EOS

Elegy Goldsmith

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Copyright © 2013, 2019 Elegy Goldsmith

All rights reserved

THIRD EDITION

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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This book is dedicated to the dark-eyed muses,

the consecrated days of August,

and the triangle in time that binds us all together.

* * *

#  Table of Contents

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"But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy."

-H.P. Lovecraft, "Celephaïs" (1922)

"You've gotta cough to get off."

-Unknown

* * *

#  Prologue

Furtive

The walls here are pale mint green — a color that's no doubt meant to be soothing, but even in the rosy light of dusk makes my skull throb. A cheery painting of a schooner at sea hangs over the bureau full of amorphous clothes, and if I tire of staring at it there's always the window, which overlooks a rural road leading to an intersection and the treeline beyond. Make no mistake, though: there's a name for places like this, where doors  lock from the outside.

Prison.

The day's last light is already fading to a bloody crimson, and soon — but not soon enough — night will fall. I look at the ever-so-raised corner of my mattress, trying to slow the wild gallop of my heartbeat to a queasy trot. There's a chance what's beneath will be discovered, but the facility's fleet of dumpy  Ratcheds like to present at least a semblance of propriety. I doubt they'd go so far as to toss my room without significant proof, and I've been careful not to give them that.

I  peer at the hunched aspens and birches across the road, grey spider veins against the denser backdrop of pines. I can't let anyone keep me here any longer, not after what Cara showed me. Not after last night.

Something shifts amid the distant, labyrinthine trunks, and I resist the urge to throw myself through the window and make a break for it. The snowbound earth will hold footprints, so I need a head start. I need to be patient.

All I can do now is wait for darkness, and hope I'm not already too late to get to him.

* * *

#  Two months earlier

* * *

#  Chapter One

Accursed

If someone were to follow Route 1 north to a few hundred miles shy of its end, they'd no doubt find themselves in one of the hundreds of sleepy, scenic towns that line the Maine coast like grains of sand. Few of these places are ever spoken  of in the Outside World (as everything beyond the Kittery/ Portsmouth border is called), but one of the more prominent constellations of villages aligns along the southern face of Penobscot Bay, encompassing the artist colony of Camden and the bygone industrial hub of Rockland.

Sandwiched between these two elder sisters is Rockport, or "the River," and it was from here I'd fled in favor of sunny, smoggy Los Angeles. At the time  I'd been sure I wasn't coming back for at least a decade, but I hadn't counted on an economic recession and its consequences to my pursuit of a Master's degree.

Now, barely three and a half years later, I was on my way home.

Worst of all, I wasn't even returning under my own power. L.A. had sucked me dry like some kind of wallet vampire, and I'd crawled away with zero dignity and barely enough money to ship back my books (via Amtrak) and my own sorry ass (via Humiliation Airlines). Mom and her longtime boyfriend Stan had greeted me at the Portland International Jetport, and now I was crammed in the back of the white Pontiac Grand Am that had been my grandmother's until dementia reduced her to a human vegetable a couple years ago.

Interstate 295 was lined with dirty vestiges of the first snow, and after Los Angeles' omnipresent glare, the dull cast of the cloud-covered sky felt like a neverending dusk. I sagged under the combined weight of my heavy jacket and my mother's shame; normally a chatty person, her silence now was nothing short of icy.

I'd known Mom wasn't happy with my decision to come home from the first time I'd mentioned it, but she didn't dare turn me away. Spending what little money she had on wrinkle-reducing creams and self-tanning lotions — and Stan — was one thing, but if she'd denied her own child she might've had to actually face the truth: that she hadn't been a contender for mother of the year for almost a decade.

I tugged my old snowboarding jacket tighter around my shoulders and watched the leafless tree skeletons and hummocks of blasted-out rock roll past. Old mental games I'd long since forgotten rose to mind, and I imagined the inward-curving branches were waving hands — or sometimes clawing fingers, depending on how violently they swayed in the wind. When Mom spoke somewhere before the Brunswick turnoff, I jumped so hard that the seatbelt cut painfully into my thigh.

"So, when do you start?"

A stranger might've thought her tone was pleasant enough, but my trained ears heard only the glassine edge of reproach.

"Saturday."

"And if it doesn't work out?"

"Then I'll go from there," I growled.

My mother didn't turn, but she threw up her hands in annoyance. "Hesper, I'm  just saying you've never been good at keeping your room clean — what makes you think you can be a school custodian?"

"Um, desperation?"

"You're going to be fine with cleaning toilets?" she snapped. "You've never cleaned a toilet in  my house."

"Yeah, but you weren't paying me twelve dollars an hour," I retorted.

My mother gave a disdainful sniff, and stared out the passenger window.

Of course I wasn't okay with being a janitor — who could be? I'd always thought the next time I walked back into that high school I'd be an English professor at a prestigious university, and now the only job I could find was at the exact opposite end of the academic totem pole.

Tourist season in Maine is May through September, but right now it was early December, and even the worst jobs were as scarce as they were in Los Angeles. With no degree and crushing student loan debt, I couldn't afford to turn up my nose at anything, even if that "anything" happened to be as a glorified floor scrubber and shit-scraper.

That being said, I would've carved out my own intestines with a spork before confiding in my mother about my insecurities. The woman was becoming a shark in her old age: even a hint of blood in the water and she'd attack with demoralizing speeches in place of jagged teeth.

~

The house was even sadder than I remembered. The  potbellied barn  drooped so badly that both ends now visibly canted inward, and the chipped vinyl siding was painted a gruesome khaki. My parents had made slow improvements after we'd moved here when I was eight and my brother Zack was nine, but after their divorce it had begun to revert to its former squalor.

I hadn't spoken to Dad in three years and Zack was away in the Army, so until I could save enough money to get my own apartment, I was going to be stuck living under the same  swaybacked roof with Mom and Stan, separated from their bedroom by only a disturbingly thin floor.

I gazed longingly across the road at slate-calm Mirror Lake, and the misty, snow-crusted spine of Ragged Mountain looming over us. While the house itself might not have ever been a pretty sight, it was worth living in for the property. My family's — well, Mom's — land extended on the far side of the road in a narrow strip that terminated at the base of Oyster River three quarters of a mile through the woods. At the very end of this spit sat a cramped A-frame, which I'd been hoping to rent from my mother.

Unfortunately for me, despite the A-frame's reliance on a tiny, archaic  woodstove for heat and lanterns for light, Mom had somehow found a guy who wanted to rent it for the winter. To the best of my knowledge no one had ever wintered over in the A-frame before, so of course now that I really needed it, my childhood refuge was unavailable.

I glared at the plume of blue-grey smoke that curled up from the woods, making a mental note to be especially  surly to the renter when we inevitably met.

My belongings wouldn't be arriving in Boston for another week, so the only bags I had to lug into the house were my backpack and a rolling carry-on. I wasn't sure whether to interpret Mom's lack of assistance as yet another sign of her displeasure, but I made sure I didn't appear rankled, in any event.

A rush of lukewarm air met my face as I stepped through the door, and the intermingled aromas of charred wood and marijuana greeted my nose. Stan wasn't a dislikable guy, and if Mom had to have a boyfriend, at least it was someone with "glaucoma."

"Come on," Mom barked.

I suddenly realized I was lingering on the threshold in a  brace-for-impact stance, and stepped firmly inside, shutting the door. "Where's Bastian?"

Stan's giant silver-and-black Maine Coon usually greeted visitors in a flurry of wet nose and whiskers as soon as they set foot in the house, but right now Bastian, alias "Little  Bastard, " was nowhere to be seen.

"Off in the woods somewhere," Mom sighed, hanging her coat in the closet. We'd only ever had indoor cats, so Mom always fretted about Bastian and the 55-mile-per-hour traffic that hummed along our road. "He's out more than he's in nowadays."

I barely had my own jacket off before Mom yanked it out of my hands, thrust a hanger under the collar and shoved it into the closet. Stan was crouched in front of the open  woodstove door, already stoking the fire and simultaneously smoking a cigarette, so I stood awkwardly, unsure of how to help as Mom moved to the fridge and started rearranging Tupperware containers.

"Need a hand?" I asked.

"Nope,"  came my mother's quick reply.

More than a little relieved to have tacit permission to escape, I grabbed my bags and headed for my old bedroom. Once inside, I shut the door quietly: Mom always got on my case for slamming around more than necessary, and I didn't want to kick the already perturbed hornet's nest any more today.

Mom had been trying to sell the house for the past five years, so most of my childhood possessions were in storage, but my bedroom still felt more comforting than the rest of the house. That was in part because it was literally warmer in my room, and a faint, intermittent  clanking sound testified that the oil was running. Even allowing for the strange absence of all my youthful belongings, it was a comfort to see the bed,  night table , and desk all in their familiar spots.

It wasn't until I sank down onto the thick, batik-patterned quilt covering my bed that I really felt the exhaustion that seemed to radiate from every joint and bone. After the thousands of miles I'd traveled in the last twelve hours, it was a tremendous effort to even drag my years-old  craptop from my backpack and power it on.

I logged onto the internet and checked my email. There was just a single new message, and my heart leapt a little to see the sender's ID.

Hesper—

By the time you get this, you'll already be home, so welcome back to the East coast! I know this isn't what you wanted, but I can't say I'm sorry we're closer together. Our door is open anytime you can make it down here (the old farts say hey, btw!).

Don't worry about the crappy job — we've all had to take em, college degree or no. I didn't plan on being a retail superhero, but it's not as bad as I'd been thinking, so I hope things go the same for you. We've all just  gotta keep hoping for the best, right?

<3

Cara

P.S. Don't worry about your mom, you'll be out of there in a month or two. Just be sure to wear your headphones to sleep O_o

Cara and I had been best friends all through middle and high school, but we hadn't seen much of each other since I moved to L.A. She and her boyfriend Jackson met as  boatbuilding apprentices, but now they lived in Jackson's grandparents' trailer in Virginia, holding down dinky day jobs just as I was about to.

As happy as I was to get her email, Cara's postscript made me cringe more than a little. My parents had divorced during my freshman year of high school, so Cara had had a front row seat to the ensuing train wreck that was the beginning of Mom's second adolescence. We'd usually spend the night at Cara's house to escape the constant parade of my mom's one-off "dates," but not long after Stan had moved in, there had been one particular night of auditory trauma that brought even the typically oblivious Zack out into the hallway with an expression of  commingled confusion and horror engraved on his features.

I shuddered, and promised myself to write Cara back once I had something even mildly non-whiney to tell her.

~

The smell of pasta sauce teased my nose, and as I yanked out one earbud I heard my stomach grumble in response. Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten since my transfer in Philly, and that was a whole lifetime ago.

My back groaned in response as I unpretzeled my legs and stretched. ADHD be damned, when I was cruising the net I could become so engrossed that I'd sit in one — often uncomfortable — position for hours without noticing any discomfort.

Not that I'd even been looking at anything interesting, either, just my usual procrastination havens. Feeling generous, at one point I'd actually checked out the hometown news website to see if anything exciting was going on, but the only big articles were about Christmas by the Sea weekend — the town's last big hurrah before winter and the real death of tourist season — and something about an impending aurora. Not a single murder, bank robbery, or car accident.

Bo-ring.

I shut my laptop and hopped off the bed. Might as well suck it up and head out to the kitchen to "be social" for a while.

The low murmur of voices sounded from the kitchen when I opened my bedroom door, and I hesitated. Eavesdropping was a useful habit I'd picked up during my parents' fighting years, and even though Mom said it was rude, I found it to be an effective recourse when someone was freezing you out.

"—just so worried about her," Mom was saying.

"She'll be all right," Stan replied.

I heard her take a couple heaving breaths — was she  crying?  — and then a skin-on-fabric sound that I hoped was Stan rubbing her shoulder reassuringly.

"I just keep thinking that I've failed her somehow. That I could've done  something differently," Mom quavered.

My intestines twisted painfully at her sobbing words. When I was a kid, Mom had been a pleasant and sorta chubby stay-at-home mother, there for Zack and me at every softball game, school play, and PTA meeting. She'd worn those comfortingly obnoxious tapered mom jeans left over from the 90's, and at this time of year would've been sporting one of several  oversized knitted sweaters, ready with an afterschool snack  and words of wisdom whenever we were having a crappy day.

Mom had dropped weight fast during the divorce, and nowadays it was uncomfortable to look at her. Her skin was golden tan year round, and the crow's feet around her eyes sparkled with traces of glitter eyeshadow. Every time I saw her I missed the person who'd been a bread-baking wizard, who had sat up with Zack and me during a hurricane playing card games until dawn.

My eyes prickled, and I blinked back a few tears. Maybe I'd been so self-absorbed in my late teens that I hadn't been able to see past Mom's physical transformation. I mean, I hadn't really been the model daughter during the past few years; while attending Los Angeles Institute of Media Arts, I'd barely remembered to call Mom every few days to let her know I wasn't shot, stabbed, or worse. Perhaps I'd been sunk so deep in my own grief during the car ride from Portland that I'd unfairly projected my disappointment onto Mom.

I felt a rush of warmth toward Mom as it suddenly occurred to me that coming home might not have been the worst thing, after all.

Then she blew her nose, and her voice rallied. "But I'm putting my foot down. I refuse to become one of those parents with a dropout kid living in the spare bedroom forever. If Hesper isn't out by the end of the month, I'm going to have to have a serious discussion with her."

Blood whooshed deafeningly through my ears, and the flood of affection for my mother turned to a cold, hollow pit in my stomach. I was such an idiot. Of course she wasn't anything but pissed that I'd been forced back here. She probably couldn't even fathom how embarrassed I was at having to rely on her charity.

I hurried down the hallway and headed for the closet,  trying to not to let my stormy mood show.

"Aren't you going to have some dinner?" Mom demanded.

I studiously looked away as I slid into my jacket. I didn't want to let her see my bloodshot eyes and attack because I was vulnerable. "Think I'll go check out Christmas by the Sea, if it's okay to take the truck."

"Sure," Mom said, and I was pleased to hear a baffled note in her voice.

With a little wave, I grabbed the keys and slipped out into the gathering night.

~

It took me fifteen minutes to find an available parking space in downtown Camden, which was ablaze with electric amber light. The businesses along Main Street all had their doors thrown wide, and hundreds of people  milled in every sidewalk and crossing lane, practically choking the entire village and slowing the equally dense traffic to a crawl. Even after I silenced the truck's grumbling engine I had to endure the stink-eye from the pilots of several boatlike sedans, all of whom had clearly been angling for the same rare spot on Chestnut Street.

A dense, clammy fog veiled the thousands of LEDs, lamp posts, and scrupulously garlanded wreaths, so much so that the air above Main Street glowed like radioactive cotton candy. Everyone was out of hibernation for the evening, it seemed. I  dreaded to think how many former classmates, teachers, and community acquaintances lurked in this crowd like uncomfortably nostalgic land mines.

Without any money to spend, I just wandered aimlessly, trying to steer clear of the thickest knots of people, or anyone who looked vaguely familiar. Outright lies could easily come back to bite you in such a small community, but the fewer familiar faces I encountered, the smaller the likelihood of having to admit the ignominious nature of my return.

I was successfully anonymous for the first hour, but as I passed the Bagel Café for the fourth time I heard someone behind me say, "Hesper? Hesper Fane?"

There was no choice but to paste on a tentative smile and turn to face my accuser. My heart sank when I saw who it was. "Hey, Robin."

Robin Foster, Cara, and I had all been in the same social sphere in high school. Robin was quiet and artistic at first, but became socially savvier as the years passed. Her dark, glossy hair was gathered in a fashionable herringbone braid, and without the heavy glasses that had characterized her face until a few years ago, Robin's eyes were as striking as an anime girl's.

Robin shifted her arm, letting the handles of her Gucci — knockoff? — bag fall into the crook of her elbow. Her lips curled up in polite surprise. "What are you  doing here?"

I bit back a grimace. Robin's tone was hardly more welcoming than my mother's. "Home for a while. You?"

"I moved back last year," she replied, bobbing her head as if in agreement. "Got my Master's a year early."

"Oh, congratulations," I said sheepishly.

Another girl and a guy bounded out from the Bagel, steaming cups of coffee in their hands. "Who'd 'ja find, Robin?" the girl chirped.

I didn't need help to identify class salutatorian Crystal Gilbert and lacrosse star James Ward. Though I was pretty sure these three hadn't been more than passing acquaintances in high school, it didn't blow my mind to find them traipsing around together now.

"Hesper was just telling me she's moved back home," Robin offered to the other two, and then looked back at me. "Are you still dating that blue-eyed hottie?"

The tendons in my temples jumped as I gritted my teeth.

During the summer after freshman year at LAIMA I'd been introduced to Brett Filipek at a party, and thanks to him the next two years of my life had been epic — and epically horrendous. Though  Brett had had a long-distance girlfriend in Canada when we met, their breakup was torturously slow, and we hadn't gotten together until six months later.

We'd been an official couple for a tempestuous year and a half in all, and only towards the end did I learn the dirty truth about Brett: just as he'd emotionally cheated on his ex-girlfriend Tabitha with me, so had he leapfrogged into the arms of chunky  poli-sci undergrad Mina while I was visiting his family in Vancouver over summer break. I'd spent the last year in self-imposed dating exile, so Robin's reminder of Brett brought a flush of shame to my already cold-ruddy cheeks.

"Guess not," Robin added with a barely-suppressed smirk.

"You found a job yet, Hesper?" James asked.

His kindly tone threw me off guard, especially given the recent reminder of Brett.

"Uh, n-no," I stammered, hoping that the air's wintry bite would explain the falter in my voice.

"Really?" Crystal asked, frowning. Her mother was 10th-grade English teacher Mrs. Gilbert; it was entirely possible — no,  more than likely, now that I  thought about it — that Crystal had heard about my new ... um, career.

"Hey, you know what? I'd better be getting along," I said quickly. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder toward the foot bridge and started backing away. "Gotta get to the, uh—"

"Telescopes?" James said helpfully.

I could have hugged him. "Yeah, over in the library amphitheatre, right?"

"They say the aurora's supposed to last, like, two weeks or something crazy, but you can't really see anything yet."

James didn't seem to notice the dirty look Robin shot him.

"Well, still, plenty to look at — Orion, Milky Way, all that jazz," I attempted lamely. "See you guys around."

Robin narrowed her eyes at me, but she only gave a little waggle of her manicured fingers and then swept off in the opposite direction.

~

In truth, I didn't really care about looking through any damn telescope, but since I couldn't be sure Robin and her entourage weren't cutting across Washington Street, I couldn't risk heading directly back to the truck. I might as well make it look good; at least that way I'd be coming from the right direction if I ran into the threesome again tonight.

Atlantic Avenue was a little quieter than the other areas of town. Now that the high school chamber singers were off caroling elsewhere, Harbor Park had been almost universally abandoned. I took a brief stroll through the illuminated ice sculptures in the park, waved to Vincent's solemn statue, and looped around toward a spot in the lee of the library's stately silhouette.

A temporary installation had been erected within the bottom tier of the stone amphitheatre: a large wooden platform that held not just one but five telescopes pointing in various directions over the harbor. The two flanking telescopes on each side were quite small and afforded interesting enough views, but I was really interested in the largest of the five, situated in the middle.

Someone had set a blue plastic chair beside the center scope for easier viewing, but that seat  was currently occupied by a slim, lanky man wearing a worn black duster, black button-down shirt and brown work pants. Dark red suspenders hung in slack loops beside his legs. A curtain of dark hair covered the man's face, but from his unfamiliar posture I was fairly sure I didn't know him.

Thank goodness for  that — my quota of patience for old acquaintances had already been exhausted for the night.

As I waited for the man to finish, I paced to and fro, trying to forget Robin's array of condescending facial expressions. First Mom's disappointment, and then that juvenile humiliation. It was so frustrating!

Other than some minor adolescent  dramamongering and my moral slip-up with Brett, I'd always been a pretty damn good person. I hadn't started smoking or drinking until college, and even then I didn't indulge to excess, never once getting in trouble with the cops, campus or otherwise. More importantly, my grades had always been solid, even occasionally stellar.

Although I'd never really been able to figure out what I was going to do after college, spending the rest of my life teaching and studying the works of Poe, Verne, Lovecraft, and other favorite "weird" writers had seemed pretty fantastic. Now all of that had collapsed, and I had no experience to fall back on but  work study and a string of summer jobs. My Bachelor's degree was probably a turnoff for most potential employers, because they were guessing I'd cut and run as soon as a better opportunity presented itself. There was nothing more pathetic than someone who lived in their parents' basement and could only hold down the most menial of employment, but that was exactly what I'd become.

I had to face it: I was a failure.

Tonight was my last night of anything resembling freedom or self-respect, and I was spending it freezing my ass off and looking at the  outside of a telescope. How fitting.

I cleared my throat, trying to hurry Duster Man along, but he didn't seem to notice. In fact, he just kept making strange, quick notations in a squat notebook in his lap without even seeming to look at the pages.

"Excuse me," I prodded.

"What?" came the quick reply.

The man's accented voice was mellifluous enough despite its curtness, but he made no effort to look up.

"Uh, other people are waiting," I mumbled, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. I'd just wanted to have a quick peek and then get the hell out of dodge, but the man's obstinate obtuseness was turning this into a major issue. I really needed a win, even one as minor as this.

"So I gathered from all your stomping about."

What the hell?

"I wasn't stomping," I flared.

Still without taking his eye from the telescope sight — or his pen from the notebook — the man slammed one booted foot on the wood riser. The telescopes visibly wobbled a little.

The man's wordless condescension was unbearable. Anger I'd been struggling to quash all day surged through me like fire.

"Fine," I snapped, "but I wouldn't be stomping around if you'd just let someone else have a go!"

" Other  people , someone  els e ," he taunted, still speaking as if to the telescope. "Why not dispense with the passive aggression and just say, 'May I please have a go?' — or, better yet, 'Get out of the way!'"

"I thought all the Massholes had gone home for the winter," I snarled.

I heard a low chuckle. "I'm from much further away than Massachusetts."

"Well, apparently it's a place that's  equally devoid of manners! "

The man jumped to his feet so abruptly that the blue plastic chair somersaulted backward and connected with my shin in a minor explosion of pain. His chin-length fall of hair flipped out of his face as he whirled to regard me.

From the dinginess of his clothes I'd expected Duster Man to look rough and perhaps carelessly stubbled, but his pale olive skin was marble-smooth in the omnipresent glow that extended over the harborside. He was younger than I'd been expecting, too, but I couldn't quite  figure whether he was in his late twenties, early thirties or somewhere in between — or much older. The elegant elongated geometry of the man's features was almost otherworldly; he had high, aristocratic cheekbones, and above them blacker-than-black eyes that burned into me like twin braziers.

Those eyes... I'd seen plenty of men that might've been more classically good-looking, but never had I encountered the sort of ferocious gaze that Duster Man was giving me right now. The force of it pinned my feet to the ground, immobilizing me where I stood.

Words of reproach stuck in my throat as we glared at each other. The man was tensed for action, his lips slightly parted, clearly ready to deliver some stinging retort to whatever I might say next. But I was too dumbstruck by the intensity of his eyes to even breathe as the man's ink-dark gaze probed me with a methodical diffidence.

"Altair," the man said suddenly. His body slightly relaxed as he spoke.

"Huh?"

"My name... it's Altair."

The pain from my injured shin permeated my brain. It wasn't anything major, maybe a bit more uncomfortable than a jammed finger, but it was also the crap cherry topping that that perfectly encapsulated this entire horrific move home.

Scalding tears stabbed at my eyes. All that jazz and a kick in the shin, too.

"Well,  Altair ," I managed, "thanks for being such a jerkwad. You really made my day."

I shoved past him and stomped back toward Main Street. I shouldn't have been upset or surprised that my countenance was stormy, that I was twenty pounds heavier than I'd been pre-breakup, that my mother thought I was a complete failure, that I was once again surrounded by people who still saw me as a petulant adolescent — or that I was behaving like a petulant adolescent again. I shouldn't even care that, starting tomorrow afternoon, I was going to be the lowest of the low in the one place where my utter lameness would be most readily apparent. All of that just had to figure.

After all, I was home.

* * *

#  Chapter Two

Loathing

The next afternoon came far too soon. Between the exhaustion of travel and the multiple toxic social encounters of the previous night I slept until noon, completely unconscious but plagued by confusing dreams in which everyone was furious with me for some offense I couldn't remember. Right before I woke up I was struck by the suspicion that I'd swallowed broken glass, and didn't stop poking at my throat until I'd yanked out a razor-edged sliver the size of a silver dollar.

I choked back to wakefulness at the sound of my alarm, but it took several hours to stop noticing a raw, scraped sensation every time I breathed.

Mom worked Saturday lunch at the diner and Stan was presumably off on one of his day-long road trips, so I had the house to myself as I showered and dressed. I'd only spoken briefly with my new boss "Bob," but he'd made no mention of a uniform, so I pulled on some comfy jeans and a violet t-shirt, and looked in the mirror.

I'd probably worn this outfit a thousand times without thinking twice, but given my deflated sense of self, the person who stared back at me today was depressingly plain. I swiped on a little eyeliner and pulled a loose black halter shirt over the tee. It wasn't perfect — after all, nothing was going to fix that childish roundness in my cheeks — but at least I felt a little more confident afterward.

I wasn't typically going to be working on weekends, but since the academic year was already under way, Bob had thought it best to give me a hands-on overview while the school was empty.

"You're already gonna have to learn on your feet," he'd crackled over long  distance .

"I'm sure it won't be a problem,"  I'd assured him.

Now I wasn't so certain. Mom was right —  tidy wasn't a characteristic anyone would ascribe to me under normal circumstances, but I was going to have to suddenly become a cleaning maven. I hadn't even been asked to interview anywhere else, so  a choice was imminent: suck it up, or just admit that, despite a promising enough childhood, I'd managed to fail at life.

The air outside the door was almost balmy thanks to the crisp sunshine, but I knew better than to leave my jacket at home. I was only working a half shift today, but the sun would already have been down for an hour by the time I got out, and I needed to run a couple of errands before going home. If I had to take a job that was only  physically  demanding, I at least owed it to myself to continue my intellectual pursuits in my free time.

The thought bolstered my flagging morale, and as I climbed in the truck the ghost of a smile tugged at my lips.

It was a ten minute drive to Eastview High, which sat in the southeast corner of the intersection of Routes 1 and 90. Years ago this site had held an elementary school, but once my class finished out its freshman year in Camden a brand spanking new high school stood waiting for us here.

The building was four stories tall, a striking contrast to the meandering ground floor hallways and trailer classrooms that had been the hallmark of the old facility in town. Thanks to the identical classroom layout on every level, the students (and more than a few faculty members) immediately started referring to Eastview as "the Hospital," and I was no exception. Like everyone else, I'd always just memorized my daily route rather than the individual locations of each classroom, so I was going to have to actually make a concerted effort to figure out how to tell each of the floors apart. Admitting that you were lost at your own job didn't seem like a great way to impress a new boss.

I parked at the front curb behind a mud-streaked minivan, and a tall, paunchy man unfolded himself from the driver's seat. Despite his close-cropped white hair, the man's face was quite boyish, and lit up with a charming smile as I, too, disembarked.

"Bob Goshen?" I hazarded.

"You must be Hesper," Bob said as we shook hands. "Glad to have you aboard."

"Glad to  be aboard," I replied, trying to sound equally energetic.

Bob pointed toward the west end of the building. "Usually you'll park over there, but if you're ever in here on a weekend, just park in front. The police take a cruise by from time to time, so it's a way of letting them know you're here."

"Okay," I agreed, already in mental-note-making mode.

We walked to the twin glass doors that guarded the front entryway, and Bob unlocked one side.

"Hang here a minute," he said, and scurried off into the gloom of the vaulted entry hall.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and waited, listening to the distant, echoing beeps as Bob turned off the alarm. About a minute later the ceiling lights blinked to life, and I squinted against the fluorescent glare.

Eastview was just as I'd remembered it, all smooth linoleum and curved chrome edging. The entryway was long, narrow, and vaulted like a cathedral; it extended through the center of the six disparate wings like the thorax of a mutant dragonfly. Catwalks intercut the uppermost third of the foyer, and as I stood directly beneath the point where they all crossed, it occurred to me that thanks to the intervening years, right now those walkways looked more like a spiderweb than ever.

The image of being trapped, about to be drained of my will to  live, was so literal that I almost chuckled.

Bob walked up beside me. "Home sweet home?"

"Sorta."

My high school experience had been middling, neither traumatic nor something I wanted to relive. I'd spent most of my study halls and free periods further down this very hall, past a stained glass wall in the library's welcoming hush.

At least there was one place I wouldn't mind revisiting.

I took a deep breath and nodded to Bob. "All right, where do I start?"

~

Four hours later, I had learned about the major chemicals used to clean Eastview, memorized which safety precautions and personal protection equipment were required for using each, and I'd even washed my first hallway with the semi-automatic floor scrubber, which wasn't ride-on but at least moved forward under its own power. Though Bob had walked me through the procedure for cleaning bathrooms, someone had mercifully left them all sparkling on Friday, so he didn't have me go over them again.

"Don't worry, you'll get familiar with toilet seats and urinal cakes soon enough," Bob chortled.

I turned away to hide my grimace.

Bathrooms aside, the actual work didn't seem like it was going to be all that bad. Lots of sweeping and mopping lay in store, along with window washing and scraping petrified gum off the undersides of chairs and desks, but since my hours only overlapped with actual school sessions by about an hour, at least I wouldn't have to contend with students.

Bob explained that there were four of us who worked the swing shift for maintenance: a former Coast Guard lieutenant named Chuck, middle-aged Roberta, Bob, and me. Each of us cleaned a single floor, and collaborated on the larger areas like the cafeteria and auditorium.

"You'll spend most of your time up here," Bob told me as we gazed down one of the third floor corridors.

Each of the building's eastern-facing wings terminated in a glass stairwell chamber overlooking the ocean. I might be sick of cleaning those windows before this time next week, but the picturesque curve of Rockport Harbor and the choppy slate ocean beyond would never get old. "At least it's got a great view."

"True. You should see the harbor in the middle of a snowstorm."

I tried not to sound startled. "Do we still come in on snow days?"

"We double up with day shift," Bob nodded, grinning. "Earlier in, earlier out for everybody."

That was going to be weird. In another job I might not have even thought about snow days, but in this particular line of work they'd be a day of double punishment: not only having to come in when the students and teachers got to stay home, but being expected to do so earlier than usual.

I was going to have to get in the habit of checking the weather forecast every night, unless I intended to go to sleep right after getting off shift at nine-thirty. Which, for the record, I did not.

As Bob and I walked back out to the front, I reflected that he was already in the running to be one of the better bosses  I'd ever had. Bob's disposition was as cheerful as his face, which was impressive considering he was also the father of three  teenage girls. He drove an hour and a half up from Brunswick so that he could support them and still let his wife pursue a career as a painter.

"Don't mind it a bit," he told me with that winning grin. "My ladies spoil me rotten."

I waited by the front for Bob to reset the alarm, and then we waved goodbye and drove off in separate directions. Bob headed straight through the intersection, south on 90, and I took the right turn toward Camden. A solid night's sleep, then surviving my first day — and having tomorrow to myself — had made me feel surprisingly energized, and even though I was still unaccustomed to Maine's early nightfall I wanted to do more tonight than just watch some reruns online.

As desperate as I was to get out from under Mom's roof permanently for both our sakes, I might have no choice but to be there for longer than either of us liked. The easiest way to ease the tension was to be out as often as possible. Even without the A-frame, so long as I had my old snowboarding clothes and some good books, I could probably find a tent in the barn and occasionally camp out in the woods. The less electricity of Mom's that I used, the better.

~

A few miles later I was back on Atlantic Avenue, parking in one of the spots across the street from the amphitheatre. I shot the five telescopes an uneasy glance, but the only people near them were a couple of families with small children.

Not that there would have been any sign of  Altair , now that I thought about it. He was probably just some asshole tourist who was off somewhere else in town — or, more likely, headed back home. Probably chastising some other poor bastard about the perils of passive aggression.

I laughed at myself, and hurried inside.

Even though much of the midcoast region had changed since last I'd lived here, the library's interior was comfortingly unchanged. I stopped in the entryway for a few moments, startled by a sort of click in my vision. For the last few days I'd felt alienated from everything that was happening around me, but suddenly I had my bearings about me. This was how I'd been hoping to feel when I arrived back home: as though I belonged. Being back here out of necessity was almost unbearable when paired with the feeling of being an outsider, so in the library's amber embrace I felt lighter, as though a steel band around my ribs had been unlocked.

I quickly made my way to the search computer and started running queries. I hadn't been able to even think much about LAIMA in the last few days, but now that my stress level had dropped, I could finally start processing what had happened.

~

At LAIMA I'd maintained a 3.8 average, significantly higher than my high school or undergrad GPAs, and I'd even received a couple of awards for my essay work. I'd been accepted to a doctoral program at Ashton University in Rhode Island, and I was right on track to becoming a scholar/ professor.

Then one day I received an email blast from the graduate program advisor about standing for graduation. Mom and Zack weren't planning on coming to L.A. anyway, so I just deleted the email. All I wanted was the diploma, and attending a commencement where no family, friends, or boyfriend would be present seemed more punishment than celebration.

When three weeks later I hadn't heard anything more about graduation procedures, I started to worry. I asked around and found out that there had been plenty of further communications in the meantime, none of which I'd received in either my personal or school accounts. It took a trip to the student services department to reveal what was wrong: instead of choosing to not stand for graduation, in not responding to the email I'd lost out on being able to graduate whatsoever.

"You'll have to reapply to your program," the advisor curtly informed me. "You have to be fully enrolled during the term of graduation."

I was so shocked I could barely form full sentences. "Can't I just take a leave of absence and then file paperwork at the end of the summer?"

The woman's dirty blonde mullet was so thickly coated with hairspray that it barely moved as she shook her head.

"But I've heard of other people doing it!" Some guy a year up from me had graduated at the end of last summer. I particularly remembered because he'd been hanging around classes for the first few weeks in the fall, sitting in on classes like a smug vulture.

"It used to be that way,  but the administration's making an effort to enforce lapsed protocols."

The woman's lack of emotion was terrifying. I racked my brain for something, anything. "There's got to be  some  way—"

"Reapply and complete another term." She turned away, shutting me out.

Over the next few days I'd tried everything to scrape together enough money to re-enroll in time for summer term. So long as I had my degree before the first day of school at Ashton, they never had to know anything was wrong ... but I had barely enough money to cover my apartment and instant noodles, let alone a grand and a half.

I applied to every job advertisement I could find, and turned in a resume everywhere I could conceivably commute. I'd always considered not having a car in Los Angeles to be a badge of pride, but now my reliance on the irregular buses and trains was crippling. Anytime a potential employer heard I was car-less, well...

After the possibility of Ashton slipped out of my fingers, my next hurdle was figuring out how I was even going to be able to stay in Los Angeles. Eventually I'd started lying to potential employers about my vehicular deficiency, but it hadn't done any good. One by one I'd been forced to sell off my possessions; the cello I'd never fully learned to play wasn't too hard to part with, but eBaying the snowboard I'd had since I was thirteen was a painful blow.  I'd promised myself that if it got to the point of having to sell my books, I'd move back home to Maine.

Six months later, I'd gotten to that point. Beyond it a little, in fact.

I'd reconciled myself to the loss of my Master's diploma, so my options were limited. Without an advanced academic pedigree, I was about as likely to get a professorship as a high school sophomore. Now I was going to have to apply to every available conference, and try to sell a book proposal once I'd established some sort of industry presence. Conference essays were thousands of words long and meticulously researched, so it was going to take a lot of dedication on my part to complete them around a full-time job — and a demoralizing one at that.

I might be having issues seeing eye to eye with my mother at the moment, but she wasn't wrong when she called me impulsive. I had no trouble starting projects, but finishing them was another matter entirely. If I had any hope of ever being taken seriously in academia without following the mainstream path, I was going to have to take it slow and steady. Burning out meant getting stuck here forever — maybe not as a janitor, but certainly not as a professor, and every day I stayed here made the possibility of achieving my dreams that much more remote.

~

A lot of the books I was looking for at the Camden Public Library weren't readily available, so I submitted inter-library loan requests for those and then hunted down the rest. I came away with Joseph Campbell's four-volume  Masks of God series and a couple books detailing television fandom that had come highly recommended by a former T.A., which was plenty to start off with. I curled up in an oversized armchair in the teen fiction section, threw my jacket over my legs, and tuned out from the world.

The library was open until eight o'clock thanks to Christmas by the Sea, so at seven fifty-eight I made my way to the front desk to get my haul checked out. I'd lost track of time, and by the time I'd looked up, everyone else was gone. Head librarian Mr. Tanaka rolled his eyes as he saw the two-foot high stack.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

He muttered something that sounded less than librarial, but flipped the top book open and slid it beneath the scanner.

Light flashed in my peripheral vision as someone pushed the front door open. Mr. Tanaka grumbled under his breath again.

It was Altair.

My heart suddenly slammed into high gear as our gazes met. He stood frozen in the entryway like a spooked panther, the door hanging on his fingertips as though he'd forgotten how to let it go. Under the avalanche of harsh gold light his face looked as impossibly angular as I remembered, the void-black eyes both terrifying and impossible to evade.

A bulging leather satchel was slung over his shoulder, and judging from the protruding right angles, I guessed it was full of books. Evil Altair was evidently a brainiac.  Fuck.

I instinctively looked away — an awkward gesture, far too late to pretend as though I'd just been giving him a casually inquisitive glance. My cheeks burned, but  I fully committed to my feigned nonchalance and didn't look up again as Altair approached.

"Just dropping off," Altair said to Mr. Tanaka in a low voice, and set three books on the counter.

I glanced at Altair out of the corner of my eye, and as if catching the  slight movement of my head, his eyes locked on mine again.

"Hello."

I flashed him a tight smile and pretended to be very interested in the rental receipt printing into Mr. Tanaka's waiting hands.

"I didn't catch your name last night," he said in that infuriatingly smooth timbre, so different from his brusque tone last night.

I frowned in mock confusion. "And you asked me for it so politely."

To my surprise, Altair gave a bark of laughter. The corners of his mouth barely moved, but mirthful crinkles emerged at the outer corners of his eyes like nested fjords.

"Fair enough."

I snatched the receipt away from Mr. Tanaka and hurried out of the library.

Given the number of books in my arms and the stickiness of the driver's-side lock, the truck handle proved a challenge. I had a horrible mental image of books flying everywhere like Gus the mouse's stack of corn kernels in  Cinderella , so rather than bringing that embarrassing moment to life right on Mr. Tanaka's doorstep — and in front of Altair — I gingerly balanced the pile on the lip of the truck bed.

I twisted the door handle with all my might, but my fingers just kept slipping off the chill metal. After a few vain attempts my wrist was sore, and I was starting to entertain the indignity of wrangling my way through the back slider window via the truck bed.

"Would you like a hand with that?" The voice buzzed close to my ear, and I jumped, yelping in alarm.

Of course it was Altair. He leaned against the driver's-side door like a willow sapling, black eyes narrowed to slits under the glaring streetlights. The lapels of Altair's duster had been secured into a collar, and I had the sudden impression that he was an extension of the darkness, a shadow in an overcoat.

I shivered, and stifled the impulse to check if Mr. Tanaka was within screaming distance.

Altair held up his hands. "I just wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. Are you all right?"

I was too dazed by his intense gaze to understand what he was saying. "Huh?"

"Your leg — I believe I unceremoniously kicked a chair into it."

"Uh, n-no, it's fine," I stammered, hating my incoherence. It was like my mind was trying to crawl away and cower from the ferocity of his gaze. "Thanks."

"I had no right to take my frustrations out on you like that," Altair said.

I wondered again whether or not I should be awed or petrified of him, and as panic rose in my chest I started casually working at the door handle again. "It's cool."

"No, it's not  cool  to let someone treat you poorly," he snapped, irked. "And for goodness' sake—"

Altair nudged me back, and with one smooth movement grabbed the lodged truck key with one hand and gave the handle a sharp rap with the other.

The truck door swung open.

"Of course. Should've known I needed a big strong man to save me," I groaned acidly.

Altair didn't seem to notice. "Strength is irrelevant. You just needed to get the handle's mechanics work for you, rather than making them your enemy. And while we're on the subject..."

He shifted back and forth for a moment, and then abruptly leaned in toward me.

"Is there any chance we could we start over? I wasn't exactly at my best last night, and I owe you an apology."

I scrutinized Altair's face. If not for the kindly,  nonthreatening tone of his voice, I would've thought his eyes were still seething — and still wasn't convinced they weren't. Apparently Altair had no idea that he came on with all the subtlety of a Mack truck.

"I guess I wasn't either," I cautiously admitted, and started transferring my books into the truck cab.

Altair brightened a little. "Good. I'm very sorry...?"

"Hesper."

"It's nice to make your acquaintance, Hesper. Again, I'm Altair." His eyes did that funny crinkle-smile thing again. Was he amused?

"Uh-huh."

Altair leaned against the edge of the open door. "Hesper, might I beg a favor of you?"

Ah,  this explained the sudden attitude adjustment: he wanted something. "Depends."

"Well, you see, I usually ride my bicycle everywhere, but the chain snapped on the way here. That's why I arrived here so near closing time," he said, and indicated a bike leaned up against a nearby lamp post. True to his word, a coil of glinting metal was slung over the handlebars.

"I know you probably think this is the sticks, but there are several nice cab companies around," I offered dryly.

Altair shrugged. "I don't have a cell phone, and I forgot my wallet at home."

My instant reaction was to wonder what sort of person didn't carry a cell phone, and then I remembered that I didn't have one on me, either. The carrier that had given me five bars everywhere in Los Angeles and Orange County didn't own so much as a single tower north of Massachusetts.

Even so, I raised my eyebrows and stared expectantly, seeing if I could bait Altair by playing dumb. His rudeness last night had pushed me over the edge, so I still felt as though I owed him a tongue-lashing, fresh start or no.

Altair sighed, and his shoulders slumped. "Look, you'd be well within your rights to tell me to go to hell, but I frankly don't want to spend half the night just getting back home. And I can promise that you'd be perfectly safe in my company."

"Oh, good," I snorted, " that's a relief."

"If anything happened to you, I'd be completely on the hook," Altair said.

"How so?"

Altair pointed to the library doors, where Mr. Tanaka made a show of sorting through his key ring. From where I stood, though, he seemed to be doing more lurking than locking. "We're being chaperoned."

I narrowed my eyes at Altair. "Mr. Tanaka being able to pick you out of a lineup helps me not at all if I'm all axe murdered and whatnot."

He patted his coat, a humorous glint in his expression. "Must have left my axe at home as well."

I wouldn't have let a conversation with a stranger get this far if I still lived in the city, but in Maine everyone had to rely on their neighbors once in a while. People helped each other out by plowing driveways, bartering everything from trade skills to garden preserves, running errands ... and occasionally giving each other rides.

In any event, I knew there was a can of bear mace stashed under the driver's seat.

I sighed, and jerked my chin toward the bike. "Toss it in the back."

~

"So, where to?" I asked as Altair clambered into the passenger seat. The diagonal space really exaggerated his lanky frame, the arachnoid aspect of his too-long limbs. It was like sitting beside a handsome Edward Gorey illustration.

"West on ninety. And thank you again," Altair added quickly.

Good, at least he wouldn't be diverting me totally out of the way. I pulled out and tuned the radio to 100.3 to cover any awkward silence.

Altair silently looked out the window as the landscape rolled past, silvery and strange in the moonlight. I was relieved to not have to grasp for small talk, but when we turned inland and still he said nothing, my chest started to tighten.

The lisping LAIMA psychologist had diagnosed me with social anxiety last year along  with ADHD , but I hadn't stayed in therapy long enough to find out very much. I kicked myself for that at times like these. Even though I knew Altair was turning on the charm for an ulterior motive, forming the words to ask him where he lived seemed utterly impossible. He was just too... strange.

As I was trying to remember the fundamentals of the English language, Altair interrupted my train of thought. "What were you so eager to see?"

"Huh?"

"Last night. The telescope. What were you looking for?"

"Nothing, I guess."

Altair's head snapped around, and I felt his eyes boring into me. "Meaning?"

Wow, he really didn't do anything halfway. "I wasn't looking  for anything. I guess I just wanted to see what was out there."

"Then why the urgency to look through that particular telescope?"

I shrugged, and peered through the blue-tinged band at the top of the windshield. The distorted stars oozed past in a slow procession, disappearing into the black event horizon of the ceiling. "To see it all a little bit closer?"

Altair took a breath to speak, but I interrupted him.

"I know that there isn't anything of the aurora to see yet, but I was having a pretty bad day. I guess I felt like if I could see the stars a little clearer, it'd give me some perspective. That I could feel some hope or something."

"Hope?" Altair sounded incredulous to the point of laughter. "From out there?"

My nerves thrilled with anger. "Why's that so stupid?" I snapped clumsily. "Hundreds of cultures derive a sense of awe from observing the night sky!"

"Oh, no, it's fine," Altair said, both dismissive and amused. "There's a sky god cult for every continent, it's perfectly human."

"Why do you have to twist my words?" I growled. "It's nothing like that."

"Like what?"

"You make it sound like I'm falling to my knees and screeching, 'Hale-Bopp! Hale-Bopp! Arise to the heavens!'"

Hush fell in the truck, and I hoped the very air in the cab wasn't reddening with my humiliated blush.

"That's oddly specific," Altair said quietly, as though he was restraining laughter.

"Y-yeah," I stammered. What the fuck had made me say all that? If this guy got under my skin any more, I'd have to start calling him Buffalo Bill. "My friend Cara and I were pretty weird kids."

"Sounds like it. You can drop me here, by the way."

I yanked the steering wheel, and the truck veered to a halt on the narrow shoulder. Between Altair's constant, overbearing intensity and my inability to speak normally around him, I was ready for this ride to be a thing of the unremembered past.

Altair popped the door open, and we squinted at each other under the dingy cab lamp. He gave me a dignified nod. "Thank you very much for rescuing me, Hesper."

Then he slipped out into the darkness.

I watched in the rearview mirror as Altair heaved his bike out of the cargo bed. Where exactly was he going — and where the fuck were we? I'd been driving without thinking for the last few minutes. The headlights only met a sea of tree trunks, nothing remotely resembling a house or structure of any kind. Still, Altair rolled his bike along the roadside to some unspecified point, where he gave a final nod and disappeared between two stately oaks.

Something about the way Altair passed out of sight struck me as familiar, and I instinctively turned my head to look at the opposite side of the street. The moon was hidden behind the last curve of a cloud, so for a few  seconds all I could see was the impression of a  largish lawn. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I saw  the series of  low, pitched roofs belonging to a swaybacked barn and a humble two-story house.

My house.

I looked back to the woods, and even though nothing had changed, I could now pick out Altair's receding figure as he made his way along the narrow trail to the A-frame.

Altair was the renter.  Altair was the reason I was stuck holed up in my childhood bedroom, enduring the quiet enmity of Mom and Stan anytime I wanted to watch TV or grab a snack.

The real world receded from my vision, replaced by the image of Altair's scarecrow frame and sleek, glossy hair that hung to his jawline. The obsidian eyes that seemed to expand and devour me when I stared into their depths. The crags that appeared by his temples while his lips remained unmoving. His slender, graceful fingers and the tender way they cradled his battered brown notebook.

I felt a tugging sensation in my stomach, as though something was pulling me toward him.

Then I pictured Altair in the A-frame — my asylum, the one place to which I'd always been able to run away. As I thought of all the nights this winter that I was bound lie awake wishing Altair had never been born (while Mom and Stan boinked ten feet overhead, no less),  the writhing in my abdomen curdled to a poisonous nausea.

Good. So long as I kept that image in my mind, I could hate Altair in peace. If I didn't...

I pulled a U-turn, parked in the driveway, and went inside without once looking back across the street.

* * *

#  Chapter Three

Mortal

Mom and Stan were already upstairs by the time I got home, so I went straight to my room. The last time Zack was home on leave he and Mom got into it over the way the light from the downstairs TV kept her awake, and while she was clearly still up right now, reading behind a closed door seemed the safer option.

For some reason, though, I couldn't dissolve into my book the way I'd done in the library less than an hour ago. My room was situated on the front left corner of the house, so I only had to nudge the thick upholstery curtains aside to look out over Mirror Lake and the shadowy hump of Ragged Mountain. The moon emerged from the thickening clouds only once every few minutes, but I imagined I could see a pale blossom of reflected light over the lake's northern end.

Whether real or imagined, that wan beacon kept drawing my attention until I eventually gave up on reading altogether. I lay down in darkness, but thoughts hummed through my brain like the insistent droning of a beehive. I blundered in and out of foggy, half-formed dreams, finding myself confronted all too often by Altair's olive-skinned visage and magnetic eyes — at which point I inevitably snapped back to a charged wakefulness. It wasn't until pearlescent dawn bled upward from the horizon that I fell into a fully unconscious slumber.

~

When I woke up on Sunday, the sun was hovering low over the western hills. That was just as well. I'd always been a night owl anyway, so unless my new job proved so sapping that I fell asleep as soon as I got home, I didn't mind staying out of Mom and Stan's way all the more.

My mother called my name from the kitchen a few minutes later, and another surge of mortification flooded my veins like fever. Regardless of how long I was here, I was going to have to pitch in with grocery shopping and cooking dinner as soon as possible. The idea of freeloading made my guts squirm.

The table was already set with three places, and the kitchen TV tuned to the news. I'd forgotten Stan was a newshound, and regardless of how things had been when Zack and I were kids — books weren't allowed at dinner time, let alone the ol' devil's lantern — as adults it eased the pressure of making polite conversation.

As did Stan's other dinnertime  habit . The white-haired man had just lit the joint when I walked into the room, and after a couple initial puffs to get it going, held it out to me. It was country weed, pretty decent bud. A few minutes later the world had a burnished gleam, and I felt like I was wrapped in a cozy quilt without being completely high.

Mom and Stan were chatting about the latest headlines, so it was easy enough for me to slide in a few comments. Nothing too chatty or too quiet, but just enough to be considered participating.

My mother was in a good mood, which meant that the Patriots must have won. Sundays at the diner were a crapshoot during wintertime, but a Pats victory invariably translated into bigger tips. She  chattered happily about her regulars, and it wasn't until plates were nearly empty that she really looked at me.

"How was the first day of work, Hesper? I didn't get a chance to ask you last night." Mom stabbed peas one by one, glancing up at me between each impalement.

"Good," I answered carefully.

"See any of your old teachers?"

I tried not to scowl in irritation. "On a Saturday?"

Mom shrugged, and then abruptly brightened. "Oh, guess who came into the diner and was asking about you?"

I could feel my molars grinding involuntarily. Mom somehow never got that former classmates asking about Zack and me was just a pleasantry, not a legitimate query.

"They weren't asking because they were actually  interested in me," I said as gently as I could.

My mother set her fork down, tilted her head to the side and gave me the furry eyeball. "Why do you and your brother always say that? Is it so crazy that people are interested in knowing what you're up to?"

"Pretty much," I shot back, trying to stifle the nervous giggles rising in my throat. It was a trait Zack and I inherited from our father, and only seemed to kick in around our mother — and one that was sure to make her go ballistic whenever it surfaced.

"So, Hesper, you're working the late shift?" Stan smoothly interrupted as my mother opened her mouth to deliver another guilt-laden retort.

"Um, yeah. One to nine-thirty."

"Just you?"

"No, there are four of us, one per floor. My boss seems pretty nice."

A brilliant spot crawled in my peripheral vision, and I looked out the front window to see someone walking up the other side of the street with a flashlight. I only needed the suggestion of a silhouette to recognize Altair.

"Hey, is that the guy who's renting the A-frame?" I asked as casually as I could manage.

Mom craned her neck and peered out into the night. "Sure looks like it. I can't imagine  anyone's out hiking at this hour."

"Is it anyone I know?"

She shook her head. "Never heard of him."

"What made you decide to rent the A-frame this year?"

Mom squinted suspiciously. "Should I have brushed up on my Spanish? Because this feels like an inquisition."

"Just curious," I lied with a small but innocent smile.

"Actually, I didn't.  He  approached  us ."

"And you just rented it to him like that?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Do you know anything about him?"

Mom sighed heavily. "Hesper, I know how attached you are to that little shack, but this is my decision, and I don't regret it. The guy said he hikes the trail every year, and that he's always liked our A-frame, just never knew who owned it. We're going to tear it down next summer, anyway — Stan wants to build something nicer for hunting, it's close enough to the deer run."

Stan, I noticed, had mysteriously drifted off somewhere. "That's not what I—"

"And to be frank," my mother railroaded, "with you coming home like this, I'm glad for the extra money."

Ah, money. Revulsion clouded my mind, and I missed the chunky, happy mom of my childhood so badly that my chest ached.

"How much are you getting for it?" I tried not to sound grudging, but Mom pulled a face anyway.

"We're not kicking him out, if that's what you mean. He paid up front, and way more than I would've ever figured for a place that doesn't even have a generator," she added with a smirk. "I even showed him how shitty that little  woodstove is, and he wanted it anyway."

"But doesn't that sound kinda..." I began skeptically, and then trailed off, trying to figure out how to phrase it right.

"Kinda what?"

"Too good to be true."

I scrutinized my mother's face, but all I saw was exhaustion and discouragement. "Hesper, at the moment, I'll take all the good I can get. And maybe you should, too."

Clearly dinner was over, so I gathered the dishes and started to carry them to the sink.

"That reminds me, we're going to have to talk about chores," Mom said to my back. "We're getting another few cords of wood delivered, and it'll need to get stacked before it snows again."

I nodded curtly. "Sure."

When I turned back, Mom had gone to chat quietly with Stan in the living room. I moved to the front window and stared out at the humble trail head, visible enough in the moonlight.

In my experience, things that seemed too good to be true often were. Take Brett: incredibly hot, incredibly brilliant, and yet the emotional scum of the earth. Take my failed attempt at higher education, which was now going to haunt me forever. Take my entire life, in fact. I'd had tons of potential as a child, but now, two and a half decades in, I'd barely made good on any of that, and it looked as though I never would.

Had Altair figured out that I was his landlord's daughter? Was that why he'd suddenly been nice to me last night? It made sense. If he knew who I was, he could guess where I lived easily enough, and had probably just played Mr. Manners long enough to get a ride.

Thank you for rescuing me , my nearly beguiled ass!

Mom might not be worried about Altair, but I was leery enough for both of us. Why would he pay so much to rent the A-frame? For the same price he was likely giving Mom, he could probably have gotten a nice place in town, maybe even with rent and utilities.

I was willing to winter over out in the woods because of the nostalgic associations, and though I'd seen hikers and snowshoers aplenty on the trail, Altair had never been among them. So why pay so much for what even its owner referred to as a "shack"? I knew I had plenty of personal reasons to distrust Altair, but I couldn't help thinking that he was paying my mother to be left alone. Why else would he drop so much money on such a secluded yet shabby place? What could he possibly be doing out there in the woods?

As with the previous night, I tried to settle down and get some reading work done, but my mind refused to cooperate. Instead I stared out the window for hours, thinking, until heavy clouds rolled in and rain started to fall, obscuring the forest from sight.

~

It was still raining when I awoke the next morning. I liked the rain, the soft pattering on the roof and windows, but at this time of year it made the air bone-chillingly raw, nothing like the warmth it brought in summer.

I'd slept fitfully, waking up every few hours terrified that I'd overslept my alarm. Each time I fell back asleep I dreamed of horrible things crawling through the woods, cyclopean tendrils warping and buckling the earth. My beloved A-frame was always at the heart of the tumult, Altair's depthless black eyes glaring at me from within.

