Brightly (Flicker #2) (39 page)

“I can go instead,” offered Davis.

Nasser shook his head. “You’re more help to the people here than I am. Someone needs to be able to look after them. And, Jason…”

Before he could finish, Jason knit his brow and said, “It’s not your decision.”

“I know that,” Nasser replied, though Lee could see in his eyes just how much he wished that weren’t the case. “But some of us have to stay. Someone has to be
here
.”

“And you just
happen
to think I would be a great candidate,” Jason said dryly.

In his best big-brother voice, Nasser said, “Nobody has to decide this second.”

“You just did! Jeezus, Nasser.”

“We can talk about it later.”

Though his eyes were hard, Jason leaned back in his chair a little, showing Nasser that he would let it go for the moment. Lee was glad to see the gesture. A year ago, Jason wouldn’t have done that. Now he could ease away from a public argument. They might argue privately later, but this was leaps and bounds ahead of where they’d been when Lee met them.

“So is that everyone?” Henry asked, then glanced at Jason. “For now?”

“No,” Lee said. “I want to go.”

Everyone turned to look at her. She knew they were thinking of her breakdown in Merrin’s court, the way she’d fallen apart at the thought of being trapped in Faerie. Lee was thinking of it, too. But that was different. She’d been a captive. This time, if she went anywhere, it would be her choice.

“Lee…” Nasser spoke carefully. He never directly told her what to do the way he did with the others; he didn’t have an authority-figure card to play with her, and they both knew it. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

Maybe the book was wrong. Maybe the time distortion was much bigger than they thought, and they would come back to find that a hundred years had passed. It was a real possibility, so real that she could almost see it unfolding in her mind, so real that she shivered.

She couldn’t tell him, not now, not in front of everyone—but if that came to pass, she didn’t want to be on the wrong side of that divide. Whatever happened, she didn’t want to spend her life wondering if he would come back. She wanted to be on
his
side.

“You’ll need me to help with the spell,” Lee insisted. “And you’ll need me for the spell to get you back. Those bases have to be drawn perfectly or you’ll never get it started. Filo can sketch bases pretty well, but he’s not as precise as I am, especially not freehand.”

To her surprise, Filo said, “She’s right. A mistake in the base could kill us or trap us, and Lee’s got the eye for it.”

Touching Nasser’s arm lightly, she said, “I want to be there. You
need
me there.”
And I need you,
she added silently.

When he met her eyes, she thought he understood, even if he didn’t like it. “It’s your choice.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’ve decided.”

Chapter Twenty:

That night, as Nasser was putting away the laundry he’d done a few hours ago, the bedroom door opened. He sensed who it was, but he turned to look anyway. Jason stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

“What’s going on?” Nasser asked.

“You said we’d talk, remember?”

Nasser hesitated. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t talk to me like I’m a child,” Jason said, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. “I’m not twelve years old anymore. You don’t get to make decisions for me.”

“I know that.” He’d tried to accept it, especially during the last year, but it was so much harder than he’d thought it would be. He’d kept Jason so close for so long that he didn’t know how to let him go.

In his mind, Jason was still the little boy he’d taken care of because there was nobody else to do it, the boy who’d burned his arms and hands in a spell gone wrong. That day, Nasser had heard the screaming from the other side of the apartment.

When he burst into the workroom, both Filo and Alice were standing off to the side, silent and staring. Jason was screaming as Nasser had never heard a human scream, the sound like a knife twisting in Nasser’s insides. The table was scorched black. From Jason’s elbows to his fingers, the skin was burned bright red, strips of it hanging from his forearms. Nasser could smell burning flesh.

For an instant, when Jason looked up and recognized Nasser, his eyes had changed. He’d looked relieved, like he knew Nasser would fix it. Then the screaming continued. Jason was only twelve then, and he’d still had that simple, childlike faith in his brother. He still thought Nasser could always set things right.

The burns had healed and faded, but they were still visible, spiraling over his forearms and hands. As much as Jason pretended not to be, Nasser knew he was self-conscious of them. At the same time, the sight of the old burn scars made Nasser feel like a failure. If he had only watched more closely, if he’d taken better care, Jason would never have burned himself. Even now, he could hear Jason screaming.

“You’re my kid brother,” Nasser said. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Talk to me,” Jason said, exasperated. “Don’t make announcements in front of everyone. Talk to
me
and tell me what’s bothering you. It’s not that hard, is it?”

Nasser exhaled sharply. “Fine. I don’t want you going to Otherworld because you could be killed. I don’t want
anyone
going to Otherworld, but we don’t have much choice, and you’re the only person I can justify telling no. Not that you’ll listen, obviously, and I kind of hate that.” He rubbed at his eyes. “There. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

At that, Jason almost smiled. “It’s what I expected to hear.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jason stepped closer. “If I went, it wouldn’t be to spite you. You understand that, right?”

“I know. And I know you like to do your part, but that doesn’t mean you have to—”

“Do you think I like the idea of you being out there?” Jason asked. “Do you think that’s easy for me? Jeezus, Nasser, I wish I could justify going, but I can’t. I don’t have the same kind of power as you or Filo. I can’t do what Lee can, and music’s not worth much in a cave.”

For a moment, Nasser was silent, a little stunned. “So you’re saying…”

“I’m not going. Happy now? It makes more sense for me to stay. And you were right,” he added. “Alice needs someone. She shouldn’t be alone, so I’ll be here for her, even if I’d rather be with you.”

