“Yes, yes.” The stonemason smiled, smoothing his weathered palm over the stone with pride. “Each name, I do by hand. See? All perfect. I checked to make sure no mistakes.”
Regardless of the man’s words, Vasic spoke each name aloud from memory as he checked the obelisk, his hand intertwined with hers. With every name he spoke, he telepathed her the truth of that person’s death. Her eyes burned for all those who had been lost, many so young. And her heart, it broke for her Arrow who carried the weight of these losses on his shoulders in silent penance.
He spoke the last name and went quiet. Beside them, the stonemason surreptitiously wiped away a tear. “This is good, what you do,” he said into the quiet. “The heavens weep.”
Thanking the stonemason for his work, Vasic ’ported the memorial to a place of astonishing beauty on a high bluff that overlooked a serene aquamarine beach, waves rolling gently to shore and grasses waving in the wind. Instead of using his Tk to sink the foundation of the obelisk into the ground, Vasic dug for two hours with a shovel he’d left there earlier.
Ivy got on her knees and used her hands to clear away the dirt.
After it was done, they stood in silence for a long minute. “This isn’t enough,” Vasic said at last. “This place is isolated.”
Stroking his back, Ivy said, “No, Vasic, it’s beautiful.” A song of sorrow and peace. “To go public with this information is to risk other lives.” The Net was stable in one sense, but the psychological impact of the events of the past months—the past century—had left jagged cracks in millions. One more thing could tip an already wounded people over the edge of tolerance.
“The day will come when people are ready to confront the past,” she said, her throat thick. “On that day, we’ll make a public announcement, read each name aloud, make sure their stories are known.”
“I don’t want to cheat them, Ivy.” Vasic’s eyes held such raw emotion, she couldn’t imagine how she’d once thought him cold. “I don’t want to build a future on a broken promise.”
“You aren’t.” It was hard to speak past the knot choking her, because she knew he carried each and every name in his heart and his mind always. “This, what you’re doing, it’s what you can do at this moment in time. As the world changes, you’ll keep going.” She cupped his face. “I know you’ll never stop, never forget. We’ll come here as often as you need to, and we’ll bring the families to whom the truth matters. We’ll keep the promise, Vasic. Together.”
He didn’t answer, simply lowered his face to her neck, his arms coming around her. Ivy held him tight, held her Arrow who couldn’t cry, but who mourned all the same.
? ? ?
IT took them almost two days to personally visit those Vasic knew wanted the truth—because he’d kept track of every single one of the affected families. Ivy stood with him as he accepted their recriminations, their rage and sadness, and then she held the people who needed it. Others were too angry, would need time to come to terms with the truth.
That was their right.
As it was Ivy’s to spend these last hours before the operation making sure Vasic’s life was ordinary. A normal day in a normal life . . . or as normal as it could be when the man she loved was an Arrow. He deserved a normal day, one without blood and horror and darkness. He deserved a million such days and she wanted to give them to him.
Sitting on the stoop of the cabin, she hugged her knees to her chest and watched him go through a quiet, dangerous martial arts routine with Aden in a corner of the yard he’d telekinetically cleared of snow. His best friend hadn’t said a word since his arrival, his shields impenetrable and his face expressionless.
Zie Zen would also soon be here, Vasic scheduled to pick him up in another forty-five minutes. They’d have lunch together with her parents, and she’d make sure she laughed because Vasic hated it when she cried. And she’d continue to hope for the comm to chime or her phone to buzz.
So many people were working to the final hour to find another, less dangerous solution. Ashaya and Amara Aleine hadn’t yet been able to unravel the complexities of Samuel Rain’s invention, but continued to try. The original project team had never stopped its attempts at formulating an answer. Even the surgeon was completing simulated operation after simulated operation in an effort to alter the percentages.
Samuel Rain, however, had become a hermit.
“I’m sorry,” Clara had said to Ivy when she’d called the sympathetic woman this morning. “I’ve tried to get in, see him, but he’s intransigent. All I can tell you is that the medical scanners built into the room report he’s healthy. He continues to send out order requests for arcane equipment and supplies, all of which Zie Zen fulfills at once, but we have no idea what he’s doing with it.”
Ivy caught the subtext—Samuel Rain might be trying to do what he’d once done with such ease, and each failure could be driving him further and further into despair. “Has he . . . Is it a total breakdown?” Ivy’s fingers had clenched on the phone.
“He seems rational when he does communicate, but he barely communicates.” Clara’s voice had softened. “I’ll keep trying, Ivy. I know how important this is. But we can’t barge in; that’ll erode any trust he might still have in us.”
“It’s all right, Clara. I never wanted to harm Samuel in any way.” She’d truly believed he was strong and becoming stronger. “I hope he comes through this.”
Now, four hours after that call, she sat watching the man she loved move with a deadly economy of motion beside his best friend. Aden had treated the latest burn an hour ago but hadn’t had the equipment to totally remove the mark, and so it was an ugly redness on Vasic’s arm.
Fingers fisting in Rabbit’s coat, she said, “You know it, too, don’t you?” Rabbit had taken to following Vasic around, leaning up against his leg any time he stopped. Vasic didn’t rebuke their pet, always finding time to stop and touch Rabbit before going about his work again. But Rabbit wouldn’t be soothed, as Ivy couldn’t be soothed.
Her mate was dying and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Chapter 59
WHEN A THIRD Arrow walked out of the orchard to join Vasic and Aden, Ivy wasn’t the least surprised. They’d started doing that ever since she and Vasic had settled at the cabin, just turning up. She’d fed more than one at the dinner table—though that was easy enough, since most just wanted nutrition bars. It wasn’t the food they came for, of course.
“Home,” Vasic had told her. “They come because they know they’re welcome in our home. To men and women who have never had a true home, a place of warmth and safety, it is a treasure beyond price.” He’d kissed the top of her head. “And they know you’re my treasure. So they come to check on you when they’re nearby. Do you mind?”
No, Ivy didn’t mind. She wanted to have Arrows dropping by for decades to come, wanted Vasic to build extra rooms onto the cabin so their guests could stay overnight, wanted to tease him into trying real food. “I want him safe, Rabbit,” she said, angry at the entire universe. “I don’t want to be in a world where he doesn’t get to survive. How is that in any way fair?”
Vasic froze right then, and for an instant, she thought he’d heard her and that she’d ruined the day. Then came a deeper, more violent fear.
She stood and ran toward him as, turning, he jogged back to the cabin. Sweat stuck his black T-shirt to his chest, the thin black of his martial arts pants outlining his thighs as the wind pressed the fabric against him. Ivy still had trouble letting him out into the snow dressed like that, even though he assured her that as a Tk, he was never in any danger of freezing.
Today, it wasn’t the cold that was the risk.
“What is it?” Her eyes and her hands went immediately to the gauntlet. “Is it—”
Vasic cupped her face in hands so gentle, she knew he could sense the vicious control she had on her fear and her anger. “Samuel Rain has demanded our presence.”
Her heart kicked. “What are you doing here? Let’s go!”
“Give me two minutes to shower.”