CHAPTER TWENTY

Contact

“DON’T TURN AROUND,” ISABEL SAID, HER VOICE A HUSH. “BUT we’re being followed.”

April nodded in the dark, continuing to paddle steadily forward. She didn’t need to turn around anyway. “I know,” she said. Behind her in the canoe, a little groan of worry squeaked out of Joshua, but he didn’t speak.

They were on the river, and had been in the canoe for nearly two hours now. The river was narrow and winding and had already passed under a number of busy bridges—it felt very much like a secret road into the city, especially in the dark. There had been no sign of the Riven. April had been worried about Arthur, but it turned out he’d been happy to follow the canoe. He even swooped down from time to time and sat on the tip—the prow—emanating a strangely arrogant sense of pride at leading the way.

They’d only gotten out of the canoe twice, each time because of a dam across the river, forcing them to portage around it. April’s nautical vocabulary was definitely increasing, but portage, it turned out, was just a fancy word for getting out of the boat and carrying it. It was a word she was happy to learn but not eager to experience too many more times.

Even sitting in the canoe was tiring, despite the fact that Isabel was doing most of the work. April’s butt was sore, and her shoulders and back ached, and her knees felt permanently bent. She kept herself distracted by listening to the clouds of fish they passed over, sleepy and sullen, and by chatting amiably with Joshua, who sat on the midthwart, a fancy word for the seat in the middle of the canoe, and most of all by trying not to think too hard about the aching-hot call of the missing piece.

But now they were being followed.

For the last few minutes, Arthur had been agitated by something—or possibly someone?—following behind them. Floating in the air, it seemed. The bird didn’t seem particularly alarmed. Mostly confused. Curious. April hadn’t mentioned it, choosing instead to concentrate quietly on whatever it was the bird was sensing. April couldn’t see it, of course, but it was clearly nothing Arthur had ever encountered before, drifting silently like a balloon. But on at least one occasion, the object—whatever it was—had startled Arthur by alighting briefly in a tree where the raven was perched before launching after the canoe again.

Definitely not a balloon.

“What is it?” Joshua whispered.

“A spy,” Isabel said.

“It’s not Riven, though,” said April. “Is it the Wardens?”

“Doesn’t matter. We can’t have followers.” Isabel quickly pulled her oar into the boat.

“So what do we do?” Joshua asked nervously.

“Not we,” Isabel said. “Me.”

April turned back. “Are you sure you should—”

“Don’t be alarmed, now,” Isabel said, her curly red hair gleaming faintly. She grasped her harp. A moment later, there was a startled shout from behind and above—it sounded like a human voice, female—and then a loud whack of a splash in the darkness. Arthur, who’d been standing on the riverbank nearby, took wing, wanting nothing to do with the scene. “Paddle,” Isabel said. “Now.”

They paddled hard, the canoe surging ahead and leaving the sounds of splashing behind. It was minute or two before Isabel spoke again. “Okay,” she said. “Rest. I’ll steer.”

April laid her oar across her lap. Her shoulders were on fire. “You severed someone—whoever that was.”

“A tourmindala. They’re pesky little Keepers, nothing to really fret about.”

April frowned. She wasn’t fretting. Worrying, yes, but she kept her worrying on the inside. “These tourmindalas—they have Tan’ji that can let them fly?” she asked.

“Not fly. Float. They sneak and spy. A soft landing’s too good for the Riven, of course, but I don’t think that’s what we were dealing with, so I made sure there was water below her before I pinched the threads. Either way, they’ll leave us alone for now.”

Arthur dipped in and out of the darkness and landed on the prow of the boat. He chattered busily at April for a moment, still agitated by the fall and splash. “If that tourmindala was one of the Wardens, though,” April said, “I guess now they also know you’re a Tuner.”

Silence from Isabel. She was silent for so long that now April did feel little trickles of worry creeping across her skin. Isabel hadn’t thought it through. She’d given herself away. April turned around and looked at her.