Nasser smiled and reached out to ruffle Jason’s hair. “You know, you probably shouldn’t want to be there just because I am. That kind of thinking will get you into all kinds of trouble.”

“You’re my big brother,” said Jason, with a shrug. “What am I supposed to do?”

For the last two days, Filo and Alice had mostly avoided each other. When one entered a room, the other left. When one sat down, the other got up. They were always heading in opposite directions. Filo felt like he couldn’t control his own movements, like he was a ball bouncing and rolling in the street, destined for a gutter. He didn’t know where he was going anymore.

The night they planned to leave for Otherworld, Filo went upstairs and stood in front of the room that Lee and Alice shared. The door was closed. For a long minute, he just stared at it. Then he turned the doorknob and tentatively pushed it open.

Alice stood by the open window, leaning her arms against the sill as she looked out. She didn’t look back at him. Maybe she didn’t have to. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready to leave?”

“I wanted to see you first.”

When she turned to him, he saw that another shadowy bruise had crawled up her neck. It wasn’t there yesterday. “I didn’t think you’d come to say goodbye.”

“You think that little of me?”

“I hoped you would come. I just wasn’t sure. We haven’t talked since…” She shook her head. “To be completely honest, I thought we were fighting, and I’ve been feeling stubborn.”

He paused. “Are we? Fighting, I mean.”

“I’m still angry with you,” she confessed. “And everyone else. I know why you’re doing it, but I hate that you are.”

“I can live with that. You can forgive me later.”

“Who’s giving the sacrifice?”

“Henry and me.” Saying the words felt strange. “I have the most magic to spare, but I’ll have to work harder to channel it, with all the water. Henry’s used to it, though. His magic will be a stabilizer. It’ll keep the flow steady.”

“When are you leaving?”

“An hour, probably, when it gets a little darker. Henry wants to be sure the troll is hunting before we leave—as sure as we can be, anyway.”

Alice nodded numbly. As she went to sit on the bed, she looked tired and pale. She motioned for him to join her, and he went without hesitation.

“I’m getting really sick of this, you know,” she said, her voice cracking. “How many times are you going to leave me behind so you can go do something stupid?”

“The last time, you had to come get me, remember?”

She smiled. “I remember. You better not make me do that again.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

Alice took one of his hands in both of hers. Her skin was cool. She was the only person who could touch him like this, the only person who always seemed to know when it was all right, even when he didn’t always know himself. He had never been afraid of her.

When she pulled his hand closer, his wooden bracelet shifted slightly. Normally, he barely noticed it. He’d worn it so long that it felt like a piece of his arm. Ever since Matt took an interest in it, though, he’d been more aware of it than ever.
Intentional or not, it is full of love.

Alice loved folding origami and sewing bizarre stuffed animals. She loved fireworks and snowstorms. She loved brewing potions and sharp knives and anything mint-flavored. He knew all that. He had never given any thought as to whether or not she loved
him
.

She’d never told him so, and he’d never wondered. Other people seemed to know how to label their relationships, how to describe them, but Filo was hopeless at that, so he left it alone. In his memory, nobody had ever told him that they loved him.

It had never mattered before. He wasn’t even sure what it meant. She was Alice, and he was Filo, and that was all. It was simple. Wasn’t it?

Alice squeezed his hand.
“You have to come back,”
she said, in Old Faerie, her voice so full that he felt like she was saying something else.
“You know that, right?”

He threaded his fingers through hers.
“I know,”
he answered, in the same language.
“And I will.”

The rowboat creaked and complained as they shoved off from the dock at Nemo Cove. Five people were jammed inside: Lee, Nasser, Filo, Clementine and Henry. Lee kept glancing over the side at the black water that flashed white in the moonlight. The oars moved steadily, dipping under the surface and rising again.

They came ashore on a rocky patch of beach, more stone than sand, a short walk from the tree line. Together, they dragged the rowboat into the cover of the shadowy evergreens, where Lee hoped the troll wouldn’t stumble across it and wonder how it got there.

“We need an open space,” Filo murmured, as they approached the trees. “A clearing big enough to prepare the circle.”

Henry nodded. Looking up into the dark branches, he began to whistle. Somewhere nearby, a bird responded. He and the bird went back and forth, until Lee heard a fluttering and looked up in time to see a small black bird perched on a branch above their heads.

When Henry whistled again, the bird chirped a reply and flapped its wings, darting to the branches of the next tree, then the next. Henry started after the bird, beckoning the rest of them with a wave of his hand.

“Well, come on,” he whispered. “But be quiet.”

Lee stepped carefully, mindful of the leaves rustling and twigs snapping beneath her shoes. The troll should be in the water by now, chasing fish and seals—but if, by some chance, it wasn’t, she didn’t want her stomping through the woods to be the reason it discovered them.

At last, they emerged from the trees into a large, round clearing. Filo turned in a slow circle, surveying the area. “It’ll do.”

“I’ll clear it,” Clementine said. She grabbed a sturdy-looking stick from the ground and walked in a large circle, dragging the end of the stick behind her to gouge a ring into the earth. When she was finished, she knelt and pressed her hand to the grass. Orange fire woke beneath her fingers, catching the grass and devouring it. The fire never spread beyond the circle.

A minute later, Clementine swept her hand in a wide arc and the flames quieted. In the circle was nothing but earth and ash, the perfect canvas for a spell base.

With a measuring tape and a makeshift compass made from string tied to a pencil, Lee began to make measurements for her own circles and sketch them lightly in the dirt. While Clementine’s circle was rough, only meant to clear a space large enough for the diagram, the circles Lee made in that space had to be precise.