I had plenty of time to kill before work, and I really owed Cara an email. Both of us were remarkably awful at keeping in touch, often going weeks or even months without speaking nowadays, so it wasn't as though she was sitting around fretting about my lack of response. Still, it had been really thoughtful of her to message me, and I didn't want her to think I was ungrateful.

I logged onto my email and started typing.

Hey Car—

Thanks for the sage words — and the welcome. I wish you guys were here! Not that here is so great, or really so bad, come to think of it. Obviously things'll be easier once I'm out of my mom's house, but since I can't do anything about that at the moment, I've just decided to try not to think about it. Hooray!

There's some stranger living in the A-frame, which is kinda weird. I'd been thinking I might move in before I got here, but he's there til spring at least. *Le sigh.*

About to start my first real day of work, so I should toddle along. Talk soon?

<3 back atcha,

H.

As I read back over the email I felt vaguely dissatisfied with how it sounded. I reconsidered whether or not to include the bit about Altair — logic said I was probably just being petulant because someone else had taken up residence in my proverbial treehouse — but in the end just clicked send, leaving everything as it was. If there was one person I could trust not to judge me from a two-paragraph missive, it was Cara.

I frittered away the rest of my free time with internet ramblings, and then showered and dressed quickly in jeans and a couple of layered t-shirts. My hair  dryer had stopped working, probably in protest of its cross-country voyage, so my braids were still wet as I left the house. It wasn't as bitter outside as I'd feared, though — not, fortunately, so cold as to give me ice dreadlocks before I reached the car. As a matter of fact, the sun was threatening to burst through the cloud cover, and by the time I reached Eastview the rain had stopped altogether.

~

Although I'd expected to begin cleaning the third floor as soon as I arrived, Bob escorted me down to the school basement, where a man and woman who I took to be Chuck and Roberta were already hard at work. The low-ceilinged cement underbelly was riddled with massive puddles of water — an unfortunate consequence of prolonged rain or snowmelt, Bob explained.

"Foundation wasn't set right," Chuck added from the other side of a rat's nest of pipes. He was a short, stout man, not given to chatter except when it regarded three subjects: Eastview's poor construction, how to use maintenance equipment, and his church.

Bob had Chuck  show me how to use the water vacuum, and for the next three hours I monitored the machine and emptied it outside periodically. Roberta — a quiet, middle-aged woman with a sad countenance — helped for a while, but disappeared at some point without so much as a sound.

I didn't take it personally. We all had work to do upstairs, and I  was the newbie. Besides, if everyone else was trained to keep to themselves, I had no problem whatsoever following suit.

I finished with the basement just after four-thirty, and hurried up to the third floor to get going on my other tasks. I took the elevator, and hurried out of it so tunnel-visioned with worry that I nearly stumbled into someone walking crossways down the corridor.

"Excuse me!" I cried out to the anonymous tangle of limbs.

It was my junior English teacher Mr. Tobey, a sprightly, white-haired octogenarian who used to distribute fencing foils (dull-edged, of course) for us to brandish during break periods. Mr. Tobey's glowing letter of recommendation was probably one of the biggest factors in my favor when I applied to LAIMA.

The breath caught in my chest. Then again, there wasn't anything to identify me as a custodian except the carabiner of keys hanging from the loop of my jeans, so he might just think I was visiting.

But what was the point? Mr. Tobey and all the rest of them were going to see me around often enough, so there wasn't any point in trying to soft-shoe around my degradation.

"Hesper Fane!" Mr. Tobey cried as we disengaged from one another. He clapped me on my shoulder, a heartfelt smile warming his wizened cheeks.

I tried to return the expression, but it came out as more of a grimace. "Hi, Mr. Tobey. How are you?"

Mr. Tobey waved his hand dismissively. "Fine, fine. But what are you doing back here?"

My mouth suddenly felt as dry as the Sahara. "I work here now."

My old teacher's mouth dropped open appreciatively. "So you've become a teacher. Excellent! There's no pursuit nobler than the warping of young minds."

"Actually, no," I said slowly, and gave the carabiner a  reluctant jangle . "Or not yet, anyway."

Mr. Tobey's expression devolved into confusion, so I clarified. "I'm with the maintenance department." It wasn't good enough: I had to rip off the proverbial bandage entirely. "A janitor."

"Ah," Mr. Tobey said quietly.

We chatted a little more, just the standard pleasantries, but it was obvious that Mr. Tobey's heart wasn't in it after my startling admonition. I supposed I would have felt the same in his position, so after a minute or so I made my excuses and hurried off.

Poor guy. Just another person to add to the list of those I'd let down.

~

I threw myself into the work, and as a result, nine-thirty came far earlier than I'd expected. My self-castigating thoughts caused adrenaline to flood my veins in steady intervals, a more powerful fuel than anything I'd previously experienced. If only I'd known about this kind of work ethic when I was seventeen, I might've gotten myself into more than passing contention for a softball scholarship.

I didn't want to have to paw through the refrigerator for leftovers when I got home, so I detoured to Rockland. The fast food drive-thrus were closed, but I found a tiny 24-hour gas station that buzzed with cars like a mechanized watering hole. I squeezed the truck between a couple of compacts, parked, and went inside.

The gas station's patrons were the usual suspects: long-haul truckers desperate for a caffeine boost, bored teenagers,  and the half-drunk or half-loaded. I grabbed a  microwavable cheeseburger and headed for the checkout, only to come face to face with Crystal Gilbert.

Great. As if I hadn't had enough mortification for one day...

"Hey!" Crystal bubbled. "How's it going?"

I smiled tightly. "Pretty good. You?"

"Oh, same old, just heading to Truce's for pub trivia with Robin and James," Crystal said, referencing the local bar that seemed to change names and management every few years. She snapped her fingers, and her eyes lit up. "Hey, you should come!"

I feigned disappointment, which wasn't too hard under the circumstances. "Aw, I'd love to, but I promised I'd help my mom out with some stuff at home."

Crystal frowned. "At ten at night?"

"Uh, yeah. It's the only time our schedules cross nowadays," I said with a shrug.

"That's too bad. Well, we're there every Monday, you should stop by sometime."

I agreed, and we went our separate ways. I wasn't exactly happy lying to Crystal, who'd been far nicer than I was expecting, but pub trivia wasn't up my alley, and I'd had a rough enough day as it was. I didn't need Robin's condescension to contend with, too.

My fingers and toes  tingled with renewed agitation all the way home, and I just tossed the burger into the refrigerator, my already meager appetite gone after encountering Crystal. Contrary to the exhaustion I'd been hoping to feel right now, my body was thrumming with nervous energy.

If the past few days were anything to go by, I wasn't going to get to sleep until dawn at the earliest. And that was unacceptable.

Out of habit, I moved to my bedroom window and looked out over Mirror Lake. Tiny crystal roots were sprouting from the corners of the glass, and I was pleased to see that the earlier cloudiness had given way to a perfectly clear sky glistening with knife-bright stars.

The breath rushed out of my lungs as I saw a wispy green ribbon threading over the summit of Ragged Mountain. The aurora! It was barely visible, just a suggestion of unearthly light, but I fervently wished I had a telescope or even a pair of binoculars that would afford me a closer look.

Then I realized I had something better. I padded out of my room and through the kitchen to the barn. Most of the jumble of boxes and loose skis were Stan's, tossed in here after he moved out of his ex-wife's house, but I found a small cache of my old possessions under the rickety wooden staircase. Luckily this included a sturdy pair of hiking boots and my snowboarding pants, which were thin but well-insulated enough to ward off the worst of the cold.

I went back inside and dumped everything out of my backpack, then loaded it up with a full water bottle and some granola bars scrounged from the cabinet over the stove. While it didn't feel as though my mind was focused enough for moonlit reading — and I was probably going to be more focused on looking upward, anyhow — I still packed one of the Campbell books just in case.

The dull grumble of the upstairs TV didn't give a clear assurance of whether my mother and Stan were still awake, so I scrawled a hasty note and left it on the kitchen table. Mom was a notoriously light sleeper, and I didn't want her to come downstairs in an hour or two, find me missing and spaz out. That done, I changed into my outside gear and slipped out the front door.

The crisp air hit my nose like a punch, and I was grateful for the lump of clean napkins I found stashed in my backpack's drink pocket. The road was clear of traffic, so I crossed the street and paused for a second beside the unassuming wooden plaque marking the trail head, readjusting straps and laces. Even though I had a flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, I didn't want to have to worry about that sort of thing halfway up the mountain.

To the best of my knowledge, the sign hadn't been changed in my lifetime, just touched up with paint whenever the words became illegibly chipped. I knew it from memory, but looked over it anyway as I readjusted.

"WELCOME TO THE GEORGES HIGHLAND PATH," the sign read,

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE ON PRIVATE LAND.

DOGS AND OTHER SERVICE ANIMALS ARE WELCOME, BUT OWNERS MUST CARRY OUT ANY "GIFTS" DEPOSITED ALONG THE WAY.

DO NOT STRAY FROM THE TRAIL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

THANK YOU, AND HAVE A SAFE HIKE!

The mention of animals made my lips curve in a reflexive smile. Though I couldn't attest to how often people actually picked up after their dogs — it wasn't as though there were trash cans or port-a-potties on the trail, so "carry out" was something of an icky prospect — I knew  for a fact that Bastian had been using these woods as his private crap factory for years. Even without the all-caps admonition I would've stayed on the narrow dirt track for fear of stepping  in one of Little Bastard's land mines.

This first part of the trail was emblazoned onto my brain from years of walking to and from the A-frame, so I didn't even need to look to know where I was going. Instead, I was able to keep my eyes locked on the diffuse aurora, which seemed to shimmer palpably as I watched — though maybe that was just my constantly changing angle.

The slight green glimmer gave my surroundings an unfamiliar aspect, like seeing a friend's face  in eerie light. For the first time tonight, my stomach twanged with uncertainty, but I knew I could turn back at any time. Besides, that green ribbon was just too fascinating to be seen from the confines of my house.

I had foolishly forgotten to bring a pair of gloves, so I kept my hands jammed into the jacket's fleece-lined pockets. I'd lose my balance and land painfully on time-hardened rocks and exposed roots if I was too busy ogling the sky, so I started looking down at the ground more frequently, happier to err on the side of caution than risk the alternative. There were plenty of lookout points further up the slope where I could stop and admire the view, but if I didn't keep my blood moving through the lowland stretch, I'd probably feel too cold to enjoy it properly.

The trail diverged into several pathways, and though I didn't need to take the loop that led past the A-frame to reach the incline, my feet turned that way of their own accord.

My heart picked up the pace of its thumping taboo. What was I going to say if I ran into Altair? Not some puerile rant about how much he sucked for taking the A-frame, at least — I promised myself that much.

Then ... what? And  why  was I even going this way?

Rather than answering those questions and the hundred more that raced half-formed through my brain, I focused on trudging forward. The sky was clear in the direction of the lake, and the smell of woodsmoke was faint, probably emanating from the houses out on the main road. It didn't look as though Altair was at home — and to my surprise, I felt more than a little dismayed at that realization.

My suspicions were confirmed as I emerged into the clearing where the A-frame stood guard over the lakefront. The windows were curtained but dark, so unless Altair was curled up inside, freezing in the gloom just for the fun of it, he wasn't around.

I jumped at a sudden crackling sound that emanated from the nearby underbrush. My immediate thought was that it was a stray raccoon or skunk, and I shrank back as a squat, longish thing emerged from the bushes.

It was Bastian. Air suddenly came easier to my lungs, and I allowed nervous laughter to spill out of my throat. The fuzzy but slightly matted cat lumbered forward and rubbed against my leg, his purring jowls even with my kneecap. Mom  had mentioned he'd been spending a lot of time outside lately, and it looked as though this was his new hangout.

"Traitor," I muttered, scratching his chin.

Bastian arched his back in appreciation, and after accepting another few seconds of homage, meandered off back into the forest.

Whatever my purpose in coming this way, it hadn't been accomplished, so I had to keep moving. I continued along the outbound trail, and a few minutes later the earth began to slope upward under my feet.

The sweat beaded on my skin, running down my temples and the back of my neck as I marched along the increasingly vertical path. It was exactly the symphony of sensations that my body was craving, but at the same time I quickly became aware of how out of shape I'd become. There were hiking trails aplenty in California, but after Brett and I broke up I'd shunned them because of the memories they inspired. Besides, it was dangerous for a woman to be out there alone, and I wasn't so ambitious as to get a concealed weapon permit to protect myself. Channel surfing had been workout enough for me over the past year and a half, and now I was paying the price — but all too exhilarated to do so.

~

The sound of rushing water reached my ears long before I came into view of Oyster River. Usually this high up the "river" was just a cheerful trickle in a flat, wide clay bed, but thanks to the rain of last night and this morning the waters choked their allotted space and then some. The wood-slat ford was entirely submerged beneath the rushing torrent, utterly impassable.

I stopped and considered my dilemma. The lower part of the trail was hemmed in by pines, so I wouldn't get a decent view of the sky again unless I figured out how to reach the trail's continuation beyond the stream.

If I moved quickly enough, I should be able to get across the ford without letting too much water sink into my boots — but that made the rest of the hike a squelchy prospect at best. Turning back was still an option, but from what I could see the aurora curled nicely over one of my favorite overlooks, and having already come this far I was loathe to just give up. A large rock formation stood to my right, and while it might be possible to fight my way up its sheer, slick face, I wasn't prepared to let my chilled fingers bear the weight for my entire body if I slipped.

To the left the stream was almost level for thirty feet, and then dropped in an fifteen-foot cataract into a small pool rimmed with glacial boulders. This wasn't a great option, either, but a few large, rounded stones poked through the surface of the slightly banked section in a leapfrog path. If I was very,  very careful, I could cross without getting wet and only have to scramble through five or six feet of brambles to get back on the trail.

None of these were great choices, but returning home frustrated by my own lack of daring was impossible. It would nag at me like a splinter if I caved. I didn't put much stock in old wives' tales about catching cold from wet feet, but neither could I afford to miss my second real day of work. If nothing else, I wouldn't hear the end of it from my mother.

That only left one recourse.

I pushed my way through a stand of saplings and, with a deep breath for courage, hopped onto the first rock. My boots slid a little on impact but I recovered easily, and skipped onto the second stone.

Now I was standing almost in the middle of the stream, but this next move was going to be the hardest. There was a sizeable gap between the rock on which I stood and the next — and without room for a running start, I was going to have to jump precisely to avoid falling in the drink.

I took plenty of time preparing, but as I went to push off from the rock my right boot slipped. The next thing I knew I was completely submerged in the shockingly frigid water, scrabbling to the surface to gasp for air.

The stream was far deeper here than I'd expected, and the onrushing torrent slammed into me with the force of a moving car. Without anything to cling to and nothing solid underfoot I only had a quick glimpse of the ford receding overhead, and then I was swept out into nothingness.

For a brief moment I hung in space, utterly weightless. Then I slammed into the surface of the pond below.

Water slapped one side of my face, and the stream's unceasing cascade shoved me beneath the surface. My left knee connected with a rock on the way down, and my vision exploded with blinding starbursts to accompany the agonizing pain.

I tried to struggle to the surface, but my backpack and clothing had turned to lead. My lungs screamed for oxygen. I clawed at my jacket zipper and pulled myself free, and lopsidedly frogged upward.

Just as it seemed like I was going to pass out, I broke into blessed air. I sucked in a heaving breath, and then nearly choked as I bobbed back under the surface. My limbs responded woodenly to my commands, and it took all my strength to flail my way to the edge of the pool and clamber onto dry land.

I lay on the ground, choking and heaving, until time  became eternal. My snowboarding pants were torn around my injured knee, and in the auroral light I could see dark liquid oozing quickly from the jagged wound. The air attacked me like a thousand stinging needles, but I couldn't move beyond curling up in the fetal position.

Walking — or even standing upright — was going to be impossible.

Skittery thoughts came to me, only to flit away. No one knew I was up here, and the worst of the night's cold was yet to come. Even if Mom woke up, read my note, and called emergency services, I might not be found for hours. My knee injury might not be life-threatening, but I was soaking wet, immobile, probably pre-hypothermic, and entirely alone.

I was probably going to die here.

And, strangely, I didn't mind. I couldn't feel my fingers, and I knew that the rest of my body would soon follow. In a matter of minutes, I would slip into a welcoming, oblivious sleep.

It was okay, I thought to myself as my eyelids descended and blocked out the world. There were worse ways to go. Just a little while and this would all be over.

~

I'd never believed in an afterlife, so I was surprised — and more than a little amused — to hear someone calling my name. Being dead wasn't all that bad, I reflected. I was painless, bodiless, and now someone had politely come along to explain what happened next. I was prepared.

Or so I thought. There was pressure on the thing that in life had been my face, and strange streaks of color ran through the cradling blackness.

"Hesper," someone called urgently. "Hesper, wake up!"

The abstract colors resolved into shapes, and I found myself looking up at the pine forest of Ragged Mountain and the green aurora overhead. I was still alive.

"No," I moaned through lips rigid with cold.

The disembodied voice sighed. "Thank the graces! Come on, Hesper, wake up."

I squinted at the person kneeling over me, and at first all I could see were eyes as black as polished jet.

"Altair?" I muttered.

He gave a low, relieved chuckle. "Glad to see I made an impression."

The warmth of his hands thawed the nerves in my cheeks, bringing an avalanche of pain. "Just leave me here," I begged.

"No, you're coming with me." His voice was ragged — had he been running?

"I can't move."

"Certainly you can." I cried out from the pain as Altair heaved me into a sitting position, but his voice only took on a sharper tone. "Hesper, that's enough of this nonsense. You have to stand up."

Now it was my turn to shake my head. Everything was still foggy. I just wanted to go back to sleep.

A wave of pain ripped through my body as Altair looped his arms under mine and yanked me to my feet. I sagged against him, my legs buckling and numb.

"I can't carry you down the side of a mountain," Altair grunted from beside my ear. "You're going to have to help me."

All the anger  I'd felt toward Altair when we first met came  roiling back. "I hate you," I growled.

"Hate me all you want," he snapped mercilessly, "but have the decency to stand up as you're doing it!"

I resentfully pushed against the ground, and found that I  could  stand — not on my own, but just enough so that Altair was able to reposition himself at my side, my arm slung over his shoulders.

"There, that wasn't so bad," Altair  panted . "Now let's move. We've got to get you inside."

I faded in and out of consciousness as we stumbled down Ragged Mountain like an awkward team of three-legged racers. Every time I was overtaken by the dark curtain in my vision, I heard Altair shouting in my ear until I rallied. At some point I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, but kept moving dumbly forward, following Altair's drill sergeant commands just to shut him up.

Eventually I heard the distant clunk of boots on planked wood, and the creak of a door. There was something solid behind my knees, and I sank onto it gratefully, just in time for the world to completely vanish from my grasp.

* * *

#  Chapter Four

Faint

For the first time since my inglorious return to Maine, my dreams were pleasant. Someone was cradling me more sweetly than I'd ever been held in my life, and tears of relief streamed along my temples as I realized that I was finally safe, even though I couldn't see my companion.

And then, after many years, I awoke.

~

The first thing I saw after opening my eyes was the familiar peaked wood ceiling of the A-frame. For a few dizzying moments I didn't know what I was doing here; it was uncomfortably warm, so much so that I thought it might be the height of summer.

Only after a cool draft from the window kissed my cheek did I remember that it was winter. Then the fragmented memories of my fall rushed back like shards of broken glass.

I turned my head to look at the rest of the A-frame. It had always been a haven of deck chairs, stray beach towels, and cobwebs, but now the space was almost completely barren. The kitschy,  molding postcards were gone from the walls, and every exposed surface had been scoured of a decades-old veil of dust. Spots of bright metal stood out on the woodstove — patch jobs, if I had to guess — and beyond its new front window a roaring fire devoured the husks of several logs.

A single cup and plate stood by the kitchenette sink. I was willing to bet that if I examined the cupboards I'd find them as empty as the rest of the place.

The kitchen table had been pushed into the front section of the A-frame and now abutted the window opposite the bed. The curtain was tied back, and against the bright gray backdrop of a cloudy sky I saw Altair, furiously writing in the thick brown notebook that lay open before him.

It was the first time I'd seen Altair out of his long coat, which currently hung on a hook beside the door. He was wearing a black dress shirt again, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and several buttons open below the collar, exposing his slender wrists and sharp collarbone. Altair's khaki pants were heavy duty but remarkably tailored, and dark red suspenders hung in slack loops beside each leg. The garb emphasized his lean frame, and showed off all too well what good shape his body was in.

There was no doubt about it. Altair was a pain in the ass, but he was  hot .

Seeing my movement, he looked over at me, and the outer corners of his eyes crinkled faintly. "Finally decided to wake up?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out of my throat was a rasping cough.

Altair swiftly moved to the sink, filled the cup with water and brought it to me. He sat on the side of the bed and slid one hand beneath my head, bringing the cup to my lips. I tried to push him away, but his eyes were stern.

"Drink," he told me firmly.

"I can do it myself," I insisted in a hoarse whisper.

"Have you learned nothing about the consequences of your obstinacy?" Altair muttered, but he helped me prop myself up against a protruding beam.

I slurped at the cool liquid gratefully, never taking my eyes off Altair as he pulled his chair up beside the bed. The A-frame's claustrophobia-inducing quarters made him and those breathtaking black eyes of his seem unnervingly close.

"Easy," he said gently, "don't give yourself a  stomachache ."

My muscles felt a little sore, as though I'd gotten too much sleep. "How long have I been here?"

"A day and a half."

The cup's contents nearly spilled as I lurched forward in surprise. "What?"

"Hesper, it's all right," Altair insisted as I shoved the cup at him and started to struggle out of the bed. "You weren't too badly hurt, but we decided it was best not to move you again until you were conscious."

"No, you don't understand, my mother—" I began, and then broke off.

I was wearing a lilac t-shirt and a pair of striped pajama pants. They were my clothes all right, but certainly not what I'd been wearing on Ragged Mountain.

I drew back from Altair, pulling the thick quilt up to cover my body.  Was I even wearing a bra?

"Who's  we ? What the hell is going on?" I demanded, my voice diamond-hard.

Altair sat back, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "Your mother was here. She was the one who dressed you."

"Uh-huh," I said skeptically. "And who  un dressed me?"

To my shock, Altair's cheeks flushed crimson.

"WHAT?" I shrieked. My head spun, and my stomach suddenly felt like it was full of rabid ferrets.

"Would you have preferred I let you die of hypothermia?" Altair retorted angrily, and sprang to his feet. He took a stumbling step away from the bed, and dragged a hand through his dark hair, refusing to meet my gaze. His neck was quickly becoming blotched with blush. "If I'd taken the time to go and fetch someone, you might've died. I had to get you warm as fast as possible."

I glowered at him. "I thought you said I wasn't badly hurt."

"After I got you stabilized, you weren't. I've a decent medical training."

"So you did  what exactly?" I demanded, scrambling backward as far as I could without taking my eyes off Altair.

"I-I put you in the shower," he said, stuttering a little. Was he  nervous ?

"And you took my clothes off?"

"Most of them." The flush redoubling on Altair's face as he raised his voice defensively. "Your things were practically frozen to you! You  helped me get them off."

I could see the door out of the corner of my eye. "Oh, well, that makes it entirely okay."

Altair's eyes flicked up to mine, and my fingers gripped the quilt even harder as the rabid ferrets squirmed anew. "Your mother certainly thought so."

"Well, my mother's an idiot," I snarled.

We stared at each other, rigid with fury.

"Fine!" Altair barked after a few seconds. "Next time I find you on the brink of death I'll just leave you to your own devices. Clearly you had the situation sorted."

He slammed down into the kitchen chair, picked up his pen, and started attacking the pages of his notebook with scribbled writing as though they'd mortally offended him.

I stared at him, trying to think clearly through the reflexive rage. Despite the shock of it all, I knew Altair had probably done the right thing. Everything I'd ever been taught about hypothermia said the same thing: the main priority was to get the victim warm. He'd done that, and I was probably just letting my own prudishness preclude gratitude because Altair and I didn't get along.

It was freaky that Mom had left me alone with a stranger, especially unconscious. Then again, considering how she'd changed during the past few years, maybe I shouldn't be surprised after all. To her, Altair was just a decent guy, and he probably was — more than that, even. A hero. He'd very probably saved my life.

"You didn't ... do anything to me while I was out?" I asked cautiously.

"No, I didn't  do anything ," Altair snorted. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Don't flatter  your self, creeper," I shot back without thinking.

Altair's pen hand froze, and he slowly raised his eyes to mine. Instead of the anger I was expecting, though, the corner of Altair's mouth quivered, and after another moment he burst into gales of rich, almost goofy laughter. "I'm sorry," he chuckled, "but those pastel pajamas truly complete you're  I'm so misunderstood vibe."

"Yuk it up, asshole," I muttered, glaring death at him to hide my mortification.

Suddenly my head felt like it was filled with bubbles, and the room started to tilt onto its side. From a great distance I heard the clatter of the chair falling, and then Altair's arms were around me, cradling me. It was beyond irritating how his touch seemed to make me even  more  woozy, not less.

"I think that's enough standing for right now, don't you?" he asked quietly, and helped me sit on the side of the bed. "Head between your knees."

"This is ridiculous," I mumbled, fiercely annoyed with myself as I leaned forward and stared at the floor. I'd never fainted before in my life — well, not before last night — and now it was like I'd started making a habit out of it.  Lame.

"Go easy on yourself," Altair said from somewhere above my head. He'd pulled the chair up again, and his fingers pushed firmly against the outside of my bent knees, stabilizing me. The blood surged through me as I felt the cool touch of his fingers through my thin linen pants. "You've got to let your muscles remember what they're good for."

Remembering, the injury to my knee, and I yanked up the left leg of my pajamas. Where there should have been at least a sizeable scab, I found only a thin, crooked pink line that was as smooth as the rest of my skin.

I tilted my head and looked  quizzically up at Altair.

"Not as bad as you thought?" he asked, looking as puzzled as I felt.

"I guess," I lied.

Admittedly, I hadn't been in a very clear state of mind after my fall, but I'd thought the wound was bleeding pretty heavily. Still, I couldn't exactly argue with my own skin. I let Altair help me sit back in the bed, and I felt that unwelcome disappointment again when he returned his chair to the table.

My gaze fell on a small stack of books on the floor beside his chair, and one drew my particular attention. It was a compilation of H.P. Lovecraft's dream cycle stories, probably the exact copy that I'd checked out of the library so often when I was in high school.

"Lovecraft fan?" I asked, irrationally pleased.

"Fast becoming one," Altair said, and I caught the ghost of a smile on his lips again. He slid the volume out of the pile and held it out to me. "Would you care to read it?"

"I mean, I have before, but yeah, thanks," I replied, again hyperconscious of his stunning pitch-black eyes and the elegant bone structure of his face. What was wrong with my brain? Under Altair's enervating scrutiny, words suddenly became inordinately difficult to produce.

I took the Lovecraft book from him, opened it and sat back, surreptitiously watching over the edge of the pages as he returned to his writing.

"Oh!" I blurted out a few seconds later.

Altair was on his feet again in an instant, his eyes blazing with worry. "What's wrong?"

"No, nothing," I said, mildly abashed. "It's just ... I guess I never said thank you. So, uh, thanks."

He relaxed back into his chair, neck coloring faintly. "You're more than welcome, Hesper."

"One more thing?" I asked tentatively. The question was embarrassing, but I had to know.

"I'll do my best."

"If I was, uh, here," I pointed to the bed, "then where did you sleep?"

Altair patted the leg of his chair.

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say, so I repeated, "Thanks."

We both turned our attention to our respective books, and though I didn't look at him again for fear he'd catch me staring, I thought I felt his black eyes piercing me for the rest of the afternoon.

~

By dusk I felt better enough to try walking, and I changed into the jeans and sweater that my mom left for me. I'd increasingly  begun to suspect that she'd left me at the A-frame for some purpose — hoping that this dramatic event would bring us together, that we'd start dating, and I'd move in with Altair, maybe? After all, who could've been blind to Altair's stunning, almost alien beauty?

No, that was just my own imagination running wild. My life was way too mundane and pathetic for something so outlandish, and I didn't want fate to smack me in the tear ducts as it had done with Brett. Whatever karmic consequence accompanied Altair was bound to be a doozy, and I needed none of it. I had enough shit to deal with already.

Altair insisted on walking me back to the house, and probably would've made me drape my arm over his shoulders again if I hadn't drawn the line. I was still shaky, but I had willpower enough to stay upright for three quarters of a mile of mostly flat trail.

Bastian appeared out of nowhere and strutted ahead of us, his forearm-thick tail held up like a flagpole.

"Is he yours?" Altair asked. Between his dark jacket and wan features, he was nearly indiscernible in the growing night.

I shook my head. "Sometimes he thinks he owns  me , though."

"I know the feeling," Altair chuckled.

"Yeah, Mom said he was hanging out with you a lot lately."

"It's the woodstove," Altair clarified. "He just comes in, roasts his belly, and then takes off with no regard for my feelings whatsoever."

I giggled. "And thus do you divine why we call him Little Bastard."

"Insensitive perhaps," Altair chuckled, "but  little he is not."

Our laughter echoed eerily through the bare trees, and we fell awkwardly silent for the rest of the way. I longed to ask Altair about himself, but after everything that had happened, talking about where he'd gone to high school or what he liked to do in his free time seemed utterly superficial.

Besides, I consoled myself, it wasn't as though Altair was trying to keep up a conversation, either.

~

The front door came all too soon. Mom's Grand Am was gone from the driveway, and a note on the front door said she'd gone out for groceries a half hour ago.

"Guess she'll be back soon," I said, shuffling to disguise that my legs had started shaking from the exertion of the walk.

"I'll wait," Altair offered.

I shook my head, smiling a little to reassure him. "Thanks, you've done more than enough already."

He squinted, measuring me. Then, as if deciding I was telling the truth, he curtly nodded. "All right."

With the hint of a smile, Altair retreated back into the forest, looking back a few times before he was lost to sight. I went inside and sat by the woodstove, unsuccessfully trying to convince my knees to stop trembling.

Damn Altair — er, exhaustion.

~

When my mother got home a few minutes later she drove me to the hospital, and I struggled to tune out her incessant lecturing. Mom knew I had neither health insurance nor money to pay hospital bills, so her worry wasn't likely motivated by altruism.

"This is why you always bring a cell phone," she said, slapping the steering wheel to emphasize each word.

We didn't mention Altair. I couldn't figure out how to broach talking about anything to do with him, and apparently Mom felt the same way, so the subject was left untouched.

Luckily it was a slow night at the emergency room, and a  bored doctor gave me a thorough going-over. "Perfectly healthy," he declared after a suitable amount of poking and prodding. "Make sure you're getting enough fluids and don't overexert yourself for the next few days."

~

Mom had called the school to let Bob know that I wouldn't be at work until the following Monday, so he greeted me Thursday afternoon with an astonished  expression . "You don't have to be here if you're not up to it, kiddo," he said, his tremendous caterpillar eyebrows knitting together in concern.

"I feel great," I reassured him honestly. "Anyway, I've left you guys in enough of a lurch as it is."

After a bit more convincing, Bob let me go and I headed up to the third floor. Though I was still unfamiliar with my tasks, I got through far more than I'd done Monday. My first day here I'd been completely bent out of shape over running into people I knew, but today everything was in a better perspective.

My brush with my own mortality had reminded me how quickly things could change. Just when  I'd started thinking that I was trapped by the consequences of my own poor decisions, life had reminded me that things were inevitably transient.

Okay, so I'd gotten myself into this situation — but did I really care about what other people thought I was worth? I didn't have to be defined by this job unless I  chose to be. I needed money for the time being, and I could change jobs when many more positions opened up at the beginning of tourist season in the spring. By this time next year my embarrassment would be a distant, laughable memory.

My stomach lurched as I considered whether Altair would still be here next year. According to my  mother, he was only paid up through the spring — but was that limitation his or hers? Sure, he might be leaving of his own volition, but maybe it was because he knew about Mom and Stan's plans to demolish the A-frame. Maybe he would just move to a different place in the area...

I  chided myself for thinking about Altair. It was all too easy to mistake gratitude for familiarity. I still knew nothing substantial about him except that he had exceptional — and, alternately, exceptionally  annoying  — timing, and that if I didn't want to piss off Lady Karma, I'd leave him alone.

~

Eight hours flew past like one, and before I knew  it, Bob was shepherding me back out through Eastview's front doors. "Good job, Hesper," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "Little better on the bathrooms next time, though, okay?"

I nodded, and headed to the truck, feeling mildly shamed by Bob's comment but still squirming at the remembrance of all those toilet bowls.

~

The aurora seemed more pronounced tonight, but since the weather had taken a warmer turn, the sky was partly obscured by low-hanging fog that seemed to erupt out of the asphalt and the marshes.

I wished that I hadn't screwed up so badly on my hike the other night. It would have been far more worth it to climb Ragged Mountain tonight to get above this mire, especially since Oyster River was doubtless back down to its regular height by now.

As I drove home, I couldn't get the idea of trying to hike the Georges Highland Path out of my head. Again I found myself with more energy than I  knew what to do with, almost as though my work shift had charged me up rather than the other way around.

I'd made a stupid decision last time in trying to essentially jump across the river, but what was the point of allowing myself to be intimidated by a trail I'd traversed since I was eight? Mom had said I should've taken cell phone, so she surely couldn't object if I brought her spare, a waterproof, shockproof model used by the military. This time I'd be more cautious, too, and I'd turn back at the least sign of trouble.

At home I changed my shirt, donned boots and repacked my backpack, which Altair had rescued from the river, and grabbed Mom's spare cell off its cradle on my way out the door. It wasn't anywhere near as cold outside as it had been on Monday, so my jeans would be sufficient in place of my snowboarding pants, which seemed to have disappeared thanks either to Mom or Altair — and were probably ruined, come to think of it.

I made sure to twist the front  doorknob slowly so that it wouldn't squeak, and headed off into the night. The gentle breeze off Mirror Lake was invigorating, and as I walked I whistled — poorly — a song I'd heard on the radio as I was driving home.

As I passed through the crossroads between several branches of the trail, a voice from the trees startled me so badly that I squeaked in alarm.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Altair melted out of the shadows, glaring disapprovingly at me.

I took a couple steadying breaths, steadying my twice-disrupted heartbeat as he approached. What the hell was he doing here? "Thanks for scaring the crap out of me."

He arched one eyebrow. "I'd rather  that than have you going up the mountain by yourself again. Which, judging from your attire, is the plan."

I pointed up at where the aurora wavered like a windswept flag. "You can't tell me you don't want a closer look."

"No, I absolutely do," Altair agreed, his voice maddeningly pleasant. "But  I  can recognize the difference between tenacity and suicidal obstinacy."

I narrowed my eyes at him and moved toward the upward trail, but he slipped around me and stood blocking my way forward, ready to rebuff me if I tried to duck around him.

"Seriously?" I complained.

"Consider my sake," Altair answered lightly. "Haven't you given me enough trouble for one week?"

I sighed. "Look, I can't go home. I'm just so  awake , and everything in town is closed by now."

Altair cocked his head to the side, evaluating me. "Tell you what ... I have something set up at the A-frame that you might find interesting."

He held out his hand.  Whoa .

Suddenly, climbing Ragged Mountain didn't seem quite so pressing. Trying to keep a straight face to disguise the fluttering in my abdomen, I slid my hand into his, fervently kicking myself. Of course it had to  be last time and not tonight that I'd forgotten to wear gloves.

~

Altair didn't release my hand until we got back to the A-frame. At first my heart sank, but then he pointed to the building's apex, where a small platform now stood bearing a thin telescope.

"No way!" I gasped.

His eyes crinkled. "I take it, then, that you won't be telling my landlord about this, er ... improvement?"

I held up my hand in a solemn oath. "I know nothing."

Altair led me over to the base of an emergency ladder that led up to the slender platform. He smirked mischievously. "Do I have to worry that you'll fall off this, too?"

"Har har," I said, and started climbing, trying not to think about what my ass looked like from below.

The platform was fairly narrow and ran along the roof's axis, giving us enough room to take turns at the telescope while still affording the other a comfortable perch. Fortunately the wind was blowing off the lake in such a way as to push the trickle of woodsmoke onshore, away from the scope and its miniature terrace.

"Ladies first," Altair said, and we gingerly edged around each other.

I'd been expecting the telescope to have the same sort of magnification as the ones at the library amphitheatre: less powerful due to its smaller length and diameter. Instead, my right eye was instantly dazzled by the brilliance of the stars, each of which looked as large as my fist.

"Whoa!"

Altair leaned around me and peered at an array of knobs on the telescope's side. "Oh, sorry."

He twiddle a couple  of the dials , and the view of the stars became abruptly further away. Now they were only as big as thumbtacks.

"Hey!" I protested.

"I don't have the correct filters in it yet, and I don't want you hurting your eyes."

Altair's breath skimmed my cheek, sending goosebumps rippling over my skin. I hadn't realized he was sitting so close behind me, and I shivered a little, feeling colder when he leaned away again.

I looked closely at the telescope itself. At first glance I'd thought the barrel was metal, but closer examination revealed it to be wood, maybe some type of bamboo. Narrow grooves ran along its length like ant trails in a log of wood. The telescope's various segments were interspersed with metal slots that reminded me of floppy disk drives from my earliest childhood.

The soldering on one of these apertures caught my eye. It was expertly done but slightly uneven throughout, as though forged by human hands rather than a precision machine.

I turned my head so that I could see Altair out of the corner of my eye. "Is this what you do? You make telescopes?"

Altair chuckled. "I'm an astronomer, actually. A picky one, which is why I make my own tools."

I looked back through the eyepiece for a few more seconds, but the ornate, archaic engravings on the telescope body kept drawing my attention. "You're amazingly talented."

His voice sounded tight. "Come now, you're embarrassing me."

"Sorry," I said. An awkward silence fell between us, and I heard a faint but persistent clicking noise. "Are your teeth chattering?"

Altair's clenched his jaw and grinned sheepishly, and the sound stopped. "Care to adjourn to a warmer location for a few minutes?"

I smirked. "Need a hand climbing down, Princess Buttercup? We can't have you falling off."

"Oh, ha ha," Altair mock-scowled as he swung his legs onto the ladder and started to descend. "As I said before, at least  I can recognize my limitations."

"Wuss," I said cheerfully, and climbed down after him.

The embers were only smoldering in the A-frame  woodstove , but Altair tweaked the damper and in moments a row of flames snarled to life. He loaded a few more dry logs into its iron belly, and we each huddled up, knees to our chests to preserve our scant body heat.

Altair's black eyes danced with reflected light, hypnotizing me.

"So that's what you're doing all the way out here," I mumbled at length, trying to hide my own intermittent shivering, which was more from nervousness than cold. Altair tilted his head, and I elucidated: "You need to be away from town because all that light pollution obscures the night sky."

"A point to the lady," he said, his temples creasing with amusement.

"I was angry at you when I found out you were my mother's tenant," I said carefully. Maybe — probably — I shouldn't even be bringing this up, but there was something about Altair that demanded my honesty. The words were compelled out of me. "I hadn't thought anyone would be here, and I wanted to rent it myself. But you've taken better care of it than I ever would've done."

Altair flashed a quick, square-toothed grin. "Again, you flatter me."

"So, do you live in the area permanently, or are you just here until spring?" I asked after another few seconds. My voice was nowhere near as nonchalant as I'd hoped.

"Until spring," Altair said, frowning as he looked away into the woodstove's fiery belly. "Perhaps a bit sooner, depending. I may have to leave quite suddenly."

My heart sank hearing how easily his words came. "Oh."

"And you?"

His question was utterly unexpected, and I stammered for a few moments. "No, I guess. This — well, it's kinda it for me. At least for now."

Altair shrugged. "I find that things always seem to change when you're least expecting it."

"Yeah," I agreed with a shy smile, "that's what I've started trying to tell myself."

Altair's eyes flicked up to meet mine, but only for half a heartbeat. Even so, I felt a jolt of nervous energy run through my body like lightning striking the ocean.

"Speaking of changes, I'm disappointed you aren't planning on altering your hiking habits," he said.

"I brought a cell phone this time!" I protested.

Altair snorted derisively. "And if you were unconscious, would your phone would spontaneously dial for help?"

"I  was planning on being more careful than I was the other night," I argued, blushing fiercely with embarrassment. "I'm not a complete idiot."

Altair stared off into the fire again, and I wasn't sure if he was going to say anything else. It gave me the chance to admire how the firelight played along his elongated features, and the way that his aristocratic fingers laced over the knee of his khakis.

"Unfortunately, Hesper," Altair muttered, "that's not good enough."

I blinked at him in confusion.

" Planning  on being more careful?" He shook his head disapprovingly. "Life doesn't adhere to human plans very well."

"Look,  Dad , I can only watch my own back so much," I offered. "I'm doing the best I can."

Altair watched me carefully, and I had to stifle the urge to run my hands self-consciously through my hair. "I agree. That's why from now on, if you go hiking on your own, I'm going to be right there with you."

I had to make a conscious effort to not let my mouth drop open in shock. "Huh?"

He frowned. "Hesper, it's never intelligent to go out in the wilderness by yourself. If you've hiked as much as you say, you should know that."

"No, I  do ," I said, twisting my fingers painfully against each other. His sudden condescension made me want to wriggle away and hide... and I barely even knew him! "Look, I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, but—"

Altair's knuckles whitened on his knee. "No excuses. From now on—"

"From now on  what ?" I snapped. "Are you going to stand in my way every single time I want to go hiking by myself?"

Altair's eyes glinted with exasperation, and he shoved a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "If that's what it takes!"

I swung my backpack over my shoulders and headed for the door. He was hot, but that overbearingly protective attitude was uncalled for. "Then you'd better be prepared to spend a lot of time lurking in the woods, because I don't need a babysitter!"

Altair jumped to his feet and strode after me. "Why can't you see that I'm trying to  help you?" he demanded.

I struggled with the doorknob, but it had jammed. Damn thing probably hadn't been changed or even oiled since this A-frame was built a half-century ago. "I didn't ask for your help. I didn't ask for you to show up here at all!"

"You're so—" Altair broke off, huffing angrily as he searched for words.

"So what ?"

I swung around to face Altair, but he was again closer than I'd expected. His ink-dark eyes bored into me with tangible force. Thoughts jumbled in my head as I inhaled his intoxicating scent, a mixture of rich loam and old paper.

Altair practically had me backed up against the front wall, but he still pressed forward until our bodies were nearly touching. My heart thudded in my chest and my eyelids fluttered as he leaned in...

...and then abruptly jerked backward.

Brisk air gushed past my cheek, and as Altair stepped backward I saw that he'd been reaching around me to help  yank the front door open.

"—intrusive," he finished.

Oh, I am the  biggest idiot...

"Go home, Hesper," Altair said coldly.

I stumbled out into the night. The door slammed shut behind me.

As Altair's footsteps traced a route back across the floor of the A-frame I stood frozen in my tracks, trying to process everything that had just happened. I was too confused to know whether to be furious, touched, outraged, or frustrated. My whole body trembled with the exertion of holding in so many conflicting emotions.

My initial reaction was to turn around and give Altair a piece of my admittedly mixed-up mind, but I stopped as I saw something off to the side of the A-frame. It was a knotted trash bag, and on top of it lay the familiar pattern of my snowboarding pants.

"Thank fuck," I muttered, and snatched them up. At first glance they didn't seem too badly damaged. They were ripped out in one knee, but the tear should be fixable for use in the short term.

Then the wind kicked up, clearing away a nebula of fog that drifted off the lake. Under the brighter moonlight I saw that that the fabric on the front left shin was stiff with a stain that had faded to rust brown.

Dried blood. Way too much to be from an injury that had completely healed in two days.

I yanked up the leg of my jeans and examined at the mark on my knee, but there was next to nothing to see beyond the faint pink squiggle, and even that seemed to be fading fast. This was impossible. Either I was grossly  miscalculating the amount of blood on the snowboarding pants, or I'd healed miraculously quickly — and thoroughly.

I bent my knee, testing. Not even a trace of that agony I'd felt a few nights ago remained.

I stared at the A-frame again, debating whether or not to go back and demand answers from Altair... but what could he have possibly said that would've reconciled the apparent injury and the aftermath? Blood  did spread in water, and my snowboarding pants had been soaked at the time, so I was probably just making a mountain out of a molehill — again.

And I'd spectacularly embarrassed myself in front of Altair.  Again .

Why had I made such a big, dramatic deal over his probably altruistic offer to be my hiking buddy — and why was I now creating more excuses to find Altair untrustworthy? Was it just because I'd learned to fundamentally question my own gut instinct, and now I had myself trapped in paranoid mental loops? Maybe the last year of social pariahdom had made me neurotic rather than granting me the perspective I'd been trying to find.

As I trudged back home, I gloomily concluded that Altair must think I was flat-out bonkers... and judging from this latest bit of evidence, maybe he was right.

* * *

#  Chapter Five

Antiquarian

I woke up the next morning with a headache as bad as a hangover, even though I hadn't had a single drop of alcohol last night. After the ...  whatever that had been with Altair, I went home and fell straight to sleep, and though I didn't fully reawaken until my alarm sounded, I tossed and turned, my nightmares haunted by Altair's icy glare.

I bolted upright in bed, far more lucid than was fair for someone who felt like they hadn't gotten any sleep. This recent bout of jet lag was lingering far longer than I was used to, and I was sick of the simultaneous sensation of being exhausted yet restless, battered and stretched into submission like the saltwater taffy that was so common in local tourist shops.

For once I didn't just hop in and out of the shower for fear of my mother's humorless "hour shower" non-jokes, but let the hot water pound on my face until my brow and closed eyelids were numb. All the excitement and upheaval of the last week were making me utterly overwrought, and I felt like the quiet and composed Hesper Fane that I'd constructed in college was eroding, crowded out under the pressure of this hyper-dramatic, emotionally unstable person that I'd been before I left Maine.

"What's happening to me?" I muttered.

The steaming water gave no reply.

I tossed some of my work clothes in the laundry and pulled on sweatpants, a T-shirt and my LAIMA hoodie as I waited. It was irritating having to wear the same three or four things until I picked up my boxes from Boston — which, I realized with a lurch of excitement, I could do tomorrow.

Finally! Everything I owned would easily fit in the bed of the pickup, but just having those few extra choices made me feel more like a human being and less like a quarter-century-old sponge that lived in her childhood bedroom. I laughed out loud, imagining my mother walking into my room one day to find that a three-foot-tall Hesper limpet had taken up residence and glued itself to the flat navy carpet.

I pulled up the bottom of the hoodie and examined my abdomen in the wall mirror. No doubt about it: between my convalescence and all the walking I was doing at Eastview, I'd lost some weight. Hit with a sudden kinetic impulse, I started doing some stretches I remembered from gymnastics. I wasn't as flexible as I'd once been but I was far stronger than I remembered, enough so to do a handstand on my forearms, bending my knees so that the tips of my toes dipped into my vision. The world twitched with my pulse, but I relaxed my stomach muscles, pushed off with my hands, and flipped easily to my feet.

"Huh," I breathed.

If only I'd had that same sort of control Monday night! Boot slip aside, I hadn't been sure I could make that jump, but given this show of strength I was confident that I would've. I chewed my lip in frustration. But for that small accident, I probably would've reached the overlook, turned around and come home safely, and Altair—

I'd avoided thinking of Altair so far today, and even the fleeting mental suggestion of him now made my stomach convulse. I couldn't even put my finger on why, and that bothered me more than anything. It disturbed me even more than the thought of the opiate draw of his eyes, or the revulsion they'd directed toward me last night when he kicked me out. Just thinking about Altair's stern expression made me feel like ice chips were skittering unpleasantly along my spine.

For just a moment I'd thought those strong, slender arms were going to enfold me, that I'd run my fingers over his olive-grey skin, feel the softness of his dark hair and the solid warmth of his body ... so was this writhing in my gut to think of it now because I loathed Altair, or just the opposite?

~

My mother unwittingly provided me with some sound advice. She was sitting at the kitchen table reading a magazine as I hurried through for some breakfast, and raised her eyebrows dubiously as I passed. "What's the matter now?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, the words garbled around a mouthful of orange juice.

She pointed at my face. "That wrinkle between your eyebrows is going to turn into a canyon if you don't figure out whatever's on your mind." Then she folded up her newspaper and retreated to the living room, evidently eager to give me space to sort out my issues alone.

As much as I hated to admit it to myself, Mom was right. Altair was coming to dominate my thoughts, and I couldn't keep running myself ragged, vacillating between whether I hated him or wanted him to do unspeakable things to me on every surface of the A-frame.

I laughed bitterly at myself. I barely even knew this guy, but for lack of anything more interesting in the vicinity, my brain was determined to make Altair either the object of my affections or my nemesis. How perfectly juvenile.

~

For the entire ride to Eastview and most of the first half of my shift, I tried to convince myself that whenever Altair looked at me it  didn't feel like every nerve in my body was sizzling with acid. It was no use, though. Every time I looked out the window and saw anything that  resembled a dark-haired man wearing a long black coat, my heart rate skyrocketed and I found myself struggling for breath.

"Goddamn it," I muttered, but my cheeks hurt from imprisoning a foolish grin.

Altair was intelligent, articulate, and focused. He had  rescued  me like some sort of Disney prince by way of Tim Burton and the Discovery Channel. And then last night he'd held my hand — through my glove, but still — and showed me his telescope, clearly a very personal thing.

Cara would have a thing or two to say about  that , I was sure.

My final four hours of work were spent sunk in sordid fantasies of what Altair might've done to me while I was asleep at the A-frame. Inevitably these fantasies included me waking up and contributing to the situation, which only fed back into my frustration with how things had ended between us last night.

Years of city living had disrupted my ability to judge people's intentions clearly. I'd practically jumped at the chance to push Altair away. From what I could see he wasn't anything like cool, self-centered Brett, so why was I treating him like they were cut from the same cloth? I might not be a supermodel, but surely I couldn't be so hideous as to be universally unappealing — so there was a decent possibility that at least the hand-holding wasn't a completely platonic gesture.

My stomach shivered in nervousness, and then sank as though it had filled with cold lead. Maybe Altair  had taken an interest in me, but last night's confrontation must have destroyed that. I thought again of the cold malice in his eyes as he'd thrown me out. That wasn't the face of an enamored man.

~

Bob came to check on me at eight-thirty. I showed him what I'd done, pleased with how much progress I thought I'd made, but he politely pointed out all sorts of things that I'd missed or done incorrectly. I'd completely forgotten to readjust the screw-in feet of the tables, which became uneven throughout the course of the day as students used them — as chairs, I was guessing from the wide extent of the problem. In the end Bob brought Chuck in to help us finish before closing, and though the portly older man grumbled the entire time I was grateful for his help.

~

I was becoming accustomed to walking out of work feeling like an  overwound pocket watch, so as I headed to the truck I was already thinking of what I could do differently tonight to ensure a sound night's sleep. I didn't want to drive the six hours round trip that it would take to get my stuff from Boston tomorrow without at least feeling mildly rested, and if I went straight home, that seemed an unlikely prospect at best.

"Doing anything fun tonight?" Roberta asked shyly as we walked out of Eastview. Seeing my baffled expression, she added, "It's Friday."

"Oh." This had been such a crazy week that I hadn't even thought about marking the weekend with any of the typical solutions. "I guess not. You?"

Roberta shook her head. "Home and a good book."

"Sounds nice," I said wistfully. Home... books... Altair.  Ugh.

She smiled kindly through the exhausted lines on her face. "You're too young to be so boring."

We said goodnight and went to our respective vehicles, but I sat in the cab, turning Roberta's words over in my mind before I started the ignition. I wasn't going to get paid until next Friday, but my mother had already agreed to lend me a hundred dollars for the trip to Boston; surely I could afford to spend the last ten in my bank account on a couple of drinks. There wasn't much to do in the midcoast on a Friday night in the winter, so  Truce's was bound to be busy enough that I could block out my own mental chatter for a while with off-key karaoke and a hundred drunken conversations.

I started the truck, gave the engine a minute to warm up, and then headed out to Camden.

~

Bay View Street was lined with parked cars. It was a good sign as far as my hopes for distraction went, so I didn't mind looping back around to park on Chestnut Street. I followed a tipsy couple down the hill and onto the bar's upper deck, which was plastered with signs admonishing against group singing for the sake of people living in the surrounding buildings. They didn't seem particularly effective, though, because I had to fight my way through a tipsy, yodeling crowd just to get to the back door.

After the bouncer cleared me, I headed to the bathroom. With just a little careful smudging the eyeliner I'd put on this morning became decently smoky, and I pulled the elastics out of my hair. Thank goodness I'd decided to braid the upper part this morning, because now my shoulder length, coppery-brown locks were wavy as though I'd crimped them just for the occasion.

Someone banged on the door, and a female voice giggled raucously, "Hurry the fuck up in there!"

"Out in a minute!" I called, and stood back to admire my handiwork. Not bad for someone who'd spent the last eight hours oozing sweat.

"I gotta piss!" the voice from the other side of the door complained.

I unlatched the door, and the girl directly outside stumbled inside, nearly taking us both down in the process. I reeled against the wall, holding up a giggling mess of disheveled hair, fishnets, and glam rocker combat boots.

"Oops, sorry!" the girl tittered.

"It's okay," I said, trying to help my new companion stand upright. She ricocheted off me and made a beeline for the toilet.

"Close the door," the girl slurred, fumbling with the clasp of her skirt.

I moved to slip outside, but the girl looked up, smiling hugely as she recognized me. " Hey , Hesper!"

It was Robin Foster.

"Uh, hey, Robin," I replied, trying to force my way out of the bathroom. The narrow corridor outside was crammed full of people, and I couldn't open the door wide enough to slip out.

"No, no, come back in!" Robin said, hiking her skirt.

I had no choice but to  yank the door shut and stand facing the corner of the bathroom. I mentally kicked myself for not going straight home. Weren't angst and insomnia preferable to this kind of traumatic interaction? Under different circumstances — most of them involving me being considerably less sober, and Robin actually being my friend — this might have been normal enough. As it was, all that was missing from this picture was the dunce cap on my head.

"How  are you?" Robin chirruped from over my shoulder.

I tried not to focus on the sound of Robin making like the mighty Penobscot River. "I'm, uh, good. How are you?"

"Pissing," she giggled, and abruptly sobered. "Hey, I am so sorry about the other night. I was in total bitch mode. Sobriety, y'know?"

"It's cool," I offered quickly. I just wanted to get out of here, but from the sound of it, Robin had a bladder the size of an Olympic swimming pool. It just. Kept. Going.

"No, no, you should totally hang out with us tonight!"

"Actually, I was just about to head out." I tried to sound tired, but Robin didn't seem to notice.

"Lemme buy you a drink," she pleaded, finally coming to the end of her one-woman hydrothon.

My fingers crept toward the door latch. "It's fine, Robin—"

"I insist!"

I heard Robin struggling with her skirt, and then I was practically clotheslined as she threw her arms around my neck.

"We're going to have so much fun!" she squealed in my ear.

Robin was too tipsy to notice my polite attempts to  recuse myself, so I finally just gave up and allowed her to haul me around to the bar. I'd just been meaning to get a beer or two, so I balked again when Robin held out a shot of something that smelled like tequila.

"Just a beer for me. I have to drive."

Her eyes went wide. "Not for another few hours — the bar doesn't close until one."

"But—"

In response, Robin roughly prodded my lips with the shot glass. "Come on, lightweight! Alcohol solutions to drinking problems!"

In that, at least, Robin had a good point. "All right, Green Fairy, you win." I took the glass and downed the shot, grimacing as it seared the back of my throat.

"We'll make a drinker out of you yet," Robin cheered, and two more shots appeared in front of us. "Another!"