Even in the dark, she could see that Isabel’s brow was knitted with concern. But Isabel quickly looked away, pretending to fuss with her bushy red hair and shrugging. “It hardly matters.”

“Or maybe they sent someone out here to make sure we’re not dangerous, and now you’ve just convinced them that we are.”

“No one got hurt. I made sure of that.”

“Maybe they’ll make the missing piece disappear again. Maybe they’ll even destroy it. I guess you didn’t think of that.”

Isabel didn’t respond, which was fine. The way April saw it, the only good response was regret, and she was pretty sure Isabel had that now. But April had her own regrets. She’d been keeping a secret that might have prevented what had just happened—a secret April could barely even share with herself, for fear of what it might mean.

The missing piece had come closer.

Soon after leaving the lagoons, she’d felt the piece on the move. Moving slowly, yes, in fits and starts, but unmistakably headed straight for them. She’d chosen to say nothing to Isabel, trying to decide whether she was horrified or thrilled. Her stomach sank at the realization that someone else actually had possession of the missing piece—the mysterious Wardens, perhaps?—when meanwhile she herself had yet to even lay eyes on it. But these . . . custodians, as she preferred to think of them—these caretakers—they knew she was coming, and had decided to head out to meet her. They were bringing the missing piece to her, a dizzying thought. The pull became as strong as gravity, if gravity was an electric wire.

Meanwhile the vine’s broken stem began to ache like a bad tooth, and she struggled to keep it under control. She sat in the canoe for an hour, measuring the collision course she was now on, trying to grab hold of the idea that this was all real.

And then the piece had suddenly stopped moving. It continued to burn hard, closer than ever, but for the past half hour it had simply been lying there all but motionless, somewhere due south of them. Waiting.

Waiting for April.

April was not good at mysteries. Her imagination was too . . . well . . . stubborn. In her mind’s eye, the Wardens had become grim and haughty—stone-faced warriors and long-haired wizards. She pictured them in dark robes and heavy buckles and mighty boots. She imagined the wet and crafty spy Isabel had severed returning to the Wardens with her story. Surely they would confer solemnly and then invoke whatever power they possessed that had made the missing piece vanish before—some kind of cloak, some mystical twisting of the veins—to make it vanish again, maybe for good this time. It felt silly and melodramatic, but hard as she tried to shake the images she conjured up, she could not envision anything else.

“Tell me about the Wardens,” April said. “I need to know who they are.”

Isabel sighed. “I suppose you’re hoping to be one of them now.”

“I can’t really say,” April said, surprised. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“They’ll want you. They always do. You’re the right age.”

That was hardly enlightening. “Why would they want me? You said they collect Tanu.”

“Yes, but they fight the Riven to do it. They recruit new Keepers, to help them.”

“Is that how you met them? They recruited you?”

Isabel steered them deftly past a submerged log. “I was too young to know what I was getting into.”

Joshua suddenly spoke. “I thought a warden was a prison guard.”

“Yes, well that’s—” Isabel began, and then started over. “It can mean different things at different times. The Wardens . . . their intentions are good. Someone had to put themselves in charge, and that’s what the Wardens did, a long time ago. But people who are in charge don’t always . . .” She trailed off again. They floated silently for half a minute. “For us, in our world, difficult choices have to be made. Impossible choices.”

“Like leaving home,” April said quietly.

“Yes.”

“I wonder how the Wardens are going to feel about you returning.”

“I don’t know. It depends on what I do.”

“Last night you said you wanted things to be set right.”

“I do. In all the ways. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see if anyone is willing to listen to me.”

“And if no one is?”

Isabel didn’t answer. That was fine—April wasn’t sure she wanted an answer. They drifted on. April felt strung as tight as a bowstring, waiting for the missing piece to vanish, but it didn’t. Her aching muscles were nothing now compared to the shrill pain of the broken stem, calling out to its lost mate. She avoided thinking about it, letting her thoughts run to it and through it, keeping it as secret as she could.

