“Who would you choose?” I asked. I’d been introduced to a majority of the Kin living in the Twin Cities—Esther had seen to that—but I wasn’t very familiar with most of them. They were a blur of faces with names attached, here and there a defining characteristic. I knew Mr. Alvarez’s uncle Bernard ran H&H Security, the company that employed most of the Guardians, and Dora Hutchens, one of Esther’s close friends, kept Kin records and histories. And I’d met the Kin elders and several of the Guardians frequently. Otherwise, my grasp of who did what was hazy at best.
“I wouldn’t choose anyone,” Mom said. “The entire system is outdated. If the Kin need someone to follow, let it happen naturally, instead of clinging to tradition.”
“Esther is sort of obsessed with lineage,” I admitted. I bit into my Popsicle, thinking back over the conversation in the hospital. “I’m curious about something, though. She mentioned my uncle Elliott.”
Mom looked surprised. “He’s coming home?”
“No—she said he wouldn’t. I was wondering if you knew why.”
She peered down at her glass, turning it in her hands a moment before answering. “Elliott was the baby of the family. He worshiped Adrian. He followed him everywhere from the day he learned how to walk. He’s never forgiven Esther for going along with the sealing. He left for San Diego the day he turned eighteen, and as far as I know, he’s only returned once since then.”
She didn’t have to tell me the occasion. I could guess: the funeral of Elspeth and Iris’s parents three years ago.
One son dead, I thought. One’s emotions and identity sealed away within the quiet of his sleeping heart. The third son estranged. No wonder Esther held so tightly to the rest of her family.
Mom echoed my musings. “One way or another, Esther lost all of her sons,” she said. “I do feel sorry for her. And I respect what she’s done for the Kin. But I’m not signing on as a replacement.”
I was about to respond that I’d told Esther as much, when something caught my attention. On Mom’s neck, near her collarbone, was a splotch of reddish color. Like a bruise, or—
Or my forty-year-old mother had a hickey.
Considering how quickly she healed, that was actually sort of impressive—or would’ve been, if it hadn’t been so disturbing. And while Mom had seemed really happy since she’d given in and officially started dating Mickey, there were certain things I just did not need to see.
“Seriously, Mom?” I said, pointing at her throat.
“What?”
“Right there! Rhymes with your boyfriend’s name.”
She blinked at me a second. Then, instead of showing any hint of embarrassment, she only shrugged. “It’s probably too late for him to start going by Michael.”
“Not the point,” I said. “He’s, like…marking his territory.”
Her lips tilted into a smile. “So? I marked mine.”
“Okay. Way, way more than I needed to know. Ever.” I didn’t know how I was going to be able to look Mickey in the face the next time I saw him.
After giving me an exaggerated eye roll, Mom pulled on her Morning Star hoodie and zipped it up to her throat. “Better? Are your delicate sensibilities appeased?”
I didn’t answer. I got up, tossed my Popsicle stick into the garbage, and stalked out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Mom asked, amused.
“To invent a time machine and erase this conversation from existence,” I called back.
I stepped out the front door and headed to Gideon’s.
Outside, the sun had already set, but the sky was still light as I made my way down streets that smelled of barbecue and bug spray. This was a stretch of the city I knew well, a route so familiar it was almost automatic.
I walked slowly, enjoying the sound of my sandals slapping the sidewalk. Gideon’s house was at the end of a long block, an old building of gray brick surrounded by Granny Belmonte’s various attempts at gardening. I found Gideon in the backyard, where he and his youngest sister were playing catch with a softball that appeared to have seen better decades. Or rather, he was playing catch. She was playing some sort of game that involved lobbing the softball at him with all the manic delight of a seven-year-old who thought it was hilarious to watch her brother dive for cover. Luckily, she had terrible aim.
“Hey,” he said when he caught sight of me, deftly catching the ball in his mitt and keeping it out of Isobel’s grasp. She made a face at the interruption, but after a moment vaulted onto his back, wrapping her arms about his neck and dangling there like a human cape.
“Hey. Getting ready to demolish the opposition?” I asked, motioning at his mitt. Gideon was in a summer baseball league, and his first official game of the season was on Wednesday. Tink and I had plans to go and cheer him on—or, as she put it, ogle the players and scream ourselves dizzy.
Gideon grinned. “My coach here”—he swung Isobel around so that her legs kicked into the air and then thumped back against him—“thought I needed practice.”
Isobel’s contribution to the conversation was: “He said if I hit him you-know-where, he’d make me eat grasshoppers.”
“Seems fair,” I said. “Can I join you? I’m fleeing my mother. Don’t ask.”
As I spoke, I studied him, noting details. There was a grass stain on his shorts, and his thin sky-blue T-shirt was from a Canadian music festival he and his family had gone to last year. The bridge of his nose showed a faint hint of sunburn. Long hours spent outside had lightened his hair, which was in need of trimming. Though I’d had a few months to get used to the idea, it was still difficult for me to comprehend that he wasn’t just Gideon, my best friend, someone I’d known half my life. He was also Verrick, the Harrower my mother had fought seventeen years ago. Verrick, who had started a Harrowing in his search for the Remnant—and killed Guardians all through the Cities.
When I looked at him, I didn’t see Verrick. I didn’t see the Harrower I knew was hidden within. I saw only Gideon, a brown-haired, brown-eyed boy talking and smiling, moving about his yard like he didn’t have a seven-year-old using him as a jungle gym. Every now and then, I caught the flicker of light that surrounded him, that trace of the Astral Circle’s shine that lingered under his skin—but I didn’t see the malice or rage or hate that Verrick had carried, and I didn’t sense it.
Still, I watched for it.
I found myself watching him all the time now. Waiting. For what, I wasn’t certain. Some sign that Verrick was breaking through, creeping around the edges. I told myself not to. I tried to shut off my senses and to block out my Knowing, but the awareness was always there, lurking just below the surface of my thoughts, as much as I willed it not to be. Susannah’s words echoed in my ears. The beast within them sleeps, she’d told me. She had meant other Harrowers, not Gideon—but I knew it was in him, as well. And now that I knew, I couldn’t unknow it.
Gideon sensed that something was wrong. There was a disconnect between us, a gap we couldn’t close. But neither of us wanted to speak it. If he still had nightmares, he didn’t mention them to me. He hadn’t asked me for any more readings, and I’d left my Nav cards where I’d shut them away in my closet months ago. Instead we went on pretending, keeping up the careful fiction that nothing had altered. Ever since the day I’d lied and told him he was Kin. It was a promise, a pact sealed between us.
Now, he continued smiling as he detached Isobel and set her on the ground. “Go get Dad’s glove from the shed,” he told her, then pulled off his own mitt and tossed it to me.
I caught it easily, feeling the soft, worn leather, still warm from his hands. I smiled back. “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”
We stayed there in the dwindling light, passing the ball back and forth between us until the fall of dark.