I shook my head, but Robin started slapping her palms on the bar, chanting, "Drink! Drink! Drink!" until she had everyone around joining in.

I smiled at the tickling sensation of the alcohol as it hit my stomach. "One more, but after this I'm definitely switching to beer."

"Drink!" was her only reply.

The alcohol hit the same spot in my throat, and I coughed a little as everyone  within arm's reach leaned in to smack me on the back. What a weird world this was, I reflected as a cool rush passed through my legs. Robin Foster and Hesper Fane drinking at a bar...

"Time for karaoke!" Robin trilled.

~

Public singing wasn't a strong suit of mine, but between the shots and Robin's ability to catalyze the inebriated hordes, I participated in two halfway decent Billy Joel covers and an attempt at Nikki Minaj, which, while melodically inaccurate, did lead to some hilarious dance moves from a pair of hefty guys that made the public humiliation entirely worthwhile.

Crystal, James, and a few other people I knew from high school showed up in the hour after I arrived, and despite the night's odd beginning, I actually started having a good time. Everyone was too busy reminiscing about high school and focusing on the immediate circumstance to ask about what I was doing for work — probably just as eager to hide their own day jobs. Between the drinks and a pretty great joint someone produced, I was able to forget all about my own problems for a while and enjoy the moment.

Somewhere along the line James and I started talking about band, which we'd both participated in for all four years of high school. I'd only been the seventh flute chair, but James had been first trumpet.

"Remember the senior rafting trip?" he asked.

I snorted with laughter. "I remember you rescuing Kyle Davis from getting smashed against a cliff wall. Very impressive." I gave him a round of golf claps, and he bowed in his seat.

"Actually, I was thinking of the dance the night before," James said, plucking at the frayed label on his beer bottle.

"Oh yeah." I tried to dredge the memory up through layers of mental exhaustion and short-term impairment. I'd forgotten we camped out up there overnight, and that the chaperones had thrown a lame, impromptu "dance" that resulted in no dancing whatsoever. " That was fun."

James frowned slightly. "I thought so."

"Really?"

"Well..." He trailed off and pressed his lips together, gazing at me peculiarly.

Did I have something on my face? "I think you're holding out on me," I teased.

"There was this dress you were wearing," James said carefully. "It was blue, with little white flowers on it?"

I blinked in surprise. "Wow, your memory is way better than mine."

"Maybe," he laughed, and looked away as if embarrassed.

Before he could say anything else — or I could change the subject — Crystal and Robin tangoed over. Robin dipped Crystal so low that the smaller girl started shrieking with nervous laughter. "Get me a refill, babe?" Robin asked me, nodding to her languishing gin and tonic glass.

"Sure thing." I eagerly hopped up and hurried to the bar, relieved to be free of the increasingly awkward conversation with James.

A lot of people had cleared out of Truce's, but I still had to wait for the curvy bartender to get through a couple other drink orders before she could attend to Robin's. My head was still buzzing, but I was starting to sober up, which was definitely for the best. My only options for alternate transportation home were to call Mom, a cab, or catch a ride with anyone who might happen to be going my way — and none of those were ideal.

The bartender handed Robin's refilled drink to me, and as I turned to head back across the cramped dance floor to our table, a familiar silhouette caught my attention.

I had to stare for a few seconds to make sure it really was Altair sitting at the opposite arm of the bar. Only once I was sure it was him did I realize that he was staring back at me, his eyes luminous amid the glow of intersecting neon lights.

Oh shit! The damn alcohol was still dulling my reflexes.

I looked away and hurried back to my table, trying to focus on anything that wasn't in Altair's direction. He hadn't made any sort of greeting, so was I being rude in not saying hello? I felt like I owed him an apology after last night, but I was way too chickenshit to actually walk up to him.

Besides, I felt weird talking to him with alcohol on my breath. Altair didn't seem like a guy who would approve of public tipsiness.

Robin sidled up again and sipped through her cocktail straw. "Know that guy? He's staring pretty hardcore."

I let my eyes to flick over to Altair. Sure enough, he was still looking at me, his pale face devoid of expression. "Uh, yeah, he's my mom's renter."

Robin's mouth dropped open in a dramatic  O . "Wait, he lives with you? Damn, girl!" She started swaying to and fro to the pulsing beat, and I wondered if she realized that she was gazing at Altair as intently as he was watching me. "Cock in the henhouse!"

"He lives in our cabin out in the woods, actually." I looked down at the table, trying to interest myself in the plethora of stickers that had been plastered here over the years. Then, suddenly, Robin spun around.

"He's coming over!" she hissed at me.

I peered over Robin's shoulder and saw that she was right. Altair had abandoned his position at the bar and was heading straight toward our table. He'd taken off his usual jacket, and I saw that he was wearing a grey button-down shirt and vest that accentuated his ludicrously flat abs.

The room was so small that I only had a few seconds to surreptitiously straighten my clothes and hair before Altair loomed over me. He had to be at least six feet tall, but right now he looked even taller. Intellectually I knew that everything in the bar was still moving and sounding as it had before, but it felt like Altair and I had stepped into a bubble apart from everything else.

"Would you—"

Altair broke off, tilting his head. The fast-paced song had given way to an electronica ballad, and those smile creases materialized at the corners of his eyes. "I was going to ask if we might speak ... though maybe it's more appropriate if I ask you for a dance?"

Altair held out his hand, and one of his eyebrows quirked mischievously.

I knew that if I tried to speak only incomprehensible squeaks were bound to come out, so I just slid my hand into his. Altair's skin was warm and dry, as unyielding as a seashell. His long fingers enfolded mine, and he gently pulled me to my feet, tossing his jacket over a chair.

The breath rushed out of my lungs as Altair snaked his  arm around the small of my back and firmly cradled me against the length of his body. Over the years I'd become well acquainted with the zombie-arms slow dance and  its dirtier counterpart, but no one had ever danced with me like this. Altair's every movement was confident, assured. His feet nudged mine, guiding them.

It was  sexy .

Altair inclined his head so that our cheeks touched. My lips were millimeters from brushing his neck, and every breath I took was full of his scent of wilderness, oxidized metal, and ancient library stacks.

He cupped my right hand against his chest, and I fought the impulse to slide it to his neck and caress his skin with my fingertips. After all, this was just a dance ...  right?

But even as I thought the words, I knew they weren't true. Not for me, anyway.

"I didn't mean to offend you last night," Altair murmured. His head was bent so that his jaw caressed my cheek as he spoke. "I just don't like thinking about what might happen to you hiking alone at night. What might've happened if I hadn't been there."

I struggled to control my voice, and to my relief it came out low and husky. "How  did you find me?"

"Your jacket washed downstream. I spotted it caught in some roots and just followed the river upward."

Hopefully Altair couldn't feel that my heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird's. "I think I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have overreacted like that last night."

One of Altair's shoulders rose and fell in a lopsided shrug. "You like your privacy. I understand that completely."

"That's not it," I said. "I'm just — I'm not really a trusting person. And it's not fair for me to treat you like that's your fault."

Altair laughed quietly, his breath tickling my neck. "Hesper, we aren't exactly becoming acquainted in a conventional fashion, are we?"

I loved the way Altair spoke, the archaic flavor to his language. It made it hard to think up decent responses, though.

"No," I agreed, "I guess not."

"What would you say to remedying that state of affairs?" Altair asked.

My heart lurched with sickening excitement. "What do you mean?"

Altair's arm flexed around my waist, pulling me closer — if such a thing was possible. He was so solid against the length of my body that I felt like I was moments away from melting into him completely. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Nothing," I said. Then I remembered: "Wait, no. I'm going to Boston. I have to pick up my things from Amtrak." The words were feeble, and I desperately hoped he didn't think I was trying to make an excuse.

"I could come with you," Altair suggested evenly.

It was a good thing he was holding me so tightly, because his words probably otherwise would've made me trip over myself. "You have nothing better to do than spend six hours in a truck driving to Boston and back?"

"Astronomers tend to be somewhat less useful during daylight hours," Altair said, and I thought I could hear him smirking. "Besides, I'm sure you could use an extra set of hands. I'm quite skilled at lifting things." As if to prove his point, he leaned back, easily swinging me into the air for a few seconds.

"Okay, okay!" I giggled as Altair set me back down. "Point taken."

"What time should we leave?"

I was so caught up in how he said the word  we that it took me a second to remember how to count. "Nine?"

"Nine o'clock it is."

I almost moaned with disappointment as Altair gently released me and took a respectful step back. He looked over my shoulder to where Robin and James were openly staring, and frowned darkly. "Do you have a safe way home?"

"I'll be sober before I get behind the wheel," I said, lost in his dark gaze. Those cheekbones could've cut impact diamonds. "Are you biking?"

"I am. You're certain you'll be  all right ?"

"Are you offering me a ride home on your handlebars?" I teased.

Altair's face split in a rare, dazzling smile. "Perhaps someday. If you're lucky."

His warm fingers lifted mine, and he brushed his lips along the back of my knuckles. Then he turned, and a few moments later he grabbed his duster and was gone.

I heard the scuffling of combat boots, and suddenly Robin was standing beside me, reeking of juniper. "What was  that about?"

It was hard to swallow the excited lump in my throat. "Oh, he's just going to help me with an errand tomorrow."

"Uh-huh," Robin said, making several lewd gestures. "He snaking your drains? Helping unclog some pipes?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not like that."

"Right," Robin said, unconvinced, and swanned off back to the table.

I followed her and greedily sucked down some of my club soda, pulverizing the solid slivers of ice until my tongue was numb.

"Friend of yours?" James asked. He sounded sullen.

Robin tittered, staring across the bar again. "Hey, what's Emilia doing?"

The bartender was leaning around the corner to the back hall as if talking to someone out of sight. Then she shook her head, leaned back, and beckoned to me.

I hurried over. "Yeah?"

The bartender tossed her head toward the rear exit. "You know that guy?"

"Sure," I said. "Why?"

She held out something that was about the size of a sticky note. "This his? Someone back there said he dropped it on his way out."

I looked at the object. It was a square metal frame that held a piece of a green glass. The frame was engraved with the sort of markings I'd seen on Altair's telescope; it had to be his, probably one of the polarizing filters he'd mentioned. "I'll make sure that he gets it."

The bartender shrugged, and handed it to me.

I took the filter back to the table and slipped into my jacket pocket before anyone could get a closer look.

"What's that?" James asked.

"Oh, nothing," I said, and pulled my jacket on.

Robin and Crystal were across the room doing what looked like a melodramatic interpretation of Altair and me for the DJ's amusement. My chest was bubbling over with too much happiness for me to mind.

"Hey, I think I'm going to hit the road," I said to James. "Tell Robin I said thanks? I'll catch you guys again soon."

James nodded, and I threaded my way to the Bay View Street door. It was past midnight, and downtown Camden was empty except for people coming to and from the bar. I walked alone by the waterfront, happy for the peace and quiet while my head stopped spinning. The briny, sticky smell of the pilings was a familiar comfort, but I still longed for Altair's earthy smell.

Had that all really just happened? What the hell did it  mean ? Delight strummed through me like I was a guitar: the answer to my first question was a clear yes, and I could just as easily guess the answer to the second.

Still, I couldn't shake my superstitious distrust of good things, and forced myself to admit the possibility that maybe that was just how Altair danced with every girl. I shouldn't get my hopes up too soon — after all, it had only been the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, the way he'd kissed my hand...

Okay, so maybe I wasn't jumping the gun.

After much mental deliberation, I decided to focus tonight on the memories of what had just transpired, and leave everything else to be resolved tomorrow. The aurora looked paler tonight, upstaged by the silver knives of moonlight driving into the harbor. I hoped the green ribbon wasn't fading altogether. I wanted any excuse available to see Altair in his element, and this aurora had to be something that was right up his alley.

I sat by the Megunticook River Falls until I was sure I was completely sober. Even in wintertime the cops were strict on drunk drivers, and I had too much to look forward to tomorrow to screw it up with a DUI tonight.

* * *

#  Chapter Six

Daemoniac

The next morning I awoke a half hour earlier than I really needed in order to let my hair dry and apply some light makeup. Altair didn't strike me as the kind of guy who liked high maintenance girls, and I certainly wasn't one, but I didn't exactly want him to see me at my worst.

I touched my cheek, and thought of how Altair's skin had felt against mine: warm and firm, and even smoother than  I'd been expecting . Goosebumps thrilled along my arms as I thought of being that close to him again.

My meager supply of clothes was woefully underprepared for this sort of situation. I didn't have anything remotely flattering to wear, so I borrowed one of my mother's shirts from a stack of clean laundry, a pale pink waffle-knit shirt with long sleeves and a pattern of tiny yellow flowers. Best of all, the sweetheart neckline was on the right side of sexy, yet wouldn't pose too much of a problem when it came to bending over to heft cardboard boxes.

I forced myself to wait until precisely eight fifty-five to head outside. The entire lawn was carpeted in silver frost, and I didn't want to be a shivering mess by the time Altair arrived.

To my surprise, Altair was already leaning up against the truck, waiting. His brow was furrowed, and his dark eyes were more intense than ever. Seeing me he jumped a little, and hurried over.

This couldn't be good.

"I'm so sorry, Hesper, but I don't think I'll be able to accompany you today after all," Altair told me breathlessly.

I camouflaged my crushing disappointment as nonchalance. "No worries. Anything I can help with?"

He laughed humorlessly. "Not unless you can locate things that seem to have inexplicably sprouted legs and wandered off."

I wasn't entirely sure what Altair's sense of humor was like, but I decided to take a risk. "Well, I  can do a bit of magic, if that's helpful."

Altair's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Really."

"Check it out." I cupped his temples and stared into his eyes, which were no less intense than usual than usual in the bright morning light. "The thing you're looking for — it's small. Metal, at least in part. And ... square?"

Altair's eyes widened as he stared. "How do you—"

I reached in my jacket pocket and pulled out the filter, which I'd wrapped in a bandanna for safekeeping. "Abracadabra."

Altair's face went slack with relief. For a second I thought he was going to hug me, but the moment passed all too quickly. "Where did you find it?"

"You dropped it at the bar," I said, handing it to him.

Altair cradled the filter in caged fingers like it was a delicate insect, and his countenance clouded again. "And you knew it was mine?"

"Someone saw you drop it," I said, "and it looks like your telescope, so I was assuming it was a filter or something."

Altair pressed his lips into a bloodless line, and slipped the filter into a pocket of his coat. "Ah."

We stood staring at each other, and my mind whirled. Was that all he had to say?  Ah? The excitement that had been building in my chest all morning started to collapse like a punctured tire.

"So, I'd better head out," I said stiffly.

Altair's frown deepened. "Would you rather I not go with you?"

"I mean, if you've got things to do, it's no problem," I mumbled. "I'd been planning on going by myself anyway, remember."

He patted his pocket. "Now that this is back where it belongs, my day belongs to you. If you'll still have me, that is."

I couldn't restrain a shy grin as the pleasant turmoil came thundering back to my abdomen.  If you'll still have me? Freaking  yes , please! "Cool."

"Cool indeed." Altair's eyes crinkled. He rocked back on his heels, and looked pointedly at the truck. "Shall we?"

"Yep, let's off," I agreed. If I stared at him any longer, my legs were going to be so jittery that I wouldn't be able to drive.

~

"So, who is Hesper Fane?" Altair asked as we hummed along Route 90 toward Warren.

I snuck a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. We'd both shed our jackets before getting in the truck, and Altair's tight black T-shirt was making it really difficult to keep my eyes on the road. The clothing seemed somehow wrong on him, but it showed off his broad shoulders and lean, muscular arms. A loop of dark ink extended from beneath the edge of his left sleeve, daring me to slide the fabric back and see how far the tattoo extended.

My skin tingled as I thought of how, less than twelve hours ago, those arms had been around me.

I thought carefully before I answered Altair's question. He was so familiar — not in the sense of me knowing him, but as though he knew me. It was more than a little disconcerting. "Hesper Fane is a human pickle chip."

Altair chuckled despite himself. It was an easy, unguarded sound. "That's ridiculous."

"Don't ask me an absurd question if you don't want an absurd answer," I said, grinning.

"How was my question absurd?"

"You basically asked me to give you a summary of who I am!" I spluttered. "I'd like to see  you do that."

Altair raised his eyebrows impishly. "Watch and learn, Fane."

" Do enlighten me—" I stopped. "You've never actually told me your last name, otherwise I could do the whole British boarding school call-you-by-your-last-name thing, too."

Altair didn't answer immediately, and when I turned my head to look at him, I saw he was watching me with studious amusement. "It's Lerner."

"Altair Lerner?"

"You don't like it?" he asked.

A lock of hair had escaped my ponytail and was tickling my nose. I brushed it out of the way. "No, I think it's a fine name. I just think you're stalling."

Altair sat forward in agitation. "A  fine name?"

"There you go again!"

I heard a snort of laughter; Altair was yanking my chain. "My name is Altair Lerner. I'm an astronomer. I have an elder sister named Carys and a younger brother named Roderick." He leaned toward me, and I gripped the steering wheel harder as Altair's scent hit me. "See? That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

I glared sideways at him. "Hmm, okay, then my name is Hesper Fane, and I have a brother Zack."

"What do you do?" Altair asked.

Oh,  fuck . I'd been so busy mooning over Altair that I hadn't realized this question would inevitably come up. My cheeks seared with what must have been a radioactive blush. "Uh, I'm a custodian. I work at Eastview — the school at ninety and one."

Altair waved his hand dismissively. "You're young, and that's just what you do for a living at the moment. What are you passionate about?"

It was as though he hadn't even noticed I'd said the word  custodian, and the way the word  passionate sounded from his sensuous lips... I gulped, trying to keep my shit together. "Literature?"

"Mr. Lovecraft I know. Who else?"

My head was buzzing with so much adrenaline that I could hardly think straight. "Poe and Verne, of course. Then there's Algernon Blackwood, Machen, Kipling, Borges, and modern writers like Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Neal Stephenson ... that sort of thing."

"I'm quite partial to Edward Plunkett's  The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap — do you know it?" Altair asked.

"'This unfortunate missing of the morning train even occurred again, and the firm spoke to him severely about it,'" I quoted. "'But he had his consolation. Were not Aráthrion and  Argun Zeerith and all the level coasts of Oora his?'"

Altair's eyes crinkled pleasantly.

"Eh, sometimes I feel like that's my life lately," I grumbled.

"How so?" Altair asked. He was doing that super-intense staring thing again. It made me feel like he was looking at me from the business end of a microscope.

Hot panic flooded through me. I'd accidentally started whining, and that wasn't something anyone enjoyed listening to.  Hesper, you idiot!

" Just a bunch of boring stuff," I said  lightly , trying to minimize the damage. "Existential crisis, crazy family ... the usual song and dance."

Altair folded his arms against his planar abdomen. "I don't believe I'm acquainted with that tune."

I only meant to tell Altair the basics, but once my mouth started moving it was impossible to stop. I told him all about what had happened with my degree, about my mother, about how much I missed Cara, and how much I feared turning into one of the paunchy barflies I saw hanging around town, who had returned home after college never to escape again.

"I don't believe  that's a legitimate concern," Altair  broke in somewhere around Brunswick. He'd listened carefully to every word, only interrupting to prod me along with clarifying questions.

I shook my head gloomily. "The people who really get out — or who more than just get by, at least — have a specialized skill set or a college degree, sometimes both. I'm stuck in a hinterland between the two: too much education for some things, not enough for others."

Altair chuckled, and I looked at him sharply. "What?"

"You're so young," he said softly.

"Like you're so much older," I shot back.

His eyebrows knitted together. "How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know, late twenties? Early thirties?"

Altair's chuckling became uproarious laughter.

What was so funny? Altair looked like he couldn't possibly be  forty  — could he?

He wiped mirthful tears out of his eyes. "Let's just say that I've got a few years on you, and leave it at that."

I scowled, and poked at the radio controls to avoid looking at Altair. "I bet I know what you're going to say next. I'm so young, I've got all the time in the world, blah, blah, blah—"

Altair caught my hand in his, and I glanced at him, startled.

"Hesper, you  are young," he said. His stygian gaze still sparkled, but his features and his low tenor voice were somber. "There's so much out there for you. You're inquisitive, clever, and damn near fearless. In my experience, people like that always find their way to something worthwhile."

My heart was banging on my ribcage like an antique brass knocker. "Like what?"

Altair smiled. "I'm sure you'll know when you find it."

Then he released me and sat back, gazing calmly out the window.

I pulled onto the shoulder and cut the truck's engine, my patience crumbling under fearful uncertainty. No way I could take another five straight hours on this tightrope.

Altair gazed at me, frowning. "What's the matter?"

I flexed my fingers, fighting the urge to go off on him like a bottle rocket. "What's wrong is  you . I just can't get a read on you, and it's starting to give me the wiggins."

"Ah." Altair's black eyes evinced a sudden weariness, and he fell silent.

I waited, trying to swallow the sensation of nausea rising in my throat. After an uncomfortably long pause, I asked, "Did I read this totally wrong? I wasn't sure, but then last night..."

I trailed off, and waited.

"You're not wrong," Altair muttered heavily. His gaze flicked to meet mine, his preternaturally smooth face contorted with anguish. "Hesper, I owe you a tremendous apology."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid I've led you on. Not out of malice, but all the same..."

"Oh. Kay." I was suddenly glad I hadn't eaten breakfast, because I felt like I was going to hurl.

Altair pulled the telescope filter out of his jacket pocket and held it up. "This piece is tremendously important to the work I'm doing. I had to make it myself, which took an immense amount of time and patience."

I pressed my lips together, trying to compel myself to nonchalance. "Glad you got it back, then."

"No, you don't understand. I should never have lost it in the first place." He sat back, and from his low tone I wasn't sure if he was talking to me anymore. "I shouldn't have been in a bar. I allowed myself to get distracted. Hell, I  encouraged it."

"That's what I am? A distraction?" My voice squeaked unpleasantly as my throat constricted.

Altair's pained expression deepened. "People are counting on me."

"People..." I waved my hand airily. "People  where ? Who do you work for?"

"Just a small university in London, you'd never have heard of it."

I bit my lip, infuriated by his dismissive tone. "Thanks."

"No, it's—" Altair stopped, and drove his fingertips into his temples. "Why does everything I say around you come out so vastly wrong?" he muttered.

"Maybe because you're incomprehensibly cryptic?"

"And that's the way it should stay.  You have your whole life ahead of you." Altair reached for my hand again, but I shrank back. His face contorted as though I'd physically slapped him, and his voice hardened. "I'll be gone  by spring , anyway. You'll never have to see me again."

I glared at him with everything I could muster. "Why are you assuming I'd want that?"

"Do you really want me to remember me like your ex-boyfriend, or your father, or Cara? As someone who leaves?" Altair firmly shook his head. "I'm not going to allow you to use me as an excuse to derail your life. I'm sorry I made such a terrible mistake."

I rolled my eyes. "Humble, aren't you?"

"Trust me, you'll be grateful." It wasn't fair that Altair sounded as bitter as I felt.

"So I guess all that about going hiking with me was bullshit, right?" I demanded.

Altair shook his head. "You're much stronger than I initially took you for. You don't need looking after."

"Guess that's a good thing for me." I started the engine and slapped the left directional on.

Altair frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Turning around," I snapped.

"Hesper." It was unfair how Altair's low, chiding tone clashed with his awful words. "At least let me help you with this."

"I can do  it myself ." The traffic was slow and evenly spaced, giving me no opportunity to pull back off the shoulder.

Altair's savage eyes narrowed in irritation. "You're going to drive all the way back to Rockport to drop me off, then turn around and drive back down to Boston?"

"Yup."

"You're just being contrary because you're angry," he growled.

"Well, luckily for you, in a little over an hour you can start forgetting me and my contrariness." There was an opening coming between two cars; I just had to be patient a few seconds longer.

Altair blinked in surprise. "Hesper, I wouldn't ever want to forget you," he said softly. "You're quite remarkable."

Then he leaned back, and turned away to stare out the passenger window.

In that moment I hated Altair as I'd never hated anyone in my life. The tears threatening my eyes like thunderheads finally burst, but I dashed them away before Altair could see.

When I pulled off the shoulder of the road I kept driving south, and avoided looking at the passenger's side of the truck at all costs. I really  could use the help moving all those boxes.

Or so I told myself.

~

Maintaining my composure around Altair for the rest of the drive was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done. That horrible conversation was lodged in my thoughts like a splinter, and every time I sought escape on some unrelated mental road I found myself drawn inevitably back. How could Altair simply write off everything between us with a not-even-five-minute conversation?

Maddeningly, when I got right down to it, there wasn't anything to explicitly break off, just a few conversations and a fucking slow dance. I barely knew anything about him, and he certainly hadn't been forthcoming. Anything else was just pure potential.

I'd probably just been absurdly romanticizing the whole thing — I'd done that more than once before. Wasn't that why, even in the midst of my delirious joy last night,  I'd forced myself to consider that I was blowing the Altair connection out of proportion?

The self-pity would come later. For now, there was this excruciating trip to get through.

After we pulled onto Highway 295 I cranked the radio, secretly daring Altair to object to the deafening, vapid beats. To my mild disappointment he was as silent as I, and simply gazed out at the  dingy greyish-brown landscape.

Even though I hated myself for doing it, every so often I snuck a glance in Altair's direction. From the way his head was tilted against the passenger window, I couldn't tell if he was even awake. But every so often he'd change position, and that matchless aroma of hundred-year-old trees and dew would waft in my direction, bringing the stinging sensation rushing back to my ravaged eyes.

I wasn't usually given to speeding, but Altair's presence made the cab feel pressurized, and the gas pedal seemed to want to sink into the floor. I felt like a distended bubble, ready to shatter at the least provocation. The sooner I could lock myself in my bedroom and dissolve into oblivion, the smaller the likelihood Altair would be present to witness my meltdown.

~

I'd copied down the directions to the Amtrak baggage claim, but the traffic was so dense that I found myself repeatedly driving around the trapezoid of Interstate 93, Essex, Atlantic, and Summer Street. I muttered angrily under my breath and didn't dare look over at Altair. To his credit, he stayed entirely silent.

Finally we cruised down the narrow alleyway, and I parked in front of the South Station entrance. A bland ticket agent brought out the pallet where my belongings sat swathed in plastic, and I dropped the tailgate of the truck.

"If you stand up there, I can pass them to you," Altair suggested, nodding to the cargo bed.

I shook my head. "It'll go faster with both of us down here." I started tugging vainly at the sturdy wrapping, but Amtrak had really done their job. The plastic barely budged.

Altair slipped a folding knife from his pocket and slit the wrapping in one smooth motion. I glared at him, but he simply bundled up the trash and took it to a nearby dumpster.

For more than a few seconds, I contemplated hopping in the truck and just driving off. The only thing that stopped me was the sight of a box with "CLOSET STUFF" scrawled across it in permanent marker.

I tore the box open and my heart rose in exhausted joy as I found a familiar wool coat I'd had for years. It was almost too balmy to wear the thing today, but I didn't care. I needed some armor.

I tried not to notice Altair's quizzical  expression as I pulled the coat on and started shifting boxes. My forehead grew cool as beads of perspiration blossomed on my skin, but I forced myself to keep constantly moving, ricocheting between the pallet and the pickup like a human Pong.

Altair, on the other hand, seemed to be taking his time. It seemed like I was passing him every few trips, him moving two boxes to every three of mine.

"You know," I grunted as I overtook him yet again, "for someone who said they wanted to help, you're moving awfully slow."

Altair shrugged, and didn't change his pace whatsoever.

It didn't matter. A few minutes later we were done, and I zip-tied a tarp over the laden truck bed. I reluctantly slid out of my coat and climbed back in the truck cab, and Altair followed.

I cranked the radio as we headed out, and Altair leaned against the far wall, off in his own world again.

~

I started feeling the pressure in my bladder as we left the city, and though I hadn't had anything to drink in the last few hours, the feeling continued to build to unbearable discomfort. Childhood trips this far south had always included a trip to the rest stop at Mile 25, so I felt a twang of annoyance that Altair was beside me as I slid off the highway toward the parking lot.

Great. Like I needed him to poison another familiar place with his presence.

"Back in a sec," I said to the air, then hopped down and strode into the building.

When I  reemerged into the lobby, I was surprised to find Altair waiting with two sandwiches from a kiosk. He held one out to me, but I shook my head.

"Not hungry."

Altair frowned. "You haven't eaten in at least five hours. Your blood  sugar's bound to be low."

"Like you care," I grumbled.

"As a passenger in your vehicle, I care immensely," Altair replied.

I  was hungry, but the thought of food simultaneously repulsed me when I considered who was offering. As I was pondering a sharp retort, though, my stomach growled loudly.

"Your body betrays you," Altair said, and pressed the sandwich into my hands as he walked back to the truck.

I dropped the food on the seat beside me unopened, and curiously watched Altair, who was tucking into his with gusto.

He frowned at me. "What?"

"I dunno." I struggled to articulate the uncanny sensation. "I guess I'd just never thought about you eating before."

Altair raised an eyebrow. "At last check, everyone does it."

"Yeah. But there's something about  you eating that's just throwing me for a loop."

He lowered his sandwich and looked at me seriously, but his tone was sarcastic. "Hesper, did you think I was a vampire?"

I snorted. " Emotional  vampire , maybe."

Altair didn't reply, just raised an eyebrow and clapped a hand to his chest and raised one eyebrow in deadpan agony.

The rest of the drive went quickly. Once we were off the highway I knew where to slow down to avoid the police traps, and sped everywhere in between.

~

Though it was sunny when we'd left, Rockport had since been shrouded in clouds and a clammy fog. I was grateful for the coat as I jumped out of the truck; I was going to have to store this lot in the unheated barn. Even given the warmth that accompanied physical activity, it was going to be a chilly job.

I put my hand on the tailgate as Altair went to drop it open. "I've got it from here."

Altair looked at me hard. It was so painful to stand at the epicenter of that dark, overwhelming gaze, knowing that there were only a few heartbeats left before this moment passed and we became strangers again — not that we'd really ever been anything  but . I still barely knew anything about him.

I tried to memorize the refined geometry of his face, the way his eyebrows angled down in the center, the curve of his pale lips, and those unforgettable Cimmerian eyes that made me feel like I was falling toward him when I stared into their depths.

He swayed a little. For a moment I thought he was going to say something about what had happened earlier, but he only nodded.

"All right."

All too soon he was gone across the road, disappearing into the pine forest. Once he was lost to the trees I let out a shaky breath, and realized I was trembling all over. Everything that I'd been repressing all day was moments away from bursting forth.

I yanked the front door of the barn open and threw myself into moving everything inside. I didn't even trouble myself with clearing a space, just tossed my boxes wherever they'd fit. There might be hell to pay from my  mother later , but I didn't have time to waste. I was a ticking clock.

The frustrated sobs started coming halfway through the job. I didn't know or care whether Mom or Stan were home, and I didn't even care that I was bawling unashamedly like I hadn't done for a long time. After the roller coaster swoop of happiness I'd felt in the last few days whenever I thought of Altair, his terrible farewell and everything else that was wrong with my life came crashing down with redoubled depression.

As I brought the last box inside and pulled the door shut, I dropped onto the barn stairs and let the convulsions rack my body.

~

I don't know how long I stayed out there, just letting the grief over Altair — over everything — pour of me like a river. When I finally came back to myself, rays of dusky twilight were filtering through the skeleton of the apple tree in the backyard. My throat was ragged, and my eyes were  scratchy and swollen, but I finally felt empty. I was in control of myself again.

I went in through the kitchen door and stumbled a little, surprised to see Stan sitting at the kitchen table. I tried to hide my face as I hurried past him, but he cleared his throat.

I turned, and saw that while his eyes were still on his newspaper, he was holding out a joint. It was touching. "Thanks, Stan."

He just nodded.

I hurried to my bedroom and closed the door. My laptop was waiting on my bed, and I hooked in my headphones and set the library to cycle as I navigated to my email and lit up the joint. I wanted to write to Cara and tell her what had happened, but it felt so stupid and self-pitying that I erased each sentence as I wrote it. Eventually I just gave up and resigned myself to the same old mindless surfing.

The cycle of inoffensive pop was interrupted by an old-sounding song with lots of static. I still had the soundtracks for each of the annual musicals we'd done at Eastview, so I was only mildly surprised to hear "On the Street Where You Live" from sophomore year's  My Fair Lady . I clicked through to the player and scrolled through the main folder; I hadn't realized before how that musical and two others we'd done —  Camelot  and  Brigadoon  — were by the same team of lyricist and librettist. Huh.

I hovered the mouse over the forward button, but the weed was floating me up to a higher level, and somehow between its influence the song's classical warmth, I let the song play. I'd heard it so many times before — thirty-eight according to the automatic counter — but right now it was altogether too short.

I played it again, thinking of the unjust fate of poor, sweet Freddy Eynsford-Hill, thrown over for stodgy Henry Higgins. Admittedly I was a bit biased at the moment, but Freddy's innocent joy was so poignant that I got choked up all over again.

Over the next few hours I let the musicals play through as I looked back through my yearbook. Cara had bribed a yearbook editor friend to sneak an exorbitant number of my photos into unobtrusive places to make up for the awful, run-of-the-mill portrait my mother had insisted I take instead of a more informal picture.

Cara was in most of those  photos , too, of course, and staring at our ridiculous, laughing faces was a revelation for me of how far we'd come. Cara had become an artisan boatbuilder, for fuck's sake, and I wasn't that introverted girl anymore with the self-confidence to match. In fact, the only real thing of that version of me that still remained was a tenacity that could be alternately a huge hindrance or a huge help. In this case, it probably was going to mean I'd be hung up on Altair for several weeks or months to come.

But what if that didn't have to be the case? I sat up, galvanized by the realization that I'd been so busy trying to be emotionally contained today that I hadn't ever just gone for it and let Altair know I was starting to, well...

It was doubtful he'd change his mind, or that he was even really worth all the waterworks... but now that I  thought about it, maybe that wasn't the point. I was sick of living with so many small regrets — and a great way to start changing would be to go tell Altair exactly what I hadn't had the guts to say to him before. Just three simple words:  I like you.  It wasn't like I'd be asking him to marry me or anything.

Stan was gone to pick my mother up from work when I re-emerged from my bedroom. I hurried back to the barn and found my comfy leather hiking boots, which felt like girding myself for war again as I'd done this afternoon. While this all might turn out to be an inglorious mess, at least I wasn't sitting around whining pathetically to myself while letting external factors dictate my happiness.

I blinked against the unexpected brilliance as I stepped out the front door. The aurora was a neon green serpent surging overhead, radiating bewitching light through the thick mist. The only thing I'd seen like this was the harbor in a thick fog during the Fourth of July fireworks once, and that was only a hundredth of this radiance. This eerie world around me looked like I'd stepped into the pages of National Geographic.

I took my time as I walked along the path, rehearsing what I was going to say. I had to give Altair the benefit of the doubt that he  thought he was doing the right thing, but he himself had admitted I knew how to look after myself.

I'd survived my parents' divorce, my father's withdrawal from my life, separation from Cara, Brett's cruelty and LAIMA's bureaucracy. Regardless of what complications Altair thought lay ahead, I couldn't just walk away without giving whatever might be between us a shot.

~

It figured, then, that Altair wasn't at the A-frame, and neither was the telescope that had been perched on the roof platform. He was probably away up Ragged Mountain studying that amazing sky from somewhere above the misty bowl of Mirror Lake.

I weighed my options. I could hang around here at the A-frame, but Altair might be gone most of the night, and I was too agitated to just sit here and wait. I could go looking for him, too, but it would be a complete shot in the literal dark to try and guess which part of the trail he'd gone to — and that was assuming he wasn't somewhere further afield, like Mount Battie. From its vantage point over Camden Harbor, Battie would probably also have an amazing view, maybe more so than here thanks to its proximity to the Penobscot Bay breezes.

Discouraged, I decided to take the long way home, and headed off to the crossroads. I dawdled, looking up as I walked to catch clearer glimpses of the sky. The wind was coming from a strange direction, blowing off the mountain rather than the lake, and every so often a swatch of clear sky was visible. It was breathtaking.

As I neared the crossroads I heard a rustling in the undergrowth, and this time I was prepared when Bastian's hulking form lurched out of the brambles. I waggled my fingers at him, but he ignored the cue that usually brought him running to me for chin scritches. Instead the broad cat headed straight for a gap between several trees that I recognized as an abandoned trail. Around here it wasn't an uncommon sight; I'd passed by this way plenty of times without giving this particular spot a second thought. Until tonight.

I approached the worn wooden sign that had been secured to the left side of the former path. It was of a cruder tone and design than the plaque at the trailhead.

Warning , it read in menacing letters,  trail closed due to unsafe conditions. Please stay on maintained paths.

Bastian stalked quickly forward through the scattered brush, and I heard a low rumbling issue from his stocky body. He was usually such a well-mannered cat that he didn't cry at all, so hearing him make that threatening growl sent a prickle of warning along my scalp.

The woods were at least ostensibly free of large predators, but Bastian would be no match for a fox or a fisher. I didn't like leaving him out here alone, especially not when he seemed to be heading  toward the disturbance rather than in the opposite direction. Stan still regularly retold the story of how, a couple years before they'd moved in with my mother, Bastian had dragged himself home bristling with as many quills as an actual porcupine. I didn't want to let that happen on my watch.

"Bastian!" I yelled after him. "Little Bastard!"

The cat kept on marching like he hadn't even heard me.

Despite the thrum of danger in my hackles, I hurried along the abandoned trail after Bastian. The track was still visible from years of previous use, and though I had to scramble over fallen trees and rock slides in a few locations, I was able to keep from losing sight of the mammoth cat.

The higher we traveled, the warmer the air around me became. I unbuttoned my coat and picked up the pace as Bastian hunkered in his walk and scooted along, a shadow in darkness. If I fell behind too much further, I was going to lose him.

"Goddamn cat," I muttered in between panting breaths.

Though I could still see Mirror Lake for the first part of the trail, the basin was lost in the mist when the path started bending upward and away from  level ground . I could only see about a hundred feet ahead or behind me, and when the fog started closing even closer in, the bile rose in my throat at the sensation of disorientation.

This might not be the kind of night when a person could freeze to death, but I was going to be annoyed as hell if Bastian was the reason I got lost up here. The biggest irony would be if I lost track of him and he got home before I did.

The aurora's electric light seemed to surround me, and I started jogging to try and catch up with Bastian, who had disappeared over the lip of a ledge.

"Get back here, you contrary little fuck!" I shouted.

I hauled myself up over the edge to find that Bastian had stopped, and was crouched on the ground just a few feet in front of me. I sighed in relief, and walked toward him. "C'mere, you."

Bastian bared his fangs in a guttural hiss.

"Whoa, boy." The cat was staring at something ahead of us — an oddly flat patch of land that stretched off interminably into the gloom. Stout, gnarled trees grew in regular intervals like an orchard. The aurora was swirled with blue here, and it almost looked as though the trees themselves were glowing. Above us I saw a glimmer of orange amid the bellies of the clouds — was that the albedo from Camden?

I didn't know what the hell this place was, but it certainly wasn't random coincidence that these trees were so perfectly arranged. I must have stumbled onto private property, which meant I had to leave. Fast. People occasionally got shot around here for similar mix-ups.

I grabbed Bastian, but as soon as the cat's paws left the soggy grass he wriggled to and fro, violently clawing his way up and over my shoulder. I stumbled forward as he shoved off my back and disappeared back down the trail like a furry silver-and-black thunderbolt.

My neck stung, and my fingertips came away glistening with dark blood. "Fuck."

"Hesper?"

I jumped in alarm, and peered into the distant labyrinth of light and dark, half blinded as my eyes adjusted to the swirling motes of color. " Altair? "

"What are you doing here?" His distant voice was tight with worry, but I still couldn't see him through the eerie, blinding glow and gloom.

I pointed over my shoulder. "I was just following Bastian."

"You need to leave right now," Altair called quickly. "Go back the way you came."

I folded my arms over my chest. "Not until you've listened to what I have to say. You owe me that."

"Hesper—" Altair began anew, but fell silent as a deafening rumble rolled through the orchard.

My stomach churned. The sound seemed to emanate from ground level, and I knew we were nowhere near high enough to be standing amid thunderheads. "What's that?"

His voice took on a panicked note. "Just go back!"

"No!" I hollered back.  There — I could finally distinguish Altair's silhouette far through the trees.

I caught the flash of a piece of curved metal in Altair's hand. He was too far away to make out clearly, but my mind instantly provided a suggestion for what the shape might've been.

A  sword.

"What the fuck?" I muttered.

A low hiss echoed through the trees. My knee-jerk thought was that Bastian had come back, but the sound was far too loud for a cat. Far too loud for  anything that should conceivably live in these woods.

Something moved on the other side of the orchard from Altair, an impossibly large, hulking thing with a humped midsection that loomed over the tops of the dwarf trees. Two yellow spots appeared in the shadowy figure, and as the monstrous hissing again filled my ears, I saw a cluster of vertical objects shining beneath them.

My brain put it together before I did. I was looking at eyes and teeth.

The creature bellowed, a gut-wrenching sound between a trumpet and a scream. Then it lurched forward, legs sweeping horizontally along the ground like a giant lizard as it barreled directly toward me.

* * *

#  Chapter Seven

Immemorial

Time stood still as the shadowy behemoth bore down on me. Auroral light rippled off its scaly hide, and I noted with detached fascination that it resembled some hideous cross between a crazed horse and a giant gila monster. Its exposed fangs must have each been as long as my forearm.

"Hesper,  run! " Altair shouted.

His voice jolted me out of my stupor, and I took off running down the nearest avenue of contorted trees. In a few seconds my legs and lungs were burning with exertion, but the thing behind me kept gaining as though I was standing still.

The ground trembled as the creature howled, and I nearly lost my footing. My heart stuttered in its terrified beating. How close had I just come to an agonizing death?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Altair was sprinting in my direction, the sword in his hand flashing green light like a beacon.

"What do I do?" I screamed to him.

"Keep running!"

Altair was lightning fast, but the animal was faster. I felt a hot rush of air from behind as it closed in, nearly nipping my heels.

On a sudden impulse I broke right, cutting through the grid of trees onto a lane in the crossways direction. The shuddering snap of feet-thick trunk boomed behind me and I was showered with splinters.

I dug into the ground, desperate for more speed. My pursuer had fallen off a bit, but I heard its ravening growls closing in again, and my heartbeat redoubled in my ears. I couldn't keep this up forever, and Altair wasn't going to reach me in time.

I heard the scrabbling of something against bark. "Come this way!" Altair shouted. "Do that again — you've got to come to me!"

The monster was more prepared for my abrupt turn this time, and its jagged tail slashed out at me as I rounded a tree. I saw something whip toward my face and suddenly my cheek was stinging, warm liquid trickling down to my jaw.

I couldn't see Altair, but his voice echoed through the air ahead of me. "Almost there!"

I forced my shrieking muscles to put on another burst of speed, but as I did, something hooked around my ankle and sent me sprawling face-first into the grass.

The creature's tongue was wrapped around my boot. I rolled over as it dragged me backward, and found myself looking up into a mouth bristling with needle-sharp teeth.

"Holy shit!" I gasped.

The tree beside me creaked, and Altair launched himself out of its branches toward the thing's head. I saw the explosion of light off the sword as he brought it crashing down, and then suddenly the creature was screaming again, staggering sideways with the hilt protruding from its right eye.

The pressure around my ankle fell away, and the colossal beast fell to the ground with the force of an earthquake, twitching in death.

Then the monster crumbled away into black ash, scattering in the gentle breeze. The sword collapsed into the grass. After a few moments it was like the creature had never even existed.

Altair quickly strode toward me as I picked myself up off the ground. I was barely on my feet again before his arms were around me, squeezing me so hard that the breath slid out of my lungs.

"Thank the graces," he kept muttering over and over again,  panting with exertion.

I  prised myself free of his steel grip and pointed to where the monster had fallen. Now only churned earth and a few  shattered trees remained, and the slightly curved scimitar that glinted in the grass. "What the fuck  was that thing?"

Altair caught sight of the wound on my cheek and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small metal phial. "This is going to sting, I'm sorry." He shook out a pearlescent pink liquid onto his fingertips, and smeared it on my cheek.

It felt like he was holding a firebrand to my skin. "Ow!"

Altair's face cleared as he stepped back, and he seemed to remember himself. He touched my chin, forcing me to look him straight in the eye as he spoke, compelling me to listen. "Hesper, I don't have time to explain all this right now."

I bristled. " Make time."

"I will. Later." He took my shoulders and stared at me, speaking clearly as if I was a shock victim. "Hesper, you have to do a few things."

"Like what?"

His eyes danced insistently in the peacock light. "Your shirt's covered in blood. Clean yourself up, and get rid of anything that'll raise questions. Don't let anyone see.  This is tremendously important."

I pressed my lips together, trying to focus amid the surreal nature of this whole scene. Glowing trees. Dead monster that turned to ash and blew away in the faint wind. Altair and a motherfucking sword. Holy crap was he hot.

"Why?"

"I'll tell you everything tomorrow, but I have some vital things to attend to at the moment." Altair shook a little more of the silvery-rose liquid onto his fingers and daubed it on my neck, and I hissed in pain. "Can you return home by yourself?"

I nodded. "Bastian?"

Altair smiled faintly. "He'll be all right. It isn't the first time he's been up here. Nor the last, I suspect."

"What time tomorrow?"

Altair's brow contorted. "Beg pardon?"

"You said 'I'll tell you everything tomorrow.'  When tomorrow?"

"Bloody hell, woman." He fixed me in his onyx glare. "An hour before sunset. Is that satisfactory?"

I nodded again, curtly, then turned on my heel and headed out of the orchard.

~

I didn't look back over my shoulder once on the way home, and once I started  running, I couldn't stop. I was too shocked by what I had seen, and too terrified by each of my own crashing footfalls to even begin processing the nightmarish ordeal.

The Grand Am was back in the driveway when I stumbled out of the woods, and the light was on in the kitchen. Shit . Mom and Stan's silhouettes moved over the curtains; whether I came in the front or rear doors, I'd have to pass through the kitchen to get to my bedroom. My coat had thankfully been spared from being soiled, but the pink waffle-knit shirt of my mother's that I'd borrowed was drenched in blood.

I snuck closer to the kitchen window, and peeked inside. They must have just gotten back, because Mom was still wearing her jacket as she fussed with a pizza she'd brought home from the diner.

My mother lifted her chin and called my name, evidently still thinking I was in my bedroom.

Of course! I dashed along the length of the house and tried the end window in my room. During high school I'd taken to leaving it open as a sort of safety valve — a reminder that if the fighting upstairs got too bad, I still had an escape route. I must have unconsciously unlocked it sometime during the last few days, because it slid open with barely a whisper of sound.

I heaved myself over the sill and tumbled to my bedroom floor in time to hear my mother's footsteps approaching through the foyer. "Hesper?"

There were only a few seconds left. I slammed the window shut and stood up just as my bedroom door swung open. If I stayed facing the window, my mother wouldn't be able to see the giant red stain down the front of her shirt, or the dripping weal on my cheek.

"Dinner," Mom said. She moved to go, but then stopped, squinting at me. "Going somewhere?"

"Nope," I responded quickly, looking over my shoulder so she could only see the uninjured side of my face. "I was just going to take a shower, actually."

My mother shrugged, but didn't leave. "By the way, you haven't seen my shirt, have you?"

I could've strangled her. There was a thumb-thick streak of blood on the window ledge, and if she stayed here any longer or came any closer, she was bound to see it — or worse, the sticky blood covering my torso. "You've got a lot of shirts, Mom."

"It's pink with little flowers on it. I know  for a fact it was in the bathroom this morning." I watched Mom's reflection in the window as she leaned up against the door jamb, camping out in order to regard me hawkishly. "It's not as though  Stan would've taken it."

I couldn't move to swipe away the blood, and I wasn't sure if my body was blocking it from Mom's view. I had to get her out of here. Fast.

"I said I don't know," I said coldly.

"Don't you take that tone — and look at me when you're talking to me!" Mom badgered.

"Why don't  you  fucking knock next time?" I demanded.

My mother threw up her hands. "I don't know why I put up with you sometimes, Hesper."

"You  don't  put up with me," I snapped. "Now why don't we go back to our mutual ignorage again? I think we're both happier that way."

Mom's mouth worked silently for a few seconds. Then she walked out.

I slammed the door shut for good measure, and locked it, my heart pounding. That was too close for comfort.

As I recrossed the bedroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the wall mirror. The left side of my face was completely normal, but the right was a ghoulish red-brown mask of dried blood that stretched down to my ribcage. No doubt about it: the shirt was ruined.

There was a plastic water bottle beside the bed — only a third full, but it was enough. I dampened the shirt and used it to clean my face, then tucked the shirt in a stray plastic bag and hid it between my box spring and mattress. My mother wouldn't come back this way anytime soon, so I could dispose of it later.

Mom pretended she didn't see me as I hurried to the bathroom, which was a relief because there were still reddish-brown spots caked in my hairline. If I'd been forced to raise my head my disarray would've been readily apparent.

I took my time in the shower, scrubbing until every square inch of my skin was raw and the sickening tang of iron filled my nose. The water around my feet  was dirty sienna, and the gorge rose in my throat as I realized that what I was looking at wasn't dirt but more of my own blood.

I still couldn't think about what had happened. It was all just so ... insane. The more time filled the distance between all that madness and the present moment, the more it began to seem like a walking nightmare. A vast orchard and a disappearing brobdingnagian horse-lizard hybrid? I hadn't gotten any sort of decent sleep lately; maybe I'd fallen asleep up there in the auroral haze and dreamed of horrible things...

But then why did I find myself staring at those terrible amber eyes again whenever I blinked?

The pain in my cheek and neck had subsided to a dull tingle by the time my body was clean. I explored the regions gingerly with my fingertips, but couldn't find either injury by touch alone. The pink liquid Altair applied must have been more than a mere analgesic.

I swiped condensation off the bathroom mirror to double check, but either all my senses were deceiving me, or both lacerations had vanished almost entirely.

I scraped at the skin of each spot with a fingernail, but it held firm. All that remained of each wound was a little pink incision and leftover prickling sensation. I bent down and checked my right kneecap, and found that the scar mark there had disappeared altogether.

The bloodsoaked shirt, too, was undeniable. I sat on my bedroom floor in my pajamas for hours, pants rolled up over my knee and the blouse in my hands, trying to figure out exactly what had happened — and failing miserably.

~

Somewhere around three in the morning, I made the decision to put the whole crazy matter out of my head. Minutes were dribbling past like molasses, and since Altair wasn't going to come by for another twelve hours I was going to have to figure out a way to distort time.

The answer came in the form of streaming  RuPaul's Drag Race . The show was comfortingly human, so I was able to distract myself from trying to puzzle out the earthly impossible. I'd been working on knitting a pair of fingerless gloves before I left L.A., so I found my yarn and needles, finished off the joint Stan had given me earlier, and clicked play.

As I'd hoped, the night became abruptly less interminable. Soon the dark, misty sky paled to a periwinkle haze, and by the time the golden sun broke over the horizon, I had to close my curtains to better focus on the laptop's screen.

My mother knocked on the door around ten, each rap a pointed jab about our fight last night. I wasn't going to be overly apologetic — I didn't want Mom to think I didn't give a shit about her icy demeanor — but as I resolved to speak to her civilly as I opened the door.

"What's up?"

My mother's voice was as stiff as her shiny silver outdoor jacket. "Wood delivery. Would you please come and help?"

"Just give me a minute or two," I said, ignoring the fury dripping from her polite words.

As the day had grown higher, the light it brought made me less fearful of what I'd seen last night. Just as I'd never feared my nightmare monsters as a child, it had been easier to keep the terrifying memories locked away when I had the sun's radiance to rely on.

Yet as soon as I stepped into the chill, woodsmoke-laden air my pulse started racing. I started in alarm at each creak and groan of contracting timber. How  could I protect myself or my family if another one of those creatures came  roiling out of the forest? It had pulverized those stout trees simply by falling against them; what could it do with the simple beams and glass of my house? There was absolutely nowhere to hide.

I didn't realize how fast I was filling the four-cord hutch until my mother said, "If you've got somewhere to be, you don't have to stay and help."

"No," I said, startled by the abrupt change in her attitude. She sounded very nearly sympathetic. "Just want to get this done."

Mom gave me a searching look as we gathered up armfuls of the split logs. "Look, Hesper, I know that things aren't perfect between us at the moment, so I appreciate you helping out," she grudgingly admitted.

I didn't think it was useful to point out that I was mainly hurrying because I didn't want either of us to be eaten by Cthulhu's abominable stepchild, so I just said, "It's no problem. I really don't want to be a drain on you guys."

My mother heaved her load into the hutch and settled the logs. "I know it doesn't seem like it at times, but I'm making an effort."

"I know," I replied. "I am, too. I really hope I can be out of your hair soon."

Mom smiled tightly, and we resumed working in silence.

~

A few more  Drag Race s later, the world beyond my windows was again growing dark. I sorted through my L.A. clothing to find a clean pair of jeans and a dark burgundy long-sleeve with cutout shoulders, and pulled them on. Then I shoved in my earbuds, clicked to some  anesthetically blaring rock, and sat on my bed staring out at the  trailhead . I had enough things blowing my mind at the moment, and the idea of watching Altair and my mother interact seemed enough to push my sanity over the tipping point.

At three o'clock exactly, I discerned a movement in the forest that had to be Altair, and hurried out of my bedroom. Mom and Stan were reading their newspapers in the living room, so I called a quick farewell and stepped outside just as Altair reached the short brick walkway.

"Do you have your keys?" Altair asked by way of greeting. He was looking unusually pale and drawn today, the olive undertone to his skin more prominent than ever. The leather satchel I'd seen him with before was slung diagonally over his torso, and the way it fell over his layered grey shirts and ramrod-flat abdomen almost made me queasy with lust, but his aloof air told me exactly how things stood between us. This was apparently not a  thank the graces kind of day.

I ducked back inside and grabbed the truck key and my wallet from the countertop, then re-emerged. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Not far," he answered.

We climbed  in the truck and I started the engine, which was reluctant after a chilly day of disuse. Even given the scope of the situation, it was a knife in my gut every time I caught the smell of loam and pages, or looked at Altair's elegant features. He barely glanced in my direction, and when he did it was only with businesslike dispassion.

Altair directed me out down the road toward town, and then down Park Street — a back route into Camden that most outsiders didn't know about. I didn't know what to say and Altair certainly didn't seem anxious to talk, so we held an awkward if mutually agreeable silence.

He only gave me directions just before we came to each intersection, so it wasn't until Ragged Mountain was looming over us again that I realized he was taking us along Barnestown Road to the mountain's front face. "The Snow Bowl?"

Altair nodded.

I gazed over Hosmer Pond to the series of branching paths that rose up the mountainside, the middle few wider but fringed with narrow counterparts. It had evidently been too warm for snowmaking so far this winter, because some of the ski trails were still patched with the dusty goldenrod of dead grass.

We parked in the empty lot, and I followed Altair up past the lodge to the main slope. "This had better not be some wild goose chase," I grumbled.

"It's not." Altair dug in his satchel and produced a warped, vibrantly green apple the size of my fist, which he tossed at me. The fruit banged off my arm and fell to the ground.

"Hey!" I protested, and picked up  the apple. "The hell was that for?"

Altair regarded me with mild disappointment, and then looked back up the mountain as he continued trudging forward. "Vitamin C. You look tired."

Ouch. I stared at the apple dubiously. It was the weirdest damn fruit I'd ever seen, simultaneously hideous and beautiful. Its slightly spongy skin was almost reminiscent of an orange. "Uh, yeah, that's not gonna happen."

"Calm down, Hesper, it's perfectly safe," Altair called dryly over his shoulder. "If I'm asking you to exert some energy, it's only fair I make sure your health is looked after."