She began paddling once more, to put an end to all this want, all her pointless wondering, to get to the one answer that mattered. Isabel steered them silently through the river’s folds, beneath the stone-arched bridges where oblivious cars passed overhead, through dark tunnels of trees that never waned even as the city grew thicker around them. Miraculously—although April didn’t believe in miracles, strictly speaking—the missing piece continued to burn.

It must be nearing midnight now. Arthur had nestled himself into a raven-sized hollow just at the tip of the canoe, sleepily watching April’s paddle as she switched it from side to side. Joshua curled into a snoozing ball on the floor of the canoe, atop a sodden blanket. Sleep was nothing April could have managed now, despite her exhaustion, not with the missing piece illuminating the sky of her thoughts like a thousand buzzing suns beneath the horizon. They entered into a thickly wooded parkland. The missing piece must now be mere minutes away, she was sure of it.

“Maybe we should stop for the night,” Isabel said suddenly. “We have a long ways to go yet.”

But that was impossible, of course. That was not going to happen. “No,” said April. “Just a little while longer.” She plunged her paddle into the water and pulled back hard, willing her tired arms to pick up the pace.

“Wait,” said Isabel.

“Just a little more.”

“No. Wait. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

Isabel dug her oar deep into the water and the canoe veered sharply toward shore. April turned to face her, angry to be brought to a halt so close to the finish—but one look at Isabel’s face, and April’s anger turned to fear. Isabel looked like a wounded and cornered cat, a ball of spite and coiled rage. “You!” Isabel spat at April.

They ran aground against a bundle of tree roots. Isabel scrambled across the canoe, crawling over Joshua to yank April’s hair back and glare at the vine. Miradel pulsed faintly, green splinters of light tumbling inside.

“It’s close,” Isabel said, accusing. “The missing piece. We’re close.”

Trembling, April didn’t know how to be anything but honest. Half of her wanted to shove the woman out of the canoe. “Yes. It’s close.”

“They brought it out here. They’re waiting.”

“Yes.”

“What’s happening?” Joshua said, awake now.

Isabel paid him no mind. “How long have you known?”

“Awhile,” said April. “Since the second dam.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t your . . . I wasn’t sure what you would do. I didn’t want you to—”

“Mess it up,” Isabel finished.

“Yes.”

“If I’d known they were so close—bringing the piece with them!—I would never have severed that spy. Now who messed up?”

You did, April wanted to say, but she said nothing. She needed to keep moving. So unbearably close now.

Isabel stood, rocking the canoe queasily. Arthur fluttered into the air, complaining. “I’m getting out,” Isabel said. “I need to think.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” April said. “I had to keep going.”

As Isabel stepped nimbly ashore, Joshua said, “Where are you going? What’s happening?”

“Everything’s fine,” Isabel told him. “Wait here.”

Isabel looked back at April. Her small mouth was drawn into a soft frown. “I wasn’t ready for this,” she said, her voice a boiling brew of scared and sad and mad, and she climbed up the bank and out of sight.

“What isn’t she ready for?” Joshua asked April.

“I don’t care,” April muttered, which was only half true. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back. She just—”

High overhead, Arthur spotted something. All April’s attention collapsed into itself. Something hung in the sky over the river downstream, a distant shape April never could have seen in a million years, but Arthur’s sharp eyes had caught it at once. She couldn’t see it through his eyes, of course—though the seething vine begged her now to try—but Arthur’s reaction to it was crystal clear. He recognized the shape. A new curiosity. Calm vigilance. This was the same figure he’d seen twenty minutes earlier, back upstream.

The spy. The tourmindala.

The Wardens.

April picked up her paddle and pushed off from the shore. The current caught the canoe, spinning them, and began to take them downstream.

“What are you doing?” Joshua cried.

“We’re going. The missing piece—it’s just ahead.”

“What? But what about Isabel?”

