46

Ash

Back in our room, I unpack the books we’ve borrowed from the library. The old leather feels rough in my hands and smells musty in a way I quite like. Now that we’re here, face-to-face in the golden firelight, uncertainty rises up to my chin and I’m not sure I can speak.

“You said there was something important to ask?”

“I did.” And now I wish I hadn’t.

“Something urgent.”

I bite my lower lip. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“At the start?” Kaylin swings the kettle over the embers and adds a dry log beneath it. Sparks rise quickly and crackle. “Hot drink?”

“Please.” I fold my legs under me on the edge of the bed, losing my nerve. How to warm up to this? I mean, I might be completely wrong. “The phantoms here…”

He gives me a half smile for encouragement.

“They stare at me.”

He continues to prepare the tea. “I’ve noticed, but is it new?”

“No. They always do. In Baiseen, ever since I came to the Sanctuary to trial, they have a kind of curiosity toward me.”

“They call non-savants with that gift ‘hotu-pele’ in Tutapa. It means the favorite one.”

I like his definition but I’m not so sure it’s a gift. “They say ‘pet’ here, but…” My face pinches. “Most savants are annoyed by it.”

“Idiots,” he says under his breath.

“I don’t know.” I put the books down and cross my arms. “But the link has expanded.”

“How so?”

“Now they talk to me as well.”

“Talk?” Kaylin looks surprised at that. “In words?”

“Sometimes, but mostly images. The pictures come into my mind with a clear meaning—at least, I think I know what they mean. The first few times, I startled, then brushed it off as my own confused ramblings…”

“Since when do you have confused ramblings?” He laughs and fills the teapot with fragrant herbs, lemongrass, apple mint, orange peel, and spices, a Tutapan version of Ochee.

I laugh back. “You’d be surprised what goes through my head. But it actually began even before we arrived at Aku.”

“With Marcus’s phantom?”

“It was a glimpse, initially. He’d catch my eye, and then it turned into a longer look and a feeling, then whole conversations.”

He whistles through his teeth. “What does Marcus make of it?”

I’m back to biting my lip. “Haven’t mentioned this to him yet.”

He thinks about that for a moment. “Then what made it so urgent, there on the library steps?”

This is the time to get to the point, tell him that I’m picking up his thoughts, maybe, but I already feel myself falter. “In the archives room, Mia’s phantom spotted us, and I told it to go away.”

“That’s why it backed off? You gave her phantom an order and it obeyed?”

“I think so, unless it was another coincidence.” I already know he doesn’t think much of coincidence, at least not philosophically.

He takes my hands and kisses my fingers. “There’s nothing to fear.”

“Nothing to fear?” I pull back. “Maybe for you, who can stare down enemies on any b’larkin day of the week, but I’m not like that. This cross communication from phantom to non-savant, it’s not possible. I’m not even trained, and I’m…”

“Ash, slow down.”

I guess this topic bothers me a lot more than I’d thought. “It doesn’t make sense,” I finish lamely.

He pours the tea, minty steam rising from our cups. “Maybe the phantoms find you attractive in an inexplicable way, and they’re all trying to understand why.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He pins me with a look that makes my face heat. “Attraction comes in many forms, for many reasons.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s nothing to fear,” he says again.

We finish our drinks in a contemplative silence. When he takes the empty cups away, I retrieve the books. “For now, let’s explore the treasures we’ve found.”

“Not sleeping tonight?”

My eyes go to the window. “Not yet.”

“Then I’ll read with you.” Kaylin returns to his place beside me and opens the tome.

“That’s it?” my inner voice asks, sounding more than a little perturbed.

Pardon?

“You’re not going to ask the burning question?”

I can hear it now. Oh Kaylin, I meant to say, as well as phantoms talking to me, I also think I hear your thoughts. Do you hear mine? Sure, I’ll tell him that straightaway. Just what he needs, a good reason to question my sanity.

“Look at this,” Kaylin points at a sketching in the book.

“Solar system?”

“Read the title.”

I squint at the fine lettering. “Amassia’s binary suns,” I whisper, and all other thoughts disappear.