"Until you said 'perfectly safe' I wasn't thinking otherwise," I said. "Now I'm  really not eating this."

Altair stopped and faced me. His jet eyes looked even larger as the gloom deepened. "If you want your answers, then please do as I request."

Had he laced this purported apple with something? It was possible, I  supposed... but there were a tennis players in the courts by Hosmer Pond, and some dog walkers out by the main road. If I screamed, someone was sure to hear me.

"Fine," I snapped. "But you'd better start talking."

Altair sighed heavily, and waited for me to catch up.

I broke the fruit open to find that its guts were glistening teal pomegranate-like beads encased in translucent emerald flesh. "Whoa, where's this from?"

"Greece, by way of French and Brawn," Altair answered.

The thing looked utterly unapproachable. "How do I—?"

"For the graces' sakes, Hesper," Altair huffed, and hiked back down to me. He tore off a wedge of the fruit and popped it in his mouth with an exasperated expression, rind and all.

I tentatively followed his lead. The apple, if I could really even call it that, tasted bright, juicy, and yet somehow bitter. I both liked it and hated it — which was fitting, considering how I felt about Altair.

"What  was that thing last night?"

Satisfied that I was following orders, Altair started walking again, slower now as he kept pace with me rather than the other way around. "To answer that, I'll have to tell you a story from nearly four thousand years ago."

"A myth?"

Altair shrugged lopsidedly. "Of sorts. How well do you know your history circa 1700 BCE?"

"Yikes." I thought back to an eighth grade class in global civilizations. "Um, Code of Hammurabi?"

"Right time, wrong location," Altair said, mildly impressed. "While Hammurabi was inscribing the first known set of human laws on a stele of stone, the Minoan civilization was in full swing in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean."

"Bull-jumpers," I said quickly. "And there was that snake goddess — or the statues, anyway."

Altair nodded. "What else do you know about them?"

I had to scramble for vague recollections, and swallowed the last bit of the apple. "The Minoans were based primarily on Crete, and they were a pretty powerful and advanced civilization before they collapsed."

"They were merchants, so a lot of the various advances in the area filtered through them." It was maddening how Altair's voice stayed perfectly level even as the ground became nearly vertical under our feet. He was in  way better shape than I was. Still, I was pretty smug to not feel as tired as I would've expected from such exertion. "The Minoans were perfectly situated at the epicenter of all sorts of burgeoning cultures, but that position had some disadvantages, too."

"Invaders?" I guessed.

Altair tilted his head. "True, but I was speaking more in terms of seismology. If you live in the middle of a giant bowl, anything that happens anywhere in that space is bound to affect you, particularly if you're surrounded on all sides by water."

"So what happened in minus 1700?"

Altair winced — hopefully at something  other than how hard I was breathing. "An earthquake hit the Mediterranean. It leveled several palaces on Crete, along with any number of other buildings both there and on the surrounding islands. Homes were destroyed by the hundreds. Thousands of people perished."

"That's terrible," I murmured. In the dimming light I saw Altair's jaw was oddly tight, the tendons in his temples standing out like bridge struts.

"One of the smaller islands to the northwest of Crete was home to a particular community of mathematicians, scientists, and artisans. After the devastation of the earthquake, they decided to band together and figure out a way to protect their home if such a cataclysm struck again."

"Where are you getting all this from?" I interjected.

"Books," Altair said peevishly. "I  read , Hesper."

I frowned at him. "I read, too, Altair, and I've never heard this one."

His dark eyes glimmered with frustration. "I can't give you the answers you so desperately crave if you won't actually listen to me."

We crested the lowest hump of Ragged Mountain, and my legs groaned their thanks at the slight break. "Please do go on," I said with a melodramatic  after thee  wave.

"Anyhow,  almost a hundred years later another earthquake rocked the sea,  and the people of Apple Island realized that it was just the precursor to a larger calamity."

"Apple Island?" I interrupted.

Altair sighed heavily. "Yes, Hesper, that's where the fruit I just gave you hails from," he answered in response to my unasked question. "Apple. Apple Island. I know, it's positively fascinating. Now will you please let me finish?"

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

"The precautions they'd been working on through the intervening generations were strange, secret things that employed all sorts of technology from the cultures with which they traded. From secret knowledge bartered and begged off Celts, Egyptians, and Babylonians, they'd cobbled together a wild hybrid of magic and science, something so secretive that even decades before the second earthquake they'd begun starting to withdraw from the rest of the world."

I stopped and moved to turn back, but Altair caught my shoulder.

"You've come this far, don't you want to know what it is you've stumbled upon?"

"The only thing I'm stumbling over is your credibility," I said sharply. "I wanted answers, not a fairy tale."

"Sometimes the two things are one and the same," Altair gently replied, and nudged me toward the bump of the next slope. "Come on, we're nearly there."

I rolled my eyes, but kept walking. Even so, my thoughts kept flitting back to the bear mace in the truck, and how I suddenly wished I'd brought it with me.

"Not long afterward, the island of Thera erupted, and the sky filled with ash," Altair went on. "It was even written about as far away as China as the Xia Dynasty fell, so you can imagine what it must have been like to be standing so near the volcano."

"They must've assumed they were going to die," I said.

"They did. Even though the preparations they'd spent a hundred years making weren't quite complete, the scientists and magicians did the things they'd trained to do, and attempted to encase the island in a bubble of protection that would keep them safe from the ash and the accompanying tidal surge."

Altair slowed even more, and looked up. The sky was fading to a nebulous swirl of pink and orange, and the emerald green aurora emerged in a stunning counterpoint. Even given the strange, picturesque sky, I had a hard time keeping my eyes off Altair, so beautiful and strangely sorrowful at the same time.

"To everyone's surprise, the protocols worked. The island was unharmed, but the sun had vanished behind an ash cloud. Apple Island stood in eternal half-light. The stars were perfectly visible through one part of the sky overhead, but they weren't as steady as they'd been before."

My skull started buzzing, but I didn't feel lightheaded. Weird. "What does that mean?"

"Whenever you move around, the stars appear to be in different positions," Altair explained. "It isn't noticeable here unless you travel a great distance. On Apple Island, though, it was practically noticeable whenever you walked anywhere... and in time, the people of Apple Island learned that they'd done their job all too well. Not only was the island protected from the ravages of the ocean and sky, but it had been moved their it outside of the Mediterranean Ocean altogether."

"Moved? Where?"

"Out of time." Altair lowered his head as if mildly embarrassed by his own words. "Windows in space began to open sporadically, some on land,  some in the air and some out in the sea. The doorways led to many different places on Earth and were far apart in time — the correct progression, but in bits that were scattered, disparate. The outside world went on believing that the island had sunk into the sea when the waters following the destruction of Thera, but all the while, the people of Apple Island remained untouched, aging so slowly that their lives seemed to go on forever."

Altair abruptly turned back. He was a pace ahead of me on the incline, and the few extra inches of height it gave him made him look that much more forbidding.

"And  that , Hesper," Altair concluded matter-of-factly, "is what you saw last night. That is where I'm from."

I glared at him. "You're telling me I saw — what, Atlantis? Avalon?"

Altair's only reply was to fold his arms over his chest and watch me silently.

I stared at him for several seconds in shock. I'd been expecting an explanation along the lines of a giant mutated monster or actual insanity, but  this  ... it was just ridiculous.

"You must think I'm an idiot," I snarled at Altair. My cheeks burned. I'd followed him all the way up here alone,  eaten some weird — probably dosed — food he gave me, and all because I'd thought he had some realistic answer for me. Now it turned out he was just psycho. "I've heard some tall fucking tales in my lifetime, Altair, but boy does that take it. Congratufuckinglations."

A strange little smile crinkled the corners of Altair's eyes, but he didn't move.

"What?" I demanded.

"You're thinking about running away, it's quite obvious," Altair said sweetly.

I shifted my feet, preparing to flee. It wouldn't do to lose control of my legs while running down this steep a grade. "Maybe a little."

Altair smirked again, infuriatingly superior. "Yet you're not running."

I glared at him. It seemed like I always wanted to rip him apart for one reason or another. "You're certifiable. And you're just waiting for me to look away or something so you can..."

"So I can  what ?"

"I don't know!" I blurted out angrily. " I'm not the sociopathic mastermind!"

Altair rolled his eyes. "Hesper Fane, you're the most aggravating girl I've ever met."

In the next moment Altair had me by the shoulders. Before I could break free, he gave my body a sharp twist, and I spun around.

Instead of the hilly, pond-dotted hinterland before the Camden hills, I found myself staring at a shadowy, ethereal city that superseded the grey landscape. Vast towers with skirts of  gambreled roofs corkscrewed toward the sky like flowers yearning for light, and I heard the faint clatter and chatter that was the city's heartbeat. The Gothic-inspired architecture was both magnificent and slightly worn. Colonnaded gardens interspersing the intricate spires and arches like intricate embroidery. In the first few minutes alone I saw so many peaked temples, balustraded bridges, and skeletal bell towers that my eyes burned with the beauty of it. The mingled scents of metal and flowers met my nose, carried up from the city by a puff of warmer air.

"This is my home," Altair murmured in my ear. "Ynys Afallach."

~

An hour later, I still couldn't believe my eyes. Or my nose. Or my ears.

Altair and I were still sitting on the side of Ragged Mountain, and I'd spent nearly the entire time silently trying to force my senses to give up their deception. But there the city was, undeniable and almost within my grasp in the near-total dusk. A girl waved to us from a tower window, and Altair nudged my ribs until I waved back.

"Afallach," I grunted at last. "Geoffrey of Monmouth. Avalon."

"You  do know your history," Altair said, sounding mildly approving again.

"I know my fairy tales," I corrected. "Avalon is like Shangri-La or Lemuria. It isn't real."

"It's only from your — and forgive my language —  limited perspective that you'd think that," he drawled. "As you might imagine, it's quite different if you grew up there."

I stared hard at the city. It was more vivid than even my most lucid dream. "Why hasn't anyone seen this?"

"Because of the eos."

I turned to look at Altair. His features were radiant in the light from the city beside us. "Eos?"

Altair pulled another gnarled green apple from his pack, and I gasped despite myself. The fruit was glowing now, its pockmarked skin swirling neon green and a deep, nebulaic blue. The orchard... this is what I'd seen last night!

"The philosophers — their work did something to the fruit," Altair said dreamily. "They release a chemical that interacts with the atmosphere, sets everything around it somehow apart. We consume it, and we stay unchanging. Because of the eos, our world now exists beside yours."

I shivered as Altair fixed me in his serene, luminous gaze. He held out a hand, his skin stranger than ever in the reflected light. "You  may've noticed that we don't entirely look as other people do. We're a bit green."

"Little bit," I said sheepishly. From here, the people moving through the city's wandering streets were just dark specks. Were they all as striking as Altair? I doubted it.

"What you saw in the eos orchard last night was a horse — or at least it used to be. We precisely regulate how much of the eos we consume, and that extends to our pets and livestock, too. Everything is carefully measured. But on occasion, an animal finds its way into the orchard. If they eat too much, they alter beyond recognition, become dangerously aggressive."

"Sounds like rabies," I said. "Giant, terrifying, all-devouring rabies from Wonderland."

Altair shrugged.

"And the sword?"

"It's not really a sword in the conventional sense," Altair explained. "It's got a hollow barrel filled with a serum that can quickly dehydrate and dissolve organic matter. As you saw."

"Hey!" I bolted upright as the city abruptly began to fade from my vision like a waning eclipse. "Where's it going?"

"It's all right, that's to be expected," Altair said wearily. "You don't have enough eos built up in your system to see it for more than a brief time. If you  consumed more, you'd be able to see it continuously, and in time, even cross over."

"If?" I couldn't help the desperation from edging into my voice. "I want to go and see it up close. You don't know how often in my life I've wished for exactly this." I felt a wrenching sorrow in my gut, the grief for every imaginary world that had been mine when I was younger. Each time I'd finished another book or episode of  Star Trek ,  Firefly , or  Doctor Who , I'd always grieved for the fact that I'd never see these worlds for myself. Always it had seemed like the most beautiful stories were the ones that defied existence. "Altair, I will totally keep this secret. You can trust me completely."

"Can I?" Altair mused cryptically under his breath. As if waking from a daze, he picked himself up off the ground and abruptly started walking down the mountain. "We should get back  to the ground before it gets too cold," he called back over his shoulder.

I stumbled after him. "Can I go and visit Ynys Afallach?"

"That isn't my decision to make." Altair's voice was hard all of a sudden, but I couldn't think of what I might've said that offended him.

"Whose decision is it?"

"The community's. I'll bring your petition to the selectmen when next I report back."

Altair sped up, skidding easily down the mountainside, and it took all my attention to keep up with him and not trip over my own feet.

"If they say yes, will you take me there?"

Altair didn't reply. In fact, he didn't say anything more all the way back to level ground.

Once we were back standing beside the truck, wheezing with exertion, Altair  panted , "Hesper, as I explained to you previously, I'm supposed to be taking some very critical astronomical readings while I'm here. I don't have time to be shepherding you around. I shouldn't have even delayed my work tonight to show you this." His voice rose in irritation. "I'm sure everyone will be quite fine with you coming to the island. We've had visitors aplenty before."

Altair was thunderously quiet as we climbed in the truck, and I couldn't figure out what I'd done to provoke him. If either of us had the right to be angry right now it was  me for the way  he'd treated me yesterday, both during the drive and in the eos orchard, and then sending me off last night like I was a misplaced bag of onions rather than a mildly traumatized human being.

My anger at Altair's moodiness became stronger even than my heartbreak until I was gnawing at my nails, consumed with my mental fuming as I drove.

"Don't bite your nails." Altair's voice was bored, parental.

"What do you care?" I growled around a mouthful of finger.

"I care a hell of a lot more than you do," he snapped in reply. " Clearly ."

I slammed my palm on the steering wheel. "See? This is what I mean about the enigmatic thing. You can't say things like a normal person, it's always  gotta be something  redonkulously passive-aggressive. Is that a whole snake goddess-worshipper-subverted-sacred-feminine complex, or is it just you?"

"Oh, fantastic." I could practically hear his eyes rolling. "Call me a pagan, that'll dismiss my existence perfectly. Your logic is truly infallible, Hesper."

Stung, I fell silent and resorted to chewing my lip, frowning so hard that my field of vision flattened at the top, the road before us a panorama of fury.

~

We didn't speak again all the way back home. I stomped extra hard on the brakes as I jammed the shifter into park, but Altair just yanked his seat belt off and spilled outside without comment. I followed, and we glared at each other over the cargo bed like a pair of pissed-off tigers.

"Good night, Hesper." His voice was as frigid as the river.

"Good fucking night," I replied venomously, and we strode off in opposite directions.

I was so angry that I slammed the kitchen door hard as I came in. The windows along the front wall of the house rattled like wine glasses, and Mom and Stan looked up from the kitchen table with expressions of cartoonish terror on their faces. In the ensuing silence, I realized I was panting as though I'd just  sprinted home from the Snow Bowl.

I held up a shaky finger. "Sorry. I forgot something." Then I dashed back outside, shutting the door far more quietly. Let them make of that what they would.

~

I marched quickly along the trail, squinting through the darkness for any sign of Altair. I'd initially gone looking for him last night to give him a hearty piece of my mind, but then everything had happened in what was presumably the eos orchard — and that was all I'd been able to think about during the twenty-four hours since.

Now that I had answers, even vague ones, it was thoroughly burning me up that Altair had gotten the last word about the state of our ...  whatever it was. Especially after how coldly he'd behaved towards me just now. One minute Altair was all,  Come, let me show you my temporally displaced world , and the next he was doing a one-man impression of a dark and stormy night.

A shadow moved in the woods ahead of me.

"Altair!" I shouted.

The shadow quickened its pace. It was him, all right, and I wasn't going to let him evade answering me. Not this time.

~

I caught up with Altair as he strode through the A-frame's front door, and he threw up his hands in disgust as I blew past him. " Please , Hesper, do come in. Make yourself at home." He glared, dropping all pretense of pleasantries. "You certainly have so far."

I took up a position in the middle of the cramped space. Adrenaline was shooting through my veins like I was a junkie. "What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded. "You barge into my life and run hot and cold on me every two seconds—"

"I barged into  your  life?" Altair took an aggressive step toward me, and his eyes flashed with fury. "I've been here throughout the last few months, Hesper, and even longer before that. From my perspective  you're the intruder."

Any hint of a retort died in my throat. Was Altair right? I'd only ever thought of the A-frame and the surrounding forest as mine, but how could he think of me as anything but an interloper? The sudden parallax shift caught me off guard.

Altair dragged his hands through his ragged hair, and my stomach twisted involuntarily as his black glare hit me. The loathing in his gaze was as powerful as a physical blow.

"You just won't leave me alone," he laughed bitterly. "I don't know what I did to deserve being punished like this, but your presence is almost enough to make me throw over my atheism and start believing in a vengeful god."

Altair's scornful words were just too much to take. After yesterday's roller coaster of emotions, I was just too worn out to handle any more humiliation at his hands. Following him had been a mistake — hopefully the last I'd make with regard to him.

"Then by all means, let me put you out of your misery," I managed through the vice-tight collar of sobs choking my throat, and shouldered past him.

Suddenly I was spinning through space, moving in an unpredicted direction. It was though I'd tripped, but I hadn't collided with anything — and what was that sudden pressure around my waist?

The breath gushed out of my lungs as Altair slammed me up against the wall. He pressed against me, pinning me in place. His ink-dark eyes were raging, more terrifying than I'd ever seen before.

"Don't you dare," Altair growled, and savagely crushed his lips against mine.

What the  fuck ?!

I gasped in shock, and Altair forced his tongue between my teeth. My mouth was full of the taste of him, all  woods and earth and delicious sweetness. His fingers dug into me, threatening to tear me apart.

Then, abruptly, Altair's lips were gone. His cheekbone grazed my temple, and I felt his panting breaths warm my skin. As he pulled away I saw his expression was pained, his eyes black pools of misery. But his arms were still tight around my waist, holding me fast.

"Hesper, believe me, it's not that I don't want you — graces know I do," Altair said in a strangled voice, "but I won't be here forever. In a couple of months — we're not even sure  when yet—"

"I don't care," I interrupted.

Altair broke off, and we stared at each other in silence. My heart was racing so badly that I couldn't distinguish the individual beats. I reached up with a shaking hand and gingerly caressed his cheek, and Altair's eyes widened almost imperceptibly at the touch. His skin was as smooth as glass, warmer than I was expecting. I ran my fingertips over his hair — which wasn't raven black, I finally saw, but a deep, rich brown. Altair was so  beautiful that I almost couldn't believe he was real.

He watched me carefully, probing, and I realized I hadn't finished my  thought .

"However long we have, it's fine," I managed. "I just... I can't—"

A slow, breathtaking grin illuminated Altair's features like light from a dark star. "I can't stay away from you, either," he said. Then he pressed his mouth to mine again, and words  became meaningless.

* * *

#  Chapter Eight

Unnamable

I didn't realize I'd been asleep until I stumbled my way out of more dreams of being held — only, this time the sensations of warmth and comfort didn't fade as I approached wakefulness. There was a dull pressure on my body, and I opened my eyes to find Altair's sleeping face on the pillow just a few inches away, his arms and legs entwined with mine like the roots of a tree.

Altair. And me. In bed.  Ye goddesses.

Memories of last night came flooding back, and I was relieved to discover that we were still wearing all our clothes. Even so, my lips  tingled with residual numbness, and I had to touch Altair to reassure myself that we were actually here, lying beside each other, and that everything I remembered had actually happened. It was amazing to watch him slumbering so peacefully considering how his eyes burned into me when he was awake.

I gingerly  extricated myself from Altair's embrace, tiptoed to the bathroom and peered at my reflection in the dingy mirror. My reddish-brown hair was in lopsided disarray and the eyeliner had smudged under my eyes. Of course. I raked my fingers through my hair until it was reasonably under control, and used a damp paper towel to take care of my smudged makeup. It wasn't a perfect fix, but at least I didn't have the same half-crazed look I'd been rocking a few minutes ago. Definitely an improvement.

There was a sudden rustling noise from the main room, and I poked my head out of the bathroom to find Altair sitting in the chair, swiftly pulling on his boots. "Going somewhere?"

"Hesper!" Altair bolted to his feet in surprise — so fast that he banged his head on the canted roof, and immediately winced in pain.

"Holy crap, are you okay?" I hurried over to him, my stomach churning guiltily. "Sorry, I thought you were still asleep."

Altair laughed ruefully as he rubbed his head, checking his palm for blood. "I must've woken just after you did."

I examined the ceiling beam. Altair was probably the tallest person to have ever stood in this A-frame, and he'd luckily managed to  miss hitting any of the spots where rusted nail tips poked through. "And you thought you'd — what, go for a stroll?"

"I was going to look for you," Altair said quietly, his brow furrowing. "I thought you might've changed your mind, fled in terror or some such."

I busied myself with checking Altair's hand — which was mercifully free of streaks of red. He'd still probably have a whomping bruise, though. "You only wish you could be rid of me so easily," I teased dryly.

Altair threaded his fingers through mine, consternation etched on his features. "You're reacting so calmly to all of this, I just can't imagine it's sinking in."

Now it was my turn to frown. "How d'you mean?"

Altair hesitated a few seconds, working himself up to something. Then he abruptly blurted out, "Hesper, I'm six hundred years old."

I just raised an eyebrow at Altair. He stared at me in confusion.

"I feel as though that should elicit more of a reaction," Altair said slowly after a few seconds.

I shrugged. "Last night you implied that you've been alive since minus 1700, and said you're from an island that pops in and out of time like oh so much Brigadoon. Six hundred years old is actually significantly less than the millennia or two I was figuring you'd been around — not counting the skipped years, of course, which would put you at closer to four thousand. Since I have no frame of reference in either case, so long as we can communicate — which we clearly can — I guess I just don't see the problem."

Altair slid his arm around my waist and drew me close, looking more bemused than ever.

"Why aren't you running away screaming?" he murmured.

I grinned, delighted to have caught  him off-guard for once. "Behold, the assembled powers of geekitude."

Altair swiftly bent and kissed me. He ran his thumb along my jaw, and I shivered at his increasing insistence as his tongue probed my mouth. His other hand slid beneath my shirt at the small of my back, and I instinctively pushed my hips forward, leaning into him.

"I've been waiting for you for so long, Hesper," Altair whispered with a grin as we broke for air. "I don't understand how or why, but I'm sure you know I'm being truthful with you."

My heartbeat quickened again. "But how do you—"

" That's what throws you for a loop, not the invisible city in your  backyard ," Altair said dryly. He guided me to the chair, then sat on the side of the bed and watched me, suddenly grave again. "Part of my job in crossing over is knowing how to assimilate. Being able to read people at a single glance."

Altair's gaze flicked down, and I realized I was picking at my nails. Instantly self-conscious, I folded my hands into my lap. His eyes crinkled faintly, and he looked back up.

"So literally the first time I saw you... I  knew you."

I stared at Altair, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but his expression was utterly unfathomable. Then his eyes widened a little in recognition, traces of humor playing over his features.

"Don't look so dubious," Altair chided. "Your bearing, the way you handle yourself — it speaks of intelligence. You immediately knew how to adjust the telescopes at the library, which confirmed you're clever. Your posture is of someone who's defensive, but your gaze doesn't falter." He paused, and his tone softened. "You feel everything so intensely that just to live, to get by every day... it hurts."

"Okay, I get it," I said gruffly, but I couldn't help the warm surge in my belly. Somehow Altair was able to see things about me that I'd barely ever spoken of with anyone — and if he was on the level, he'd basically done it in a moment.

"And I saw you were brave," Altair went on gently. He leaned forward and took my hands, lacing his thumbs beneath mine. "Other people look at you and think you're an angry person, but they don't understand what you're feeling — and that only furthers the divide. Yet you're ready. You keep soldiering on because you're prepared, awaiting the day when your tiny existence gets turned on its head."

"Is that all?" I teased weakly to cover my discomfort.

Altair smirked, and his fingers tightened on mine. "Well... I also happen to know you think I'm remarkably attractive."

I gasped, startled.

His smirk became a full-fledged mischievous grin. "Your pupils dilate when you look at me."

"That's just unfair," I complained. "You and your insanely black eyes... which is from the eos, right? I'm calling shenanigans on you."

Altair suddenly looked as self-conscious as I felt. "Actually, that's just me." He laughed. "I've always hated my eyes. I think they make me look rather inhuman."

"In the best possible way," I said softly.

Suddenly I found myself sitting in Altair's lap, kissing him desperately as my fingers knotted themselves in his sleek brown hair. Altair might be able to see everything about me at a glance, but in his embrace, I could  feel him — feel the floodgates of his articulate, precise personality eroding against the force of his longing. He wanted to pour himself into me, to be understood in the same way that  he'd recognized me.

Altair pulled away, and smoothed my hair out of my face. "Hesper, I—"

Golden light fell on Altair's face, and it suddenly registered in my brain that this was the wrong angle for the sun. What I was seeing outside wasn't the grey of early morning — it was a cloudy late afternoon. "Holy shit, what time is it?"

Altair checked the strange, skeleton-faced watch on his wrist and frowned. "Three-twenty."

"Fuck, I'm late!" I scrambled to my feet and jammed on my boots, but Altair caught me around the waist, and I fell back onto the bed with him.

"Don't go," he murmured into my neck between slow kisses.

Goosebumps blazed along my skin, and I couldn't keep my mouth from Altair's. I wanted to stay with him so desperately, but after a few more seconds of mindless bliss I forced myself to pull away. "I really have to get to work."

Altair groaned as he sat up. "And leave me here in agony."

I watched him, suspicious, as I flung on my jacket. "Is that a euphemism for something?"

"I'm merely trying to say I'll miss you," he corrected wryly as he sat up. I opened my mouth to protest, but Altair only chuckled. "It's all right, Hesper, please go do what you must. I'll be here when you get back."

"Sure you won't disappear?" I asked.

Altair pressed my palm to his lips and then laid my hand over his heart. "I promise."

With one last knee-weakening kiss I dashed out of the A-frame and sprinted for home, trying not to think of those dark eyes that I knew were looking after me, calling me back to him.

~

It seemed like my mother was yelling at me even before I was fully through the front door. " Five times!  Five times your boss has called in the last two hours to ask where you are!"

I dashed to my room and threw on a different shirt and some sneakers. "I'm going as fast as I can, what more do you want?"

I'd been hoping every step of the way along the trail that Mom was working lunch at the diner, but it seemed that I'd exhausted today's quota of good luck already. Now she appeared in my doorway, her cushy white bathrobe like the raiment of some avenging angel. "We're not your personal answering service, Hesper! And where were you all night? Why didn't you think to call?"

"I was just at a friend's," I snapped. "And if you're not my answering service — which is more than fine, by the way — why do you care where I was?"

"Without the truck?" Mom demanded, ignoring my snarky comeback. "Because if you don't need it, I'm more than happy to take the keys back."

I glowered at her. All the happiness I'd been feeling just a few minutes ago was now eroding in the face of her unceasing venom. Evidently yesterday's sympathy had been tenuous, easily destroyed by this latest affront. "You know I need  the truck to get to my job."

"If you even still  have  one!" she snapped.

I blew past her and didn't stop fuming until halfway to Eastview, by which point fear had the stronger grip in my belly. This wasn't just a mere slip-up: I'd never been so grossly late to work in my life. If I got fired, I had no doubt my mother would try to keep me on total lockdown. Even though I wasn't a kid anymore, it would be hard to get out to see Altair if I was Mom's prisoner — and if I disobeyed a direct order while she was supporting me completely, there was the very real possibility that she'd kick me out.

My legs trembled wildly as I headed in through the school's back door and into the maintenance office. Bob was sitting at his desk, and, seeing me, his face relaxed in disappointment.

"I'm so sorry," I began, but Bob extended a hand toward a waiting chair, cutting me off.

"Why  dontcha have a seat, kid?"

I uneasily lowered myself into the chair, wondering whether or not easygoing, baby-faced Bob was going to pull a sawed-off rifle from under his death and execute me for tardiness. "So what's going on with you, Hesper?"

I clamped my lips together and shrugged. "Nothing."

"Problems at home?" Bob asked kindly. Unless he had spoken over the phone in a strikingly different manner, my mother had blown this entire situation out of proportion.

"Uh, yeah, a little," I answered.

"Thought so." Bob sat back and folded his arms. "I've been there, and I know how hard that can be."

A lump coalesced in my throat. After Mom's self-righteous fury, Bob's legitimate compassion had caught me off guard. "I'm really, really sorry, Bob. It won't happen again."

"If you ever get held up, Hesper, just give me a call," Bob said kindly. "Hopefully we won't have a repeat of today anytime soon, but I worry about my crew. Safety first and all that."

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

"Which brings me to another point," Bob went on, his expression growing uneasy. "Some people around here — not me, mind, but some — are a little...  curious why you're working this sort of job when you've got a college education."

"Education, yeah," I spluttered, "but for the purposes of most jobs, I'm as unskilled as a high school dropout!"

Bob nodded his agreement. "I get that. But you just want to be careful. Word travels upward very quickly — and I like you, Hesper. I think you've got potential, but you've got to prove that to everyone else, too."

It was such a stark turnaround to go from Altair's fervent belief in my strength to feeling utterly useless — and at something that sucked, no less. The fear of my mother was still too strong to be denied, though, and it helped me bite back my pride. I really did need this job if I wanted to break free anytime soon. "I won't let you down, Bob."

Bob's face broke into a broad grin. "That's what I like to hear."

I hurried up to the third floor and started going about my rounds. Thoughts banged around in my head like oil tankers in a too-small harbor, and if I indulged them all, I was going to burst.

Instead, I started thinking of every task as something that stood between me and Altair. Cleaning each bit of furniture, floor, and bathroom both quickly and thoroughly brought me that much closer to seeing him again.

After the double revelations of Ynys Afallach and Altair — even thinking his name made my insides quake! — the six remaining hours of scrubbing and wiping seemed pathetic. If anything was  more  pathetic it was me, for being so phenomenally impatient — so I kept my nose to the grindstone until nine-thirty rolled around and I was again free.

~

I built up enough speed before reaching the house that I was able to shift the truck into neutral and coast into the driveway with the headlights off. A harsh blast of fluorescent light was visible through the window in the front door, which I was reasonably sure meant Mom was sitting up and waiting to ambush me.

She was going to have to wait.

I jogged down the trail to the A-frame, the worn, icy dirt track impossibly long now that I desperately wanted to be at its opposite end. I'd been picturing this moment for the last six hours, and now that I was finally here, it was even more surreal than my imagination. The mist of the last few nights had dissipated, leaving a quartz-clear sky riddled  with the bullet holes of stars. The brilliant emerald aurora pulsed like a living river not far overhead, and I was amazed to see that in some places it was now bore a scalloped edge of pale watermelon.

I wondered if they could see it in Ynys Afallach.

My lungs were stinging from the cold air by the time I reached the A-frame, but I was positive it felt warmer here than at Eastview or on Route 17. I banged on the front door, but there was only a muffled shout from within, so I turned the knob and took a hesitant step inside.

"Altair?"

"Be there in a moment," came the reply from the bathroom. I balked on the A-frame's threshold, but the bathroom  door was standing open, so he probably wasn't doing anything terribly private. Still—

Suddenly Altair walked out of the bathroom. There was a small towel slung over the back of his neck and he was shirtless, revealing a lean, muscular torso that was somehow broader than I'd been expecting. The green undertone of his skin was utterly unblemished, and set off his dark features perfectly. What I'd thought to be a smallish tattoo on Altair's arm was in fact a series of complex, interconnected geometric shapes that extended over the front and back of one shoulder and terminated at the base of his neck like a pauldron.

But maybe the most unexpected thing was that his chin-length mop of black hair had been trimmed by several inches and was pushed back from his face. The transformation was both magnetic and disconcerting; Altair's already hypnotic eyes were now more breathtaking than ever, and my excitement was partly strangled by a surge of awkward unfamiliarity.

"You cut your hair," I said quickly to hide my discomfort.

Altair frowned and said something, but I couldn't understand the words through my daze.

"Huh?"

He tossed the towel aside, strode over, pulled the door out of my hand — I hadn't even realized I'd been holding it open — and shut firmly shut it. A backdraft of cold air slapped me in the face, jump-starting my brain, and I looked away, not wanting to let him see me staring idiotically.

Altair gazed peculiarly at me. "You really don't have the best relationship with that door, do you?"

"Childhood trauma," I offered weakly. He was so close that his earthy scent filled my nose, and I hazily thought of how he tasted, sweet and clear like rainwater. Altair might think I had the willpower of a titan, but that didn't stop me from standing here like a stunned moth. I wasn't sure whether to look at the intricate whorled lines of Altair's tattoo, at his lean, muscular frame, or into his infinite black gaze.

"Hesper." He touched my chin and peered in my eyes, concerned. "Are you feeling  all right ?"

Might as well be honest. "Just trying to resist falling prey to my baser instincts."

Altair's eyes narrowed with humor. He ran his hands over the bare skin beneath the hem of my shirt, grinning as I gasped at his touch. "Good. Now you know how I feel."

He kissed me hungrily, and I arched my back, pressing into him until we aligned like puzzle pieces. The haircut and lack of a shirt might have too much of a shock for my poor brain to process, but my body remembered Altair perfectly. He crushed me against the A-frame's thin wall in a way that was both breathtaking and agonizing, and I  wound one of my legs around his, desperate to be even closer to him.

Altair turned his head aside, half-groaning and half-laughing as his teeth grazed my earlobe. "You won't be content until I've seduced you completely, will you?"

" Seduce is such a lofty word," I murmured, surprised at my own boldness. "Right now I'd settle for something way more prosaic."

Altair's perfect mouth fell open in shock, but I knew he was amused because of the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Miss  Fane !"

I grinned. "What, didn't see that coming, Mr. Lerner?"

"And with that..." Altair kissed my forehead and disengaged from me. I groaned in protest, but he simply waggled a finger. "I won't have you saying I never take you anywhere, and I certainly can't go out dressed like this."

I slumped into the chair in a mock huff. "Says you."

Altair chuckled, and I instantly ached for him all over again. He pulled on a white button-down shirt, rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, and fastened a dark tie around his neck in a loose half-Windsor. "How was your day?"

"Well, no one was really happy I was late," I sighed, "but I still have a job, so that's good."

Altair grunted noncommittally.

"Don't knock it," I said, and peered at his notebook, which lay open on the table. The pages were covered with neat scrawl in an incomprehensible script, and intricate drawings that made no sense to my untrained eye. "It's not like  you don't work for a living, Copernicus."

"That's a different matter altogether."

I grew leery as Altair pulled on a faded red vest and started buttoning it. "What's with the schmancy duds?"

Altair grinned mischievously, and bent to kiss me. "My world, my wardrobe."

"What? We're going to Ynys Afallach right  now ?" I tried to swallow the squeak of alarm out of my voice. "I thought you said you had to get permission to bring me through?"

"I said I'd be here when you  got back, Hesper, not that I'd be here the entire time you were away," Altair said dryly.

Oh. Of course. I'd assumed Altair had gone back to bed after I'd left, but he was probably too principled for that. If I hadn't seen him sleeping this afternoon, I'd have doubted he was even capable of it.

He swung his duster on and grabbed his satchel from the table. "Are you ready?"

I glanced down. My wool coat was fine, but the grimy teal shirt and ratty hoodie that lay beneath weren't what I'd expected to be wearing the first time I passed through an interdimensional rift. "Shouldn't I at least — I don't know, beautify or something?"

"If you want to procrastinate by conducting a pointless exercise," Altair said gently, and held out his hand.

I slid my fingers through his, feeling a fiery blush rise in my cheeks.

Suddenly I was in Altair's arms again, our faces mere inches apart. My whole body buzzed like a live wire, and my lips practically burned with envy as he planted a soft kiss on my forehead. When he released me from the abrupt embrace, my hand was still clasped in his.

"Come on," Altair said with a craggy-eyed smile, and tugged me out the door.

~

Altair led me up another closed trail, blatantly ignoring the all-caps admonition on a nearby sign. The aurora seethed emerald and roseate overhead, and fog again crept out of the highlands, spilling between tree trunks like the gaseous tendrils of an infinite octopus.

My breaths started coming faster as the mist closed in, blocking out everything but a bubble of space that faded to green-grey oblivion a few feet behind and ahead of us. I must have tightened my grip on Altair's hand, because he regarded me with concern. "What's wrong?"

"Claustrophobia," I gasped. Enclosed space didn't usually trouble me, but this wasn't the sort of situation I ran into every day.

Altair stopped and turned me to face him. "Close your eyes," he instructed.

The world blurred violently as I shook my head.

"Hesper, there isn't any other way to get to Ynys Afallach," Altair said patiently. "I'm going to try to help you, but first you have to trust me."

After a few reluctant false starts, I pressed my eyes shut. Panic tightened my chest, and the breaths came faster.

Then I felt Altair's hands cupping my face, and the warmth of his body against mine. His familiar scent enveloped me, ancient tomes and damp earth. "Listen," he murmured. "Just float free with the mist, and listen to the forest."

Silence roared in my ears, blocking out everything but my own panting breaths. Altair wrapped one arm around my waist, and I pressed my ear to his chest. His heart beat at a reassuringly steady clip. I sank against him in relief.

A branch cracked nearby, and I jumped, panic turning my diaphragm to lead. "It's all right, Hesper," Altair soothed, his voice resonating through his chest. "Just listen."

Through the unbearable quiet I heard the whispered creaking of the old pines, and the distant rushing of Oyster River. I heard the soft flurry of small creatures making their way through the underbrush, and the dripping of dew onto the fallen leaves.

"The only boundaries are in your mind," Altair thrummed in my ear. He caressed my hair. "Now try opening your eyes."

All I could see was the sleeve of Altair's duster, and beyond it the pulsing mist that was bathed green, reflecting the aurora. My chest started to tighten again.

Altair's voice came again, seeming to emanate through me. "Just because you can't see or feel a thing doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

As I focused on the sounds of the forest, the mist didn't seem to press so close anymore. If I squinted, I could make out the shapes of some nearby trees, and the shadows of their counterparts further back from the trail.

"Keep talking," I muttered to Altair as he gingerly stepped back and continued to lead me forward along the narrow specter of the track. "Am I supposed to be looking for a glowing tunnel, spinning stone rings, or what?"

"Nothing so specific," Altair chuckled. "The mist indicates areas where the veil is thinnest — where particles from both worlds are in quantum flux."

"Like dimensions colliding?" I asked.

Altair shook his head, but I saw he was smiling. "The musical instrument you played... was it the saxophone?"

"Flute, actually."

Altair grimaced, mentally kicking himself. "Should've known from the embouchure. At any rate, you remember the theory?"

"'Course."

"Think of the fundamental particles of this universe like notes on a scale," Altair said. "They're disparate, but complementary to each other when taken as a whole. Ynys  Afallach's simply been attuned to a different scale — or, really, it's modulating between several, at least a note of which is the same as Earth's."

"And by consuming eos, people can pass between the worlds."

Altair nodded.

"Okay, so I get the mechanism," I said, "but I still don't understand the catalyst."

"Strictly, neither do we," Altair admitted. "All we really know is that the mind is a very peculiar organ, and it seems to dictate the behavior of the rest of the body — most particularly, the senses."

I looked askance at Altair as we threaded through the grey gloom. "What's your theory?"

Altair glanced at me coyly. "Why are you certain I have one? I'm merely a humble researcher, and no biologist, at that."

"Right," I snorted. "If after six hundred years you  didn't have a theory of your own, I'd be pretty disappointed in you."

Altair squeezed my hand. His eyes were bright with excitement. "I think it's something akin to pattern-seeking. When a person is put into quantum superposition — a state of true liminality — their mind decides to engage with one set of parameters or another. They literally make a particular world real for themselves."

"So it's a choice?" I asked.

"Essentially." Altair's brow wrinkled, but I knew he was pleased. "I can't believe you can keep up with all that."

I chewed my lip, thinking. "But the orchard's in Ynys Afallach — or, I mean, I'm guessing it is. So how could I see it the other night?"

Altair reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the phial of the pearlescent pink liquid. "This tincture is made  from the eos . I used it on you after I found you on the mountain, and residual traces evidently interacted with the adrenaline in your system."

Whoa. But something else was nagging at me — something that wasn't even that important, given the grand scheme of things. "So you didn't really put me in the shower to warm me up?"

"No," Altair said carefully, but I could sense he was holding something back.

"What?"

"No, I didn't put you in the shower... but it wasn't due to the eos." I wondered if Altair realized he'd picked up his pace — or if he was intentionally walking faster. "That extract blend only works on minor physical lacerations, not something as comprehensive as core temperature."

I grabbed Altair's hand, stopping him. He was flushed, but it seemed like more than the mere exertion of hiking. "So why didn't I die?"

Altair just watched me. I couldn't understand why he seemed so discomfited and... apologetic? "I had to warm you up gradually so as not to shock your system," he said after a few seconds.

My stomach lurched drunkenly as I suddenly remembered a particularly giggle-inducing day during seventh grade survival training — and that dream. "You and I were  naked  together?"

"Not completely," Altair said quickly. He looked mortified. "Just enough so that you wouldn't— Hesper, I swear—"

I stood on my toes and kissed him. Altair froze a little, but he seemed only too happy to stop talking.

"Thank you for rescuing me," I said.

If anything, Altair's blush deepened. "You're quite welcome."

~

I began to see the trees a few minutes later. They weren't Earth trees — or not exactly. Even just judging from their gnarled silhouettes, I could tell they didn't belong in this gathering of birches, pines and oaks.

At a certain point Altair stopped, but all I could see was the quantum mist and the shadowy forests of two worlds. He consulted a strange compass that showed interlocking gears in place of a face, and nodded. "This'll do."

"For what?"

Altair dug in his satchel. "You've got a choice, Hesper. On the one hand..." Altair pulled out an eos fruit and held it up. "The long way. You'll be able to see Ynys Afallach with increasing clarity, and cross over after a week or two."

"Oh." That definitely wasn't an appealing option. "What's behind door number two?"

Altair's expression became somber, and he pulled a small, slender box from his bag. He opened it to reveal a dose of glowing blue-green liquid, and a hypodermic needle.

Yikes. If there was one thing that frightened me more than blinding mist, it was needles.

"Concentrated eos, applied directly to the bloodstream," Altair said quietly. His eyes were positively enormous. "It'll be uncomfortable, and likely more than a bit disturbing."

"The upside being?"

"You'll be able to walk the streets of Ynys Afallach tonight. In mere minutes, actually."

Altair watched me carefully as I weighed my options. On one literal hand was what I wanted most, but from Altair's look of concern, I had a feeling  uncomfortable and  disturbing really meant painful.

"Bring on the medicine, doc," I told him shakily.

Altair's expression was inscrutable, but he replaced the eos fruit in his bag and prepped the syringe.

"Do you think I'm being impatient?" I asked as Altair swept my hair away from one side of my neck.

"Yes," he said simply.

"But you knew it was what I'd choose."

Altair narrowed his eyes at me, smiling in  the way that only he could. "I'll be right beside you the entire time," he promised, "but ultimately this is your decision. Is this really what you want?"

My mouth was too dry to speak, so I nodded.

Altair kissed my cheek. Then he moved behind me, and in my peripheral vision I saw the glowing barrel approach. My neck stung, and an unbearable burning spread through my body, beginning with my head. I could feel my veins shivering as though a snake was wriggling through them, knotting over and over itself inside my skull.

I heard myself screaming.

The fog danced in front of my eyes like static, and the sloped ground wavered like ocean waves. I was aboard a ship, and as it slid down into a trough of the massive breaker, we shuddered to a stop, run aground on rocks. My ears were full of the splintering of the deck, the groaning and shuddering of the planks as they rent apart.

There was nothing beneath my feet, and I was flying, falling...

My knees momentarily gave way, and there was a sudden pressure around my waist as Altair caught me. Even through the dark and the howling of the rain, I knew it was him holding me steady, and I again stood firm.

The desert before me was a nighted plane. Strange purple lightning crackled in a sky that was at the same time distant and close enough to touch. It was like standing inside a diorama.

Water coursed around my feet, sucking me onward toward the horizon. I couldn't tell how far there was to go, but after several eternal moments I'd found my way to the far-off cliff's edge. The lightning was gone now — or overshadowed by eerie light that seemed to rise from the very cataract itself. There seemed to be rocks all around, as though I'd descended into some sort of massive subterranean tunnel. I could hear the hissing of the water as it plunged into its stygian berth, but the mist still surrounded me, emanating from the pit.

"Where do I go?" I murmured.

"Upriver," came Altair's tranquil, distant voice. "Turn into the heart of it."

Signals of warmth were reported by a distant faction of nerves, and the central processor relayed that Altair had kissed our hair. Certain analytical clusters took the opportunity to point out that he really was quite fond of us, which was duly noted in the logs.

The mist swirled chaotically, just a mess of colors. That was it — colors! The cones were misaligned, I finally saw, and the blips were the moments their attempted rotation was rebuffed. There was a way to realign them — and the rods along with them, of course — but it was going to be a risky mission. Almost as risky as the mission to be human.

I breathed in the heady tang of metal and paper, of decaying trees and evaporating rain. Then I jumped.

The millions of miniscule cylinders noted my approach, and turned to welcome me. Brilliant, hyper-saturated hues approached through the honeycomb, and then, suddenly, the lattice disappeared as though it had never been, and I was back to myself.

We were standing on a steep, grassy hill beside the edge of a dim forest. The sky overhead was streaked orange and purple, and covered with messy smudges of black clouds. A crescent-shaped city sat far below where the meadow dropped into a steep grade, ringed with the tortuous spines of towers and spires I'd seen last night. The peak of a dormant volcano loomed over the city, its heights lost in the sooty vault, and beyond its far wall I saw the blue-green haze of the eos orchard.

A warm, salty breeze pushed insistently at my skin, and I ran my fingers through the grass. Despite how certain I'd been of what I saw last night, this was all still entirely unexpected. The atmosphere had the same cloistered, surreal feeling of the world before a storm. Once I'd watched a hurricane barrel into Reid State Park, the thick grey thunderhead unfurling like a doormat as it rolled onto the land — but this was even more intimate. It was like standing on the rim of the heavens.

"It's real," I gasped.

Altair grinned boyishly. "Well done, Hesper. You've just taken your first steps into a larger world."

As if in defiance of the astonishingly beautiful vista that suddenly lay before me, I turned to the side and violently  retched into the emerald grass of the hillside.

* * *

#  Chapter Nine

Eldritch

"It's all right," Altair said kindly. I almost would've thought he was laughing at me but for the tender way he brushed the sweat-sticky clumps of hair back from my face. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and the thin bile stung like an inferno, scalding my nose and mouth just as powerfully even after minutes had passed.  Must have passed — but from the way the violet dusk stretched out without end, it was nearly impossible to tell.

Mercifully, there was a tissue in my pocket, and I blew my nose, grateful to feel the burning immediately subside. Altair offered me a bottle of water, and I swished some in my mouth, and then spat in the trippily green grass. My stomach muscles groaned in protest, but I ignored Altair's proffered hand and stood back up on my own.

He watched me intently, his black eyes more luminous than ever in the half-light. "How do you feel?"

The residual sensation of being turned inside-out was from hurling, I knew, but I wasn't sure whether or not the jitteriness in my legs was from the dreamlike world before me or Altair's unearthly beauty. If anything, he looked even  more  alien here, not less. "Like a sea cucumber, I think."

Altair smiled faintly, but his face was etched with worry. "It'll pass. Do you want to sit for a while?"

I shook my head. "I'm all right."

The mist extended to both sides of us in a vast curve that disappeared along the charcoal-streaked horizon. Only the grey wall behind us seemed familiar, and even it skated to and fro in the air, each tendril nearly intangible, but utterly opaque as a whole. A navy sea rippled in the infinite darkness beyond the edge of land as vivid as a Brian Kesinger painting.

Altair's posture was relaxed as he looked out over the dreamlike vista, but I could hear the restrained excitement in his voice. "So, where shall we go first?"

The tangled spires and belfries and vast green expanses were too overwhelming to try to pick out just one. I was going to have to consult the expert — which was going to make him absolutely miserable, no doubt. "What are the options?"

The corners of Altair's eyes crinkled with delight, and he gestured to a line of patchwork green that ran along the sleeping volcano's base. "There's the outlying lands, which are predominantly farms. The soil's rich enough out there to grow all the crops we need."

"What about livestock?"

One of Altair's shoulders jerked up in a lopsided shrug. "We do have some, but they're for milk or transport. Raising animals is a significant drain on resources, so we bring meat in from the outside for the bigger festivals."

"And if someone's jonesing for a burger? Just... shit out of luck?"

The ghost of a smile crossed Altair's features. "Most people don't mind. Those who do tend to become scouts, and source their food from the outside."

I thought back to the sandwich I'd seen Altair eating at the Mile 25 rest stop — it had definitely contained meat. "Is that why you got into it?"

Altair chuckled. "Hardly. But the protein's good for those of us who are more active."

I focused on a particular line of nested arches in the not-so-distant city so Altair wouldn't notice the blood rushing to my cheeks. "Active, huh..."

"Yes, Hesper," Altair drawled. "I'm quite partial to physical exertion, as I'm sure you're aware."

My head whipped around instinctively, and I stared at Altair. His expression was beatifically calm, but his eyes danced with mischief as he caressed the inside of my wrist with his thumb. "Hiking, Hesper. I like hiking."

Hiking... right. That wasn't the word he really meant, and we both knew it.

I turned away again, trying to hide the foolish grin that suddenly tugged at my lips. My legs felt like they were on fire. "I bet you do."

"Though we could always go to the city first," Altair said abruptly, and I got the impression he was trying to drag this conversation back out of the realm of subtext. Which was probably for the best — flirty Altair was completely irresistible, and this was neither the appropriate time nor place for...  well ... "It's more of a town, really, but that's where we preserve our history."

"Bet you guys have some pretty awesome museums," I said.

Altair squinted down at the collection of torqued towers, thinking. "I more meant in terms of the architecture itself. The city itself is a sort of living fossil — it's constantly being reworked to resemble all the intervening periods we've lived through. Though we have a fairly magnificent library, too, of course."

"I'd certainly hope so," I teased.

Altair's fingers tightened on mine, and he watched me with a distant, almost dreamy expression. "All the lost literary treasures of Alexandria... the Grand Library of Baghdad... books by Archimedes, Shakespeare's  Cardenio , the Gospel of Eve..."

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a gasp. According to something I'd once read, the Gospel of Eve was a pretty perverse Gnostic text — and from that distracted look on Altair's face, it was easy to surmise he hadn't mentioned it unintentionally.

Holy fuck.

"For someone who claims to be non-theistic, you sure seem to be all goddess-worship-y," I said in what I hoped was a casual tone.

"I suppose that works in your favor, then, doesn't it?" Altair replied with equal nonchalance, but his blacker-than-black gaze was searing into me. Even with the most amazing panorama imaginable stretched out before us, the only thing I could see was Altair.

Then he shyly looked away and cleared his throat, all business again. "Perhaps we should visit the farmlands first, given the circumstances..."

"No, I think I'd like to see the city first," I said. "That architecture sounds too fascinating to pass up."

"All right," Altair said, and led me toward a tortuous dirt footpath that cut along the hill. I couldn't be certain, but as the trail became steeper, and Altair turned to make sure I was all right, I thought  I caught a satisfied glint in his eye.

~

Walking the streets of Ynys Afallach's central hub was like walking into an acid-fueled Dali painting. There was no seeming rhyme or reason to the rippling, conjoined buildings — no logic that could've possibly dictated the layout of the multi-inclined Asian roofs, the Mediterranean arches, or the strange appearance of a New England Victorian in the midst of an otherwise anonymous street. The wood, glass, and metal surfaces meshed together in  an otherworldly progression so thoroughly dreamlike that I often couldn't tell where one structure ended and another began.

The streets themselves were made of compressed dirt or cobblestones, and almost utterly devoid of people for a metropolis of this size. The few passersby we encountered all wore garb as anachronistic as that of the buildings, often melding the loose, pleated fabrics of togas or saris with more structured elements like trousers or jackets. The air was pleasant, with only a touch of mugginess despite the mellow heat, and I suspected that I was probably equally comfortable in a wool coat and jeans as were some of our companions in their comparably scanter garb.

"You're awfully quiet," Altair muttered, watching me out of the corner of his eye. "It's making me nervous."

I shook my head, trying to make sense of the sensory overload. "I'm just trying to imagine how someone designs something like this. Not only how they imagine it in the first place, but then how they bring it forth, make it happen. Even if I see something in my head, translating it..."

I shook my head, at a loss. I could hardly even draw, so to imagine designing such a masterwork was impossible.

"The eos has a number of side effects, one of which seems to be heightened visual abilities," Altair said. His voice took on a skeptical edge. "Not many of us remember how we thought before — from an experiential perspective, that is — but a lot of visitors say it's easier here to sort of... dream things into existence. Their words, obviously, not mine."

"What's with the tone?" I asked.

Altair thought a moment before answering. "I simply think there's a more accurate explanation no  one's happened upon yet."

I frowned. " Happened upon doesn't sound too accurate."

"Come now, Hesper, you've only to glance at the history of innovation to see how many great discoveries were made by chance," Altair chided gently. "But those phenomena were identified, tested, and explained. Qualified and quantified."

"Fair enough," I admitted.

We walked on, quiet for a few moments as I absorbed the mystifying streets. Altair seemed content for me to take the lead, offering only the occasional nod to reorient me toward the massive stone helix that was evidently the library. It was nothing short of impressive, even from a distance.

"So what's your favorite era?" I asked eventually.

"Victorian London wasn't so bad," Altair said. "Impractical sometimes, but I appreciated the aesthetics."

"All calling cards and snuff boxes," I said lightly, then pointedly looked at his clothes — the faded vest, button-down shirt and tie. "You're just a fob-chain away from looking like a properly low-rent Vicky."

Altair grimaced. "Hardly. But then, hiking in spats is, as I said—"

"—impractical," I finished, then grinned at him. "Don't tell me telepathy is a side effect of the eos, too."

Altair glared in disbelief. "Oh, now don't you start."

I held up my hands in mock surrender. "Are there any other side effects from the eos I should know about? Scientifically proven ones?"

Altair didn't answer immediately, but I knew he was mustering up something from the way his neck began to color with blush.  Uh oh.

"The quantum indeterminacy the eos provides will keep you in a temporal stagnancy," he said at length. "As long as you're consuming it regularly, you won't age. Nor will any other physical processes take hold."

Altair was dancing around something uncomfortable again, being indirect to disguise his discomfort. "Define  other physical processes ."

His voice was deceptively dispassionate. "If you were, say, trying for a child, for instance, that simply wouldn't be possible."

"Ha, well, no worries there," I muttered, equally uncomfortable all of a sudden. This had been a fundamental disconnect with Brett: I didn't want to have kids. He'd claimed to be on the same page, but afterwards I'd wondered more than once if that had helped drive him away — as if he'd thought I was deficient because I didn't want to include that on my cosmic bingo card.

I had enough mother issues to deal with — actually being one was unthinkable. And now this was coming up with Altair.  Fantastic .

"I'm not exactly a marriage-and-two-kids type."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

I didn't dare meet Altair's gaze. Everything around us was so amazing, but if I saw some kind of disappointment — or worse, judgment — in his expression, our surroundings would be as ashen to me as that eos-riddled horse monster. My ears roared with the rapidly accelerating blood flow to my head.

"I've just concluded it's hard enough for me just trying to exist and be responsible for myself," I said softly. "Raising kids takes more sacrifice than I'm sure I can imagine — and I mean, I respect good parents ... I just don't think a family is the right choice. For me or anyone around me."

