but my hand hits an invisible wall.

“Be safe, B,” Nick says. His eyes flit to Sel’s. “Both of you, be safe.”

Eyes close.

Eyes open.

And Sel and I are in the woods once more.

His eyes glow yellow in the darkness, jaw clenching and unclenching. The sounds of the night fill in the silence between us.

52

THE NEXT FEW days at Volition are quiet. Lu and Hazel hover, reassuring me that they aren’t mad and that the ancestors are a little rattled, but okay. We all breathe more easily when Valec reports in that he hadn’t heard rumors of a root surge.

One day in the garden with my friends nearby, I show Lu my mother’s bracelet, and actually talk about her. She asks questions about my immediate family, my mother, my father. Somehow, here among the heavy presence of loss and death and grief, it’s easier to speak about her. Maybe after I saw her, living but not here, it became easier too.

I have not touched root in over a week, but one morning, I ask Lu if I can practice using aether without calling Arthur. She agrees it’s a good idea. If the ancestors of Volition don’t like it, she says, they’ll let us know right quick.