“She’ll find us.” April didn’t know if that was true—it probably was, because Isabel seemed unstoppable—but right now she didn’t care. The missing piece was so close, so there. She had to get it. Now. April stuck her paddle in the water and tried to get the canoe pointed in the right direction, but she couldn’t control it. She had no idea how to steer this thing. The river spun them until the back became the front. The canoe scraped noisily against overhanging branches on the opposite shore and continued to spin.

April held tight. Once the prow was headed downstream again, she paddled hard. They made some hopeful progress in a straight line but then the river bent and they began to rotate wildly once more, rocking. She told herself it was okay. She couldn’t steer, but the river would take them. All she had to do was keep them clear of the banks. The missing piece was so close she could almost feel it in her hand—it was small, so small, but so important. It was everything. It was the tiniest bloom imaginable. A flower. She knew it was. A flower that heard everything.

Wonder filled her, and she turned to say so to Joshua, to tell him what she suddenly knew, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she realized the boy was sobbing. His crying hit her ears now and echoed across the black water.

“Hey,” she said dropping the paddle into the canoe and reaching for him. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“No! You don’t do that,” Joshua wailed, leaning away. “You don’t leave her.” He grabbed her oar and awkwardly tried to paddle backward. The canoe only spun more.

“She’ll find us, Joshua, I promise. But I have to go. My missing piece—it’s so close, and I have to go to it. It feels like . . . like my heart will explode out of my chest if I don’t.” Even as she explained, she hated him for making her explain, hated herself for hating him. Always keep calm, always keep still—but that was impossible now. She was quivering like a magnet, drawn by a force she couldn’t see or explain or disobey. So close now.

“I know you don’t understand,” she managed to say. “Just wait. Please wait. I’m wild right now, okay? Like Arthur. But I’m not leaving anyone.” The beacon she’d been following was so close, almost in sight now. Joshua stopped paddling and looked at her hard, no longer crying, his face unreadable in her blind need, but right this second—more than any other second she could imagine—she didn’t care.

The canoe spun. The river quickened into a sharp hook. And there on the spit of land it bent around—there. The beacon of the missing piece glowed with the heat of an invisible bonfire. Shapes moved between the trees. Humans. Big and small. Young and old. Ordinary people—not warriors, not warlocks. And there was one among them who held what April wanted. The smallest of all, standing boldly on the bank.

The canoe swept around the bend. April paddled for shore with her bare hands, panicked, sure for a moment that they would let her slide by. But then a boy about her age, shaggy haired and husky, waded into the water and clumsily caught the canoe with two hands. He dragged the prow onto dry land.

April stumbled out of the canoe, splashing. She staggered toward the small figure that held the missing piece. A girl. Dark hair. She wore a white pendant around her neck that seemed so . . . present, like nothing April had ever seen before—a cross? A bird? The girl stepped toward April, her face so open and fierce that for a moment April thought she was Isabel.

“You have it,” April told the girl stupidly. “You have it.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “I do.”

“It belongs to me. It’s mine.”

“I know.” The girl reached into her pocket, into the very heart of the shine that was the missing piece, frowning at April and furrowing her brow. She pulled it from her pocket and held out her hand, uncurling her fingers. “Take it.”

There it was. There it was at last. A tiny flower, black as pitch and bright as a star. April tried to make herself reach for it but found she couldn’t lift her arms. She was paralyzed, terrified that the girl would close her hand and yank it away.

But instead the girl thrust out her open palm even farther, her face a knot of displeasure. “Take it,” she said again.

The little flower was so beautiful, so perfect. The vine’s only bloom. After all the detours and delays, all the searching and losing and finding again, the moment was here, and she couldn’t step into it. The moment was here and it was just too—

Suddenly the girl reached out and grasped April’s wrist, yanking her arm forward. She unceremoniously dumped the precious flower into April’s palm.

“I swear to god,” the girl said, practically growling. “Do I have to do everything around here?”