"So when you say marriage and two kids..." Altair prodded from my peripheral vision.

"I just mean the whole white picket fence, raising the offspring,  hi-honey-I'm-home kind of life. So... no worries as far as the eos goes," I finished lamely.

"I think that's quite sensible," Altair said.

I finally peeked at him. His face was kindly, the corners of his eyes creased in a tentative smile. There wasn't a trace of judgment on his marble features. "You don't think I'm... I dunno... faulty?"

Altair frowned, surprised at my words. "You've made a decision based on introspection and consideration for others. That seems quite well-reasoned to me. The aberrant ones are the people who've tried to convince you that you should want something other than what's right for you."

I felt a rush of warmth for Altair. Where had he been all my life? Oh yeah... bouncing in and out of time since thousands of years before I was born.  Right.

"What about you?" I asked timidly, trying to be polite.

"No," Altair responded quickly, "I'll never leave Ynys Afallach."

"Nor should you," I said wistfully, then smiled. Time to swim out of the deep waters. "So what was your next-favorite time period?"

We emerged into a flat, sandy piazza overshadowed by the library's intertwined towers. Altair squinted into the distance, thinking, as he led us toward a glass conservatory that stretched from the piazza to the library's expansive lower levels. "Islamic Golden Age, around a thousand common era. The poetry, art... that's when I began really learning about astronomy, in fact." He smiled fondly. "Ah, Hesper, you should've seen it."

Everything in my sight was abruptly replaced by a vision of a ragged but noble man leading a horse through a desert. A curved scimitar hung from his belt, and his face was covered by a scruffy beard, but I would've known Altair anywhere. Even at his worst he was magnificent, but  wow ...

Then, as suddenly as the image manifested, it was gone.

I stumbled over my own feet, but Altair caught me before I fell. He peered at me, brows drawn with worry. "What's wrong?"

"I just saw something," I panted, more than a little freaked out by the vividness of the vision. "It was so real!"

Altair's tense expression eased somewhat. "What did you see?"

"It was a guy leading a horse through a desert," I stammered, too embarrassed to admit to Altair that it was him I'd seen. "Boy, though, you weren't kidding when you said heightened visual abilities."

"It'll be a bit intense for you at first," Altair told me as we resumed walking toward the conservatory. "Once the levels of eos are more stable in your system, you won't notice it happening anymore."

The spacious piazza made the lack of other people more evident than ever. "Where is everyone?"

"There aren't many of us, for one thing," Altair said. "Maybe five hundred or so now. And as the sky is always this half-light, people move according to their own schedules. Only when there's a scheduled gathering does it actually seem like this city's inhabited."

"And other than that, it's a ghost town?" I asked.

Altair smiled faintly. "That's one way of putting it."

Just as we reached the leaf-shaped metal-and-glass door to the conservatory, a young woman with a pleasant, dreamy face pushed through from the other side. Her intricately braided hair was pink at the roots and faded to a leaf green at the ends, perfectly matching the colors of her loose lehenga choli. Tiny mirrors in the fabric sparkled and winked with light from the overcast sky. She was stunning.

The woman nodded to Altair as she passed us. It was an almost imperceptible gesture, but when she neared me, her sharp gray-green eyes flicked to meet mine, and she smiled faintly.

Altair glared after the woman. Something about her made him uncomfortable, but if he wasn't volunteering the reason, I wasn't going to pry. A person could probably rack up a lot of ex-girlfriends in six hundred years.

The charged moment passed quickly, and Altair ushered me into the conservatory. Carved stone gutters filled with babbling water ran along the perimeter of the lengthy corridor, while flagstone walkways laid neat but wandering paths through the lush vegetation. Everywhere I looked I saw exotic flowers with hollow, teardrop-shaped leaves, or strange, gnarled ferns with serrated edges.

"Are these all from Ynys Afallach?" I murmured as I ran my fingers over the stalk of a particularly spiny-looking plant.

Altair took a different branch of the flagstone paths, threading his way through the tangled undergrowth beside me, observing me through the fanned leaves of a circular frond like a panther. "This is actually a wing of the library. The curators collect specimens and try to arrange them in harmonious configurations to ensure their long-term survival."

"So these plants are all older than me?"

Altair grinned. "Most things here are."

I rolled my eyes. "Ugh, didn't you already give me the  you're so young speech?"

Our paths converged again, and Altair held out his hand to me, chuckling. "Come on, we're nearly there."

I brushed past him, smirking as I moving onward through the contained jungle. "Ha, cradle robbers don't get their hands held."

Altair's laughter echoed off the conservatory's glass walls. He easily caught up with me and spun me to face him, trapping me in his embrace. "Hesper, I've just found you," Altair murmured. "You can't be cross with me already."

It was a struggle to regain the power of speech when Altair was holding me so close, teasing me with that intoxicating mixture of restraint and humor. Then, as if seeing some  expression on my face, he lowered his chin and narrowed his eyes. "Oh, now don't give me that look."

I was baffled. "What look?"

His eyes narrowed even more, and he looked a little sheepish. "Must just be projecting," he muttered.

I narrowed my eyes back at him. "And what, exactly, are you projecting onto me, Mr. Lerner?"

Altair released me and stepped away, laughing. " That you did intentionally." He grabbed my hand and pulled me onward. "Come along, youngster, let's see if getting you in among some old books cools you off."

"Doubtful," I said cheerfully, thinking of Altair's earth-and-paper scent. But I let him tug me along all the same, and grinned as he shook his head at me.

~

The Ynys Afallach library's main foyer was an enormous sphere covered on every surface with paintings and inscriptions — but the true masterpiece stood on a dais before the twin staircases leading up into the library proper. I'd seen pictures of Minoan snake goddess statues before, but every memory paled before this twenty-foot statue of a woman with bared breasts holding a sinuous snake in each hand.

Altair mindlessly touched the tail of the nearest snake as we passed the statue, then pressed his fingertips to his forehead.

"That's an awfully reverent gesture for an avowed atheist," I said, intrigued, as we began to climb one set of the seemingly interminable stairs.

Altair smiled wanly, as if embarrassed. "To me it's the same as how you wouldn't kick around your stuffed animals from childhood — a nod to the animism of your past. You don't believe in it, but you remember when the world was a predictable place, and honor the memory of that innocence."

I swallowed a giggle. "Are you comparing stuffed animals to a theistic system?"

Altair regarded me with his canny gaze. "Yes, I am... rabbit girl."

"How could you possibly know that?" I demanded. The oddly-named Bunny Baby had been my companion of choice up until grade school — to be fair, maybe a little after that — and I'd actually hallucinated about something I'd referred to as the Great Mother Rabbit the first time I smoked up. But that stuffed animal packed away in storage now.  Even  I hadn't seen her for years.

Altair squinted at me, smirking a little. "It's difficult to explain how to discern a person's fundamental iconography. It takes knowing them decently well, and it takes practice."

I tried to hide the sudden surge of alarm. "So yours is a serpent?"

"Don't look so scandalized," Altair rebuked me mildly. "Your culture's connotation of snakes as cunning and evil is an inversion of an earlier association between snakes and wisdom."

"Like the snake in the Book of Genesis," I mused aloud, breathing a little easier as we reached the mid-staircase plateau.

"Or Slytherin in  Harry Potter ," Altair added.

I burst out laughing. "You've read  Harry Potter ?"

Altair scowled at me — playfully, I hoped. "What's so comical about that? For one thing, they were quite good, and at any rate, it's my responsibility to familiarize myself with cultural references."

Altair was six hundred years old and still liked Harry Potter ... damn, that series really  was  universal. "What other books from my culture do you like?"

"I didn't mind  The Hunger Games , but I was more partial to Koushun Takami's  Battle Royale in terms of depicting the psychological experience of youthful violence," Altair said, his brow furrowing with thought. "Frank Herbert's  Dune was one of my favorites. Orson Scott Card's  Ender's Game for another. And Neal  Stephenson's  The Diamond Age —"

"Okay, now you're just cheating," I interrupted.

"You did mention Stephenson," Altair countered, "but I completed the sketches for my version of Source Victoria when we were in the late 1990s."

"Guess I can't argue with that," I admitted wanly. It was really a relief to find out how many cultural landmarks Altair and I did have in common. He may've been alive since before the concept itself existed, but Altair was definitely a geek.

"Besides, I think ractives are the way modern film is headed." Altair smirked at me. "Don't you?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed melodramatically. "Movie night in Ynys Afallach will never be the same."

Altair frowned at me in disbelief. "I know you're joking, but what else do you expect we'd do? Take everyone to Flagship Cinemas? 'Five hundred for  Star Trek: Into Darkness , if you please?'"

Something about Altair's perturbed tone — and his reference to the local movie theater — was enough to set me off, and I leaned against a nearby banister, howling with laughter until tears poured from my eyes.

"Pull yourself together, woman," Altair muttered as he bit back a grin and nudged me onward.

"What do you do for electricity?" I asked as my giggles subsided.

"The usual — waterwheels, geothermal wells. We don't need much, and what we do have we use sparingly."

"But movie night rates?"

"Yes,  cultural research rates," Altair corrected, his eyes crinkling, and pulled me up the last set of stairs.

The library's main chamber was spherical like the foyer, but stretched up hundreds of feet into gothic pointed arches that formed a lattice beneath the helix tower. Circular stained glass windows ringed the top of the sphere, and glimmered in the dim light from without. Lines of huge stacks radiated outward from a central collection of desks and couches, and a huge ironwork globe stood directly opposite the stairs.

Altair led us toward the iron globe, scanning the library as we walked. "Tiresias must be off somewhere," he grumbled. "I'll have to introduce you the next time you come through."

Delight bubbled up inside me. Hearing Altair explicitly reference  next time  made me want to grab him and plank one on him. Not that he would've been comfortable with that, I was sure; he was fine with holding my hand, but anytime other people were nearby, he seemed utterly averse to PDA.

As we neared the globe, I saw lines of brightly colored string running from the back of several continental plates to a fist-sized ball in the middle of the sculpture. One of the lines was attached to the rear of New England, I saw as we approached — no, not just New England, but Maine. Penobscot Bay.

Home.

"The thread represents gateways?" I asked Altair. "I didn't realize there were multiple routes into Ynys Afallach."

He nodded, and twanged a yellow string that was connected to southern Europe with his fingertip. "In the current iteration, we've found paths to five sites on Earth. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less — and often they lead into solid rock or open air, so they aren't actually accessible. And their locations tend to differ."

The three other colored strings led to spots in India, Antarctica, and Madagascar. "How can you keep it all straight?"

Altair gazed at the center of the structure, where all the colored lines converged. "There are different scouts for each site, and we occasionally recur to certain places. With all the time in the world, it soon becomes quite routine."

"So you're the Ynys Afallach scout for New England?" I asked.

"North America, really — though New England is fast becoming my favorite," Altair said with a slow grin.

How many times had Ynys Afallach moved in and out of sync with the rest of Earth? I couldn't even begin to guess... but it made it all the more precious that Altair and I had somehow ended up running into each other. "How often have you... uh, iterated?"

Altair's black eyes flicked to a spot just over my shoulder, and I followed his gaze. The rear of the nearest line of stacks was in fact devoted to holding smaller replicas of the metal globe. Thousands of them. They crowded the fifteen-foot-high rows of shelves and stretched away into the shadows, sphere after sphere, each with its own stand and placard written in an unfamiliar script. Each highlighted by string to show the pathways to Ynys Afallach.

"So many," I gasped. Even counting only the hundreds of globes with connections to North America, it was staggering to have a visual representation of how many times Altair must have walked through the mist to find a new world before him. New people before him. I was just the most recent link in an almost unfathomably huge chain of events... and he had lived through all of them.

Altair watched me — reading me, as seemed to be his habit. A shadow of disquietude flitted over his features, and for a few moments he looked absolutely furious.

Oh. So when we'd first met, when I'd thought he was angry, he was... worried?

"Is there an algorithm for knowing where the pathways are going to open?" I asked, struggling to find my way out of my racing, convoluted thoughts.

Altair's voice was tight. "We've a vague notion. But there still seem to be variables in play we haven't yet identified. Currently we're studying if the overall mass passing through the pathways has any effect on the next iteration. Each transit is logged."

"Publicly?"

Altair tilted his head to the side. "Does that bother you?"

"No, I guess not." I chewed my lip, thinking. "If that wasn't a requirement, would you still have checked to see if it was all right to bring me in?"

Altair's brows drew together sharply in realization. "I don't suppose I would've."

Worry writhed low in my abdomen.

"It's not a bad thing." Altair took my hand again, and immediately I felt relief enfold me like the mist. Regardless of the circumstances, his touch was soothing. "It's merely that... Until a short while ago, I'd learned to almost completely shut out my emotions, so to be confronted with an example of how I'm changing... it's disconcerting."

"Must be intense," I murmured, fighting the mule-kick of nervousness in my gut.

"Not in the way you're thinking." Altair ran his thumb over my brow, smiling faintly as he smoothed away the crease of worry. His eyes danced more fiercely than ever, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost puzzled. "It's as though all my life I've been sleepwalking and this is it. My first moments of sentience." His hand tightened on mine. "Do you understand?"

I nodded. It was as though I was lost for words because Altair had stolen them right out of my mind.

Altair suddenly blinked, and the moment was gone. He raised an eyebrow at me, looking impish, and surveyed the library. "So you like the library?"

I followed his gaze. It really was a breathtaking building — and I hadn't even seen the best parts of it yet.

"It's like that Borges story  The Library of Babel, " I told him. "I don't think I could imagine how long it would take to read all the books. More than my lifetime, in any event. Which reminds me..." I squinted up at Altair, slightly discomfited again. "No aging, healing powers from the eos... you're pretty much immortal, right?"

Altair shrugged. "Not exactly. If we're hit by a car or something, we'd have all the usual problems. Death, dismemberment..."

"But you won't die of old age, right?" I pressed. "That's pretty awesome."

"Believe me, there are worse things than dying of old age," Altair said. He abruptly looked weary, drained, and I ached to put my arms around him, but he squeezed my hand, holding me fast. "Come along, I've just thought of something else to show you."

~

After the perfectly spherical rooms in the library, the raw, natural beauty of the grotto was even more stirring. Soft light flooded through an aperture somewhere overhead, plunging into the quietly musical water that threaded through the center of the chamber. The rock walls, though, seemed to flicker with colored light like stars, and as we moved forward into the not-unpleasant gloom, I saw each pinpoint of light was a stained glass portrait no larger than my hand. Attendants moved throughout the grotto, gently swinging each portrait aside to refill the oil lanterns that rested behind them.

"Eternal flames?" I hazarded.

Altair nodded. "They've been burning for more than four hundred years by now."

Moving closer to the portraits, I was struck by how lifelike the glass renderings truly were. I'd never seen something so subtle and yet remarkably beautiful. "Who made these?"

Irritation flashed over Altair's features. "An artist who lives on the edge of the city. She usually works with fabric, so this was a bit of a departure for her." He stared at one of the portraits as if hypnotized by the dancing flame behind it. "She actually melted together different pieces of glass into layers for the color rather than piecing them together into a mosaic or painting the glass."

"Sounds difficult," I said, trying not to feel slighted that he was being so oblique about this mysterious artist's identity. I hadn't even met anyone in Ynys Afallach yet, but I guessed the woman Altair was referring to was the same one we'd encountered as we entered the conservatory.

"Believe me, it was," Altair grumbled. "I had to hear about it all throughout the process."

He paused, and I felt like I should sa y something, but the only word I could manage was, "Oh."

Altair was too distracted to notice my slip in composure. "Did you see the woman who was leaving the conservatory as we went in?"  
I nodded, trying to fight the collar of nervousness that was strangling back speech. Hunch confirmed.

"That's the artist. My sister Carys."

Wait...  huh?

"She's damned overprotective," Altair growled, flush creeping up from his collar. "She knew I was bringing you through, but she gave me her word she wouldn't interfere."

Now that I  thought about it with a clearer head, the woman — Carys — had the same sort of features as Altair. Her eyes were a different color, true, and she was significantly shorter than he was, but she had that same piercing gaze,  squared shoulders and willowy build that I always ascribed Altair. More so than Altair, though, there had seemed a lightness about Carys, a hidden smile that had seemed ready to burst forth.

"Well, she didn't technically interfere with us," I said carefully, still trying not to snicker at Altair's aggravation. He was cute when he was being petulant.

"And believe me, she knows it," he retorted.

"Oh, go easy on her," I said mildly. "It's gotta be ages since you brought someone through, after all."

Altair stared at me. "I've never brought anyone here before. Not to Ynys Afallach, and certainly not  here , of all places."

"But you must've had—"

"A few dalliances. Long ago." Despite the blush coloring his olive skin, Altair's eyes never left mine. "But they were always from without, I was always discreet. I never led them on, nor they me. And I would never bring someone from outside for whom I didn't feel a particularly strong affection."

He looked away, and I got the sense he'd said more than he'd meant to. Altair was always seemed so invulnerable that I'd never considered he might be exactly the opposite.

"Oh," I said softly.

"Now that we've got that sorted..." Altair led me toward a pair of portraits set low on the rock wall — a smiling, bearded man and a laughing, lovely woman. Though most of the stained glass portraits could have stood alone, these two appeared to be looking at each other, sharing in some secret joy to which no one else in the world was privy. With Carys as a point of reference, it wasn't hard to guess who these people were.

"Your parents?" I guessed.

Altair nodded.

"What happened to them?"

"They were away on another island when Thera exploded," Altair said quietly. "After the initial temporal jump, we didn't know what had happened, so we jumped again and again. By the time  everything was settled and we'd overcome our fear of the mist, they were long gone."

His expression didn't betray any emotion beyond exhaustion, but I felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. From Altair's point of view, his parents would have been alive after the eruption, waiting to find out what had happened to their children. And then, to him, in the blink of an eye...

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

Altair squeezed my hand reassuringly. "It's an old wound now. Carys, Roderick and I've come to terms with it in our own ways."

I felt horribly awkward asking the question, but I had to know: "How did you get through?"

"Carys fell to pieces. She and our mother were very close." Altair's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "Roderick confided in his friends — many of whom had also lost family members either from the temporal jumps or the initial destruction they wrought on the island."

I stared down at our interlaced fingers. "So you took care of them."

"I saw what needed to be done," Altair said softly.

The flickering lights from those hundreds of portraits suddenly took on a terrible significance, and I fought back the prickling sensation gathering behind my eyes. Altair suddenly looked so young in the diffuse, colored glow — far too young for such a blow. His parents must have lived out the rest of their lives thinking all three of their children had died when the island sank, while in Ynys Afallach, it was all over in a matter of moments.

It was too horrific for words. And for Altair to have lived through that, to have survived such grief...

Without even thinking about what I was doing, I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

To my surprise, Altair pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me, heedless of the grotto's attendants. "Hesper, please don't be sad for me," he murmured. "I'm all right. Carys and Roderick, too."

"I'm sorry," I stammered again. The words must have sounded so meaningless to him, just a jumble of syllables from an ignorant tongue, but they were all I had. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right." Altair's arms tightened around me, and I heard him inhale the scent of my hair. "For a long time it wasn't, but it's all right now."

What I'd ever done to deserve Altair's trust, I couldn't guess, but in that moment I vowed I would protect him. I would do whatever I could to keep this brave, wonderful man safe.

After another few moments, Altair gently unwound his arms and took my hand again. His eyes were brighter somehow, as if a burden had been lifted. "Let's go. I've so many other things to show you."

I nodded, and with a final glance at the portraits of his parents, Altair and I headed back out of the grotto, up into Ynys Afallach's perpetual dusk.

* * *

#  Chapter Ten

Comprehension

When  I'd first laid eyes on Ynys Afallach a few hours — could it really only be  hours ? — ago, I hadn't thought I could ever find the twilit sky overbearingly bright. Yet as we emerged from the memorial grotto beneath the library, I found myself squinting against the violet-and-tangerine dusk.

"Where to next?" I asked.

Altair's face broke into a grin, and he tightened his grip on my hand. "My favorite place in Ynys Afallach."

He tugged me down a winding street toward what I at first took to be a park, but somehow transitioned almost seamlessly from a city street into a forest path. A navy disc hung in the sky ahead of us, slightly occluded by charcoal clouds, and I heard the distant thunder of waves dashing themselves against rock cliffs.

I looked askance at Altair, querying, but his grin only widened, and he tugged me onward. "Just come on, Hesper! I promise you won't be disappointed."

~

The stone sheath ran for hundreds of feet before terminating at a thirty-foot precipice above the navy ocean. Altair led me through a labyrinthine tangle of stone ruins and waist-high hedges that were at once wild and oddly regular.

"They'll be taller than me in another week or two," Altair said, nodding to the low vegetation.

I frowned. "Surely you jest."

Altair shook his head, again crinkly-eyed with delight. "Their growth is odd compared to most anything else that seems to exist here. Animals are perpetually trapped at a single age — meanwhile, the land stays essentially the same, but plants grow, and these develop at the fastest rate of all. Even more oddly, these periodically recede, too, like some kind of vegetative tide."

"Oh, wow," I said, and tried to stop to take a look, but Altair chuckled and pulled me onward.

"Another time — we're nearly there."

Altair navigated us toward a narrow spit of rock that thrust out over the not-insignificant drop beyond the foam-flecked escarpment, perhaps twenty feet wide and three times as tall. At its end sat a perfectly ludicrous yet undeniable gazebo. The tiny pavilion's roof was partly rotted away, and through its skeletal half I saw a clear circle of stars  and night sky, a still window into outer space. My mouth fell open in astonishment at the astral splendor.

"I take it you're impressed?" Altair pulled me in front of his body and slid his arms around my waist. I could feel his heartbeat against my shoulder blade, quickening with exhilaration.

"How could I not be?" The stars were elongated at the edges of the lenslike window, and if I watched carefully, I could see them sliding past in a slow, majestic ballet. "There's certainly nothing like this back home."

"I wouldn't say so," Altair countered lightly. "That aurora of late has been quite impressive. Difficult to work around at times, but still magnificent."

"I still think this is better," I said.

A section of the gazebo's latticed wall was completely broken, and after tossing an apologetic smile to Altair, I moved forward to investigate. The tip of the rock thrust fell away mere inches beyond the edge of the gazebo steps, and dark waters lapped and foamed just far enough below to make me a little dizzy.

"Careful," Altair warned, and I caught the edge of worry in his voice.

I steadied my back against a pillar near the section of broken lattice, and looped my arms around the unyielding wood. "Safe as houses. More so than gazebos, anyway, by the look of it."

Altair took up a similar position on the other side of the gap and watched me unblinkingly. "Hence my concern."

"This place does have a hell of a view," I admitted, looking out into the infinite dusk and dark. "Is that why it's your favorite?"

The wind blew a lock of Altair's dark chestnut hair across his forehead. He shook it aside and looked away toward the eternal horizon as if abruptly self-conscious. "Yes, but there's a more specific reason, too. I'm sure by now you've gotten an impression — an accurate one — that I tend to keep to myself. I'm not a very sociable person, and never have been."

"Me neither," I muttered, trying to ignore the roiling sensation in my stomach.

"I couldn't have ever become involved with someone from Ynys Afallach — after everything that happened, the others see me a certain way. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that." Altair's gaze  lit on me again for a brief moment, then returned to the ocean boundary. "But even given the statistical improbability, given who I am, where I'm from, what I'm like... I hoped I could someday share this place with someone else. Someone I cared about."

Altair unclasped his arms from the post behind his back and took a step toward me.

"Hesper—"

He broke off as hoofbeats echoed from the edge of the cliff, and we turned to see a  horsed rider approaching from a burnished metal-and-glass building counterclockwise along the coast. The figure — a hulking older man, I saw as he approached — dismounted at the edge of the rock thrust and strode purposefully across the divide.

I moved forward away from the edge of the gazebo as the man drew near, but Altair stepped in front of me, blocking me with his body. His voice hardened with reproach as the grizzled interloper stopped before him. "What are you doing here?"

"I need your latest round of figures," the older man said curtly. His gaze flicked around Altair's shoulder to meet mine, and I was surprised to find a glint of hostility in his eyes. "Experimental set's been in for days."

Altair was clearly familiar with the older man's brusque nature — enough so that he didn't flinch. "I left them at your office."

The man pawed at his rough beard, appearing nonchalant, but I was fairly sure all of us knew better. "Must not have noticed it." He paused, and his eyes returned to me. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"Hesper, this is Graffias," Altair said. He was motionless, but the tense flex of his jaw told me he was on high alert. "Graffias, I'm assuming you already know this is Hesper Fane of the Rockport incursion."

"Of course," Graffias rumbled. "But then, knowing about someone and actually knowing them are two separate things — wouldn't you say, Hesper?"

From the way Graffias and Altair seemed locked in some silent battle of wills, I knew Graffias wasn't actually interested in me providing him an answer. I didn't know if it was necessary for Altair to be standing in front of me quite so pointedly, but I wasn't about to start a gender-equality argument at that moment, either, so I simply replied, "Nice to meet you."

After another moment, Graffias narrowed his eyes. Had he lost? "Make sure you get your next round of calculations in on time, Altair — where I can see them."

With a final glare, Graffias turned on his heel and stalked back off down the stone projection.

Altair visibly relaxed as Graffias remounted his horse and rode back toward the gleaming building. I raised an eyebrow. "So that's the vaunted Graffias."

"He's all right, really," Altair said. "He just doesn't interact with outsiders much. So his manners are a bit—"

"Nonexistent?" I suggested.

"—out of practice," Altair finished with a wan smile.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, couldn't divine that at  all ."

"I apologize on his behalf if he made you feel at all uncomfortable," Altair said.

I sighed. It wasn't my place to be judgmental — and I could certainly understand Graffias' reaction to my presence. "It's all right. I can't imagine I'd like people like me very much if I was in his position. What does he do, exactly?"

"Coordinates reconnaissance data and  liaises with the scientific groups." Altair slid his hand into mine again, and we headed back toward solid land. "And prejudice is a poor excuse. Anyone who gets to know you in the least can vouch for how perfectly wonderful you are."

"You make me sound so wholesome," I muttered, abashed. After today's roller coaster ride of revelations, memories of last night's lustful macking were retroactively shaming. Did one actually  make out with a six-hundred-year-old?

"I suppose that's not the right phrase, then," Altair muttered under his breath, and shot me a panty-scorching look as we halted before the edge of the labyrinth and ruins. His lips were slightly parted, and he gazed at me with a naked hunger that I knew had to be emblazoned on my own features.

Barring accident or injury there lay something pretty momentous ahead for Altair and me, I knew... but really reconciling myself to that fact was a jarring prospect.

"We should get you home," Altair said reluctantly, running his thumb along the inside of my wrist. "You don't want to lose your job, as I recall, and you'll need at least a few hours of sleep to avoid any risk of hurting yourself."

"I've pulled all-nighters plenty of times before, I'll be fine," I protested. "You can't seriously think I'd be able to sleep after seeing all this!"

"Hesper, I'll bring you back tomorrow night, if that's an agreeable compromise," Altair chuckled. "We've some time yet. But we have to be responsible in the short term."

Deep down, I knew he was right. But the thought of going back through the mist to my own world — the regular, humdrum world of scrubbing floors and toilets — was enough to make me keep protesting all the way back to the hill at the edge of the heavens.

~

Altair helped me find my way back through the veil, and though I struggled through the same series of shockingly intense visions, crossing over was definitely easier than it had been earlier tonight. One moment I was standing at the edge of that glowing subterranean tunnel, and a few disorienting moments later I was surrounded by the pines of Ragged Mountain, Mirror Lake reflecting the pale green of the fading aurora.

"Thanks for bringing me to Ynys Afallach," I said to Altair as we trekked back along the path toward home. "I know this is going to be stating the obvious, but it's the most amazing thing I'd ever seen."

Altair smiled. "It was my pleasure. I'm still phenomenally impressed by how well you're handling this. I thought I had high hopes, but you've far outstripped them. You're quite astonishing."

"How do most people react to seeing Ynys Afallach?" I asked.

Altair scrambled nimbly down a steep cluster of boulders, and helped me down, despite my remonstrations. "Many simply believe they're dreaming or hallucinating — the visual's shocking enough to support it, as does Occam's Razor. Others can adjust, but they're in the minority, which is why we have  to so carefully consider whether or not to reveal our presence to outsiders."

"Guess that makes me pretty weird," I said cheerfully.

Altair gazed fondly at me as we skidded along. "In the best possible way."

All too soon we were on flat ground, passing the turnoff to the A-frame loop.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop off for a few minutes?" I asked, disappointed our time together was so nearly at an end. "I swear I'll be completely good — no funny business whatsoever."

"You may be able to make that promise, Hesper, but  I can't," Altair said with a bashful smirk. "Anyhow, look at those dilated pupils, good gracious... No, you need your rest, and I highly doubt you'll get that if we're behind closed doors together. Walking alone through the woods with you is temptation enough."

I stared at Altair in shock, trying in vain to fight the foolish grin from spreading over my features.  Holy hotness, Batman...

Altair's smile mirrored mine, but he increased his pace as dawn broke cold and cloudy through the trees. "Look for a sign from me tomorrow."

I snorted with laughter. "And exactly what sort of sign would this be?  Sky writing ? Will it be delivered on dragon-back?"

"And you were mocking  me for residual cultism, you sky-god worshipper?" Altair shook his head in mock disappointment.

"Har har," I wryly retorted.

"How  does your own medicine taste?" Altair teased. "Like crow?"

Then we were there — the edge of Route 17. The swaybacked barn was bathed gold in the first rays of morning light.

Damn, it was much later than I'd thought.  Again . Blue woodsmoke churned steadily out of the canted  chimney , indicating that someone had been tending it for at least an hour. Even from this distance I could make out the familiar shape of my mother in her chair by the woodstove. Had she waited up to chastise me?

I stopped Altair before he could walk out of the trail mouth, and pulled him behind a tree. It looked like Mom was asleep, but I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. "You can just leave me here, it'll be fine. I mean, I  can  cross the street by myself."

"Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? I mean, I  can  walk you to your front door," Altair mimicked seriously.

"Of course not.  There's just a good chance I'm about to catch absolute hell, and I don't want my mother making your life miserable. After all, I might have to move in with you if things go south with my job," I joked lamely, staring at the bank of windows along the front of the house. Sneaking into my bedroom would accomplish nothing, I knew, but anything seemed preferable to just marching through the front door and rousing the beast.

"Then I hope things go south," Altair said softly.

I scowled, trying to disregard the sudden sensation that my skin was on fire. It was unfair of him to wind me up like this, especially given the dire circumstances! "So... that's just it for tonight, then?"

The outer corners of Altair's eyes crinkled. "That's it. Except for this."

Altair took my face in his hands and pressed his lips to mine. His tongue explored my mouth, and I reveled in how he tasted, sweet and bold like the pines. He pulled me close against the length of his body, and I gasped in more than just surprise as his hand wandered over the ass of my jeans.

Then Altair gently held me away and smirked, teasing me again. "Sweet dreams."

What? After  that ? If Altair thought I was going to leave without a parting salvo of my own, he had another thing coming.

I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and turned on my heel, making sure I was working every inch of what I had as I crossed the deserted highway.

"Oh,  come on , Hesper," Altair called from behind me, half-laughing in exasperation. "That's completely uncalled for!"

I spun around long enough to blow Altair a kiss as I reached the far side of the road, and he fell backward a pace, grinning wildly as he clapped a hand to his chest.

I looked back again just before I reached the front door. Altair was still watching me, and despite the distance, I could see his eyes were ravening with desire. It was almost enough to make me abandon everything and run back to him, fuck the consequences.

With a final, hesitant wave, I pushed through the front door, and Altair melted away into the forest's gloom.

~

My mother jerked awake at the sound of the front door closing, and rubbed her eyes — which even from across the room I could see were rheumy with lack of sleep.

"Morning," she croaked.

"Morning," I echoed, and stood awaiting my fate.

Mom didn't say anything, and my heartbeat quickened as I realized she was probably trying to out-stubborn me, making me admit I'd been out all night without any explanation so she could let some verbal hammer fall. Oh well. Best just get it over with.

Just as I opened my mouth to apologize, my mother cut me off. "I'm sorry about last night."

"Huh?"

Mom waved a finger toward the upstairs bedroom. "The yelling. I don't blame you for getting out of dodge."

Oh — that explained the red-rimmed eyes and generally disconnected air. Stan and Mom had had a fight. I'd only been around for a few of these, and each time my mother always told me to get lost, and gave me a phone call when it was safe to come home. She and Stan weren't violent when they got into it, but they weren't exactly quiet, either.

"It's cool," I said, and moved past Mom, heading for my bedroom.

"You just can't trust men — that's the truth of it, Hesper," she called after me, and her voice caught. "That's what you learned with Brett, and I learned from your father, and now again with Stan. Zack's starting to prove it, too. They're just fundamentally untrustworthy."

I didn't dare disagree and risk setting her off, but I knew that wasn't true. She would, too, when she was a little less unhinged. "I'm sure  everything'll turn out fine, Mom."

She didn't bother me again, so I quickly stripped out of my street clothes, pulled on my pajamas, and crawled into bed. I had to bury my head beneath the quilt to escape the vicious sunlight  bleeding in around the curtains.

~

I dreamed of the eos orchard, and of Altair. We lay alone in the near-darkness, surrounded by that nebulaic blue-green light from the trees and the orange sky overhead. Altair's mouth ravaged mine, and he wrapped one arm around my waist, raw with need as he pushed inside me. I cried out at the excruciating sensation, gasping as he thrust deeper.

"Hesper," he groaned against my lips.

Like the forest and the buildings and the earth and sky, we were undifferentiated, belonging to everything and nothing and only to each other. Forever.

When I awoke, my face was streaked with tears. But for once, they weren't of sorrow.

~

Mom and Stan had evidently patched things up when I awoke a few hours later, and they headed off to errands just a few minutes after I stumbled into the kitchen in search of breakfast. I was truly grateful for the empty house, and the space to myself for more than just a few moments. That dream last night was even more vivid than the visions I'd seen passing through the quantum mist, or the image of Altair in the desert. It was stupid, I knew, but I couldn't help wondering if he was having a similar dream about me right now.

I looked outside on the way back to my room after showering. Something was pinned under the truck's wiper blade, and after pulling on my standard outfit of jeans and a t-shirt, I went out to investigate.

It was a folded piece of paper — and my heart leaped as I opened it to find Altair's copperplate handwriting.

Hesper,

It was my pleasure to show you Ynys Afallach last night. I hope you won't mind a different sort of adventure this evening, as I'd like you to meet my family. I'll be waiting for you at the A-frame after you're through with work.

With deepest affection,

Altair

P.S. The wearied light is dying down,

And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky

Are redolent of sleep, as I

Am redolent of thee and thine

Enthralling love, my Adeline.

Deepest affection? Enthralling love?  Delighted laughter burbled up in my throat unbidden. Altair the affectionate, that was still going to take some getting used to...

I cracked open my laptop and searched for the words of the poem in Altair's postscript. I'd seen them before, so I knew it was an Edgar Allan Poe composition, but looking for it online would be far easier than trying to find it by flicking through the pages of my 1920's reprint edition. Ah, there it was:  Serenade.

I had to blink back tears as I read through the poem. It was absolutely perfect, and my dream came rushing back as I thought of Altair recalling these words, writing them here for me. He knew I'd love it — and, of course, he was right.

I suddenly realized that if I was going to meet his family, I was going to have to find something decent to wear. It had felt awkward enough wearing my crappy work duds through to Ynys Afallach last night; no way was I going to let Altair's family think I just didn't care about their first impression of me.

I did care. Immensely.

I rummaged through my clothes and pulled out an outfit I'd worn to parties once or twice in L.A. when I wanted to look presentable, but still be comfortable. The gauzy black shirt had cap sleeves and a short line of buttons leading down from the collarbone, and the purple lace  overlayer of the satin skirt gave the outfit a decent pop of color. I found a wide purple ribbon that could be tied at the waist as a belt, and my leather hiking boots. It might be a somewhat janky outfit under other circumstances, but for Ynys Afallach, I'd probably fit right in.

My eyes fell on the bedside clock, and suddenly it felt as though ice was oozing into my stomach. Everything pertaining to Ynys Afallach and tonight was going to have to wait. It was almost time for me to go to work.

~

The truck's gas needle was wavering troublingly low, so I detoured to a nearby station to get back up to a quarter tank. Using my debit card meant I didn't have to actually risk running into any acquaintances by going inside the store, but my luck ran out when Robin and Crystal pulled up behind me at the pump in Robin's battered SUV.

Robin flashed a grin at me as she lurched out of the driver's seat. "Hey, Hesper!"

"How's your hottie from the woods doing?" Crystal called out the passenger window.

Both girls giggled.

Robin and Crystal had been so nice to me that night at Truce's, but they were acting phenomenally weird right now. Was it because they were sober now? Had I done something to offend them?

I mentally rolled my eyes at myself as I realized my transgression.  Altair . Robin had been so fixated on him, and then she and Crystal had imitated us dancing... Robin was jealous. Crystal, too, by the look of it.

Honestly, I couldn't blame them. Altair was so ridiculously handsome that I was really more surprised they hadn't just tried to make a move on him in front of me. Not that it would've worked, if he was to be believed...

"Hi Robin, Crystal," I responded with a pleasant smile.

Robin's perfectly plucked eyebrows drew together in concern. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, thanks," I said, a little baffled. "You?"

"Oh, I'm good. You just look a little tired," Robin said quickly. "See you at Truce's on Thursday?"

I shrugged, swallowing giggles. I fully intended to be with Altair on Thursday and every other night, hopefully in Ynys Afallach. "I'll have to wait and see."

I said a polite goodbye and hurried off, but Robin and Crystal watched me depart with expressions of thwarted suspicion. I wondered what Altair's powers of perception had told him when he set eyes on this dynamic duo, and giggled all the way to Eastview.

~

To my unspeakable relief, work was again uneventful. Getting through tasks by imagining they were each immediately obstacles to seeing Altair was a pretty good method of flagellating myself onward, but I tended to get so neurotic about nit-picky tasks that by the end of my shift, I was rushing to finish the broad strokes.

Bob wasn't bowled over by my quality of work, but his mild approval was sufficient for the moment.

"I'll keep getting better," I said as we walked out the front of the hulking school.

"I'm sure you're right. Just so long as you continue to apply yourself," Bob said.

The thought of applying myself to a hall full of rubber shoe marks and all those trash cans was enough to make me cringe, but for Bob's benefit, I nodded. "Will do."

~

I coasted into the driveway again, even though the Grand Am wasn't anywhere in sight. Leaving this house this afternoon I'd been under the  impression my mother had tonight off, but another glance at her handwritten schedule on the refrigerator revealed she was working a hostessing shift.

Fuck.  That means Mom was going to be coming home in a fouler mood than usual. Hostessing meant she was relying on other waitresses for a cut of the tips, and she never had good things to say about them anymore. She'd get home a little earlier than was typical, so if I wanted to avoid the inevitable snark-fest, I needed to get a move on.

I jumped in the shower and then dressed quickly, cringing every time I heard the roar of a car engine approach — yet each time, the sound faded just as quickly. I scribbled a quick note to my mother explaining that I was hanging out with Robin and Crystal at Robin's apartment, and that I was planning to spend the night. As far as my mother was concerned, Robin, Crystal and I were going to be spending a  lot of time together lately... and hopefully she wouldn't have the stones to double-check that if she ran into them somewhere.

I had to stop myself from skipping as I crossed Route 17 and headed down the forest trail. It hadn't snowed in days, but patches of ice still lurked in the  unlikeliest places, threatening to send me tumbling to the ground now that I was wearing fairly nice clothes. The air seemed warmer than usual, and between my coat, patterned tights and boots, I was almost uncomfortable.

Altair must have heard me coming, because he opened the A-frame door even before I could knock. He had on his black button-down shirt and brown pants  with the suspenders — completely stunning, as always.

Altair stared at me for a few seconds, frozen in the doorway, and I felt a lurch in my stomach. He'd only ever seen me wearing jeans and t-shirts before, so this must have come as a bit of a shock. Not a bad one, I hoped.

"You okay?" I asked after a few seconds.

"Sorry. Yes." Altair jerked into motion, and slid on his black duster. He leaned down and grabbed his bag and a telescope case, which he swung over his shoulders. Then he quickly shut the door behind him.

I frowned. "You do realize I've seen the inside of the A-frame, right?"

"You look... lovely," Altair explained sheepishly. "And as a clever person once said,  I'm trying to resist falling prey to my baser instincts."

My muscles clenched as if his words had unleashed electricity through my whole body.

Altair slid his fingertips along my jaw and kissed me gently, restraining himself. I moaned softly and he pressed his advantage, for a few moments fully claiming my mouth. Then he took my hand and stepped back, smiling as his fingers momentarily crushed mine. "Don't you want to meet my family?"

"I do, but you're making me think twice about the timing," I muttered, not looking forward to the steep climb after that knee-knocking kiss. "Are you going to give me another shot of eos?"

Altair frowned, and pulled a smaller notebook from his coat pocket. He flipped it open and scanned the beautifully  chickenscratched pages.

"I'm sorry, darling, looks like that's an affirmative," he said.

"You're keeping track?" I asked, secretly pleased at what he'd just called me. From anyone else's lips words like  darling would be an awkward and ungainly word, but from Altair it was a symphony.

"Of course." Altair slipped the notebook back into his pocket and frowned as we began walking. "I told you, too much and your genetic structure would fundamentally alter. I'm certainly not running that risk."

"Glad to hear it," I said with a smirk.

He grinned back. "Don't think I don't know what you're on about.  Darling ."

Our laughter scattered through the misty trees, rippling like the green aurora, and we hurried onward.

~

The visions of the  shipwreck, of the wide beach and the subterranean tunnel passed so faintly as I crossed through the quantum mist that they were little more than shadows of yesterday's experience.

"Everyone sees something different — and eventually you won't notice it at all," Altair explained as we descended along a different dirt footpath from the Ynys Afallach overlook.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"Nothing. Oblivion, I suppose," Altair said. "It terrified me, and I had to learn to see through it." His face momentarily tightened at some unspoken  memory .

"That's awful."

"In retrospect, it's  served quite a purpose. I knew what you were feeling last night, and if I hadn't undergone it myself, I wouldn't have known how to help you. So I have no regrets. Incidentally, you're getting quite good at that. You'll be able to cross on your own soon enough."

The corners of Altair's mouth momentarily lifted as he stole a glance at me. He was such a legitimately sweet guy, but it had been too easy to mistake his self-conscious nature for hostility. All those times I'd thought his intense gaze indicated anger, it had been the exact opposite emotion he was feeling as he looked at me.

A strange, squirmy feeling took hold in me, and Altair suddenly seemed so foreign again. The memory of my dream from this morning flooded back, distracting me so badly that I nearly lost my footing when the grade flattened into a wide path.

Wide green paddies stretched away to the left of the road, all the way to the mountain's distant foothills. Far ahead of us I could see a gathering of low houses that I took to be a village. "Your sister lives out here?"

"Out here there's room for Carys and Noel — that's her husband — to each have their own workshop. Carys does her design work, and Noel's a blacksmith."

"Is there much call for blacksmiths nowadays?" I asked.

"Perhaps not in  your world," Altair said lightly, "but here we manage with a lot of the same sorts of equipment that we used thousands of years ago. It's hard work, but for some, following the older ways helps them stay grounded despite our altered circumstances. Many of us have spent some time out here, even if just for a few months."

"Did you?"

Altair nodded. "Several times. I find physical tasks unburden my head marvelously when I'm getting too abstract." He shot me a sidelong gaze. "That's why I like hiking — it taps into that same mindlessness, allowing for perfect clarity of thought."

There he went with the hiking references again! Sure, on one level he did mean hiking, but was he subtly hinting at something else, or was I the one who was now projecting?

Altair winked at me, and I shook my head, pretending to be unimpressed. He might act reserved in public, but there was a hell of a lot going on beneath Altair's proper exterior — and he was all too eager for me to know what that was, I was sure of it.

~

Carys and Noel's rambling cape was situated on a narrow street lined with towering trees, like one of the side streets of downtown Camden. The house sat near the main street, while a small barn stood slightly behind it to the left. The barn door was open, and I saw a collection of riveted metal machinery inside in various stages of construction.

Altair noticed the direction of my gaze. "Half the barn's Noel's workshop, while Carys does her glass pieces on the far end. They're both very talented."

"Even if Carys is — what was your word? Interfering?" I teased. "Then again, according to you I'm  intrusive ."

"You  are  in  a mood today," Altair drawled quietly as we approached the heavy wooden front door. "Perhaps I should've just taken you into the A-frame after all."

"Perhaps you should've," I agreed in the same low tone.

We stared at each other for an electric moment, and I almost thought Altair was going to push me up against the house's outer wall and do unspeakable things to me right there. Then the door abruptly opened to reveal a bearded, pleasant-faced man of my approximate height, and Altair was on his best behavior as suddenly as if he'd thrown a switch.

"Hello, Noel," Altair said as the two men shook hands.

"Altair," the man replied with a broad, reassuring smile. "It's been too long."

"You know how these things go." Altair slipped his arm around my waist. "This is Hesper Fane. Hesper, this is my Noel, my brother-in-law."

"It's a pleasure," I said with a shy smile as we shook hands.

Noel stepped back, ushering us inside. "Please, come in, make yourselves at home. We're setting up in the back room."

A woman's voice drifted down the hardwood-floored corridor. "Oh, are they here already?  I'll be right out!"

Noel led us down the corridor and into a glass-walled sitting room. French double doors at the rear of the room were pushed wide, and a breeze floated in from the back yard, where a shallow creek cut through a wild, lovely garden hemmed in by bamboo.

"You have a really beautiful home," I told Noel, who bobbed his head graciously before looking between Altair and me.

"Fair warning to you both, she's going a bit overboard. It's been a while since we've had visitors," he cautioned jovially.

"I had a feeling she would." Altair's tone took on an irritated edge. "Did she tell you we ran into her yesterday at the library?"

"She didn't," Noel muttered with a surreptitious glance toward what I guessed was the kitchen, and then an apologetic one toward me. "She means well, and we haven't hosted a gathering for ages."

"It's okay, I don't mind," I said, and shot Altair a quick glare.

There was a clattering noise in the kitchen followed by a shriek, and Noel's face drew into a worried expression. "Think I'll just go see if she needs a hand, excuse me..."

Altair walked swiftly to me as Noel disappeared back down the corridor. Altair's eyes burned into me, but I knew he was fighting to keep from smiling. "Shoot me all the dirty looks you want, but she's my sister, and I'll be annoyed with her if I want."

"Just don't be annoyed on my behalf," I whispered back. "I'm feeling the pressure enough as it is."

Altair frowned. "Am I pressuring you?"

"What? No." I moved out the door into the garden, anxious not to be overheard. Houses like this had strange acoustics. "I just don't want to disappoint them."

"What?" Altair laughed in disbelief. "How could you be disappointing?"

His blasé attitude was anything but reassuring. How could he not see the obvious? "I'm so  limited  compared to all of you."

"Because you're younger?" Altair took my hands, chuckling. "Hesper, the quality  of a life isn't determined by its length, surely you must know that. And limited individuals are only the ones who intentionally stick their hands in the sand. Does that sound at all like you?"

"I guess not," I admitted stubbornly.

Altair sighed. "If I forgive Carys for snooping, will you ease up on yourself?"

"I'll try," I grudgingly promised.

There was a clattering noise, and Altair and I looked up to see a strapping young man who looked about my own age barrel through the open doors. He was as tall as Altair, and had the same grey-green eyes as Carys. "Look who decided to show up!"

Altair chuckled as the younger man embraced him roughly. "Hesper, this is my brother Roderick. Roderick, Hesper Fane."

Roderick appraised me as he and Altair broke apart, and Altair flushed as Roderick unsubtly elbowed him in the ribs.

"Nice to meet you," Roderick told me with a knowing grin. He reminded me of a younger, more outgoing version of Jackson, and I smiled back.

"You, too."

There was a flurry of movement in the doorway, and Noel reappeared beside the woman I now knew to be Carys. Her multicolored hair was again finished in an insanely intricate braid, but today she wore a simple grey dress that set off her dark-lashed eyes.

"Hesper." The silver chimes on anklets jangled as Carys glided toward me and enfolded me in a birdlike hug. "I'm so pleased to officially meet you. I do hope you can forgive me for yesterday, but I was just so curious—"

"The pleasure's all mine," I said, and narrowed my eyes at Altair, who still looked a little out of sorts. "And don't worry about it."

Carys' eyes widened almost imperceptibly as Altair slid a protective arm around my waist, and she beamed, beckoning us  towards the sitting room. "Please, please, come and have a seat, the others will be here shortly."

Altair's fingers tightened  on my waist. "Carys, whom did you invite?"

"Just a few friends, people who haven't seen you in a while," Carys warbled, and her eyes widened with realization. "I just thought — I mean, you visit so infrequently..."

"Here comes the guilt," Altair muttered under his breath.

I raised my voice to cover his snarking. "I'm sure he's looking forward to it, Carys."

Carys hesitated a moment as if unconvinced, but then a knock sounded at the front door. "So sorry — I'll be right back," she said quickly, and hurried off into the house, Noel and Roderick in tow.

Once the others were safely out of earshot, Altair glowered at me. "Do you realize what we're getting into by staying for this? I didn't want you to feel like you were on display, and now—"

"I think  you're  the one on display," I muttered, and inclined my head, indicating Noel and Roderick. The two men were standing just inside the doorway, watching us and exchanging quiet words. When Altair fixed his black gaze on them, they started apart guiltily.

"Fantastic," Altair growled. "Though I suppose I deserve it. I should've known what she was up to."

My stomach swooped as I saw a group of people empty out of the corridor into the sitting room. How many people  had  Carys invited?

"Strength in numbers?" I suggested quietly, lacing my fingers through Altair's. He pulled me close against him, and I was instantly reassured by his familiar touch.

"Here's hoping we survive," he murmured in my ear, and we walked forward to meet Carys' guests.

* * *

#  Chapter Eleven

Gibbering

Our plan to stick together lasted only a few minutes before Altair and I were swept apart by overzealous islanders. Everyone was incredibly friendly, but they were surprisingly direct, probably desensitized by years of interaction  with only each other, and rabidly curious about both midcoast Maine and me.

"Do you believe in God?" one woman asked me by way of greeting. I stammered for a few seconds before answering, but the woman seemed pleased enough with my response that she then shepherded me around to several of her friends, seeming to use my response as proof of some  longstanding disagreement about people from the outside world.

Every so often Altair and I would nearly reach each other, but then it would be another onslaught of well-meaning intervention. Altair pretended to be perfectly at home speaking with each of the visitors, but his stiff posture told me otherwise. And no matter where I was, his gaze followed.

~

Finally, Noel and Roderick shepherded the last of the guests out of the house — Noel graciously, Roderick bluntly — and we collapsed on the sitting room furniture like a clan of the dead.

"Bet she wishes she'd never met you," Roderick joked to Altair with a knowing nod at me.

"Please do ignore my idiot brother," Altair said dryly.

"It's okay," I laughed. "Roderick, you kinda remind me of my friend Jackson or my brother — before Zack joined the Army, anyway."

"What happened to him?" Carys asked.

I chewed my bottom lip. "Zack used to be a really sweet kid. He wasn't the most popular, but he was funny and kind, and we weathered it together when our parents divorced. Then he joined the Army — and I know he's a good soldier, he's got all kinds of decorations, but I miss the way he used to be. Back when we were really friends."

"Oh, Hesper, that's awful," Carys murmured. "I'm so sorry."

I tried hard not to stare in disbelief. Carys, who had forever lost both her parents,  was sorry for  me . I'd expressed my condolences to her earlier, but she'd gently brushed them aside with a sad smile.

"It's fine, really," I said. "I think he's happy, and that's the most important thing. He said the Army straightened him out, so..." I shrugged, and something occurred to me. "Does Ynys Afallach have a militia?"

No one stirred, but I could sense that everyone else had just bristled with unease. Altair, Carys, and Noel exchanged an inscrutable look while Roderick occupied himself with what looked like a skeletal metal Rubik's Cube.

"It does," Altair said after a moment, "though it's entirely volunteer-run, and its numbers tend to vary. Training's available to anyone who's interested. More people tend to join up in times of heightened paranoia, but there are a few stalwart members at its core."

Roderick abruptly stood up and tossed the metal puzzle toy aside. "I'm gonna start on dishes."

"I'm sorry—" I began as he hurried out of the room, but Carys patted my hand reassuringly.

"It's not your fault. Roderick's friend Luka joined up after everything began, and they grew apart over the years. Luka's... well, he's different now. And Roderick blames himself for that. Unfairly, of course," Carys said.

"Luka's parents died in the Sundering," Noel added. "At least these three had each other, and I had Carys, but Luka was more susceptible."

Noel's eyes strangely darted to Altair as he said his final word. Altair's expression was stony, and I got the sense I'd blundered into the middle of some time-old argument.

"Susceptible to what?" I asked softly.

"Graffias," Altair said suddenly. "Militia training is his special project — or has been for the last few hundred years."

Carys' eyes were fixed on her hands, folded in her lap. "Some are more grateful of Graffias' input than others," she said, "but we've learned to agree to disagree about that."

Altair narrowed his eyes at Carys, but his tone stayed polite. "Graffias helped us immensely during our hour of need. He isn't always able to articulate things well, but he has everyone's best interests in mind."

"Noel, why don't you show Altair the workshop?" Carys asked smoothly, finally looking up. Her face bore that same sad smile I'd seen earlier. "He hasn't seen it since the latest restructuring. Besides, Hesper and I haven't really had a chance to chat yet."

"Very subtle, Carys," Altair said, but he and Noel stood and moved toward the back door. Altair shot me a look that I knew was only partly teasing. "Watch your step with her."

"Oh, Altair." Carys threw a pillow at him, and Altair ducked outside. Then she turned to me. "Would you like to take a turn about the garden? I'm afraid we've kept you cooped up in here far too long."

I nodded, and we stood and walked out the back door. Carys threaded her arm through mine, and we crunched along the narrow gravel pathways.

"Thank you so much for having me to your home," I said.

Carys gave a low, musical laugh. "Thank you for coming here, it can't have been easy." Her voice dropped, and she stole a glance at the workshop, where Altair and Noel were poking around at some gadgets. "And thank you for looking after Altair. I've worried about him over the years — and the few times he was involved previously, he was decidedly miserable."

Betrayal resonated through me like a plucked string. "He told me he hadn't ever brought anyone here."

"Nor did he. But as you know, I'm quite the meddling sister," Carys said with a mischievous grin.

I looked at Altair — who was watching us just as carefully as we were him, I noticed. "What was he like before?"

"Gentle. Kind." Carys brushed her fingers along the stalk of a nearby flower. "He withdrew into himself after the Sundering, and apprenticed himself to Graffias. If that's what you'd call it."

"You don't seem to like Graffias very much," I said carefully.

"I don't dislike him, but I disagree with some of the decisions he's made. But Altair respects him, and he's kept us safe this long, so..."

Carys sighed heavily, and shrugged.

Based on the way Altair had acted around Graffias yesterday, I wasn't so sure he was as firmly in Graffias' pocket as Carys seemed to think, but I kept silent. I'd only met Graffias once, after all — how could I make any kind of accurate judgment about him or his relationship with Altair from that brief interaction?

Carys squeezed my arm. "At any rate, I'm so glad you found each other. You seem to make each other very happy."

"How can you tell? He hardly ever touches me in public." I instantly regretted my words, suddenly aware of what they implied.

"I think Altair  feels more powerfully than most," Carys said. "That's why he holds most everyone at arm's length — or that's my guess, at any rate. I think he feels it's easier to be aloof than vulnerable. But with you..." She sighed happily. "When he's with you, he even holds himself differently. With confidence, purpose. I've seen him smile more today than I  have in the past half-century."

I frowned in confusion. I hadn't seen Altair crack anything but the most perfunctory smile during the last few hours. He'd looked absolutely miserable.

"And watch this." Carys led us toward a part of the garden that took us out of sight of the front of the barn. As I watched, Altair casually walked out from the building at an angle, keeping us in sight no matter where we were. It was unmistakable.

"And he says  I'm conspicuous ," Carys giggled, and shook her head. "Six centuries and I've never seen him act this way."

"And that's a good thing?" I asked, suddenly wary.

Carys nodded, beaming. "It's truly wonderful."

~

After our stroll through the garden,  Carys encouraged me to explore the house while she helped Roderick finish up the dishes. I would've preferred to help, but she shooed me away, playfully flapping a hand towel in my direction. "You're our guest, and I'm putting my foot down. Be off with you!"

I wandered up the stairs and found my way through several interconnected rooms of libraries. I didn't dare let myself do more than peek at the tomes for fear of getting lost here for the rest of my time in Ynys Afallach, but instead kept moving. Eventually I came upon another upward staircase, and followed it upward into a tower bedroom.

This room, too, was lined with books, but here they were all scientific tomes — many of which, I could see at a quick glance, were products of bygone schools of thought. A desk covered with handwritten pages stood in a corner of the room, along with a low wooden chair. Astronomy books occupied an entire wall, but the room's crowning glory was a wide telescope that pointed toward the portal of stars hanging over the distant ocean.

I stopped beside a simple mattress that lay before the bay window. No fuss, no frills. How very Altair.

Altair's voice drifted in from the doorway. "I knew you'd find your way here eventually."

I turned to face him, guilty to be caught intruding in what was clearly his private space. "Carys told me to wander — I'm sorry—"

"Don't be." Altair's eyes creased with mirth. He ambled forward and nudged me back against the floor-to-ceiling shelves, running his fingertips over the wide violet ribbon at my hips. "I'm glad to finally have a moment alone with you again."

I smiled and slid past him, not ready to be sidetracked so easily. "So, is this your room?"

Altair leaned against the shelves and folded his arms over his chest, refusing to rise to the bait I'd just unintentionally provided. "It was in my childhood — though, of course, it looked quite different then."

"Am I the first girl you've had in here?"

"Yes, and about five hundred eighty-five years later than I would've liked," Altair said, and I caught that scorching glint in his eye again.

I giggled. "You as a teenager... that's kinda hard to picture."

Altair walked around me slowly, observing me. "What was my sister prattling on about?"

"Carys doesn't prattle," I said. "And actually, she was telling me about you when you were younger."

He snorted. "I'm sure that was delightful."

"It was." I tried to hide that something was weighing on my mind, but Altair read me as easily as one of the hundreds of books surrounding us.

"What's troubling you?"

"It's just..." I frowned, fumbling for the right words. "A few days ago you were telling me about how you didn't have time to spare, and now—"

"I may have slightly exaggerated the extent of my workload," Altair cut in. "More than slightly, to be honest."

"But I'd hate to think you're blowing off responsibilities for me. Graffias seemed pretty insistent."

"Graffias is likely jealous, because he can guess what you mean to me," Altair said dispassionately, then softened his tone. "And while I do have work ahead of me, I thought you might like to come along tonight."

I perked up instantly. "Really?"

Altair chuckled. "Don't sound so excited. It's just taking readings of the stars, and it's bound to be bloody cold. But will that appease your nagging conscience?"

Altair could speak as casually as he liked about his duties, but I knew that, given the reverence with which people were speaking to him earlier, he was important to a lot of people here. He must be busting ass to have enough time to spend conducting me all over Ynys Afallach.

"I mean a lot to you, don't I?" I asked quietly.

Altair wrapped an arm around my waist and caressed my cheek. "If only you knew how much," he whispered, his eyes burning into me. "But I've been working with numbers for too long... I can't quite find the words yet."

I gingerly laid my hands on his chest, and felt the fierce beating of his heart. "Then tell me another way."

Altair's arm tightened around me like a vise, and his lips crushed mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and we stumbled against the bookshelves, desperately losing ourselves in each other for a few brief minutes before politeness dictated we rejoin our companions downstairs.

~

Roderick started laughing uproariously as he saw Altair's slightly unkempt hair, disheveled from our covert making out upstairs. "Who's this fellow and what's Hesper done with Altair?"

Altair dragged his hands through his hair self-consciously, but after a deceptive feint he bolted over to Roderick and threw his younger brother into a hammerlock. My eyes widened at the frat-boy antics.

"Beg pardon, what were you saying?" Altair panted as Roderick struggled vainly to escape.

Carys and Noel emerged from the kitchen, and Noel threw a small cushion at Altair and Roderick. "Easy there, boys."

The two men broke apart, and Altair grinned at Roderick as he grabbed his jacket from  a closet in the hallway. "You'll have to be faster next time."

"Count on it," Roderick offered. He vaguely swiped at his elder brother's head, but Altair ducked easily out of the way and lifted his pack and telescope case from the closet floor.

Carys' voice was almost a cry of disappointment. "You're leaving already?"

"We've got to get moving." Altair smirked playfully at me. " Hesper's volunteered to help me tonight, though I doubt she really knows what she's gotten herself into."

"But you'll be back soon, won't you? Are you coming to the festival?" Carys clasped both of my hands in her elegant fingers, scowled at Altair as I looked to him in confusion. She really was one of the most genuinely sweet people I'd ever met, like a pocket-sized aunt. "She's coming to the festival, isn't she, Altair?"

Altair squinted in annoyance. "I hadn't yet gotten around to telling her about it, actually, Carys." He looked at me, apologetic. "Every roughly three hundred sixty-five days there's a ceremony to commemorate the passage of time here. You might call it a sort of... dance."

My mouth was suddenly arid. "Ah, that doesn't quite sound like my scene."

Carys peered at Altair. "Scene?" He said something in another language, and she nodded in recognition, then turned back to me. "Whyever not?"

"I just have a bad track record with those kinds of things," I offered weakly, shrinking under the four sets of eyes that were locked on me. Altair's face was unreadable. "Had to  drive a drunk friend home once, got left by a guy for someone else at another—"

"But that isn't going to happen here," Carys interjected with a tinkling laugh.

Altair pulled me a few steps aside. "I had hoped you might accompany me," he said under his breath, uncomfortable from the others watching us, "but I wouldn't presume to impose."

"Oh, then, yeah," I blurted out after an awkward moment. "Of course I'll come."

Altair stared at me, suspicious. "Just like that, you've changed your mind?"

"Well, if I'm with you, it couldn't possibly suck," I said, sheepish both from my word choice as from being the center of attention.

A sly smile stole onto Altair's face. "Then I'm flattered."

Carys clapped her hands in delight. "Good, it's settled. And please come back soon, whether or not Altair's with you. Will you do that?"

"Sure, of course," I told her, unable to stop myself from grinning.

We said a few more goodbyes and eventually headed back out into the amethyst light. From the way Altair gripped my hand especially tight and kept stealing glances at me, I knew he was pleased with how the visit had gone.

For whatever the reason, Altair was willing to be open with me in a way he clearly wasn't with others — not even his own family. But then, wasn't I the same way with him? Hadn't I told him everything that I hadn't dared breathe to anyone else?

Altair's eyes locked on mine as we walked, and I felt a strangled sensation in my stomach, as though I was completely revealed by his searchlight gaze.

This is too good to last , a nagging voice reproached from the back of my thoughts.

I shoved the thought away. The future was ahead, and this moment was now, walking hand-in-hand with Altair through this invisible city in the mist. There wasn't anywhere else I'd rather be.

Other than maybe the A-frame, of course...

~

We passed back through the mist without incident, and Altair took us up an almost overgrown trail to a rock lookout near the top of Ragged Mountain. The sky was clear and cold, and I wished in earnest that I'd thought to bring a warmer change of clothes.

Altair shook his head at me as he set up his telescope. "I warned you it was going to be intemperate up here."

"Seriously, I'm fine," I muttered through gritted teeth. If I let them chatter, I'd just feel colder. "I'm a Maine girl, I've survived worse."

Altair took a seat on the rock slope and angled his telescope toward the western sky. He grinned lopsidedly up at me, and I saw he was fighting to keep his jaw steady, too. "Then for graces' sakes come keep me warm, because I'm freezing."

I pretended to glare at Altair as I sat in front of him, and he wrapped an arm around me. "Now I understand your diabolical plot. You brought me along for body heat. Sinister, mister."

Altair handed me his brown notebook, which was bookmarked by a pen. "Actually, you're going to be taking notes for me."

"You don't need me for that," I countered. "Remember, I saw you at the amphitheatre. I know you can write without looking."

"Yes, but it's so much messier that way. I'd prefer it if my notes were  legible for once."

I flipped the notebook open to the bookmarked page. His precise handwriting filled the preceding sheets, only occasionally wandering from their ruler-straight lines. "This is  messy ? Jeez, if you like having me along, you should just say so."

"I like having you along," Altair said quietly as he peered into the scope and twiddled a few knobs. "I'm distracted by thoughts of you when you're not here, so at least this way there's hope for me."

His intensity caught me off-guard, and I stared at him until he looked back at me.

"I'm frightening you, aren't I?" he murmured.

I shook my head. "You're just such an enigma. Around everyone else you're so defensive, but when it's just us, you're so open."

Altair fiddled with the telescope again. "I can't imagine spending time on a frozen rock with an enigma is very much fun," he said gruffly.

"Of course it is." I threaded my fingers through his hand at my waist. "And, anyway, you're becoming less inscrutable all the time. Especially tonight."

"Now that you've met my family?" To my relief, the mischievous tone had found its way back into Altair's voice.

"Now that I'm not totally convinced you sprang onto the Earth fully formed, or that I made you up," I countered.

"If you haven't noticed, Hesper, I'm rather riddled with flaws," Altair asked as he adjusted a few knobs and inserted a metal-and-glass filter into the telescope's jointures.

The last of the warm blood in my body rushed to my cheeks. "Doesn't seem that way to me. Kinda the opposite, in fact."

Altair tore his gaze from the telescope and stared at me. His chill fingers grazed my jaw, and it seemed like his eyes were as large as the moon.

Remembering myself, I snapped my fingers and pointed to the telescope. He wasn't going to screw off on my watch. "No funny business, remember? Duty calls."

"Right." Altair turned back to the scope and pulled me close against his chest. "Just write down what I say, and try to keep that pen from freezing."

"What exactly are you doing, anyway?" I asked. "It'll help me keep things straight if I actually know what I'm writing."

Altair's voice became guarded. "You're a clever girl. What's your guess?"

I frowned. It was easy enough to guess from the sudden change in Altair's tone that more was going on here than I'd previously thought. Graffias had said something about comparing Altair's readings to an experimental set, and though the writing in Altair's notebook seemed to be in a variety of different languages, many pages followed a similar pattern of a word followed by a number. "Does it have to do with the stars' movement?"

"Not exactly." Altair twisted a final knob, and as his eyes met mine again, I thought I caught a hint of concern, his light tone notwithstanding. "I'm watching for the day when they go out."

~

We trudged back along the downward trail, weary and chilled to the bone. Altair had explained what was happening, but I still felt like I was bursting with questions.

"So do the stars appear to go out in the same configuration each time?"

Altair shook his head. "That's what makes it so difficult to tell when we have to jump — or  would if we weren't watching that portal over the ocean so diligently. At a certain point a tipping point is reached, and after that the process increases exponentially. That's why collecting control sets of the stars' magnifications is so crucial."

I looked up at the stars, drowning in the cold grey dawn, and tried to imagine a black, empty sky. It was almost impossible. Yet Altair had seen that very phenomenon — or close enough — through that window into space every instance before Ynys Afallach jumped in time.

Suddenly I understood why Altair had reacted the way he did the second time we'd met — when I'd said I was looking to the stars for hope.

"Physics dictates that the path linking Ynys Afallach and Earth should tend to collapse," Altair went on, "but for whatever reason, we're tangled up in the same dimension of time. Each time we jump, we're strengthening the connection to Earth in space — and our connection with the time stream necessarily weakens, so we slip ahead."

"Like a glitch on a CD," I mused.

Altair nodded, smiling faintly.

"And there isn't a regular interval between when you jump and when this cosmic shock wave  thingy catches up?"

"As I told you before, we have a vague notion, but it can vary. It's like reading ocean waves — seeming irregularities present themselves, and the factors aren't readily apparent at first."

"I can't believe you can focus on anything else, given those kinds of stakes," I muttered.

"Humans are malleable, we can become accustomed to anything, given enough familiarity," Altair said heavily. "But becoming desensitized to stimuli that should elicit evolutionarily appropriate responses is invariably bad for any species." My fingers were nearly numb, but I still felt the pressure as Altair squeezed my hand. "That's why I'm so grateful to have met you."

"Because I helped pep you back up?" I teased.

Altair stopped, and in another moment he had me by the shoulders. His eyes burned bright with exhaustion and intensity as he stared at me, ducking his head so that he was on my level.  Whoa ...

"Don't even joke like that," Altair demanded. "Hesper, it isn't just some cheap thing I feel for you. You seem to understand so much else about me, you can fathom all the things that should be problematic — so why can't you understand the obvious? That I came awake when I met you, perhaps for the first time in my not-insignificant life."

I struggled against my suddenly racing heart. "It's not that. I just... I don't understand why. Why, of all the people in the world, you want me."

Altair cupped my cheek. "Think about what you feel for me, Hesper."

With him standing so intoxicatingly close, it was hard  not  to. Altair ran his thumb over my lips, and my knees trembled from the overwhelming sensation.

"I know you feel this," Altair murmured. "This would be enough, this physical connection. But then there's your intelligence, your wit, your passion, bravery — it's an utterly unique combination." He pressed his forehead to mine, and his warm breath skated over my skin. "Hesper, you have me smitten in a way I thought only certain people ever could be. You make me want to abandon everything and run away with you."

Our lips found each other, and Altair pushed me up against a nearby tree, unexpectedly savage. I whimpered as he shoved his knee between mine, and I knotted my fingers in his hair, clinging to him. Up until a few minutes ago I'd been cursing my skirt and patterned tights, but  now ...

Altair's hands ran up the outside of my thighs, and he grabbed one of my legs and wrapped it around his waist. He pressed against me through the thin fabric, and I arched my spine, meeting him with equal force.

"This is the effect you have on me," Altair growled in my ear. "Graces, Hesper, you make me want you more than I've ever wanted anything."

He pulled back, gritting his teeth, and I groaned in abject frustration. "What's wrong?"

"Much as you are I may want to, I'm not going to take you right here," Altair  panted . He smiled, chagrined. "And if we don't stop this, to be honest, I'm going to have a very uncomfortable walk home."

"Oh.  Oh ." I started giggling, and Altair soon followed, laughing until we both were too tired to do anything but wheeze. He was so open when he laughed, so handsome and goofy.

"Come on," Altair managed when he had his breath back. He took my hand and pulled me forward along the trail. "Time to get you out of the cold, you've been stubborn enough for one night."

A pang of sorrow vibrated through me, seeing how quickly he was back to being dutiful, straightlaced Altair, whose only signs of what was going on in his head were the extra squeeze he gave my hand every so often, and those raging, smoldering eyes. Amorous, unfettered Altair was just too much fun.

I glanced down the A-frame path loop at we passed it without turning for the second time in as many nights. "You're not even going to drop off your pack?"

"No," Altair said carefully, "because if I get you down that route, I know exactly what's going to happen, and it won't involve you or  me getting a wink of sleep."

Last night and now again? I set my jaw, refusing to let him see how wound up I was feeling after that tussle against the tree. "Presumptuous much?"

Altair glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and smirked. "I know what I want to do to you, and based on what happened back there, I have a decent estimate of how you'd react."

"Hmph," I grumbled. "Taking me out every night, bringing me home scandalously  unmaligned... it's like we're dating."

Altair dragged his thumbnail over my palm, and I bit back a gasp. He grinned. "Would that be so terrible?"

"It's not exactly as though we have a surplus of time," I said glumly. All that talk about stars appearing to go out was making me melancholy all of a sudden.

"No, I suppose not." Altair's voice was measured. "But we have to go about things the right way."

He fell silent, and I struggled to keep up with his quickening pace.

"The darkness following Ynys Afallach, the thing that keeps blotting out the stars," I said timidly as we drew further into familiar territory, "it doesn't  necessarily  mean the island will be destroyed if it catches up with you, does it?"

"It's a shock wave from the initial reaction that pulled us out of time." Altair's pace slackened a little. "For every action, an equal and opposite reaction — and this is the reaction to our existence. So we have to keep skipping along like a stone on the surface of a pond, jumping ahead of this cosmic rebound every time it nears."

Unless something gets  fucked up , I thought, and a chill slid along my spine, thinking of how much I probably was interfering with Altair's responsibilities. He — they all — could keep safely jumping ahead, unless someone like me got in the way. The thought was so intense that I felt queasy for a few moments. But they knew what they were doing, after all...

Altair must have been thinking the same thing, because his hand was like iron on mine all the rest of the way back. He didn't even pause at the trail mouth but walked me straight to my window, and after a quick, passionate kiss, boosted me inside.

He tapped the end of my nose with his forefinger. "Don't even think about trying to follow me back. I'll be in Ynys Afallach all during the day tomorrow, so I need my rest, too."

"What, you don't have an eos tincture for sleepiness?" I asked sarcastically.

Altair kissed me again — a quick peck this time — and then walked backward away toward the road, grinning. "Good night, my sweet Hesper."

"Good  morning ," I hissed after him, but his smile was infectious, and I had to stifle giggles again as he jogged across the road, turning back every few steps to pull a stern face at me.

I felt another pang of grief as Altair vanished amid the barren trees. How long would it be before he would disappear like that — this time forever? I couldn't guess. But if he said he suspected there were months left before the next jump, I had to believe him. It was the only realistic hope I could cling to; anything beyond that was simply impossible to imagine.

I fell into an exhausted slumber as soon as I crawled into bed, and was promptly haunted by nightmares of being torn away from Altair, of being frozen on leaden feet as he was dragged away into unending darkness.

* * *

#  Chapter Twelve

Singular

When I awoke the sky was growing dark again. For the second time this week, I'd egregiously overslept.

"Fuck!"

I jumped out of bed and hurriedly put myself together, but there was a sickening pit in the bottom of my stomach as I rushed through my ritual of showering and dressing. Was there even a point to what I was doing? Was I even going to still have a job by the time I got to Eastview — more than three hours late, with no phone call or plausible explanation for my absence? The house phone  had probably rung while I was asleep, and without Mom or Stan to answer it, I'd gotten myself well and truly screwed — and not in the way I'd been lusting for last night.

Bob came back to the maintenance office as I was picking up my walkie-talkie, and he indicated the chair  before his desk. "Let's have a chat, Hesper. I was gonna wait until Friday to have a sit-down with you, but after this afternoon..."

I sat before Bob, my stomach in knots as he pulled an employee handbook out of the top drawer of his desk.

"I think you know what I'm going to talk to you about here," Bob said. He flipped the three-ring binder open to a tabbed section, and spun the book around so I could read the words I already knew he was searching for.

Persistent tardiness or absences is a fireable offense.

"Hesper, if there's something going on at home that I should know about—" Bob began, but broke off as I numbly shook my head.

"Nothing more than anyone else. It's kinda impossible to explain," I mumbled.

I knew the words were lies; I  could explain, but the only person who would understand already knew everything that was happening in my life. Altair. But this wasn't his world — not really. Not for the past several thousand years.

Bob shook my hand after I turned in my keys and radio. We both knew he was obliged to let me go, and I could've thought of him kindly but for the brusque way he said, "Good luck," as though implying I needed it.

Then again, after my mother found out what had happened here, I probably would.

Bob probably thought I was having boyfriend trouble, I reflected as I trudged back to the pickup truck, but of course, things weren't anywhere near as straightforward as that. Any explanation I could've given would've sounded like the ravings of a madwoman... and worse, would've betrayed people I cared about, who had taken me into their hearts without a second thought.

The low spine of Ragged Mountain loomed in the near distance, and I gazed at it all the way home, wishing I could be back in Ynys Afallach by Altair's side — the only place in the  worlds that really mattered.

~

The phone was ringing as soon as I walked through the door, and after it fell silent, I checked the number log. There were several calls from a number I knew to be Eastview — those I'd missed while I was sleeping — followed by a few from the Mom's cell phone.

The blood in my veins turned glacial. Somehow, she knew what had happened. There wasn't any other explanation.

I'd been aggravated with my Mom any number of times for her odd refusal to get a new answering machine after her old one kicked last year, and I figured it was because she was sick of playing phone tag with lawyers over her and my father's protracted back alimony battle. It also made getting in touch with her from L.A. a real pain, and helped support her complaints that I "never" called.

Today it was finally paying off for me, though; instead of coming home to screeching messages, I could simply ignore the phone — even as it rang in my hand.

Mom again, of course.

My bout of exhilaration at realizing I was temporarily beyond my mother's reach soon gave way to dread again. She might be working a double shift right now, but eventually she was going to come home, and at that point I was really going to get it. The lack of police intervention in Mom and Stan's occasional screaming matches attested to how loud a person could get in rural areas like this without bothering the neighbors, and now something akin to that shit show lay in store for me.

The truck was too low on gas for me to realistically consider going anywhere, and besides, I knew the only place I wanted to go: Ynys Afallach. But Altair had said he was going to be there all day, and without his help...

I stopped cold as the realization dawned on me. Altair had said last night that I was nearly ready to cross over into Ynys Afallach by myself, hadn't he? And Carys had invited me to come back  soon ... so who was going to stop me?

Excitement crackled through my nerves, and I hurriedly threw together a hiking pack. I could go visit Carys, watch her working, or maybe just wander the streets of Ynys Afallach on my own. I dug a cheap old watch out of my bags from Los Angeles, and double-checked that it was working accurately before fastening it on my wrist. If I made sure to get back by nine or ten, I could wait for Altair at the A-frame so we wouldn't accidentally cross paths.

The feeling that I could go find people who  wanted to see me was liberation, and I had to force myself to maintain a relatively sedate pace hiking along the trail. The sky was overcast, but the forest was remarkably clear of the recent mists. Even so, my chest tightened as I thought of how I'd be hemmed in high up on the mountain. That grey nothing would ooze out of the very air, surrounding me until the entire world was obliterated.

And then...

The A-frame door was unlocked, so I pushed inside. True to his word, Altair wasn't home, and it was eerie to stand amidst his things, listening to the dull pop and hiss of the nearly dead fire in the woodstove. The blankets were neat and tidy on the bed, but the table was cluttered with books and telescope filters in entropic disarray.

I unearthed a thin volume from beneath a sheaf of papers — a recent edition of Maugham's  The Painted Veil . It was bookmarked with a thick strip of paper upon which Altair had written Goldsmith's  Elegy .

"The dog it was that died," I whispered to myself, delighted to find this book here.

There were strange lines on the paper, and I flipped it over to find a beautiful, angular doodle, all concentric circles and triangles with dots and lines connected throughout it in seemingly random configurations. The interplay of points, lines and curves reminded me of a constellation — and I realized this was the same sort of design as Altair's tattoo. He must have designed it himself.

Was there anything about Altair that wasn't completely amazing?

I carefully replaced the book and its marker, and opened the cabinet over the counter to find a glass bowl containing several softly glowing eos. For a moment I hesitated. Given that Altair was keeping a close watch on how much of this was in my system, it seemed almost like a betrayal to take one, but I was reasonably sure just  one eos wouldn't make me turn into a Miyazaki-esque nightmare. If it wasn't enough to get me through the mist, that was fine, but at least I'd've given it a shot instead of sitting around mentally bemoaning my fate.

The fruit was just as strange as I remembered from our day on the Snow Bowl's slope, perhaps a little less bitter, and I wondered if that was due to the eos already built up in my body. What must it be like to someone like Altair, who'd been used to this for hundreds of years already? I couldn't even begin to guess.

I thought I knew which trails to take, but even as Mirror Lake receded below me, the mists stayed vaporous and elusive. Everything was so confusing in the fading daylight, nowhere near as straightforward as it always seemed in the auroral dark. I made it all the way up to the rock overlook without encountering the dense brume Altair and I had always encountered so much further below, and as the sun finally swept beyond the wooded slopes to the west I was relieved to finally see that grey gloom creeping between the trees.

I inched forward into the most opaque stand of fog I could find, and reached out mentally, trying to urge the visions to start. Altair was right, I could feel through the semi-blindness, but Ynys Afallach was still so far away, skating away from my fingertips every time I reached for it.

After a few minutes' effort, I already felt drained, and the quantum mist was fading away again. I chased it back up the trail, wearying from each failed attempt to hook into those dizzying visions. Was it booting me out, or was I simply not strong enough yet to breach the divide?

I forced myself to sit down and regain my breath. It was a long way back to the A-frame from here, and I didn't want to abandon my efforts just to turn around and come back up. Besides, Altair would probably be back soon.

"One more try," I promised the hectoring voice in the back of my mind.

I waded as deeply into a cloud of the drifting grey that I could manage, and pressed my eyes shut. The sound of the shipwreck's splintering timbers was as distant as the roaring waves, and I clung to the sensations, yanking them around me like a blanket.

~

Gravity shifted, and I fell forward. The wind was knocked out of me as I collapsed onto flat ground, and I coughed and retched from the shock of it.

Waves crashed behind me, and a briny wind shoved at me from several different directions as once. Damp sand clung to my skin and clothes, and as I clawed the hair out of my face, I found myself lying on a wide, flat beach beneath a cold, overcast dawn sky.

This wasn't Ynys Afallach... so  where the fuck was I?

I scanned the beach, but it was utterly devoid of anything I could've used to identify my surroundings. A line of trees stood back beyond the far-off dunes, the temperate jungle stretching away in a thick muddy band below the rumbling clouds. Nowhere ahead could I find any signs of life beyond a solitary seabird that cried plaintively as it circled overhead.

Something nudged at my foot, and I looked down to find a splintered piece of wood poking at me from the edge of the water. The broken hulk of a vessel lay shattered  amidst a stand of knifelike rocks a few hundred yards offshore, and its wrack flecked the foamy surge. It was a starkly beautiful landscape, but there was only one thing I could think of.

"ALTAIR!" I screamed.

It was a useless gesture, I knew, but I couldn't help myself. Altair had warned me about my stubbornness before, and now I'd blundered my way into a place truly terrifying in its unfamiliarity. Given what I knew about the mist, I doubted I was on Earth anymore, and I had no way of getting back. I was never going to see Altair again, and he wouldn't have any idea where I'd gone—

My eyes caught a glimmer of movement between the dunes ahead, and I saw a tendril of mist slip away into the trees.

Before I was even aware of what I was doing, my feet were in motion, churning the packed sand as I sprinted toward the dunes. The grey whorl was already lost to sight, and if I couldn't catch it in time, I could find myself well and truly lost.

The breath burned in my lungs, and it seemed as though the shipwreck was dragging me back, but I fought against the invisible resistance until it snapped like a rubber band. I charged up the dunes and skidded down the far side, tumbling to the ground again as my shoe got snarled in a thorny vine. Just as quickly I was back up on my feet, and I plunged between the unfamiliar trunks, heedlessly hurling myself toward the receding mist.

I pressed my eyes shut as hard as I could and thought of the familiar pines of Ragged Mountain, willing myself to be back in their hold.

~

The air crackled around me, and I pitched forward, on an uneven slope once more. I thudded heavily to the ground and skidded downhill, covering my face with my arms against the onslaught of rocks and roots.

I finally slid to a stop in a pile of slushy leaves, and my eyes flew open. Even though it was full night I could discern the blessedly familiar basin of Mirror Lake far below, and the last wisps of the aurora in the overhead.

I'd done it. I was home.

Relief bubbled up inside me, and despite the hundred minor aches and scrapes, I convulsed with hysterical laughter until tears poured from my eyes. The whole ordeal had taken maybe a few minutes, but I felt like I'd been gone a lifetime.

Altair's voice floated thinly through the trees. "Hesper!"

I lurched to my feet, and my body screamed in protest. My voice was weak, shaky. "I'm here!"

There was a crashing from the lower slope, and I saw a shadowy figure sprinting uphill toward me. Altair. The sight of him was enough to galvanize me into motion, and I stumbled toward him on unsteady legs.

Altair caught me in his arms, and I fell against him, almost delirious with relief.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, his eyes boring into me with equal parts fury and relief. His thermal shirt was soft against my cheek. "And why are you covered in sand?"

"No idea," I giggled. "But I sure as shit wasn't in Ynys Afallach."

" What? " Altair shouted too close to my ear. He gripped my shoulders and held me away from him, his eyes flaring in anger as he stared at me. "You tried to cross by yourself? Without even leaving me a message to say where you were going?"

"I just thought—" I tried to shrink away from Altair, but he grabbed my hand and started marching back down the trail at a breakneck pace, dragging me behind him. "Altair—"

"I'm not even going to begin speaking to you about this until we're off this mountain," he snapped.

"Then at least slow down," I begged. Wow, he really was livid. Nausea rose in my gut, and I pressed my lips together, breathing through my nose to keep from dry heaving.

Altair's hardened expression didn't change, but he ever-so-slightly slackened his pace, and kept his furious black gaze fixed straight ahead all the way back to flat ground.

~

The roiling feeling in my stomach only grew as we descended, but to my immense relief, Altair led me back to the A-frame rather than my mother's house. After everything that had just happened, trying to deal with her ire in addition to Altair's was inconceivable.

I glanced at my watch as the moon emerged from the clouds. It was nearly ten o'clock. Somehow I'd lost nearly six hours in the forest.

What the fuck had happened out there?

Altair tugged me inside the A-frame and pushed me into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He was somehow more contained now, but I could see the emotions boiling just below his methodical exterior.

He pulled a small zipped kit out of one of his  bags , and dragged the chair forward to sit facing me. "Take off your jacket and hold out your arm."

I fumbled free of the heavy wool garment, sagging as the heat from the woodstove hit me. Then Altair pulled a small syringe wrapped in plastic from the kit and set it beside me on the bed.

Shit... needles.

"Oh, come on," I pleaded.

Altair's eyes were merciless. "You got yourself into this mess, Hesper." He placed a  pillow on my lap, then set my left arm on top of it and pushed my sleeve out of the way. His voice was dangerously soft. "What the hell were you thinking? Didn't we already discuss the wisdom of running around in the woods by yourself?"

I hissed as he rubbed the inside of my elbow with an alcohol swab. " You  do it all the time."

Altair wiped sanitizer on his hands and tied a rubber tube around my arm. It was a struggle deciding which was more uncomfortable to look at, my arm or Altair's still-angry face, but as soon as Altair ripped the syringe out of the package I forced myself to stay locked on his angular features. Passing out was not on my agenda for tonight.

"That's different," he muttered. "I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive. What if you'd gotten hurt, or overdosed? I don't keep track of your eos intake just for my own amusement."

I winced as the needle jabbed into my skin. I was too tired and feeling too much like shit to make this into some giant debacle, and Altair wasn't exactly in the wrong here. "Look, I'm sorry... I had a really horrible day, and I guess I wasn't thinking straight," I told him. "I just needed to go somewhere friendly."

Altair unsnapped the tube from my arm and pressed a cotton ball to the leaking puncture. "Hold this."

Glass vials clinked as Altair fiddled with something at the table, and drew a few drops of clear liquid up into the syringe containing my blood. He swirled the plastic tube and held it up to the light. After a few moments, he slumped in relief.

"You're all right." The anger seemed to evaporate from Altair's features, and as he gazed at me again, abruptly appearing as drained as I felt. "You nearly gave me a heart attack, Hesper."

"Can you even  have a heart attack?" I muttered mutinously.

"For my sake, please don't test it." Altair moved back to the chair and replaced the cotton ball at my elbow with a bandage. Then he took my hands, rubbing them to restore circulation. "Why didn't you wait for me? You know I'll help you through until you're ready to cross over on your own."

"I didn't want to wait," I said stiffly. "I just needed... I needed to get out."

Altair frowned in concern. "Why? What happened?"

"I lost my job today," I mumbled.

He peered at me for a few long moments. "That's it?"

" It ?" I bristled. "This is a big deal! I'm completely screwed now—"

I broke off as Altair gave a low, exhausted chuckle. "I promise you, it isn't, and you're not. I was so worried something had happened to you..." He broke off, staring more keenly at me. "Are you feeling  all right ?"

My stomach lurched again. "Just not looking forward to hashing it out with the ol' landlord, I guess."

"Perhaps," Altair said, but he looked troubled. "Listen, Hesper... why don't you stay with me tonight?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, I'm just really not up for more hiking."

Altair smiled. "I meant stay  here with me. I'm  off ."

It was impossible to keep the sarcastic edge out of my voice. "You have the night off from defending your world through the powers of observation?"

"There's cloud cover moving in, and besides, I'm owed some time. Quite a bit, actually." Altair sat forward, abruptly reenergized. "Look, you can just write your mother a note, and I'll deliver it for you."

I stared at him, my heart thumping into high gear. Argh, if I'd only been patient and  waited for Altair, I wouldn't be feeling like a shaky mess right now, and maybe then...

Well, it was no use thinking about what could've been, but time with Altair wasn't something I was going to pass up, regardless of my physical state. "You're sure you don't mind?"

Altair cupped my face in his hands and surveyed my eyes. "I'm not entirely convinced the malaise you're feeling is just nerves. At any rate, I'd like to keep an eye on you tonight, and I'm sure I can look after you better than anyone else in this world." He paused, and his smooth skin flushed. "And yes, I'm aware of how presumptuous that sounds."

"It's okay," I murmured. "I feel safest with you."

He handed  me a piece of paper and a pen, and I scribbled a quick note to my mother explaining that I'd gone out of town for the night. "Just leave it — even if she's there, make sure she doesn't see you. I don't want you to get caught up in this."

"If that's your decision, I'll honor it." Altair kissed my forehead, grabbed his coat, and disappeared out the door in a blast of  chill air.

I curled up next to the woodstove, leaning back against the foot of the bed. My eyelids started to drift as I stared at the flickering light, and it seemed like only moments later that Altair was back.

"Done?"

He nodded, and hung his coat by the door. "With no one the wiser as to my presence, as requested."

Altair sat beside me and pressed his wrist to my forehead, checking my temperature. "How are you feeling?"

I grimaced. After Altair's refusal to bring me here the last two nights, this was wretchedly inopportune. "Sick, and really annoyed to be so."

Altair smiled at my petulance. "When did you you eat last?"

Come to think of it, I had no idea. Not today, I knew that much. "At your sister's house?"

Altair glared at me. "Hesper!"

"Everything's been happening so fast — and honestly, I haven't been hungry," I  wheedled . "And now I feel like crap, so that's that."

"Hardly."

Altair stood and moved to one of the lower cabinets, from which he pulled a plastic container of something that looked like vegetables.

"Mice," he explained with a half-smile.

I squinted at him. "You're making mice?"

"No," Altair corrected, "I'm making you something my mother always fixed when I felt ill as a child. The container's to keep the mice out of my things."

I tried to imagine a little kid with Altair's angular face and ink-dark eyes. It was jarring to realize that there were no pictures anywhere in any world of him — could never have been. Altair the child, not knowing what terrible things lay in store for him...

I shivered, and moved the chair beside the counter so I could watch Altair peeling and cutting things. "So what happened? Where was I?"

Altair surveyed me out of the corner of his eye. "Not being there, I can't say for certain, but I'd guess that instead of finding your way through to Ynys Afallach, you got lost in the indeterminacy. Essentially, through whatever combination of factors, you created your own pocket universe."

"Ha  ha , I was the creator of my own little universe," I joked weakly. "Everyone back  home'll be so proud."

"Ha ha, indeed," Altair muttered.

Something in his expression gave me pause. "Was I actually in trouble?"

Altair shrugged. "It could've undergone quantum destabilization and collapsed, taking you with it. You'd've been gone straight out of existence — likely it'd have been as though you'd never been born, and this universe would adjust to accommodate that. Only those with eos already in their systems would have remembered you. So if you call that trouble..."

"Oof." I watched Altair, who was assiduously busying himself with  knifework . "You're still upset with me, aren't you?"

Altair stopped what he was doing and leaned on the counter as he gazed at me, worry speaking volumes in his dark eyes. "Hesper, you have no idea how idea how impressed I am by your adventurous spirit, but you've got to be careful. I can understand if you were heedless before, but now..." He shook his head and returned to slicing. "Just promise me you won't do anything so foolish again, all right? At least tell me where you're going."

"Fine," I agreed, still unsettled by the idea of whatever world to which that beach belonged popping like a soap bubble. Was that all really just my own creation? It seemed unlikely. I laughed, trying to force myself to feel more lighthearted. "Boy, wouldn't it suck for  you  if I went kablooey."

"You have absolutely no idea," Altair said. He glanced at me again, and smiled faintly. "Now, let me work."

~

To my surprise, I did feel a lot better after drinking the vitamin-rich broth Altair prepared. We hunkered by the woodstove, and he showed me his sketches of Ynys Afallach throughout its history — along with all the other places he'd been. I'd thought the doodle on his bookmark was impressive, but it was nothing compared to what he could evoke with ink and a few dashes of paint.

I ran my fingers over one illustration — a picture of a bustling European port that had risen and fallen centuries before my birth. "As the saying goes, you're sick with talent."

"I've had quite a bit of time to practice," Altair said, blushing. He turned a page, and I gasped at the rendering of the brass-and-glass building, like a spherical conservatory with stadium seating around it and something akin to a radio antenna at the top. "This is the jump building. It used to be a temple, so we still call it that sometimes. Ironically so, of course — we seem to have trimmed all the pseudoscience out of it by now."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Trial and error." Altair shook his head, remembering. "There were more than a few close calls during that process."

I squinted at the breathtaking illustration. "I wonder what it was like for the first person through that mist. What was going on in their head, I mean."

"Abject panic," Altair said under his breath.

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. "Wait — it was you?"

"The only one either brave or foolish enough," he said with a vague, wry flourish.

"And you give  me shit for taking risks." I shook my head at Altair. "So what happened?"

He looked away, embarrassed. "I was trapped on the far side. It was only once Graffias followed me through that we figured out how to get back."

I shivered, thinking of my own wild panic on the strange beach. "That must have been so lonely."

"I'm not the most involved member of the community,  but wondering if I was going to be cut off for the rest of my life, even unintentionally..." Altair sighed heavily. "It was the most terrifying thing I'd experienced to that point."

I gazed at him. Brave, beautiful Altair, who'd risked it all just for the sake of knowing what was out there. "And now?"

"When I found you up there, after you fell," Altair said quietly, nodding in the direction of Ragged Mountain. My heart practically stopped. He hadn't even hesitated before answering. "That's the most frightened I've ever been in my life."

There was a crazy swooping sensation in my stomach, but I couldn't form words.

"It wasn't as though I truly knew you, I told myself." Altair's eyes pervaded my vision, growing even larger as he pulled me close. "It wasn't as though I was your sworn protector. Yet thinking that something had happened to you... In that moment, I knew that I wouldn't be able to forgive myself, no matter how long I lived. Feeling even a portion of that again today nearly drove me out of my mind."

He caressed my cheek, and the powers of speech slowly returned. "You felt that way over some random girl you'd barely met?"

"Over Hesper Fane. Hesper, the inimitable." Altair ran his fingers through my hair and smiled, suddenly radiating pure joy. "Hesper, my love."

Love... The word coming was practically an incantation coming from his lips. Altair had me completely in his thrall.

He kissed me tenderly, and every nerve in my body thrilled at his touch. Altair wanted me, was hungering for me — the same way I was hungering for him. His touch became more rougher, more insistent, and his tongue explored my mouth, making me moan from the tightening sensations that rippled through my legs.

"Are you feeling better?" Altair murmured in my ear, his stubble harsh against my skin.

"Yes," I whispered, begging him.

Altair pulled me to my feet just long enough for us to tumble onto his bed. He ran one hand along the outer seam on my jeans, and yanked my knee aside, easing his hips between my thighs.

"You don't just want to hold my hand anymore?" I asked breathlessly, nearly undone by the way Altair's sensuous lips parted as he pushed against me. But I already knew from the predatory look in those fathomless black eyes that he wasn't going to pull away. Not this time.

Altair grazed my jaw with his teeth. "I've been patient because I wanted you to know me first," he muttered, reading my mind even now. "But you know what I want — what we've both wanted since the first time we laid eyes on each other."

"Tell me," I pleaded.

"Darling, you want me to fuck you," Altair whispered tenderly. "And believe me, I'm going to do just that."

I gasped to hear the word  fuck roll so smoothly off his perfect tongue. Altair grinned and kissed me again, savagely now, biting my lower lip so hard that I tasted blood. He slid his hands beneath my shirt and dragged it up over my head, leaving me pinioned beneath him in only my careworn lace bra and jeans. His shirt followed, and then he was naked against me, his skin warming mine.

Suddenly my stomach was flip-flopping again, and Altair hesitated, peering down at me with concern. "What's wrong?"

"Fucking nausea," I mumbled. Goddamn my shortsightedness this afternoon! If only I'd waited... "Just give me a minute, I'll be okay."

Altair sat upright, pulling me up with him. He gave an affected sigh and shook his head in mock disappointment before kissing the tip of my nose. "Serves you right for taking off into your own universe without so much as a  by your leave  to anyone. Particularly someone who cares deeply for you."

He hopped off the bed and dug into another low cupboard. For the first time I was able to see that his pauldron tattoo extended down over his shoulder blade, and swept inward to connect with his spine. It really was striking.

"What are you doing?" I asked, resisting the instinct to put my shirt back on.

"Fetching an antiemetic." When Altair stood back up, he had something in his hand — a cylindrical, transparent orange container I recognized all too well from my years in Los Angeles.

My mouth fell open. "You've gotta be kidding."

"Why does every generation  feel like they've invented this?" Altair mused as he sat at the table and dexterously rolled a joint. "It's been used since long before  I was born." He glanced at me. "What?"

I realized I was grinning idiotically despite my discomfort. "Watching you do that is like seeing a teacher outside school or something. It's giving me a major case of cognitive dissonance."

"Not for long." Altair crouched by the woodstove and lit the joint from the fire, then beckoned to me as he took the first  toke .

I sat cross-legged beside him and watched him inhale. "Mind blown again."

Altair smirked and knelt in front of me. He slid his free hand behind my head and tilted my chin upward as he shotgunned me the hit, his warm, sweet lips barely brushing mine. "Easy," Altair cautioned as he handed me the joint. "Just a bit, and then we'll see how you feel."

I took a couple of hits before Altair stubbed out the cherry, and we sat back on the bed. He leaned against the wall and cradled me so I was leaning sideways against his chest, my legs bent over his.

"Ever been a pothead?" I asked Altair as I wove my fingers through his.

He grinned. "A couple of times. Primarily when I was working out on the farms — no one was depending on me then, so it was all right." He lifted my chin, and gazed at me seriously. "Hesper, if you're at all uncomfortable with me, or with being here tonight, we don't—"

"Altair," I said softly, and he fell silent. "Why do you keep thinking I'm going to go running off at any second?"

He stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Because of what I represent. Because of how long I've lived. Honestly, I can't imagine how you see me other than as something that's been protracted unnaturally. A monster."

"A monster?" I gingerly ran my fingertips over Altair's smooth chest, and snorted with laughter as he shivered. "Yeah, right. Fortunately, I have a test for that."

Altair narrowed his eyes at me. "Forgive me if I sound dubious—"

"Just go with me, here." I slid my hand to Altair's waist and quickly slipped my thumb just beneath the waistband of his brown canvas pants, enough to poke the tender spot just inside his hip bone.

Altair yelped with laughter and squirmed away toward the wall. He instinctively grabbed for my hand, but I eluded him.

"See? Entirely human. I'm almost disappointed," I said, and  feinted at his other hip.

Altair grinned at me, but there was a glint of real warning in his eyes. "Careful, Hesper."

I took a breath, testing. The world had that familiar burnished glow, and I felt normal again. Normal enough, anyway. I grinned saucily back at him. "Are you telling me to pick on someone my own size?"

There it was — that electric tension between us. We both knew what was going to happen next.

I jabbed for Altair, but he lunged and pinned me on the bed, cradling my head as his mouth found mine again. He nudged my legs aside and one of his hands moved to the waistband of my jeans, expertly undoing the button and zipper. Centuries of multitasking had obviously given him certain advantages.

"Hesper, you feel... amazing," Altair panted as he helped me kick out of the worn denim. His  hand slid up along my side, and he cupped my  breast through the tattered bra, squeezing gently. "Tell me if I'm hurting you."

"It's okay, I'm resilient," I reassured him breathlessly, fumbling with the button of his canvas pants. I didn't know how else to tell him that I liked my fucking hard and deep without any embellishment — but then, this was Altair. He probably knew that already.

Altair had my bra unhooked and off before I even noticed him fiddling with the clasp. I gasped as he took my breasts in his hands, my nipples hardening under his palms as his fingernails dug into my skin.

"How does that feel?" he asked softly.

"Good," I gasped in surprise. I'd never liked this sort of thing before. "Really, really good, actually."

My shaking hands finally worked the button of his pants free, and I brushed against Altair's boxers as I undid the zipper. Wow — not only was he ready, but sweet and sensitive Altair was packing in a  major  way. I had to struggle to stop myself from just  diving on in . "You're sure the eos—"

"Absolutely sure," Altair breathed, his lips against mine. His hand slid along the outside of my hip, caressing my bare skin. "I'm perfectly healthy, but I've a barrier if you'd prefer."

I squirmed at the reference, but I trusted Altair. "No, it's fine," I murmured, lifting my hips as he tugged my panties down and tossed them aside.

Altair plunged his fingers inside me, and I groaned as my muscles clenched around him in response. His eyes grew feverishly bright and he pushed deeper, teasing me. "You really do want me, don't you?"

"Why do you find that so surprising?" I panted.

He withdrew his hand and raked his clipped nails along my thigh, laughing as I whimpered in disappointment. "It's just illuminating seeing it on your features this way."

I twisted my fingers into Altair's hair and pressed my mouth to his, wrapping my legs around his waist. I needed him to possess me completely — I was aching for him.

He moaned into my mouth, and his hand moved back to my breast, clutching me with agonizing sweetness.

"Altair, I need you," I whispered as we broke. "Please—"

"Oh, love," Altair groaned, and pushed his boxers aside. The waistband of his coarse canvas pants ground into my sensitive skin, threatening to send me over the edge. "I don't want to hurt you, Hesper," he muttered mindlessly. "Promise to tell me if it's too much."

I knew what Altair needed to hear: that he could fall apart, and I'd hold him together. And I would — now and forever.

"Let go," I gasped. "You can't hurt me."

A guttural cry tore from Altair's lips as he plunged into me, filling me even more than I was prepared for. My fingers tightened in his hair, and I bit my lip, stifling a whimper as my spine involuntarily arched. He eased out of me, then thrust again, digging into me even deeper than before. I pushed back against him, embracing the delicious pain, willing myself to admit him.

"Hesper, love, I want to bury myself in you," Altair  panted .

"I'm fine with that," I murmured breathlessly.

Altair's relentless onslaught pushed me to the brink sooner than I would've liked, and I cried out as I came, shuddering violently from the intensity of the orgasm. Holy  fuck ...

"Are you all right?" Altair asked in a strangled voice, his breath buzzing in my ear as he pushed inside me again.

It took effort to remember how to speak. "Keep going," I mumbled, gently nipping at the warm, soft skin of his throat. I didn't know how much more of this I could take, but every excruciating impact was pure joy. I tightened around him, and his tempo increased.

"Hesper," he moaned through clenched teeth as his body trembled. "Graces, Hesper—"

Altair's voice became an inarticulate groan, and he slammed into me deeply enough to split me apart — once, twice, three times. He stiffened, and I felt him empty into me, warm and pulsing. Then he stilled,  panting with exertion.

After a few moments Altair rolled his head to the side and peeked at me, boyish and delighted in his exhaustion. I caressed his hair, and we grinned at each other, completely wrecked.

"Worth waiting for?" I asked softly.

Altair nodded vehemently, then winced and withdrew as I started giggling. "Damn, woman, you're going to be the death of me!"

"You mean you've got something left after that?" I teased.

Altair's eyes widened, and he flopped back  on the bed beside me. "Not a chance." He looked back at me, grinning again in that oh-so-Altair way, and drew me into his arms, tracing a line of kisses along my jaw. "Hesper Fane, I'm completely enamored with you," he murmured.

"Me, too, with you," I said shyly.

"Good." Altair gazed at me adoringly, and wrapped my body around his so that my head was resting on his chest. His heartbeat was still fast, but it began to slow as I listened.

I yawned, and Altair laughed — a free, open sound.

"Did I give you enough exercise for one evening?" he thrummed in my ear.

"Mm-hmm," I murmured, trying to fight the leaden drowsiness weighing down my eyelids. "Not for the last time, I hope."

Altair laughed, but I heard the soft edge of impending sleep in his voice. "Impossible." He caressed my hair and I felt his stubble against my brows as he kissed my forehead. "Now rest."

I nuzzled against Altair, and darkness descended to shroud the world.

* * *

#  Chapter Thirteen

Effulgence

I knew I was dreaming as I saw the cold grey beach stretching away before me again, but panic flooded my veins as  palpably as frost. Why did I keep coming back here? Knowing Altair was nowhere near — that he couldn't be, that he wouldn't know where I'd gone — made me want to tear this whole damn world apart to get back to him. I dug furiously in the earth, trying to find my way out, but there was only the sand and the ocean and the clouds. There was no escape.

I heard his voice as he  called to me , summoning me from another world. "Hesper. Hesper, come back to me."

~

I clawed my way back up out of unconsciousness to find Altair gently shaking me awake. He frowned at me through his drowsiness, and smoothed my hair out of my face. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, but fragments of the dream still clung to me as tangibly as the sand that I knew still dusted my hiking boots. "It was just a nightmare. I was back there again."

"I'm not surprised." Altair helped me sit up, and he leaned against the A-frame's wall, eyeing me as I pulled the blanket tight across my chest until I winced. "Trying to be modest?"

I pulled the curtain aside and looked outside. Sea smoke drifted off Mirror Lake, swathing the world in a nebulaic dawn. "Just trying to remind myself I'm really here. The pain... I think it helps."

Altair twined his hand into my hair and yanked me onto his lap. I gasped in relief as he wrapped his arm around my waist and his lithe fingers dug into my waist.

"Does this help, too?" he murmured tenderly, his black eyes penetrating me to my core.

I nodded, grimacing in agony, and Altair crushed his face to mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth, filling me. He stirred beneath me, and I realized he was ready again, our strange awakening notwithstanding.

Yes... I absolutely fucking needed this. Needed him.

Altair lifted me bodily and I slid onto him, trembling as my sore muscles screamed with the effort of taking him in. He pushed his hips up to meet me with excruciating slowness, bending me around him until I couldn't stand it, and I dug my teeth into his shoulder to control the beautiful torment.

I heard Altair's sharp intake of breath, and his fingers tightened in my hair as he retreated, then ground into me again, pulling me down onto him with a sudden fierceness.

"Stay with me, Hesper," Altair murmured, driving into me again and again until I shattered into nothingness around him, calling his name as  though it was my salvation. He came not long after, pouring himself into me, and we collapsed back onto the bed into a blessedly dreamless slumber.

~

I slept again until the sun was high, and woke to hear the sound of a pen dancing over paper somewhere close by. Altair sat at the table fully engrossed in his work, and it took me a few moments to realize he was fully dressed in a black button-down shirt, tie, and grey vest above his usual canvas pants with the faded red suspenders.

As if hearing me stir, he looked over and smiled at me, but I could see he was distracted. "Good morning."

"Hey." I sat up, confused and self-conscious — and disturbingly naked in comparison to Altair. It looked like he'd showered. How had I slept through that?

Muscles in all sorts of forgotten places chastised me every time I moved. Oh, right.  That was why  I'd slept so deeply.

"Is anything wrong?" I asked, trying not to frown.

Altair didn't tear his eyes from the pages before him. "No, but I worked out a few calculations while I was  sleeping. I hope you don't mind, but I had to indulge them. It's actually quite brilliant, if I do say so myself. And inspired by you." He flashed a quick grin at me, but his eyes were back on his battered notebook a moment later.

"Want to tell me about it?" I asked tentatively, somehow knowing he wouldn't.

"It's still in the early stages, but I'll catch you up once I understand the feasibility better." Altair finished his writing with a flourish, then looked back at me, an unreadable expression on his face. "Actually, I have to go back to Ynys Afallach straightaway. This can't wait."

"Oh," I said dumbly.

"Of course, you're more than welcome to come, too." Altair moved to the bed and sat beside me. He caught a tendril of my hair and wound it around his finger, then sat back, seemingly distant again. "I'm sure you've plenty you'd like to explore on your own."

I tried not to sound disappointed. "Yeah, absolutely. I just need to go change my clothes."

Altair kissed my forehead and returned to his seat at the table, immediately lost in his notes again. "Don't forget to bring anything you'll need. And hurry back."

I dressed quickly, grabbed my backpack and hurried out onto the trail. This wasn't the way I'd been expecting to feel this morning, but I couldn't be upset with Altair. He had bigger things on his mind, and I resolved not to make a nuisance of myself. Yesterday I'd been practically demanding freedom to do as I pleased, so I couldn't fault Altair for giving me exactly that.

After all, it wasn't as though Altair was pushing me away... was he?

~

The Grand Am wasn't in the driveway, but I still slipped in through my bedroom window in case Stan was off on one of his solo sojourns. Unless Mom was hiding somewhere in a closet, she wasn't home, either, so I didn't have to  completely rush as I showered and repacked my bag. I couldn't assume Altair would want me to stay with him again tonight, but I stuffed a change of clothes in the rucksack anyway. After all, if things with Altair got weird all of a sudden, I had enough money left on my card, I could probably find my way to the train somehow, and go down to see Cara and Jackson...

Even as the thought occurred to me, I knew I'd never act on it. Altair was just busy, not annoyed or upset at me. I was making a mountain out of a molehill. A really, really hot molehill who fucked like the randy Zeus himself... and I wasn't going to run dramatically off and validate his fears just because my nose was out of joint.

I was so busy rationalizing Altair's behavior this morning that I didn't hear the front door until it was too late. I froze in the foyer, the backpack slung over one shoulder as my mother fixed me in place with her incensed glare.

"Where the hell do you think you've been?" Mom grabbed the note  I'd written last night off the table — evidently Altair had been as discreet as he'd said — and waved it at me like a guilty verdict as Stan poked at the woodstove, staying clear of the fray. "Did you think I didn't know you got fired? Who do you think your boss called when he couldn't get a hold of you?"

I pressed my lips together to suppress a sharp retort. "This is what I was trying to avoid," I explained, trying to keep my already-simmering blood from hitting full boil. "I just don't think you yelling at me is going to be productive for either of us."

I was trying to be mature, but it was the wrong thing to say — or the wrong way to say it. My mother folded her arms and assumed a combative stance, jutting out her bony hip like a pissed-off tween. "Oh, is that what you think? See,  I thought the problem was the same thing as always: you refusing to apply yourself!" Mom shook her head, glaring as I hadn't seen her do since she and Dad were breaking up. "Hesper, you're letting all your potential go to waste. What are you doing all the time? Are you doing drugs? Other than the weed, I mean."

I ground my teeth in aggravation. "No, I'm not doing  the drugs . And I'll find another job."

"You'd better," Mom retorted. I tried to brush past her, but she grabbed my arm. "Just where do you think you're going now?"  
"I'm going to move out as soon as I can," I said icily, "but I've got some things to do in the meantime."

I pulled free of my mother and hurried to the door.

"Applying for jobs, I hope," she called after me, but I was already outside and beyond her reach.

I didn't have to look behind me to know my mother's eyes were boring into my back, so instead of going straight over to the trail mouth, I headed along the road toward town and took the long route around the lake. It was bound to be some kind of hunting season, but I figured my eggplant coat was sufficiently bright that no one would mistake me for a deer or a moose.

Altair was waiting outside the A-frame by the time I got back, his brow creased in exasperation. Maybe my confidence in his mood had been overrated, after all. "What took you?"

"Sorry, ran into my mother," I muttered as we hiked out.

Altair took my hand, but it felt like a perfunctory gesture. "Did you tell her what happened yesterday?"

"She already knew I got fired," I said, ready for this conversation to be over. I wasn't going to tell Altair how much pragmatic shit I was avoiding to come out here. He had enough on his mind, evidently, and I didn't want to put any more pressure on the situation.

"That wasn't what I meant," Altair said. "Far be it for me to suggest disseminating dangerous information, but maybe you'd best tell her about us."

What? Uh... I  pointed from him to me and back again, uncertain. "Like...?"

Altair's frown deepened. "Actually, I meant Ynys Afallach."

I laughed humorlessly, relieved. "No offense, but, uh, I don't think so. My mother's unpredictable, and she's out for herself nowadays. Even if she believed me, which I highly doubt she would, there's no telling how she'd react."

"I simply think that where you're literally passing between two worlds — and occasionally getting lost between them — she might like to know where you'd gone if anything were to happen," Altair said forcefully.

I shook my head and stomped on a fallen twig, subtly exorcising my hidden frustration. "Bad idea."

Altair raised his eyebrows, but mercifully, he let the matter drop.

Once we were high in the mists, Altair gave me my usual shot of eos, and even though I was still feeling prickly about the issue of my mother, I was grateful for his arm around me as the visions swept past, dizzyingly vivid again. For a moment it felt as though I was going to get sucked through onto that lonely beach again, but then the subterranean tunnel flickered in my vision, and suddenly we were in Ynys Afallach.

"How many more times do you have to do that?" I grumbled, rubbing the spot on my neck where the needle had pierced my skin. The puncture would be completely healed in just a few minutes, I knew from past experience, but it still stung like a snakebite in the meantime.

Altair narrowed his eyes. "A few. Do you want to want to go visit Carys? I know she'd be delighted to have you back."

Much as I would've liked to see Carys at any other time, I didn't think I'd know how to react to her selfless optimism given whatever weird vibe was floating around between Altair and me today. He was definitely...  off .

"I think I'd rather check out the library if that's all right," I told Altair.

Altair nodded curtly. "Excellent. I'm passing that way myself, so I'll escort you."

We headed off down the trail to the center of Ynys Afallach, but it felt wrong to be surrounded by all the splendor of this vibrant half-dusk while there was this awkward tension hanging between us.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked Altair quietly.

He stopped and peered at me, perplexed. "Of course not. What makes you say that?"

"It's just... you're kinda distant today."

Altair sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I'm sorry, Hesper. I'm so accustomed to being on my own that I don't think I realize when I'm getting caught up in my own thoughts. I've got a lot on my mind, but I never meant to externalize that on you."

I let out the breath I hadn't even realized had been trapped in my lungs. "Guess I was just projecting. After last night, I'm just ready to be wigged out, I guess."

Altair cupped my face and kissed me. His fingers lingered on my cheek, and he smiled, sending shivers through my entire body. "Believe me, last night couldn't have been more perfect."

"Besides me stumbling into a pocket universe," I said, feeling the beginnings of a good mood again.

"Yes, besides that," Altair chuckled dryly, and we kept walking.

Altair insisted on walking me all the way into the library, and he led me over to a statuesque woman in an impractical but magnificent draped dress, who was busy tinkering with a riveted metal chair and a space-age metal halo that sat at one edge of the central rotunda. Wires hung out of an open panel, and as I watched, blue bolts of electricity crackled between their frayed ends.

"Oh, hush, you," the woman snapped at the wires, and stabbed at a panel of buttons and switches with a meticulously manicured finger. The electricity immediately cut, and the woman shook a curl of platinum blonde hair aside with an imperious snap of her head. "That's better."

"Tiresias," Altair said by way of greeting, and the woman smiled coyly at him.

Tiresias... oh.  Oh . There were transvestites, and there were drag queens — but Tiresias was an empress. She really was astounding.

And tall, I saw as we neared. Tiresias had an advantage of several inches over Altair — thought that could've been due to her nosebleed heels. How she was able to walk in those things, I couldn't guess, but she swept over and gave Altair a delicate embrace.

"Altair, how are you, darling?"

"Well, thank you." Altair pulled me forward, and Tiresias' beautifully defined eyes lit on me. "Tiresias, I'd like you to meet Hesper Fane. I'll be leaving her in your charge for a while, if that's all right."

Tiresias primped her hair and waved a disinterested hand. "Fine, fine. You go save us from ourselves, and we'll gossip about you behind your back."

Altair didn't even bat an eye, but actually smiled a little. "Thank you." He pulled me a few steps aside. "You'll be  all right ?"

The last twinges of this morning's awkwardness were still lingering, but I forced myself to grin. "Go do your thing, I'll be fine."

"Feel free to wander. Just let Tiresias know where you're going so I can catch you up when I'm through."

To my surprise, Altair gave me a quick kiss. There was a soft gasp from Tiresias' direction, but I was too stunned by Altair to see if it was because she was still watching us.

"Don't get into too much trouble," he told me with a stern glance, and then headed back toward the library's exit.

By the time I turned back, Tiresias was again fussing with the metal chair. "Just a peck and off they run," she reflected airily. "Isn't that always the way?"

Tiresias batted one of her thickly lashed eyes at me, and I couldn't help feeling another resurgence of this morning's insecurity. Had Altair really been  running away? Surely not...

A moment  later, we were joined by a petite brunette who introduced herself as Moura. Tiresias explained the chair was a new card catalogue they'd been developing — which, when fully functional, would determine the sort of books a person wanted or needed based on their neural patterns.

"It's essentially operational right now," Moura said in her soft lisp, "but we're trying to make it so the selections won't simply be limited to the chronological period or periods with which they querent is most engaged, which it still is at the moment."

"What do you think, Miss Millie?" Tiresias asked as she twisted two bare wires together.

I didn't immediately realize she was talking to me — and then it dawned on me.  Thoroughly modern... that was me, all right.

"I'm sorry, I don't know anything about this kind of thing," I offered reluctantly.

"Altair wouldn't waste his time with someone who wasn't clever," Tiresias said, staring at me with her huge brown eyes. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

She fell silent, and I realized she was waiting for me to speak. Right now.  Talk about being put on the spot...

Suddenly I thought again of the shipwreck and the beach — symbols I'd been wondering about since Altair told me they'd probably been of my own creation. "Do either of you know about the Giant's Drink from  Ender's Game ?"

Tiresias and Moura stared blankly at me.

"It's an interactive game that can think for itself, and incorporates archetypes from the individual player's life to give a comprehensive psychological experience. If you could figure a way to actually incorporate the deeper symbolic hierarchies of the, uh, querent, you might be able to piggyback on the processes that supply images during a dream state, and figure out a deeper array of symbols with different levels of meaning that work for a majority of people."

Moura's eyes lit up, and she snapped her fingers. "Like the alethiometer from  His Dark Materials . Common symbols that represents multiple associated levels of meaning."

I grinned with excitement — that was a much more concise analogy. "Exactly! Develop that template, and maybe your system can work around it from there, using it as an intermediary resource to identify and interact with the preexisting symbolic hierarchies."

"You  are  a delightful little freak, aren't you?" Tiresias asked, and I knew she meant it kindly, because she favored me with her coy smile.

~

I spent the next few hours as Tiresias and Moura's guinea pig, strapped into the card catalogue halo as they tried to map iterations of various concepts using different stimuli. I was a good test subject, Moura said, because people in Ynys Afallach tended to have too many overlapping associations with any given concept to give a clear reading.

"Are you saying I have a simple brain?" I joked.

"Uncomplicated, dear," Tiresias said, patting my arm, "and that's a separate thing entirely."

After a few hours I grew mentally fuzzy  under the persistent questioning, and Tiresias let me off the hook. "We have to make some hardware upgrades, at any rate," she said, splitting open a plastic wire sheath with her thumbnail. "So you're free to fly, my little hummingbird."

"Do you think it'd be okay for me to check out the jump building?" I asked, stretching my rebellious legs as I stood up.

Tiresias batted her lashes at me in surprise. "Of course. Nothing's off limits here — didn't Altair tell you?"

I laughed at her joke, but an aspect of what she was saying bothered me. Perhaps the most precious building in all Ynys Afallach, and they were just going to let me go there without any words of warning to behave myself?

"No one worries about... I dunno, sabotage?"

"Altair wouldn't have vouched for you if that was a concern," Moura said, and laughed quietly. "You're not so straightlaced he is. It's quite refreshing."

"I don't think  he's as straightlaced as he is," Tiresias put in with a wink.

I felt my cheeks warm with blush as vivid memories of last night rose the forefront of my mind.

Tiresias pointed at me, her eyes glimmering cannily. "I  knew it!"

"If he comes looking for me, tell him where I've gone?" I called back to them as I hurried toward the door. I didn't want to let any more slip with Tiresias than I already had. Maybe Altair wouldn't mind, but I didn't want to risk revealing more about him than he was ready to show. Was that what he'd meant about staying out of trouble?

There was no way of knowing, but it was time to move on, at any rate — I could always come back later, when I had a firmer grasp on the dynamic between Altair and others in Ynys Afallach.

~

It was easy to lose track of time in Ynys Afallach thanks to the permatwilight, and I hadn't remembered to put my watch back on after my shower this morning, but knowing that Tiresias would tell Altair I'd gone looking for the jump building was license to wander.

Upon further exploration, I found that the landscape in Ynys Afallach was as crazed and confused as the human-wrought architecture. Footpaths that appeared identical to the untrained eye could lead to a swamp, a desert grotto, or some other equally dreamlike territory, but I eventually found my way through to the rocky cliffs, where the jump building gleamed just north of the perilously situated gazebo. Beyond the edge of the temple, up the mountain slope, I could discern the blue-green glow of what had to be the eos orchard. It was a strangely comforting sight.

The jump building was just as alien as it had appeared in Altair's painting: a spherical structure the size of an auditorium with a brass ribcage and glass skin, ringed with flying buttress scaffolding. The site appeared strangely deserted, so without anyone to warn me away, I climbed several flights of stairs and walked along one of the catwalks, orbiting the edifice again and again as I peered at the vine-covered windows. Beyond them I could catch a glimpse of dense mist, but whether it was simple water vapor or the grey of the quantum flux, I couldn't say.

From the way the opaque air inside the temple slid and changed every time I turned my head, though, I guessed it was the latter.

The building was such a simple thing, when it got down to it. Just a collection of bits and parts cobbled together out of strange circumstance, like any number of eldritch structures elsewhere in the world. Yet within its hold lay something powerful enough to tear this whole land out of time itself.

It was terrifying ... and captivating.

As I circled the temple, I thought I caught a glimpse of brass machinery in its inscrutable heart, reflecting occasional, dim flashes of green that reminded me of heat lightning. My ears grew accustomed to the rumbling of the nearby coast and I thought I heard a low humming sound, but I couldn't decide whether the deep droning actually issued from the building or my own overactive imagination.

I sat on one of the catwalks and stared into the temple's cryptic heart, trying to discern patterns in the chaotic flashes of diffuse emerald light. It made me think of the aurora — and though Altair had told me the two things were unrelated, I couldn't help but wonder.

~

I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there when a dour voice sounded from behind and above me. "Sit there as long as you like, but nothing changes without a catalyst."

Graffias was perched on one of the highest levels of the scaffolding, glaring down at me like a roosting bird of prey. I started in surprise. How long had he been there? As I turned to regard him, he stepped off the metal walkway and plummeted ten feet to land just beside me, making the structure  shudder faintly.

My nerves thrummed with warning. Without Altair standing between us, I could fully appreciate Graffias' thickly muscled frame and the way he held himself — slightly hunched, permanently coiled for the attack. I didn't need to test his reflexes to tell that the man could be lethal.

Graffias pulled a pair of elbow-length leather gloves from his belt, and I noticed for the first time the welder's mask flipped up on top of his head. He donned the gloves and dropped the mask forward over his face, then walked forward toward the temple and flipped open a rectangular panel that I'd taken to be an embellishment, but turned out to be a control panel of some kind. He yanked a lever that lay within, and a massive bolt of energy erupted from the top of the temple with the deafening rending of thunder.

I instinctively threw my arm up over my eyes, trying not to think about how I was sitting on a structure made entirely of metal. After another moment there was only a faint hissing in the air, and I looked up in time to catch the expression of vague contempt on Graffias' features as he nudged his mask aside and slammed the panel shut.

Graffias sat beside me on the scaffolding, and I forced my muscles to relax from their state of high alert. Dangerous though he may be, Graffias wasn't going to physically harm me — he wouldn't risk antagonizing Altair by making a move against me. Or, at least, I hoped not. It wasn't as though I'd be able to get the better of him, anyway: the man had literally hundreds of years of combat experience, even if only training, while the last time I'd been in a fight  was second grade. Though, admittedly, I'd won — fat lot of good that experience would do me now.

"So what do you think?" Graffias asked me.

I stared at him, querying, and thought I saw a flash of irritation cross his grizzled features.

"If you didn't know the purpose of this building, you wouldn't be here," Graffias growled. "And if it wasn't consuming your thoughts, you wouldn't be staring at it so intently, or for so long."

I recognized that interrogatory tone — I'd heard it from Altair's lips. Thank goodness I already knew to watch my step. "It's amazing. I don't think I even have the words."

Without dark irises as a disguise, Graffias' probing gaze was all too obvious. I stared openly back at him, too stubborn to flinch despite the discomfort that slid down my spine like oil.

Graffias sighed heavily, and his tone held disappointment as well as disdain. "I see he's told you all about us. Altair wasn't someone I'd have expected to be incautious about such matters."

The reference to discretion wasn't an idle one, certainly not when Graffias himself was seemingly so casual. He was trying to bait me.

I decided to play into his trap for the moment, and widened my eyes, doing my best to project guileless ignorance. "I don't know what he's told you about me—"

"Nothing, he's told me nothing," Graffias snapped quickly.

I'd struck a nerve there. Altair had said he thought Graffias' behavior was motivated by jealousy, and here was my confirmation. Warmth surged outward from my chest. Altair was keeping me to himself.  Good .

Graffias tried to recover, as if thinking I hadn't noticed. "As I'm sure you're aware, Altair isn't an open sort of person."

I looked away so Graffias wouldn't see my satisfaction so easily. "At any rate, I'd never betray you. Any of you."

"So they all say."

I wondered what Graffias would've made of Altair's suggestion this morning that I tell my mother about Ynys Afallach. Surely that would've gone over like a house on fire. "Have you ever been found out? By someone who shouldn't know, I mean?"

"Once. Someone was careless, and there were consequences." Graffias didn't elaborate, and I got the impression he was trying to make me think the culprit was Altair.

Doubtful — it was all just too convenient. Graffias was just trying to make me question him, undermine our trust.

Graffias' posture suddenly changed, and I couldn't be sure whether the defensive slump of his shoulders was genuine or projected. "I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but Altair is an integral part of this community. People look to him to guide them into the future, quite literally. He's selfless, and he won't risk destabilizing what we have here for his own impulses."

The golden glow in my torso turned to razor wire. That I could believe.

Graffias stood. "I'd be more upset with you, but you'll be out of his system soon enough. And I'm willing to put up with some misbehavior on his part until that happens."

Without another word, Graffias clanged down the nearest set of stairs and headed north along the cliffs.

Free of Graffias' scrutiny, I gnawed on my thumbnail, wondering if he was right, and that I was something that Altair could get out of his system, like a song stuck in his head or the flu. It had been such an ordeal learning to think of Altair as approachable, and last night I'd been delighted to finally broach that divide — but maybe he ultimately  was like any other guy. Maybe, again, all the build-up had been in my own head.

What had he told me this morning?  I've been on my own too long... I  don't realize when I'm getting caught up in my own thoughts...  something like that. Was it so farfetched that Altair could confuse sex with love?

I didn't know how long I'd been out here, but it felt like hours. Time to get back. I reluctantly descended the stairs of the temple's outer scaffolding and trudged back toward the torqued silhouettes of the main city, fear flowing through me like poison as I thought of Altair and Ynys Afallach and how horribly this all could end, if Graffias was, indeed, right.

~

I'd been lugging my rucksack around all day, so my back was starting to ache as I made my way back up into the library. Thoughts of Rockport and the mess I'd left behind were becoming increasingly hard to avoid. I was going to have to make some kind of peace with my mother sooner or later ... but that whole world seemed so diffuse and pointless compared the twisted, wonderful beauty of Ynys Afallach that it almost made me physically ill.

Tiresias and Altair were conversing near the snake goddess statue as I arrived. Seeing the two of them side by side, so beautifully alien and in this alien place, was a stark reminder of just how much I didn't belong here — no matter how much I longed to.

Altair nodded brusquely at me as our eyes met.  Ouch .

"Actually, we have to get moving," Altair was telling Tiresias as I approached. "It's about time I got Hesper home — I'm sure she's had a long enough day."

Ugh, home. All hail Altair, Captain Straightarrow. After this morning's attempted chastising regarding my interaction with my mother, I could probably expect a lofty talking-to all the way back home about the virtues of doing things properly, especially seeing as how he'd been working all day and I'd essentially been screwing off.

"Bring that simple brain of yours back anytime," Tiresias  called as Altair walked over to join me.

Altair whipped his head around to glare at Tiresias in shock, but I wearily shook my head, stopping him. "Don't worry, it's just a thing."

"A thing?" Altair stared after Tiresias in bewilderment as she majestically ascended into the main rotunda.

"A joke. From this afternoon. Seriously, it isn't how it sounds."

"It must not be." Altair's expression cleared, and he took my hand. "Come on."

Altair was unusually quiet as we walked, but at least he wasn't lecturing me, so I didn't break the mutually agreeable silence. Instead I sank into gloomy thoughts of what lay at the other end of the trail. I'd have to either find another job — which was unlikely, given the season — or, worse, go beg Bob for another chance at janitorial bliss, and then really apply myself if that miraculously worked out. That meant no more oversleeping, which meant no more late nights out hiking... and, really, no more Altair in general.

Graffias would certainly approve.

I was so lost in my own self-castigation over the Eastview debacle that I didn't notice we were taking a different trail until I saw the rim-of-the-world overlook far to our left. The eos orchard was somewhere off to our right, and the path was only getting steeper underfoot.

Altair flashed me a tight smile, then turned his eyes back to the increasingly rocky trail.

We'd been quiet too long for me to ask Altair where we were going. He must've thought I'd noticed the different path long ago, so I might as well just stick it out and see what lay in store. As far as I was concerned, any excuse to not go back to Rockport was a good one.

~

What seemed like forever later, we scrambled up a slide of boulders and emerged onto a narrow ledge that ran ahead of us for several hundred feet, widening even as the cliff face dropped away below. The dome of a small building lay ahead of us, and seeing it, Altair brightened.

"Come on."

At first all I could see as we pushed into the small structure was gloom, and I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer-than-usual light. Altair dropped my hand and moved off into the darkness, and I heard him swearing under his breath as he bumped into unseen objects, sending things clattering to the flat floor.

Things started coming into focus, and I saw the front of the building was entirely made of curved glass. Far below I could see the eos orchard, and beyond that, the line of cliffs where the temple and the gazebo perched on the ocean's edge.

"What is this place?"

A match flared behind me, and the warm glow of a lantern lit the inside of... wherever we were. The walls were lined with laden bookshelves, and a kitchen counter with pans and dishes ran along one wall. An open doorway hinted at another room, but there was practically no furniture in this one other than a desk with a chair, a telescope that pointed out toward the star portal—

Suddenly I knew exactly where we were. "You live here?"

Altair brushed a cobweb away as he lit another wall lantern. "I haven't been back much in the past month or so, but I was going through quite the homey phase before that — right before you came along, actually," he muttered. "Ironic, isn't it?"

I wandered to the window and looked out over the breathtaking vista. "That's a hell of a view."

"No one else lives up here." Altair moved to me and slid my backpack from my shoulders, dropping it to the floor. His eyes were luminous, infinite pools of shadow, and as he gazed at me the blood sang through my veins. But I couldn't trust myself, or even Altair — not after that conversation with Graffias today.

"Look, I know we had s-sex," I stammered, tripping over the ungainly word, "but that doesn't mean you should start acting all domestic on my behalf. If you're not feeling it—"

"Hesper," Altair chided softly. "I thought we'd straightened this out this morning, but evidently we didn't, so let me be absolutely clear." His nighted eyes softened with hurt, and he slid his arms around me. "Hesper, I love you."

There it was — not entirely unexpected, but breathtaking all the same. My gaze darted away, but Altair took my chin in his hand, insisting that I look into his blazing obsidian eyes. It was almost unbearable.

" I love you ," Altair said firmly. "Hesper, I want you in my life. I want you in my home. You defy culture and time and space — and I love you so much that I feel as though it'll destroy me, and I'll be glad for it. I was absolutely delighted to fuck you — both times — and I can't wait to do the same again, but I know the difference between physical and emotional intimacy, and I know I feel both for you. Immensely." He ran his fingers along my jaw and down my neck, and I trembled at the soft touch. "I don't know what happened today to make you question me, or if you're having doubts of your own—"

"No way," I blurted out, compelled to honestly by the raw emotion in his gaze. "I just... I love you, too, Altair. More than I've ever loved anyone. It's like my guts are being ripped out of me every time I look at you, and I'm just terrified you don't feel the same about me." I shuddered to feel Graffias' words in my mouth. "After last night, and then this morning, I just wasn't sure if you'd gotten me out of your system."

"Who said that to you — Graffias?" Altair demanded, his expression hardening. He took a few pacing steps away from me, shaking his head and glaring at empty space. "Unbelievable."

"Just forget it," I muttered, as angry with myself as Altair seemed to be with Graffias. "I can't believe I actually fell for that crap. I even knew he was trying to rattle my cage, too."

Altair turned back to me, visibly calming as he pressed one of my hands between both of his. "Hesper, I brought you here because, in addition to other things today, I arranged to have  someone cover my duties for a while. I want you to stay with me during that time. Here."

My heart leaped so powerfully that for a second I thought it was going to come bursting out of my throat. "Really?"

"I want to spend every single second with you." A slow smile  started to creep over Altair's features, and he twined my arms around his neck, his body gloriously solid against mine. "And now that there's nothing holding you back..."

Altair broke off and kissed me, drinking me in, his tongue caressing mine so sensuously that the soles of my feet felt like they were on fire. He pulled me even closer and stroked my hair, heartbreakingly anguished and tender and desperate all rolled into one. All for me.

If I hadn't been convinced by his words, I would've been convinced by that kiss.

I forced myself to pull away so I could gaze at him, at his wonderful, strange, familiar face. His rare, dazzling grin. Those black eyes I'd fallen for so hard, that seemed to pierce my soul every time he looked at me. Like right now.

"I love you," I whispered.

Altair's breath hitched, and his arms reflexively tightened around me. "You have no idea what it does to me to hear you say those words," he murmured, a slow smile  spreading over his features.

"I love you," I repeated, unable to stop myself from grinning, too. "Altair, I love you so much."

"Hesper..." My name sounded like a prayer on his lips.

Then we were kissing again, and his hands were at my shoulders, tearing off my coat. I heard the rip of fabric as he tugged my shirt over my head, and he grinned guiltily.

"You break it, you buy it," I teased breathlessly as I clawed at the buttons of his vest.

"Deal." He yanked his tie off and pushed me backward into the other room, where a mattress lay on the floor beside another domed window. Suddenly there was something behind my legs — a wooden bureau? — and Altair pressed me against it, his hips digging into me as he helped me undo his shirt.

"Too many layers," I panted as our hands fumbled around each other.

Altair thumbed my jeans open and dragged them halfway down my thighs. "You'll be lucky if I let you wear anything after today," he muttered. "Gods, Hesper, you're so beautiful."

"Me?  You're  the hot one," I giggled.

I yelped in surprise as Altair boosted me up onto the bureau and finished ripping off my pants. "Believe me, if I can ever take my hands off you again it'll be a bloody miracle."

The scintillating look he gave me as I pulled off his shirt could've vaporized the ocean — he was ravenous and I was the only thing that could satisfy him. He ran his hands up the inside of my legs, his thumbs digging into me as he moved higher, and I whimpered with longing.

I wrapped my legs around Altair's lean, sculpted waist and he picked me up again, then tumbled to the bed on top of me. I could already feel him through his rough canvas trousers, digging into me right at the sweet spot, and he moved against me, laughing as I trembled from the overwhelming sensations. "Hesper, I love you, and I love this side of you."

"What  side's that?" I mumbled as I teased his earlobe with my teeth. God, he felt and smelled and tasted fucking  delicious!

Altair slid his fingers up inside my bra and shoved the whole thing off over my head without bothering to unfasten it. That done, he cradled my head and he gazed at me, still faintly nudging his hips against me where it counted most. "Bold and daring and passionate, and just wanting me to fuck you," he whispered. He kissed me softly, hesitantly, but he firmly massaged my breast, digging in with his nails, anchoring me. "Just... mine. My Hesper. My love."

"I  am yours, Altair," I said quietly. "I know I haven't been alive as long, but I've been waiting for you, too."

Altair's expression hardened, and he grinned again. "Then no more waiting."

He kicked off his pants, dragged my panties aside and slammed into me, and I stiffened, gasping at the force of his penetration. Altair filled me so completely that it was as though I didn't even have room left to think, and I could only move with him, instinctively pushing to meet each unrestrained thrust. His contours stroked me perfectly, and I felt myself coming closer with every rhythmic flex of his hips.

Altair yanked my knee up alongside his waist, and I cried out as he bent me even further out of shape, stretching me until I thought I would break.

"Tell me," he groaned.

I almost screamed with pleasure as his teeth teased my neck, hurting me in all the right ways. He had me right on the brink. "I love you, Altair, I fucking love you," I panted. "I'm so close, come with me."

Altair shouted my name, and as he shoved deeply into me one last time we fell apart together, clinging desperately to each other in mindless oblivion.

* * *

#  Chapter Fourteen

Shunned

Sleeping in Altair's arms, I was dead to the world, so when my eyes opened again, I was totally refreshed — and completely awake.

Altair was still zonked out, so I watched him freely without any return scrutiny from his intense black eyes. His skin was almost incandescent in the light from the purple-orange sky, the tension that so frequently ruled his features nowhere to be seen. I could have lived and died in his slow, hypnotic breaths. Altair's arm was slung over my side, and as I wriggled closer, he instinctively tightened his grip, pulling me to him.

There was no doubt about it. I was deeply, achingly in love with Altair — and had been for longer than I'd been willing to admit.

Even though our bodies were just inches apart now, it was still too far, so I snuggled into his sinewy arms and kissed him softly. He responded, and after a few moments his lashes fluttered open, and he smiled languidly at me.

"What time is it?" I whispered.

He squinted playfully. "Does it matter?"

"Guess not," I said with a lopsided shrug. "I'm just done sleeping."

"All right, then, so am I."

I giggled as Altair yawned and then twisted his head to the side, cracking his neck. It was so exotic to see him this relaxed. "You really have time off?"

"I'll probably get back to work in a few days — and at that point you can come with me, if you'd like — but yes. Why's that so unbelievable?"

I shrugged. It was too complex to articulate. "What do you want to do... uh, today? Tonight? What do I call it? Now, at any rate."

"I've got a few ideas," Altair said with a mischievous grin. He slid his hand up along my side and cupped my breast, predatorily alert, and I felt him starting to rouse against me.

The sore tingling in my lower abdomen became a lustful ache, and my eyes widened. Evidently Altair was trying to compensate for five hundred years of near-celibacy as quickly as possible. "Something tells me if I went looking for a dictionary in the library, I'd find your picture next to the word  insatiable ."

"And yours along with it, you of the extremely dilated pupils," Altair smirked, and his expression suddenly became tender as he combed a stray tendril of hair out of my face.

I tilted my head and peered at him. "What?"

Altair slid his arm under and around me, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "It's as though someone wrapped up all the best qualities a person could have and put them in you." His fingers dug into me, sending exquisite goosebumps rippling over my skin. "This is what I mean when I say you're almost enough to make me believe in a god."

"I thought you said a  vengeful  god," I teased. "Besides, you had to wait six hundred years to run into me. That's evolutionary processes, baby."

Altair groaned with delight and kissed me hungrily. "I want to devour this beautiful, brilliant mouth of yours," he murmured between my lips. "Could you be any more amazing?"

I slid away, taunting him. "Might have a few tricks up my sleeve still, old man. But I won't give 'em up easily."

"Good," Altair purred as he slid on top of me, "because I love cracking puzzles."

My giggles turned to an exhilarated sigh as he pushed into me.

~

Life in Ynys Afallach followed a strange, amaranthine rhythm. Every day Altair would have some new adventure for us, some part of the island he'd just remembered he wanted to show me, and away we'd go — to see trees that were already a thousand years old by the time of the Sundering, buildings that were being reconstructed into older or newer styles, or just to hike high on the dormant volcano so we could gaze over the entire island. The droning I'd heard near the temple was due a strange phenomenon in caves beneath the cliffs, where the brine itself seemed to be singing as it washed over the volcanic sand. As we swam through the temperate waters, I almost imagined I could hear alien words whispering in my ears from the unplumbed depths.

"Everyone becomes accustomed to it in time," Altair said of Ynys Afallach's ambient eccentricities. We were standing in a forest on the far side of the island, where amber fungi cast their eerie light upward, illuminating the pattering rain. A massive millipede as thick as my arm crawled out of the underbrush nearby, and I forced myself to stand still long enough for the creature to pass over my leather  boot without incident.

"Doubtful," I cheerily replied when the insect had passed.

Altair watched me fondly. "Maybe not you," he murmured.

Even though he was more familiar to me now, my heart stuttered a beat.

We visited Carys and Noel in the farmlands, Roderick in his apartment in the city, and spent untold hours in the library helping Tiresias and Moura, or otherwise tracking down tomes Altair insisted would blow my mind. Carys lent or made me clothes, and I soon stopped wearing my ratty jeans and t-shirts in favor of her equally casual but far more comfortable creations.

"It's just like having the little sister I'd hoped Roderick would be," Carys sighed, expertly pinning a muslin pattern for a dress she was making me for the festival.

The thought of broad-shouldered Roderick as a girl soon had us both howling with laughter.

We picked up crates of produce from the farms, eos from the orchard, and backpacked the provisions up to Altair's cabin whenever we ran low. Though I'd been winded by the tortuous path at first, the myriad boulders and switchbacks soon became old friends, and my heart always rose when I saw the domed windows gleaming from just ahead.

Altair was still reticent to do more than hold my hand around others, but when we were alone together he was relentless — and so was I. Sometimes we'd be walking along some anonymous path between places when that devilish expression would sweep over his angular face, and the next thing I knew, his arms would be around me, his lips crushing mine with savage passion.

"It's like you want to try out every permutation," I panted as we struggled back into our clothes after one such session. The slightly uncomfortable walk home was always worth it.

Altair grinned and took my hand, giving it that familiar squeeze as our footsteps turned toward home. "I'm a scientist, darling — we favor trial and error."

I raised one eyebrow at him. "Error, huh?"

"Maybe more just trial, then," he replied with a wink.

The cabin telescope was something Altair had been tinkering with for the better part of a century, and with it he showed me the stars as they passed through the eastern portal in their majestic but  discernible dance. Sitting on his lap was dangerous for a variety of reasons, but I loved laying my head on his chest, listening to the reverberations of his low, musical voice as he explained observations he'd made about this asteroid or that white dwarf.

After one of these lessons was invariably interrupted, I joked to Altair that I wouldn't have quite so many pulled muscles if he'd indulged a little more during the past five centuries.

He shook his head and wound his hand through my hair, his tattoo rippling with his lean muscles. "It wouldn't have made a difference. For whatever reason — biochemistry, I suppose — I'm just drawn to you. And I love you for your mind, your bravery, the way you think and solve problems. With anyone else it would just be sex, but with you..." He paused to kiss me, which nearly derailed the entire conversation. "This is what I mean, Hesper," he panted as we broke apart. "You're a whole new plane of existence for me. Every moment I'm around you, I'm vibrantly awake. You've no idea what you've meant to me already."

I batted my eyelashes, probably looking entirely ridiculous. "Wanna show me?"

And, because he was Altair, he indulged my curiosity.

~

Given the wondrous nature of my surroundings and the brilliant, intoxicating man from whom I was only rarely parted, it was easy to ignore thoughts of Earth at first. But the idyll had to end eventually, and when Altair mentioned he was going to return to taking measurements from Ragged Mountain, I reluctantly agreed to go along. I couldn't stand the thought of being parted from him, even for a few hours, and from the way he smiled when I said I'd go with him, I knew he felt the same.

I was more than a little worried approaching the quantum mist, but by now the eos shots were a thing of the past, and I barely saw a flicker of visions as we passed through. One minute it was the lush emerald grass of the overlook beneath my feet, and then the scent of pines assailed my nose, and icy twigs crackled underfoot. It probably wasn't much colder out than when I'd first left Rockport — or, Earth, really — but the arctic wind seemed to blow through to my bones, and I tried not to let Altair catch me shivering.

Some part of me had expected to find Ragged Mountain swarming with search-and-rescue workers, so it was a tremendous relief to find the slope decidedly unchanged. The aurora was long gone by now but Mirror Lake shimmered placidly under the silver moon, and given the woodsmoke that curled from the swaybacked house I'd left behind, I could reasonably guess all was well despite my absence.

We returned through the mist without incident, and a new routine took shape. Half of each day was spent in Ynys Afallach, wandering the mossy forests and jagged, rocky coastline, and when night fell on Earth, we traveled through to the mountaintop, staying until just before daybreak. I helped Altair record his observations and we huddled together against the blistering winds that swept through the hills. Thankfully, Altair never suggested trying to mend fences with my mother, but every so often we'd run across Bastian trekking through the wilds, and a troubled expression would  flit over his features.

Though we never ventured down the slope, not even to the A-frame, the proximity to my old life — my real life, as I realized with a sickening jolt one night — changed things. No longer could I just pretend that world didn't exist. It did, and it was right before me, looming in my mind just as Ynys Afallach had in what were beginning to seem like days of a distant past. The crazy, surreal world with trees of glowing fruit and buildings that flowed together like water had so quickly become home that it was a shock to remember I wasn't really part of it, just a visitor passing through, just waiting for the darkness to arrive again.

Altair and I never spoke about me returning to Rockport, but times when he thought I was asleep I'd feel him holding me close, burying his face in my hair. I couldn't bear to ask him about the possibility of staying in Ynys Afallach forever for fear that there was some injunction against it — but from the way he began to watch me even more carefully than usual, and held my hand in an even fiercer grip, I  knew thoughts of parting must be  weighing just as heavily on his mind as they were on mine.

~

Once I really started thinking about the possibility of staying in Ynys Afallach, of effectively abandoning Earth presumably forever, it started to nag at me with increasing insistence. Cold, clammy fear gnawed at my gut as I imagined having to say goodbye to Altair, knowing we would never see each other again — or that if we did, I'd be exponentially older, psychologically ground down from knowing what was really out there, where he was, and that I couldn't be with him.

I didn't want to be Wendy Darling, and return to London to grow up. I wanted to stay with my lost boy for as long as possible.

Another horrific idea began to intrude on my thoughts, worse even than being forced to leave Altair because our worlds themselves were parting: maybe he didn't  want me to stay. Altair had told me that day in the memorial grotto that he'd long since healed from the realization his parents had lived and died in their ignorance of their children's fate — but as Graffias had said, Altair was selfless. Was he avoiding trying to force me to reconcile with my mother because he knew it was inevitably going to happen the next time Ynys Afallach jumped out of time? Would he leave me behind because he didn't want to let the same thing happen to my mother as had happened to his?

If he'd asked me, I would've abandoned Earth in a heartbeat. I'd miss Cara and Jackson and I could learn to pull my own weight in Ynys Afallach — I could work in the library with Tiresias, or even on one of the farms, if it came to that. Applying myself wouldn't be a problem if it meant being able to stay with Altair.

Finally I realized I needed a definite answer to whether staying in Ynys Afallach was even possible. I certainly couldn't ask Altair, and even if I asked a perfect stranger, it could still get back to him somehow — the half-interested glances that I attracted on the street were a testament to the lack of anonymity in such a small community. And if I couldn't ask anyone...

The answer hit me with the impact of a steam locomotive.

I forced myself to put the issue of out of my mind until the right opportunity presented itself. After my run-in with Graffias at the jump building, Altair had made sure our paths never crossed, but of course, he still reported to the older man; it was nearly the only time we were ever apart.

The next time Altair went to drop off a data set, I told him I was going to the library to check on Tiresias' progress with the neural-input card catalogue. It wasn't strictly a lie, but I still felt guilty about the omission.

Altair looked a little baffled, but he didn't question my motives, and walked me down to the library. He kissed my forehead as we parted.

"Meet at Carys and Noel's?"

I nodded, and he strode off, a slight frown creasing his handsome brow.

Thankfully, Tiresias was off somewhere else on business, so I had the card catalogue to myself. I'd watched her tinkering with the device and messed with it enough myself that I knew how to operate it, so I sat in the operator's chair and placed the slim metal halo on my head.

The system still wasn't perfected, but I had a good idea of what I was looking for, and the answer came back almost immediately: Ynys Afallach's bylaws.

I hurried to the section of the library the card reader had indicated, and my heart  s a nk as I realized the text I needed was on the absolute top shelf of one of the fifteen-foot stacks. Of course: right when I needed anonymity, I was about to become ridiculously conspicuous. If anyone I knew walked by the end of this row, they were bound to ask me if I needed a hand, and I'd have to think quickly.

I found the book I was looking for without drawing any unwanted attention, but it was written in an ancient language I couldn't identify. Yet another dead end.

Fuck . Fuck!

The conservatory wasn't strictly on the way back to the cabin — Altair had shown me a faster route out ages ago — but I needed time to cool off after my close call with the information I so needed. Altair could still read me as easily as he probably could read that legal text, and I didn't want him catching on to my agitation. I meandered along one of the lesser-used flagstone paths winding through the vibrant undergrowth, gloomily trying to impress every single plant on my memory in case the worst happened. Which, I was now convinced, was inevitable.

Oddly enough, it was the decision to walk through the conservatory that helped provide me with an answer. I was standing behind a massive fern when the two young woman stopped on a parallel path, dropping to their knees beside a patch of bare ground. Gardeners, by the look of it: they had a small potted plant with them, and as I watched, they pulled implements from the canvas sacks they carried and started digging in the earth. The girl who was speaking wore a pink peasant dress with a dirt-stained hem that evidenced her trade, while her companion sported comfortable khaki trousers and a tunic shirt.

"—heard them fighting in his office," the girl wearing the pink dress said in a low, excited tone.

Her companion squeaked with suppressed laughter. "He  didn't! "

"Chastising him, can you believe it?" Pink Dress shook her head in amazement. "Six centuries they've been  like father and son.  Six centuries . And falling out over that, of all things."

Khakis snickered. "How bourgeois."

"He's apparently only working the bare minimum of shifts. Lane said Graffias thinks the jump's coming sooner than expected, and you know how he gets with his hunches."

My stomach lurched violently, and I very nearly threw up. This was exactly what I'd been afraid of — how foolish I'd been those first few days, not even thinking ahead!

"Have you seen her?" Khakis asked.

"She's pretty enough," Pink Dress responded with what might've been a disdainful sniff. "Though you're almost can't spare a glance for her because you're so busy staring at  him . He's walking around everywhere holding her hand like a teenager."

Wait... they couldn't be talking about—

"Altair with a girlfriend, who'd have ever thought?" Khakis mused.

Holy shit . They were talking about  us .

Suddenly I felt completely conspicuous. I was located in young women's peripheral vision, so the giant frond provided enough cover that, as long as I stayed frozen in place, they might not notice me. If I moved at all, though, their heads would probably snap around too fast for me to disappear into the semi-jungle anonymously.  Crap!

"Oh, he was always too good for anyone here," Pink Dress said sarcastically.

Khakis elbowed her in the side as they gently knocked the transplant out of its pot. "You say that because he never tossed you his—" She ended with a word in a language I didn't understand or recognize.

"Would you've?" Pink Dress asked, seeming strangely emotionally removed despite the nature of the question.

Khakis shrugged equally blasé. "Hasn't everyone made the rounds by now?"

I was suddenly glad Altair had limited his, uh, extracurricular activities to outsiders.

"Do you think he's asked her to stay?" Pink Dress asked, pouring water over the rehomed flower.

The pit in my stomach suddenly inverted into a wild, strangled joy. It might not matter if the jump was tomorrow so long as I could stay here! Altair and I could actually have a future together — and  what a future, assuming we didn't become as jaded as people like these girls—

My jubilation was immediately quashed at Khaki's next words. "I doubt it. Underneath it all he's still Graffias' good boy — and if  he's losing focus, you can bet the  others'll follow right after. Graffias won't let that happen, he'll fight tooth and nail to keep her out."

Pink Dress yawned, bored. I wanted to punch her in the face. "At least there's something interesting happening for once. There's been no decent drama for centuries," she grumbled. "And now even Dalindra and Marius are getting married."

"How dull," Khakis agreed placidly.

The two young women tamped dirt around the moved plant and headed off through the glass gallery, still chattering indiscreetly.

I moved back out onto the main path, reeling from the series of intellectual blows. I could stay, but at what cost? Altair hadn't mentioned anything about the next jump coming soon, so he had been holding that information back from me... or worse, he didn't know it himself.

Which brought me to the bigger issue. Altair had said he was keeping up with his workload, even as we spent time together, but if those women were right, he'd been lying to me. Or, again, just didn't see it.

I love you so much that I feel as though it'll destroy me, and I'll be glad for it.

That's what he'd said. At the time  I'd thought them poetic words, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the truth. Altair was blinded by his love for me. Maybe not completely, but enough so that my presence might be putting him — and all Ynys Afallach, in fact — in terrible danger.

I jumped at a distant  gonging , and it took me a moment to remember the sound was just preparations for the annual festival. Tiresias had reminded us they'd be testing the bell a few days ago. Or was it a week?

The sound reminded me of something else: Carys, Noel, Altair and I were supposed to be meeting at the farmhouse for a picnic, and I was probably  already late .

Late... what a concept!

~

The others were waiting outside the farmhouse when I arrived, and I muttered a quick apology. Carys and Noel reassured me the three of them had been having a pleasant catch-up, and we headed off, all forgiven.

The lagoon was located at the end of a rockier trail that most of the other islanders tended to eschew, but none of us had much trouble handling the path. Carys stumbled a few times, but she always caught herself at the last moment.

"Just another reminder to myself to go walking like this more often," she chirruped each time, smiling winningly as she regained her footing.

I'd been expecting Altair to lead our little party, but he hung back with me as Noel and Carys wandered on ahead, kissing me when they weren't looking, making lighthearted comments out of their earshot. It was so contrary to the Altair I'd first met that I couldn't help but keep hearing flashbacks of the gardeners' conversation, feeling nauseated at each reminder.

"I know you're upset about something," Altair murmured at some point. "And I'm not going to stop making a perfect fool of myself until I've got you smiling again."

As if to prove his point, he slid his thumb under the waistband of my pants and jabbed the ticklish spot inside my hip. I giggled reflexively.

Altair walked away backward, staring sternly at me as he feigned innocence for Carys and Noel's sakes. "I'm warning you, Fane."

"Warning you back, Lerner!" I called after him. "See? Now I can do it, too!"

He flashed me a grin, and despite my doom-riddled thoughts, I couldn't help feeling my mood lift. I loved him so much, from his gifted mind down to his goofy laugh. If the worst happened, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life thinking I'd wrecked some of our final hours with overthinking.

After a nice lunch on the lagoon's wide beach, Altair and Noel took off to explore a nearby thicket while Carys and I circumnavigated the wide, flat pool.

"What's bothering you, sweetie?" Carys asked me at one point. Her arm was looped through mine, and she stroked my shoulder kindly.

"Do you think I'm being a bad influence on Altair?" I stopped and gnawed at my lip. "No, that's not what I mean. I guess... am I distracting him?"

"Of course not." She frowned in surprise. "Whatever would make you say such a thing?"

Oh, well — I'd already stepped in it, so I went ahead and told Carys what I'd overheard in the conservatory.

She rolled her eyes. "You can't take anything those silly girls say seriously. They all run around thinking they're so enlightened from being part of this whole experience, but they're exactly the same people they were before: shallow and silly. Just six hundred years older. Plenty of people here aren't like that." Carys must have seen I wasn't fully convinced, because she patted my arm again. "If it's really bothering you, you should talk directly to Altair."

"I know, you're right," I sighed, and fell silent.

"You're wondering what you'd be like if you lived so long, aren't you?" Carys asked quietly after a moment, peering at me in a very Altair-ish way. The penetrating gaze was strong with this family. "If I may?"

"Please," I said.

"From my perspective, I notice that most people tend to go through certain types of personality shifts over time, both in the short and long term," Carys said. "That's why we change our residences, clothes, careers, names — but the underlying core of a person tends to stay the same. Barring too much trauma, of course."

I wondered what Altair's original name was. It didn't matter, though — to me he was Altair Lerner, and that was all I cared about. "Trauma?"

Carys shrugged sadly. "People do die here — it's rare, but it does happen. The different extractions of eos can only do so much. Scouts are the most often to perish, just by virtue of what they do. Others simply vanish one day, never to be heard from again."

"They leave?" The thought was unfathomable to me. "Why?"

Carys' expression faltered, as though I'd said something slightly uncouth. "It's a wonderful thing that you're so prepared for this world — particularly for Altair's sake — but many others weren't," she said gently. "The inability to bear children is a particular loss to some."

Oh.  From what I understood, Carys seemed a few years too old for first-time motherhood in 1700 BCE, but then again, everything about Ynys Afallach was so fluid that I couldn't be sure. I wondered if her sororal behavior could be chalked up to that, at least in part.

"So some leave," Carys went on. "Most stay because this place is familiar to us now, but others go. Graffias' wife, for one, belonged to the latter category."

I was too shocked to be polite. "Graffias had a  wife ?"

Carys nodded. "Leonora never seemed to recover from the Sundering. So one day she evidently decided she'd gone far enough, and she left."

"Was there someone else?"

"Graffias plays things a bit too close to the vest for anyone to know that," Carys said. "At any rate, Graffias lost himself in his work, which is where he's mired to this day. He distrusts emotions, and taught Altair to do the same. It seemed Altair was on that same path — and I'm afraid to say I thought nothing would ever change it."

"So that's how they became all... dynamic duo."

Carys watched me carefully. "Until recently."

"What are you two doing?" Altair's cheerful voice carried across the lagoon, and he waved to us. "Noel wants to play some game or other — you've got to come rescue me!"

"Be there in a minute!" Carys called back. She tittered, and beamed affectionately up at me. "I haven't seen him like this since we were truly young. Thank you for whatever you've done — it's lovely to see him so happy."

I still didn't think I'd done anything in particular. If I thought about it bluntly, I was the statistic, the one girl in six hundred years with the right personality and biochemistry to set Altair off. Carys had already said she wasn't particularly enamored with Graffias, and she was probably poised to support anyone who seemed in opposition to him. Was she blinded by emotions, too?

Altair pulled me aside as Carys and Noel set up a small metal framework for some game Noel had conjured up in his workshop. "I'm going to take you to the north coast tonight — there are some amazing bioluminescent algae formations I want you to see. They bloom cyclically, like the labyrinth hedge, and you'll have fun figuring out why." He smirked and flashed his eyebrows, pleased with himself.

I tried not to let my alarm show. "Don't you have observation work tonight?"

"Well, yes. I suppose we  could  do both," Altair said, frowning in irritation.

It was the perfect chance for him to tell me about rumors of an impending jump — if he was aware of them. "What if something happens? You said the tipping point can come quickly, so isn't it best to keep your bases covered?"

Altair shook his head, aggravated that I was missing the point. "Hesper, if the shock wave catches up to us tonight — which isn't going to happen, incidentally — someone else will see it. These algae formations really aren't to be missed. At any rate, come and sit down, they're waiting for us..."

His untroubled attitude was the biggest red flag of all, and it proved what I feared most: we'd become entirely consumed with each other. I hadn't even seen how selfish I was being in taking up so much of Altair's time, and he obviously didn't or couldn't acknowledge it, either — and there could be some pretty drastic consequences if we didn't figure out what to do about it. If Altair's data sets were at all off or incomplete, this entire place could be gone in a matter of moments.

The potential analogy to Lovecraft's  Polaris was terrifying. Death and destruction of a wondrous city at the hands of a well-meaning but careless outsider. Sure, it was just a story... but as I gazed at Altair, smiling, even laughing here with his sister and her husband, I knew I couldn't let that happen to him because of me.  Wouldn't .

~

I was exhausted by the time we stopped back off at the cabin, and as intriguing as bioluminescent algae formations sounded, I couldn't imagine how difficult it was going to be trying to maintain this mask of normality when my thoughts were churning so frantically and this nausea was clawing at my gut.

"Right." Altair forcibly slid my backpack off and tossed it aside with his own. "I've been avoiding asking you about whatever's on your mind because I wanted to give you the space to tell me rather than just prying it out of you. But this has gone on long enough, Hesper." He faced me, squaring off like a gunslinger. "What's the matter?"

"Today I overheard some people in the library saying that there might be a jump coming soon," I admitted reluctantly. Now that he'd broached the subject, I couldn't lie to him, even by omission. "According to them, you and Graffias got into a fight because he thinks I'm affecting how you do your job, and that your behavior is affecting everybody else because of how much they look up to you."

Altair laughed, but his eyes glinting with thinly-veiled hurt. "You can't seriously be concerned about other people's opinions. Certainly not Graffias', for one."

"Altair, I think that when it comes to each other, we can't see straight." The words were terrible to admit, but I knew they were true.

"You want the opinion of others? Fine," Altair snapped. "Carys, Roderick, Noel — they all think we're brilliant for each other." He narrowed his eyes, trying to rip the truth out of me. "Do I make you unhappy? Is that what this is about?"

"Of course not." It felt as though my heart was one of Noel's steam-assisted hammers and my  ribcage was an anvil. "Being here with you has been the most amazing thing I've ever experienced — or ever could. But I can't stand the idea of something awful happening to this place because I'm distracting you from your work."

Altair rolled his eyes dismissively, still pissed off in his formal, uptight way. "You're not distracting me, Hesper. And yes, I know about the rumors, but I didn't mention anything about them because that's all they are — rumors. I didn't want to worry you with something so inane."

"I just don't think you would've blown off your responsibilities like this before you met me," I argued. "You're changing, Altair.  I'm changing you, even though I don't mean to."

Altair's expression turned stony, and he stared at me, realizing. "Something's happening here, isn't it? Something pivotal... you've made up your mind."

I didn't even know it myself until I heard the words from Altair's lips. But he was right, as he always was when it came to understanding me.

I nodded as my throat started to close up.

The last traces of happy, playful Altair from this afternoon vanished, replaced by this inscrutable man with the blazing black eyes and voice flat with anger. "Don't try to make me do your dirty work, Hesper.  Tell me ."

I swallowed, trying to steady my shaking voice. "I'm going back to my world. To Earth. Rockport."

He swayed a little, as if my words had hit him like a physical slap, but his voice stayed low. It was far more unnerving than the out-and-out ire I would've expected. "Was it something I did?"

"Of course not."

"And you don't dislike it here?"

It was like he was intentionally missing the point. "You know that's not the case."

"Then WHY?" Altair abruptly shouted, ramming his fist into the door jamb as he punctuated the word.

I froze in shock. I'd never seen Altair do anything truly violent, yet now here he stood, staring at me with wild eyes, blood running down his fingers. My words had broken something in him, and now my brilliant, upstanding Altair was drowning within the emotional equivalent of Mr. Hyde.

Altair ignored the wound and trapped me in his arms, raw with grief. "Why, Hesper, if you love me? I don't understand."

"I  do love you, of course I do — more than you'll ever know." I kissed him gently, trying to preserve this moment in my memory as I held back tears. "But for the first time in my miserable existence I have to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. I can't take you away from Ynys Afallach."

He stiffened, and spoke in that awful, distant tone again. "I'll vouch for you if you want to stay here — even if you want nothing to do with me afterwards. You shouldn't feel compelled to leave on my account."

"But I  want  to see you," I cried out miserably as he pulled back from me and took a staggering step away. "If you're anywhere near me, I won't be able to stay away from you." The collar of sobs was moving higher up in my throat. I wouldn't be able to contain it much longer. "I have to do the right thing, Altair — for you and everyone else here."

I grabbed my backpack. It was time to get back into the jeans and shirt I'd been wearing when I came here, and chase down any other belongings that might've wandered off in the cabin.

"What are you doing?" Altair demanded.

"Ripping off the bandage," I muttered. "This has to stop.  We have to stop. I'm destroying you, and you can't even see it."

I shouldered past Altair into the bedroom to hunt down my clothes, but he caught my shoulders and stared into my eyes, searching. "This all comes back to your fear, doesn't it? Your bloody —  stupid  — insecurity!"

Altair grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me to him. His lips collided with mine mercilessly, and he forced his tongue into my mouth. I loved him too much, wanted him too much to resist him... but that was the exact problem. My guilty conscience screamed at me, forcing me to tear my face away from him.

"After everything we've shared, can't you tell how much I love you? How much I need you with me?" he murmured into me, and I felt him trembling along with his wild heartbeat. "Can't you see it?"

"That's exactly what's making this so hard," I sobbed, unable to hold the tears back anymore. I pushed Altair away and lunged for my jeans, which hung from one side of the bureau.

He dragged his hands through his hair, furious and bewildered in my wake. "Why are you trying to leave me, Hesper? I can see you don't want to!"

"Please, don't," I begged as he stepped toward me.

Altair's gaze drove into me like a dagger, but his voice shook with barely restrained desperation. "Hesper, you will tear my heart out if you leave. What's more, you'll tear  your own heart out, too — and I won't let you do that." Altair glared at me, and his voice shook as he forced the words through gritted teeth. "I can't."

He stood in front of the bedroom door.

"What, now I have to come through you to leave?" I demanded. Tears coursed down my cheeks, threatening to drown me. "Altair, you're making this so awful. We could have a wonderful goodbye—"

"I don't want a wonderful goodbye, I want YOU!" Altair yelled. His gaze flicked down to some low point in the empty space separating us, his heart-stoppingly beautiful eyes glazed in shock. I could practically see his mind reeling. "If this is really happening, I want every single terrible moment." Altair looked up at me again, and it felt like I was gasping for air as his oblivion-dark eyes locked on mine, pleading with me. "Please don't do this, Hesper," he said quietly as a tear spilled down his cheek. "Don't give up on me."

I struggled to breathe, struggled to stop myself from completely falling apart. "It's too late," I sobbed. "This isn't going to work.  We  don't work."

"I don't care, Hesper, I won't let you go." Altair strode over to me and caught me in his arms, his lips brutally meeting mine again. I couldn't have ever have gotten my fill of his sweet wood-and-parchment flavor, the intrusive touch of his tongue, the fierce way he seized my bottom lip in his teeth, not even if I lived as long as the Earth itself.

Altair pushed me down onto the bed. He fumbled quickly with my pants, his mouth never leaving mine. I needed to feel him just as  primally , so I tugged his tie open and unfastened his vest and shirt, pushing them off his shoulders as I kicked off my boots.

He pulled my pants off and in another moment had his own undone... and then Altair was thrusting inside me, groaning in a language I didn't understand. I bent my knees, holding my ground and shoving back against him as he fucked me, the ecstatic agony spreading through my body like molten metal. It was almost powerful enough to obliterate the soul-wrenching despair of knowing it was the last time we could be together like this — that protecting Altair meant leaving him.

I almost didn't notice when he was speaking English again, the transition  was so seamless .

"Don't go," Altair muttered. He bit my neck, hard, and I involuntarily whimpered. "Please, sweet girl, don't abandon me."

His tempo slowed to an agonizing grind as he brought us close to the edge, and he withdrew from me almost completely after each torturous flex of his hips. Altair knew exactly what he was doing to me — tormenting me, trying to make me give in to him.

"I can't," I choked out, fighting against the gathering sensation.

He  pushed into me more insistently again, racking me, and his breath hitched. "Love, let me take you. I need to have you."

I shook my head. My hands found his hips and I pushed against him, trying to slow him down. It was  inevitable now , but I wanted this to last for an eternity—

Altair groaned as he released inside me, and the sudden shock of warmth brought me gasping to my climax. He slid his fingers beneath my head and imprisoned me in place, kissing me until our lips were bruised and our strength was sapped and we sank into an exhausted slumber.

~

Altair was still asleep as I dressed in my jeans and t-shirt for the first  time in I didn't know how long. I gathered my things and stuffed them in my backpack, then cautiously headed to the front door and pulled on my coat. I'd passed through the mist by myself for the first time just a night or two ago, and I knew I could do it again — if only because I had no other choice.

My hand was on the doorknob when I heard his quiet voice behind me. "So your plan was to fuck me and then run while I was unconscious?"

I turned. Altair was standing in the bedroom doorway. He'd thrown on a tight grey shirt, and as I watched, he folded his arms over his chest, fully composed.

"That was the hope," I said softly. I surreptitiously tightened my grip on the doorknob; if I needed to, I could get outside before he could cross the room and try to stop me.

Altair frowned. "Hesper, I know you've made the decision you feel is right in trying to force me to  reengage with my people, but this is wrong. It's wrong, and there will be consequences."

I shook my head, heartbroken. "It isn't like you to make threats, Altair."

"I would never hurt you." There was a note of disappointment in Altair's voice. "But you're familiar enough with Newtonian concepts to understand the consequences of an action. I'm not threatening you, Hesper, I'm simply stating a fact. You made this decision on your own, and now you're going to have to live with the results."

All at once Altair looked exhausted, vulnerable again. The only thing in the 'verse I wanted to do was to slide my arms around him and cradle him back to sleep — but if I took a single step forward, I knew I'd never leave Altair's side again. And if anything happened to Ynys Afallach as a result of that choice, it could only be my fault. They needed him more than I did.

"Deal," I whispered. With a last look at Altair's heartbreakingly handsome face, I pushed outside into the permanent dusk.

Through the cabin I heard the sound of Altair slamming the bedroom door, and the sobbing breaths returned to punish me as I trudged down the side of the dormant volcano where we'd walked together so many times.

The worst was done... and now the hard part could begin.

* * *

#  Chapter Fifteen

Blasphemy

I cried all the way back. Tears blinded me so completely that I didn't even notice when the gentle ground of Ynys Afallach gave way to the harsh mountain slope — and when I realized I was back, that it was all really gone, I had to sit down for a few moments as I sobbed out my heartbreak.

I got moving again as quickly as possible. I didn't think Altair would try to catch up to me by now, but from that cold, resolute look in his eye, I wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't going to try to drag me back to Ynys Afallach kicking and screaming.

Clumps of white drifted down around me — it was snowing, and had been for a while. I scooped a handful of the crystal powder and scrubbed my face, my breathing returning to normal as the cold crept over my skin and seeped into my nerves, deadening me to the world. It was the only way I could even begin to function.

This was going to be the worst of it, these next few days — knowing Altair was still nearby, feeling his presence looming over me with the shadow of Ragged Mountain. Whether or not the jump was coming as soon as the rumors evidently said, Ynys Afallach would be gone soon enough, out of time and away from here. With that temptation gone, I'd be able to fully accept that Altair was, too.

The pain I was feeling — would feel more keenly in the days ahead, I knew — would be worth it. Altair could be as angry at me as he wanted, just so long as he was back to doing what he was meant to do: looking after his people, helping keep them safe. I felt wretched for what I'd inflicted on him, but it was for the best. In time I'd fade away and become just another part of his past, lost and forgotten somewhere between the pages of his life like a wayward scrap of paper.

~

Mom visibly bristled when I walked through the front door. "Where the hell have  you  been for the two weeks?" she demanded in a low, furious tone.

Two weeks... had it really only been that long? At any other time I'd've been set back on my heels by my mother's anger, but after  the confrontation with Altair, I had nothing left, no ego to defend. Instead, I said the first thing that popped into my mind. "Did you call Cara?"

Mom was taken aback, and her mouth snapped shut. There was my alibi.

"Oh, she and Jackson paid for me to take the train down and see them for a while," I explained.

"Prove it," my mother snapped, and shoved the house phone at me.

I dialed Cara's number, and when she picked up with a cheerful greeting, I said the code phrase we'd developed as early teens when one of us needed the other to cover for her — something that had seemed obvious to us, but was evidently alien to our mothers. "Earth to Mother Ship. Come in, Mother Ship."

"Mother Ship, affirmative," Cara responded smoothly.  Phew , she remembered.

"Will you tell my mother where I've been for the past two weeks?" I asked, and gave the handset to my mother.

Mom listened, and her anger abated somewhat. "Well, thank you for telling me that  now , Cara. I just wish you would've called... No, I understand Hesper needed to cool off. I'll see that she pays you back for the ticket."

"So, I got home safe," I said to Cara when my mother handed me the phone back. "Thanks for hosting me, you guys were fantastic, as always."

"Message me later," Cara muttered. "I want to know exactly what sort of shit you're getting into that merited the Mother Ship defense."

"Will do," I lied, and we clicked off.

My mother was still glaring, but she'd lost her momentum. Now it was back to the quiet iciness, evidently. "Y ou should've called, at least. We've been worried sick."

"I just needed some space," I said, my voice cracking. With the immediate threat of my mother's anger defused, everything in my brain was screaming for Altair again.

Seeing I was about to lose my shit, Mom sighed heavily. "Is this about your job?"

Oh, thank fucking god — an opening. I nodded, and allowed myself to again dissolve into sobs as sharp memories of Altair's wounded face clutched at me.

Mom must have assumed my tears were a sign of my proper contrition, because she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I know it's wasn't the job either you or I would've wanted for you, Hesper, but you've got to learn about sticking with things. You need to be more responsible."

Responsible — Altair. The connection was knee-jerk, an intellectual slap.

"I've got a contact for you, one of my customers," my mother said. "He's in publishing, and he's said he'd love to meet you. I'm sure he can help you find a job, if you present yourself the right way."

I nodded, struggling to breathe through my hysteria-swollen throat.

"Now, why don't you go settle in," Mom said. She almost sounded sympathetic. "You look exhausted."

My bedroom was exactly the same as I'd left it, but it was shallow and drab compared to my memory of the place. Ragged Mountain mocked me from the windows, the mist that so often lately had shrouded its rock faces seeming thinner already — though maybe that was just my fear. Altair had meant it when he'd offered to help me stay, I knew, but even if I'd been able to resist him at first, he was more patient than I. He would've waited... and I would've gone back to him eventually.

Him in his world and me in mine — it  was for the best. But it didn't stop me from crying myself to sleep, biting my fist to stifle the sound.

~

My relationship with my mother returned to the same sort of pattern as when I'd come home on holiday break during my undergrad years. I applied for the scant jobs advertised, helped with all the household chores, ran errands with Mom, and cooked dinner every night. I'd learned enough about self-control from watching Altair that I knew now how to subvert my rage, frustration, and grief into a work ethic.

The life I'd considered so abhorrent before I'd met Altair became the framework that held me together. Nothing could ever compare to Ynys Afallach — that was a simple fact. Much as I'd hated the thought of Wendy Darling, that's exactly what I had become. Mature. Though, in my case, it was because I simply followed my mother's orders now without caring. What was the point of rebellion? I'd chosen this life, chosen it to save Altair from me and from himself. I was doing the right thing.

Predictably, Mom was proud of me, and proclaimed that I'd turned over a new leaf. For the first time since I hit adolescence my mother had her little girl back again, and she couldn't have been happier.

I watched Mom and Stan interacting more closely than usual. I'd never noticed how well-trained Stan was in responding to her "suggestions," even when they seemed to aggravate him. Like when she nagged him for using his fork incorrectly, or made passive-aggressive comments about the state of the yard. No wonder he blew up at her occasionally — what sane person could care about that kind of shit?

But I was going to be like Stan now, I realized. Just a meat puppet on a long, undifferentiated march to the grave. Or worse, someone like my mother, who'd legitimately bought in.

Altair had told me I was brave, but I wasn't — I'd been headstrong. Selfish. Hadn't I guessed there was going to be a karmic kick in the ass for messing with him? Then I'd gone ahead and forced myself into his life, anyway, and things had fallen out exactly as  I'd predicted . But to perhaps save Ynys Afallach, and him, compliance was a small price to pay.

~

The weather inexplicably warmed again, and the ice melted from the shoulders of the roads enough for me to start running in the mornings. I couldn't sleep anymore, and instead spent the vast majority of each night listening to pounding music, trying to bludgeon my grief into silence.

I knew Altair hadn't come back to the A-frame because I never saw woodsmoke issuing from that part of the woods anymore, but only daylight drove away the constant urge to run back out there and try to find him.

The memory of his eyes attacked me one morning as I jogged past the trail mouth. There was  a flash of something dark in between the gloomy tree trunks, and the air went out of my lungs, thinking it was him. I had to bend over and put my hands  on my knees until the  whipcrack constriction in my throat released. Until that moment I hadn't realized how closely I was watching for him — which was futile, of course. There hadn't been any sign of him since I'd come back here. If the rumors in Ynys Afallach had been accurate, both it and Altair were already long gone.

I refused Stan's offer of a toke-up after  I'd showered and dressed. Even weed made me think of Altair — and besides, Mom's publisher contact actually seemed legitimate, and she'd fixed things for a late lunch appointment at the diner. If I could just hang on a few more months, get a decent job for a while, maybe I could make enough money to get out from under this godforsaken roof forever.

"I'm proud of you," Mom said, beady-eyed with delight. "You're really stepping things up, Hesper."

I smiled and thanked her, hollow as ever, and she didn't notice anything was wrong. If my own mother didn't notice I was dead behind the eyes, then hopefully no one else would, either.

In the interest of conserving gas, I drove into town with my mother and stayed for the duration of her shift, sitting quietly in a corner of the diner as I pretended to read a book. I couldn't get my mind to absorb anything, but having it as a prop meant I at least remained undisturbed by the boisterous regulars.

At some point I the collection of crayons in the table caddy drew my eye. They were pristine, begging to be used, so I started sketching lines on  the back of a paper placemat. The curved lines of the view from Altair's cabin took shape; the jagged coast, the hunched forms of the jump building and the gazebo, the twisted spires and ornate belfries of the city. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever drawn, the crudeness of my tools and my lack of natural skill notwithstanding.

"You're a very talented artist," a man said, staring over my shoulder. He must have been in his late sixties, and his vulpine face was half-hidden beneath a grizzled beard. He didn't seem to be in any particular hurry, and there was no one with him.

"Mr. Grover?" I hazarded as I flipped the placemat back over. I didn't want to accidentally get into a conversation that led to me explaining I really couldn't draw on a general basis — I just had residual eos in my system, and when it faded, so would my days of crayon drawings in inappropriate places.

"Please," the man said as he lowered himself into the booth's opposing seat, "call me Morris. Mr. Grover was my father."

Ah, yes... that moldy old chestnut. This was bound to be a scintillating conversation.

I pushed my cynicism aside and forced a smile. Mom's keen attention from across the diner was reminder enough to be on my best behavior.

"Shall we order?" the man asked, his eyes already on the menu.

Any secret hopes I'd been fostering about  Morris  being a legitimate business contact faded as the older man explained he was looking for help delivering his religious vanity press pamphlets throughout the midcoast region as spring approached. As with my mother's overzealous assertions that questions about Zack and me from former acquaintances were legit, she'd just heard what she  wanted from Morris Grover, and her imagination had filled in the rest.

Delivering religious pamphlets? Altair would've had a conniption fit if he could've seen this. But a job was a job — so I let Morris ramble on about his fulfilling work, and responded politely to his occasional questions.

Halfway through the "meeting," a dark silhouette passed in front of the diner's frosted glass windows on the street side, and I had to grip the booth seat to stop myself from running out into the street to see if it was Altair. I couldn't go chasing his ghost all over Camden and Rockport just because I was lost without him.

~

Morris eventually left on his own business, and I stared blankly at my book again until Mom was done with her shift. Without any argument from me to oppose, she was a little apologetic about the disastrous set-up.

"Don't worry," she sighed, rubbing my back reassuringly as we walked out of the diner. "I've got a few other connections I can try."

I grimaced inwardly at the thought of more such meetings. It was hard enough getting out of bed and getting dressed each day; having to wear clothes like my nice skirt and business-friendly knitted top was torture. It might even be worth spilling something like tomato sauce on this fucking skirt so I wouldn't have to see it again. Every time I looked at it now I thought of the first night Altair and I had visited Carys and Noel and Roderick, back when I'd been so stupid and hopeful.

We hit up the grocery store for my mother's mid-week shopping, and then stopped by the video store so Mom could pick up a video Stan had reserved.

"Why don't you pick out something for yourself?" she suggested, then turned back to chatting with the clerk.

I wandered the aisles of the store, indifferent to everything. It didn't matter which movie I chose; it was just going to be another two hours of this miserable life I'd have gotten behind me.

Then, suddenly, there he was. The dark jeans and striped sweater threw me at first, but I would've known that posture and gait anywhere.

Altair.

He strode into the video store and tossed the clerk an amiable nod. Then his eyes locked on mine.

I stared, unable to turn away, as Altair turned away after a moment and meandered down the aisles, examining the titles on display. What was he doing? Was he...  browsing?

My mother was still safely distracted in conversation with the clerk, so I slipped over to stand beside him. I still could hardly believe my eyes, but here he was between Sci-Fi and After Midnight. How very fitting.

"What are you doing here?" I murmured.

Altair didn't look at me, just kept going about his ostensible business. "Shopping. As the saying goes, it's a free country."

"Yeah, but you're not exactly a U.S. citizen."

"On the contrary, I have a birth certificate, social security number, and driver's license that indicate I am." He pulled a wallet from his back pocket and handed it to me, watching me with that aloof, guarded expression. He wasn't lying:  LERNER, ALTAIR  was written in official black font beside his unsmiling picture.

I pointed to the date on the license — two days ago. "That's not suspicious in the least."

Altair was unfazed. "I assure you, it's all above board."

I handed the wallet back to him, shaking my head. One time I'd seen him almost crash Tiresias' neural card catalogue with his questionable programming abilities. No way had he done this. "You didn't hack a government database."

"Personally? No." Altair's eyes gleamed, and the intensity in his quiet voice was as tangible as a razor's edge. "But it's a funny thing about government employees. A great many of them, should they happen upon a flash drive in the parking lot that has an official-looking insignia on it, will simply stick it into their work computer to find out what's on it."

I frowned. I'd actually read that somewhere once, so I knew it was at least possible. Tiresias could've written the virus' code for him... but...

"Altair, what are you doing?" I asked him quietly. "Why do you have these things?"

He simply watched me with that serene, smoldering expression on his face.

The blood roared in my ears as the truth sank in, and I lashed out, shoving him against the wire shelves. My voice was a furious, aghast hiss. " No! What did you do?"

Altair stumbled backward, utterly calm apart from a glint of triumph that he probably didn't think I could see. "I'm perfectly within my rights to leave if I wish."

My mind whirled. "You have to go back. Whatever you did, you have to undo it!"

Altair seized my arms, his tenebrous eyes flashing with anger. "I'm not going to lose you, Hesper. Not like that." His tone suddenly dropped to a resolute calm. "If you can't stay away from me when I'm near you, then near you is where I have to be."

I couldn't move. It was like he'd stabbed me, and I was in shock.

"It's already done." Altair released me and straightened up. "I'm bringing my belongings through, and I'm looking for a flat. And right now I'm looking for a film to watch."

"You don't have a DVD player. Or a television, even," I said dumbly.

"I'm certain I'll figure it out. This is my world now, too, and I'm going to have to learn sooner or later." He picked up a copy of  Stardust and walked toward the front counter.

I caught up to him. "What about Carys and Roderick? After all this time, you're just going to walk away from them?"

"What, like how you walked away from me?" Altair tossed the DVD box on the shelf beside him and faced me, exasperated. "They understand. They're not happy about it, as you might imagine, but they gave me their blessing."

My head unconsciously twitched from side to side. It was all too much. "You can't stay here, Altair. You'll get old, you'll get sick." Everything in me convulsed, screaming at the abhorrent thought. "Altair, you'll  die ."

"In time, as everything does." He twirled a lock of my hair around his finger, lost as he watched the movement. "But I'll be with you." His gaze flicked back to meet mine, and my veins coursed with adrenaline. "Even if you're on the other side of the world, so long as we're both alive I'll know that door isn't closed forever. That you aren't lost to me."

"You aren't being fair," I said softly.

"You weren't fair to me," Altair shot back. There was that wounded, desperate edge concealed beneath his anger again. "You just decided to leave, all on your own. And believe me, I can be just as stubborn as you. I'll not go back."

I moved to push past him, but Altair caught me in his arms and held me fast.

"Hesper, you made your decision and now I've made mine. It's senseless to punish me now everything's settled and there's nothing left standing between us."

Altair tenderly stroked my hair, and my insides quaked as he ran his thumb along my jawline, his eyes flickering with need. But I couldn't speak, couldn't tell him the words that were yearning to burst forth, or this whole sacrifice would have been in vain. Worse, even.

"Hesper?" My mother was peering around the store, looking for me.

"Wait an hour, then come to the trail," Altair told me in a low, urgent tone.

I shook my head, on the brink of tears again.

"Come back, Hesper." Altair's lips gently brushed mine, and as he pulled away I saw his eyes were luminous with hope. "Darling, come home to me."

Then Altair was suddenly gone, striding toward the front door. He and my mother passed each other in the aisle, but she didn't seem to notice him, and as he passed around the end of the row he glanced back at me with his magnetic gaze, urging me once more before he was lost to sight.

~

Mom prattled on about the local gossip all the way home, but I didn't hear a word she said. I was too shell-shocked by Altair and everything he'd said.

I'll never leave Ynys Afallach. That's what he'd told me the first time he brought me to the library. Now he'd done exactly that... and all because of me.

I racked my brain, trying to think of any way to convince him to go back, but came to the same conclusion each time. Altair was right, I couldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do. When he really put his mind to something he was relentless, and trying to change his mind would be about as impossible as Ynys Afallach itself.

I numbly helped my mother unload the groceries from the car.  Just as a few days  ago my life had turned on its head, so now had it turned back — action and reaction. There was no escaping Altair now, nowhere left to run. Whether I stayed here in Maine, living in my mother's proverbial basement, or disappeared somewhere far overseas, I would never be able to shake Altair. He was under my skin. He was part of me.

I found myself walking out into the cold blue dusk, into the drifted snow and across the highway strung with the gemstone glow of distant headlights and taillights. I hadn't even thought to bring my jacket. The cold savaged my body, but it didn't matter, and I forced awareness of it away.

My pace quickened as I started down the trail, which always seemed so interminable when he was at its other end. I moved faster, skidding over ice, thudding down the small dips and sprinting over the rises—

Then all of a sudden there he was again, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, waiting impatiently. Altair sprang to his feet, and in the next moment his arms were around me, his mouth devouring mine. I hadn't even realized how broken I'd been without him until now, until we were completing each other again.

Altair was right. This — he — was home.

"I'm sorry," I panted as I bit his stubbled cheek. "Altair, I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter now." Altair caught my face in his hands, and I saw his eyes were searing with emotion, with love for me. "Just tell me you won't push me away again. I can't breathe without you, Hesper."

"I'm here," I whispered. "I'm not going anywhere."

Altair groaned and pulled me close to him. His whole body was trembling with emotion, his arms squeezing  me ever tighter . He pressed his temple to mine, as if he was trying to crawl into me. "I love  you so ," he murmured, kissing me again and again.

His touch was galvanic, and suddenly I needed him. "Please..."

"Here?" Altair grinned down at me, his eyes wide with astonishment and a sudden, irrepressible joy.

This was the man I loved — whole again, despite everything that had happened. I nodded vigorously, needing him even more, and he pushed me back against a sturdy maple, gasping as our bodies collided.

"I missed you," he mumbled, teasing my lips with his teeth as I unfastened his jeans and shoved my hand down inside to take him in my hand. God, he was so fucking hard, so warm, so  mine — and I needed him to know I was his—

Altair grabbed my wrists and twisted my arms around his neck. I felt his hand between my thighs, and there was a sudden tearing sound as he ripped through my patterned tights.

"Hold me," Altair commanded, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he picked me up, crushing me against the tree with his body.

I felt him naked against me, and then he thrust punishingly deep, making me shout with the suddenness of the sensation. The familiar agony and Altair's heady scent  were an overwhelming combination, and everything inside me convulsed with a wild euphoria at being back where I belonged.

"That's my girl, "Altair laughed breathlessly and pushed again, forcing me to take all of him. His fingers dug into my ass and he withdrew a little, then slammed into me again, moaning as I tightened around him. His tongue roughly probed my mouth, and he dug into me, picking up speed. "I can't live without this, Hesper. Without you."

The wave was already rising in me, getting closer with each rhythmic advance. "Altair, I need you."

"I'm right here, love, I'm right here with you," he whispered. I knew he was coming close, too, from the way he shuddered and gasped a little each time we met — it wouldn't be long now. The thought of him emptying into me practically made me come right then — I would take anything this amazing man offered me.  Fuck , I loved him so much!

"Let go with me," I murmured as the rippling sensations flooded me, threatening to render me  speechless .

Altair cried out as he bent me to my utmost, and his warmth surged into me, tipping me over the brink. We collapsed onto the ground, completely entwined,  panting with exhaustion.

"Don't ever do that to me again," Altair rasped. He buried his hand in my hair and dragged me to him, forcing me to submit to his intense, vulnerable gaze. "Don't shut me out like that."

"I thought I was doing the right thing," I mumbled, overcome with the conflicting guilt and ecstasy flooding through me as he stared into me. "I was trying to protect you."

Altair pressed his eyes shut for a moment, overcome. When he opened them again, all I saw was adoration. "Hesper, the only right thing is for us to be together. Agreed?"

I nodded, and we shakily got to our feet, straightening and refastening our clothes. I'd been able to ignore the chill before, but now that I was soaked from the snow, I shook uncontrollably.

Altair wrapped his arm around me and kissed my hair. A faint smile touched his lips as he pulled me down the trail toward the A-frame. "Come on, let's get you inside."

~

Altair had burned bridges in leaving Ynys Afallach. Not his family, as he'd explained, but Graffias had secretly been preparing a fight in case Altair and I had solicited permission for me to stay. That was why he'd been so scarce during my time in the other world.

Altair smiled fondly and traced his fingers along the outside of my leg in strange, nonsensical patterns, sending pleasant shivers along my spine. We were sitting on the end of his bed in the A-frame, wrapped in the quilt together as the  woodstove heated up. "I was going to ask you to stay during the festival. It probably seems rather grandiose and silly, but—"

"I would've loved it," I said softly.

Altair's smile turned into full-fledged grin. He knew — of course.

Then he barked with laughter, remembering. "Graffias told me I couldn't leave, can you believe that? It's ludicrous, really. The decision to leave or stay is an intensely personal one."

What a shock: bitter, lonely Graffias had wanted Altair to be bitter and lonely, too. "He told me he was waiting for you to get me out of your system."

"I could never want you out of my system." Altair pulled me into the crook of his arm and watched me, his pitch-dark eyes glowing as he drank me in. "Hesper, I want you to  be my system. My world."

Even though it mended my heart to see him so content again, I couldn't help but feel the loss for both of us. Altair saw it, and his brows drew together in a flicker of anguish.

"Don't," he whispered, and kissed me tenderly. "I told you, I'm not sorry. If this is the way things were going, me leaving was invariable. I'm happy with my decision."

"But I'm afraid you won't be," I mumbled.

"After six hundred years, I think I know what I want," Altair said with a playful smirk. He dug his fingers into my side until I burst into uncontrollable laughter. "And that's you, miss."

I squirmed, vainly trying to fend him off as I giggled. "You say that  now ."

"And I'll say it always." Altair grinned again and tugged me to my feet.

"Where are we going?"

"To shower," he replied, leading me toward the bathroom. "It's warm  enough in here now, and that water shouldn't be completely freezing."

Ah, that explained the pot on the woodstove. "Dare I ask?"

Altair looked baffled, but still amused."I'm certainly not going to see your mother looking like this."

I frowned, but helped him pour the nearly - hot water into the camp shower. "She said you paid up front — I'm sure she'll give you a great reference."

"I did, and I'm certain she will," Altair said. "But tonight, instead of dealing with Altair Lerner, tenant, she'll be meeting Altair Lerner, boyfriend."

A shriek of laughter tore out of my throat. " What? "

Not only was the concept completely ridiculous, but he practically made it into two words, like he'd stolen the pronunciation out of the 1920s — although that might've just been his accent. Yet Altair looked strangely pleased with himself at the prospect.

"How else do you expect to explain all the time you'll be spending with me? Speaking of which..." He pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it aside with a crinkly-eyed smirk.

I almost didn't know how to accept this absolution, but Altair caught my chin in his hand and smiled tenderly down at me.

"Please don't frown, love — not today of all days. Not when we've so much to be happy about."

Lost for words, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed those lovely creases beside his jet black eyes.

~

We took quick turns under the shower, helping each other wash our hair, splashing each other like dopey idiots and freezing our asses off when the water ran out all too soon. After  I got dressed again I sat and watched Altair as he shaved, something I'd loved to do when we were together in Ynys Afallach.

"What'll you do for work?" I asked as he dragged the straight razor over his cheek.

"I can teach astronomy, mathematics, any number of subjects," Altair said, glancing roguishly at me. "I'm affiliated with a small university in London, remember? I've all the requisite paperwork."

I snorted. "Which you forged yourself, no doubt."

"Of course not." Altair sounded outraged, and his flickered back to the mirror as he splashed his face. "Tiresias helped a great deal."

I peered at his features as I dried his face with the towel. Altair was still recognizable, of course, but he definitely looked different sans scruff. "A little young-looking for a professor. How old are you even supposed to be? Thirty?"

He leaned back against the sink and pulled me against him. "A grand old thirty-one, actually. I thought you might've seen on my license — I just had my birthday."

"Happy belated birthday." I kissed him softly. "Times, like six hundred."

He touched the tip of my nose, pretending to chastise me. "Times  thirty . Besides, paperwork won't matter so long as I have something interesting to show for myself, research and observation-wise." Altair folded his arms around my shoulders, pulling our faces close. "And in the meantime, I'll just get a normal job for a few months."

If we really did have to live in the mundane world, at least our plans for living in it were remarkably similar. We could both go into academia, and there were still plenty of adventures to be had in this world — traveling to the Antarctic on Russian icebreakers, hiking in Southeast Asia, sailing in the Atlantic. It was a different life than I'd ever envisioned, one made fantastical by Altair.

Hope rose in me to combat the dread. This could actually work.

There was a sharp rapping at the front of the A-frame, and Altair pulled on a shirt. My stomach clenched at the veiled worry in his voice. "Stay here."

He kissed my forehead and closed the bathroom door on his way out, and I strained to listen as he crossed to the front door and opened it.

"May I help you?" I heard Altair ask.

A man's voice responded. I couldn't make out the words, but I heard the authoritative tone.

Oh, shit... I'd just run walked out of the house again without saying a word to anyone... had my mother called the police? No, that couldn't be right — she couldn't have seen me leaving, wouldn't have known where I was going...

Altair said something I didn't catch, and then the other man raised his voice before a woman interjected, speaking in that same unintelligible way. Only now did I understand that the words they spoke weren't English, and then suddenly the man's commanding timbre made sense.

"Hesper," Altair called in a low voice. "Would you please join us?"

I crept out of the bathroom to find Graffias standing just inside the front door of the A-frame. And beside him ... oh, beside him was Carys! I wanted to run to her and give her a hug, but forced myself to hold back so I didn't look weak in front of Graffias. Carys must have known, though, because she flashed me that sweet, winning smile and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

Altair was leaning back against the counter, but as I moved to his side he draped a possessive arm over my shoulders. I knew it was a pointed gesture about our solidarity, so I leaned into him and watched Graffias. The older man's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, but there was something different about him now. Lassitude, almost.

"Graffias, why don't you tell Hesper what you just told me." Altair's confident tone bordered on arrogance, but there was a tension in him, too, and I realized he was as excited as Carys, just hiding it better.

Carys stepped forward slightly, sparing Graffias his hidden humiliation. "We'd like you to come back. Both of you." She glared sharply at both Altair and Graffias, and I realized kindly, soft-spoken Carys had more of a spine than I'd probably ever given her credit for. She smiled again, and put her hand on Graffias' arm. "Why don't we give them a moment to talk it over?"

With another enchanting smile at us, Carys ushered Graffias back out of the A-frame.

Altair watched out the window until they had become silhouettes against the lake, safely out of earshot. Then he jerked the curtain back into place and spun back to me.

There was a supernova of building inside me, a soul-obliterating tidal wave of joy. But Altair's expression was cautious, guarded — as if he hadn't quite made up his mind.

"Is it even a question?" I demanded, bewildered.

"Hesper, it won't be the same."

My blood coagulated with terror as he slowly took my hands, urging me to understand.

"What do you mean?"

"If we go back..." The air gushed out of my lungs in relief. Altair wasn't refusing to return to Ynys Afallach. Anything else I could take, but not that. Ynys Afallach was where he belonged, not this cold, grey world. "If we go back, I won't be completely devoted to my work in the same way I was before we met. I'll do what I must, but I have a life of my own to live now, and you can't fault me — or yourself — for that." I didn't realize I was scowling until he lowered his chin, giving me the full-on trademark Altair stare. "I mean it. You're constantly helping me, and others, too. Tiresias is probably going to snap you up for the library in a heartbeat."

"Oh, come on," I said, rolling my eyes.

"She already told me as much," he replied seriously. Radiance flared in his eyes, another version of that same hope I'd seen when he found me in the video store. "You'll carve out a niche for yourself in time. And we'll have thousands of years together, perhaps more."

Thousands of years... I knew I couldn't fathom that.

"What if we stagnate?" I muttered, terrified by the thought of becoming one of those jaded young/ not young women in the conservatory.

Altair laughed quietly, untroubled. "I think I might've kept you to myself a bit too much when you were with me there. If I hadn't, you'd've seen more of these enduring relationships, the people who keep to themselves as we do. Think about Noel and Carys. Everything we've been through, all those years, and they're still devoted to each other."

I'd noticed their sweetness before — the thoughtful gestures, the secret smiles when they thought no one else was watching. It was one of the many reasons I  adored the couple. A quiet elation filled me, as diffuse and pervasive as the mist, pushing the boundaries of my mind as wide as the universes themselves.

Altair pressed my hand to his cheek and kissed my palm. "Love like ours — true love,  real  love — is about being honest with each other, being open to each other always. It's about constantly endeavoring to stay together despite any forces that try to tear you apart." He gazed at me with such pure, innocent rapture that I thought I would shatter. "It's hard work being that brutally vulnerable to another person every day and every moment, but for the right person, it's profoundly worth it. That's what you're teaching me."

He released me and moved to the table, where I saw for the first time that an eos fruit, a vial of the extract, and a packaged syringe were waiting. Wow... I never thought I would've seen the day when I was  happy to see a needle. Today really was full of surprises.

Altair lifted the fruit in his elegant, artistic fingers. Lacking that nebulaic, blue-green glow the eos seemed almost inert, as it had looked the day Altair first showed me Ynys Afallach. That must have been what he wanted me to think about, too, because he asked, "Do you remember that day I tossed one of these at you, on the other side of the mountain?"

I nodded ruefully. "Yeah, you really hucked it at me. I was being pretty difficult, huh?"

"I wasn't sure if you knew the significance of what I was doing." Altair was suppressing a grin with his lips, but it shone through his eyes, regardless.  Evidently I had no idea what he was driving at, and he was taking his sweet damn time getting around to it. "You know so many random facts about ancient cultures."

My brain clicked into overdrive. Despite their strange appearance, eos were apples. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite had received the golden apple from Paris, and ever afterward, they were sacred to her. And winging the emblem of the goddess of love at someone meant—

"You were proposing to me?" I gasped.

Altair's smile burst forth — abashed, but proud of me for having worked it out. "It wasn't fair, at any rate," he admitted. "If you'd caught it, it would've been on instinct, and wouldn't  that  have made for a dreadful mess."

"But we barely knew each other!" When  that happened , I'd still been thinking Altair was an enigmatic jerk. Only for another hour or so, but  still...  "You wanted to spend your life with me even then?"

"Hesper, I told you — I knew you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and by that I  meant I  loved you." Altair chuckled as though it was so obvious. "That's why I was rude to you at first, and tried to pull back again later. I was terrified of how much you could hurt me. It wasn't until later that I realized how much worse it is to be without you."

His words were a blade twisting between my ribs, making me gasp for air. How badly I'd hurt him, hurt us both by leaving! "I'm so sorry."

Altair took me in his arms and kissed me, coaxing me free of my guilt. "I don't want you to come because there's no one here for you. People out there care for you, whether or not you see it," he told me with a vague wave toward the front door. His low, musical voice rose with urgency. "But I can love you so much more, so much  better than them. Than anyone. In leaving Ynys Afallach I knew I was committing to spending the rest of my life with you, and now that circumstances are more favorable again, I'm just as certain. This, you... it's all I want. Forever."

Altair took a few steps away and leaned against the table again, flustered and shy.

"I know it's a lot to process—"

"No," I interrupted.

It  was  a lot to process ... but it was also the easiest decision of my life, and the smile that tore over my features threatened to destroy me into nirvana. I walked over to him — my sweet, beloved Altair, the man who'd almost given up a world for me — and stood before him, surrendering into the infinity of his blazing black eyes.

"Trust me," I whispered.

* * *

#  Chapter Sixteen

Iridescence

Altair and I were nearly touching, so even if I hadn't had all those years of softball as practice it would've been impossible to miss. He held the eos over my cupped hand and gazed deeply at me, stirring me with every microscopic movement of his face.

His lips moved, and he murmured something that sure as hell sounded like, " Ti kallisti ." Then the eos dropped into my palm.

We grinned stupidly at each other for several long moments. Altair said quietly, "I suppose it's settled, then."

"Yup." I looked  quizzically up at him, teasing. "Can I put this down? Or do I have to, like, carry it around with me from now on? 'Cause I'd feel a little silly—"

Then Altair's lips were on mine, silencing me. He broke away after a moment, laughing delighted, and caressed my cheek. "You are the most ridiculous, headstrong,  alive  person I've ever met. And I'm never letting you go again."

I raised an eyebrow at him, flirting. "Not even to tell Graffias and Carys?"

"Not even then." He kept his arms locked around me, forcing me to walk awkwardly backward to the A-frame's front door, and pushed me against the wall for another, deeper kiss before he'd let me lean outside.

"We're all good," I shouted to Carys and Graffias. "We're coming!"

Altair kept one arm around me as Carys hurried over and flung herself around his neck. "Wonderful!" she chirped, and gave me a quick peck before pinching my cheeks like an excited grandmother. "Just in  time for the festival, too. What fun we're going to have!"

Graffias didn't look very pleased, but from the renewed brusqueness in his tone, I knew he was relieved. Carys must really have been able to put his ass in a sling to get him all the way down here. "Break down the outpost when you're done here. We'll meet later to discuss your new schedule."

After another quick hug and a farewell to us, Carys and Graffias headed back along the path that led up Ragged Mountain. How odd it was to watch them stride off through this familiar pine forest, their anachronistic garb dappled in the moonlight.

"You and this damn thing," Altair muttered fondly as he pulled me inside and shut the front door. "Good riddance."

Good riddance to all of this, soon. I looked around the A-frame, literally wide-eyed as it hit me. Soon all of this would just be in the past. I might be able to return to this spot someday, but the A-frame would be long gone, as would everything and everyone I knew here.

It was so strange to realize everything I'd ever hoped for in life had been blown out of the water once and for all. It was almost literally as though I was stepping away from the solid ground on which  I'd lived my entire life, into a bubble that drifted through the rages of time like a leaf in a river.

And through it all, there he'd be.

Altair gazed at me with a satisfied expression, waiting patiently as I processed everything.

"So what happens now?" I asked eventually, simultaneously eager and afraid.

Altair wrapped his arms around me, grinning shyly again. For someone who fucked the way he did, he was acting awfully virginal. "There's a sort of ceremony, and that's that."

"When?"

He shrugged. "It's up to you how long to wait. Decades, centuries... I know you're not going anywhere now, so it makes no  nevermind to me. I could marry you tomorrow."

That wasn't just an idle comment. "Okay," I said cheerfully. "Not quite as soon as I'd like, but it'll work."

Altair guffawed goofily as I tackled him onto the bed and crawled into his arms. The last of the pain I'd caused him by leaving had been effaced by these crazy events, by the looks of it — though I wouldn't forgive myself anytime soon. "Of course headstrong Hesper doesn't want to delay now that she's made up her mind."

I rested my head on the pillow beside Altair's. "I'm serious."

He ran his hand along my side, sobering. "So was I."

"I know," I grinned. "You're not so inscrutable to me anymore, y'know."

"It's nothing grandiose, just standing up in front of the community," Altair said quietly, lacing his fingers through mine. "Declaring ourselves."

"That's pretty grandiose for someone who's not big on PDA," I teased.

"Get ready for it, baby," Altair joked back in a full-on American accent, tickling my sides.

I squealed with laughter and grabbed his slender wrists, trying to drag them away. "Agh, no, don't use that accent! You're perfect as you are!"

Altair pulled me beneath him, and his voice returned to normal. "Perfect's an awfully strong word."

"And you know I have an awfully decent vocabulary. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't exactly what I meant." I ran my fingers along his angular cheek, reminded of the first time we were here like this. I couldn't have even imagined then that I was going to feel this way for Altair — or that this feeling, this intense rapport even existed. Like I would never be complete without him again. "You're brilliant, funny, charming, breathtaking, and I love you... but none of those are enough. There aren't words to express what I feel for you."

"Then tell me another way," Altair suggested with a knowing grin.

So I did.

~

There was surprisingly little to pack up from the A-frame — so little, in fact, that we were able to carry it out in a single trip.

"I might've left some odds and ends behind," Altair grunted as he yanked the door shut behind us, "but it'll either look like junk or, if it's organic, it'll deteriorate." He gazed toward the highway, and I caught the sound of passing cars echoing weirdly through the trees. Then he looked back at me, measuring. "You're sure you don't want to bring anything?"

"It's just stuff." I didn't want to go back there, not even to grab my laptop or call Cara to tell her where — and when — I was going. "Besides, I have the only thing that matters," I added as I  slipped my hand into his.

He looked troubled as we started along the trail. "Hesper, I want you to promise me something. You're not going to want to, but it's important to me."

"What?" I asked suspiciously, protracting the word into three syllables.

Altair's face was set. "I want you to tell your mother where you've gone."

I shook my head. "We talked about this—"

"I know," he cut me off, "and if I weren't so determined to get you safely back home, at least for a while, I'd insist you do it now. You don't have to tell her where you're going, but at least give her the chance to say goodbye. It'll be a kindness."

"Hmph." I knew why he was asking this of me, and he was probably right. If I didn't say anything about Ynys Afallach or Altair, it could be a simple enough thing to tell my mother I was leaving forever, and over quickly. More importantly, it would mean a lot to him. "I'll take it under advisement."

"Thank you," he said emphatically.

Soon we were high on the side of the mountain, and the  mists seemed to be swirling out to greet us. He gave me the extract shot — maybe my last one forever — and I looped my arms around him, holding him fiercely as we slipped out of the world.

~

Our first stop in Ynys Afallach wasn't the cabin but Carys and Noel's house to tell them the news. Carys must have already guessed as much from the silly way we'd been hanging off each other in front of her and Graffias, but it didn't stop her from running around hugging everyone with dewy eyes.

"I think we blew her mind," I muttered to Altair at some point.

He grinned at me. "Not quite."

To my shock, he took my face in his hands and gave me a swift kiss. Carys' mouth popped open, and her cheeks flushed before she abruptly about-faced and scurried back into the kitchen, stifling giggles by the look of it.

" Now her  mind's blown ," Altair finished with a smirk.

Roderick elbowed me in the ribs and flashed Altair a teasing glance. "Sure you wanna live all the way up a hill in that dinky little shack?"

"Oi!" I took an obvious swipe at Roderick's head, and he easily danced aside, cackling. "That's my favorite place here, so don't talk smack about it or I'll go all New England ninja on you," I warned.

Altair's grin could've reignited a dying star. "You mean that?" he muttered, sliding his arms around me as Roderick ran off to prank Noel.

I smiled back, deliriously swept up in his joy. "Of course."

We separated a little as Carys returned, having sufficiently simmered down from her tittering. "I'm just so glad I kept working on your dress."

"Oh, please tell me you haven't been stressing over it," I said quickly. The thought of her putting herself out like that, especially after my paranoid retreat from Altair, made me squirm.

"No, I knew  it would all work out," Carys said reassuringly. "And if by some misfortune you hadn't been back in time, I'd've simply saved it for next year."

Her altruistic confidence was enough to make me almost tear up, too.

~

What seemed like hours later we finally arrived back at the cabin and fell into bed, exhausted. For the first time in what seemed like ages I had pleasant dreams that scattered into vague, untroubling flickers as I awoke and found myself in Altair's arms again. We were just the way we'd been before. Just the way we'd always be.

Feeling me moving, he stirred, too. We'd been too tired to take off our clothes last night, so we were still almost fully dressed, but now the corners of Altair's eyes crinkled as his hand wandered up the front of my shirt. "Morning."

"So you say." I nodded to that permanently half-veiled sky. "I almost thought we'd overslept."

"Impossible." Altair pushed the hem of my shirt higher and slowly dragged his fingernails across my stomach. "The only thing louder than that bell is the jump building klaxon. We've plenty of time, which is fantastic, because I want you to myself a while before Carys gets her hands on you."

I'd forgotten that last night Carys had extracted a promise from me that I'd dress for the festival at her house with a group of women who met like this every year. It was the only time they were all together, Carys said, and she wanted to make me feel at home. Personally I'd've preferred to just stay by Altair's side, but he was going off with Noel and Roderick for some kind of Ynys Afallach bachelor party — whatever that might entail.

Altair smoothed my hem back down and regarded me somberly. "Are you really ready for this?" he whispered. "Because we don't have t-"

I gently rolled my hip against him, and he broke off with a gasp. "Trust me, I want to," I murmured back. "I love you."

Altair's eyes flared with longing, and he pulled my leg over his. "You can't keep your hands off me, can you?" he teased, gently biting my lips. "It's a dreadful shame, because we could have a hell of a wedding night if you knew how to exercise some  restraint  in the meantime."

I held him away, and cocked my head. Yeah, there was a challenging glint in his eye — Altair wanted to play.

"You pretend to be all tough on the outside, but I know you. You're a nympho —  you will start something with  me first, I guarantee it," I purred.

"For graces' sakes, woman, your pupils are enormous," Altair protested. "You're bound to attack me at any moment."

I slunk sensuously backward out of the bed, biting my lip at Altair. His eyes burned into my body, and when I reached the door jamb I had to grab it to steady myself.

"Don't think that come-hither look is going to work on me, Hesper," Altair warned as he pulled himself out of bed after me. "Remember, I know your weaknesses, too."

I put my hands on my hips and tilted my head to the side, daring him.

"Right," Altair barked. He pulled his shirt off and flung it aside, and  defiantly flashed his eyebrows at me.

"Since when do you walk around with your shirt off?" I demanded, choking back delighted giggles.

He sauntered over to me, his face almost serene except for that searing gaze. "Since I learned it drives my wife-to-be insane when I do." he murmured.

He still looked a little abashed, but holy fuck were those words hot when he said them. I shoved him against the wall and tangled my fingers in his hair, but in one sharp movement he ripped my hands away again, spun me around and spanked me under my skirt.

"Patience," he muttered in my ear as I squeaked in shock. He strolled over to his desk, seated himself, and placidly picked up a book — but I caught the quick tremor of a restrained grin before he cleared his throat and flicked the  tome open.

I grabbed the quilt we'd brought up from the A-frame, spread it on the floor beside the telescope, and settled in with a book of my own. It was only a minute or so before I let my eyes drift up beyond the pages to Altair, his brow furrowed in concentration, handsome as ever.

It had been strange trying to think about Altair as a boyfriend for those few minutes yesterday, but Altair, husband, was somehow easier to believe. Sitting here, scribbling notes in his battered brown book, no shirt on just to provoke me into losing it, that smile so artfully concealed everywhere but the corners of his eyes... this was what it was going to be like, and I loved it. Loved  him . I was going to be an astronomer's wife until the far-off day when I died.

I caught my dear scientist looking at me over the pages of his book, and then suddenly he was sitting next to me, propping me up against him. I leaned into him, grinning. Even the few feet of distance had been too much for both of us, and he was taking pity on me. Altair slipped his hand into mine, and the rest of the morning passed away in the most perfect, companionable silence in which nothing needed to be said and everything was understood.

~

Despite what Altair had said about being unable to miss the bells, we still arrived at Carys and Noel's house later than expected due to a near-disaster in the shower with regard to Altair's wedding night plans. He may have also been the instigator, but Altair wasn't kidding about his self-control, and he left me feeling empty and aching in the most troublesome ways.

Carys was waiting on the front porch with folded arms, energetically tapped her foot like an irked wren. I heard occasional bouts of laughter from several female voices inside — the other women must be here already. Oops.

" Altair ," she complained as we approached the steps.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Altair chuckled, not at all remorseful.

"We have so much to do!" Carys moved to take my wrist, but Altair pulled me back. An extra-large crescendo of giggles erupted from somewhere inside the house, and though I didn't see anything when I looked at the front window, I thought I caught a flurry of movement.

"Don't make her unrecognizable," Altair told Carys. He gazed at me, his eyes smiling. "I like her precisely as she is."

Carys rolled her eyes and huffed, unable to hide a grin.

I flung my arms around his neck and planted a kiss on him before he could figure out what I was up to. More giggles and an  awww issued from the house. Yep, we were definitely on display.

Altair froze but didn't pull back, and though when I broke away that embarrassed flush was creeping up the side of his neck, he was grinning.

Roderick burst out of the house already dressed in a handsome black outfit, and leaped down the steps while Noel jogged in his wake, similarly attired and carrying a garment bag. They pulled Altair out of my arms and manhandled him away down the street as the peanut gallery tittered.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of him for you," Roderick called back to me, then ducked away as Altair playfully lunged at him. Altair grinned again and waved to me as they disappeared down a different street — probably headed for Roderick's quarters.

"Don't forget, I know where you live," I yelled after Roderick through my laughter. They were all such children sometimes, it seemed.

Carys pulled me inside and through to the back room, where it looked like a high-class slumber party had exploded. Pillows, mirrors, makeup... I'd landed myself square in the middle of girlsville.

Tiresias and Moura were there, along with a whole raft of unfamiliar faces. They were lively women, and though I wasn't able to keep up with much of what they gossiped about, they passed me around like a little sister, pleasantly bickering over how to do my makeup and hair. I felt a sudden stab of sadness wishing Cara could be here with me, but I knew she and Jackson were safe together. They wanted to have a family someday; they couldn't have possibly been happy in Ynys Afallach.

Everyone wanted to know about Altair and me — how we'd met, what it was about him that made me give up my life  out there . Altair might not think of himself as particularly noteworthy among his compatriots, but his centuries of aloofness had made him all the more intriguing. More than once Carys ducked out of the room, hands pressed to her ears to avoid hearing some uncomfortable line of questioning.

"It's always the quiet ones," Tiresias insisted. "They're always secretly twisted. Altair sure must be — why else would Hesper ha ve agreed to marry him so fast?"

She winked broadly at me with those mile-long lashes as the others fell around hooting with laughter.

"Tiresias, stop making her giggle," a flaxen-haired woman named Linnea scolded gently. She was fixing my hair, and I occasionally saw tendrils fly past my face in the wake of her deft work. "She keeps pulling like that, and this is going to come out crooked."

"Crooked meets twisted — sounds like my kind of wedding," Tiresias said with a knowing nudge to my shoulder, and even Linnea was forced to stop for a minute to  join in the levity.

~

Finally Carys showed me the dress. She hadn't let me see anything beyond the initial muslin stages, so I was astonished to now find myself facing a grey corset with a diffuse, gathered skirt that reminded me of the quantum mist. It was astonishing — yet Carys was entirely too humble as she helped me lace it up and pinned the matching birdcage veil into my hair. "If I'd only been able to start it a bit earlier—"

"Carys, it's amazing, and I wouldn't want it changed at all," I said, flabbergasted. "Thank you so much!"

She smiled sweetly. "I'm pleased you like it. Now, what are we going to do for shoes?"

I was still wearing my leather boots, and I stuck one out to inspect it. Considering the amount of wear they'd enduring over the past few weeks, they still looked surprisingly decent. Stylish, even — well, according to my aesthetic. "Actually, I was thinking I might stick with these. They're kinda me."

Carys appraised me. "I suppose they are. And I have strict instructions not to make you unrecognizable." She took me by my waist and steered me in front of a full-length mirror. "How'd I do?"

Honestly, I almost  didn't recognize myself at first. I knew the  women hadn't applied much makeup to my face, but my normally flushed skin was paler somehow — maybe evened out by the green glow of the eos. Between the veil, the dress, the intricately braided hair and the comfortable leather boots, I looked like a steampunk princess. I hoped Altair would like it.

My heart thumped shockingly at the thought of him. We'd already made the important promises to each other, so in some ways it felt like we were married already — it certainly had this morning — but I couldn't wait to be back by his side again.

"I think he's gonna go nuts," I told Carys with a self-conscious grin.

A deep sound resonated across the land, and I jumped in alarm. Oh, right... the bell.

Carys squeezed my waist in delight, mischief glimmering in her eyes. "Come on, it's time."

We headed down to the porch, where the other women had already gathered and were singing in a foreign language that almost sounded Samoan. Some of them had linked arms and were stumbling foolishly along the street as they sang, giggling like naughty teenagers.

"It's a flirting song," Carys explained. "The men have their own version — we'll hear it as we get closer."

"Will we ever," Tiresias muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Wait, Altair's going to be singing?" It was so preposterous that I started laughing all over again.

Tiresias frowned. "Well, he knows the words, at least."

"He'll sing this year," Carys countered. She smirked beatifically as Tiresias pretended to be scandalized.

The further we walked, the more women our group seemed to accumulate, as if they were melting out of the trees like oddly costumed dryads. I was able to pick up some of the song's refrain by the time we'd walked the long path out to the cliffs, and joined in for some of the shouting-type bits when they came up, but was hard to remember how to sing — even poorly — when I saw how the cliffs had been transformed.

The top of the labyrinth now stood high overhead, the stone pathways now ensconced within an impervious wall of greenery. Several hundred feet away, gauzy tents and other structures glowing with light seemed to grow up out of the long, low meadow leading toward the forest, and there was a central space of mown grass where musicians played their hodgepodge collection of instruments, drummers setting the tempo for some other kind of shouting.

Tiresias nudged me and looked pointedly ahead, and I realized it was the men making all the ruckus — they were singing. The close we drew, the more I could hear how the two musical compositions fit together, working in easy counterpoint. It sent goosebumps rippling over my skin.

We were close enough now to pick out individual faces, but a lot of the men were doing gestures that punctuated their song, and it made it harder to tell whether or not a person was familiar. I scanned for Altair, trying to keep the overwhelming anxiety back as I couldn't find his face.

There — he was standing behind a group of familiar faces, off to the side. Altair always looked pretty sharp, but right now he was even more breathtaking than I'd ever seen him in a grey tie, old-world vest and shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It was somehow casual on him, and I realized it reminded me of the clothes he'd been wearing when we first met. Only now, instead of seeming inscrutable, I could see what he was feeling. The way he was trying to appear relaxed, but betrayed his impatience by the alert craning of his slender neck as he searched the crowd until he found me.

Altair's dark eyes flared as our gazes locked, and even though we were surrounded by so many people it was like we were alone at the cabin, no one in the world but us. The two crowds slowly flooded together, but we mirrored each other, moving sideways through the tumult as if escaping a riptide.

His lips were moving as he approached me, and I realized Carys was right — Altair was singing. Not loudly as some of the others were, but when we were close I heard his pure voice resonating through me as if I was made of glass. In combination with his hypnotic, hungry eyes it was as though Altair was bewitching me, tying the final knots that would bind us together forever. He was mine and I was his.

Smiling self-consciously and still quietly singing, Altair held his hand out to me — but I slipped around it and slid my arms around his waist, nestling up against him so I could lay my head on his chest. He was trembling, but I heard his breath hitch with laughter, and he enfolded me in a tight embrace.

The song ended with a finality of shouting, and then clapping and cheering erupted around us. I could've stayed next to Altair like that all night, but he took my shoulders and held me out, seemingly unable to form words.

"You like?" I asked.

"How could I not? I've got the most beautiful bride in two worlds," Altair blurted out, grinning suddenly as his astonishment found voice. "Hesper, you just literally took my breath away."

I shuffled shyly under his adoring gaze. "Sure that's not just from your rock star singing?"

"Positive," Altair laughed. He took my hand, and even amidst the alien revelry, I was home.

I caught a glimpse of Graffias through the crowd. He was standing at the edge of the meadow closest to the cliffs, that permanent  glower etched on his features. Graffias turned to stare at us, and I knew Altair saw him, too, from the way his fingers almost imperceptibly tightened on mine.

"I wish he could understand what you mean to me," Altair said softly as Graffias turned away. "He's not a bad man, just... lonely." He said the last word curiously, as though realizing it for the first time, but rallied as I squeezed his hand back, reassuring him. "Come on, let's dance."

I hadn't realized people were arranging themselves into groups around us, a caller beside the musicians shouting out instructions ahead of time as the band jangled in a discordant tune-up.

"It's like a contra dance," I said in surprise. I hadn't been to a contra dance since my first  year of undergrad, but I would've recognized the setup for the partner-swapping reels anywhere. I tried to keep the amazement out of my voice as I asked, "And you actually want to...?"

"I thought you liked the way I danced," Altair said, narrowing his eyes playfully. He nodded in a direction through the crowd, and I saw Carys, Noel, Roderick, Tiresias, and some of the women from the house gathering in one area of the massive group. Carys beckoned impatiently to us.

"I do," I told Altair breathlessly as we started forward, remembering that night at Truce's again. Even the memory of it was enough to set my legs to trembling. "But I didn't ever imagine you doing the ol'  swing-your-pardner kind of dance."

"Nor would I have done if Carys hadn't insisted, for which I am entirely grateful now," Altair said. He lowered his voice. "By the way, you win."

I was baffled. "I win?"

His fingers tightened  on my waist. "Restraint. If we weren't surrounded by people, I'd have you right here."

My legs burned with more than just exertion as he tugged me along faster. "Actually, you win," I admitted. "As soon as I saw you in those nice clothes, I wanted you out of them."

Altair chuckled in amusement and frustration. "That's not helpful to hear."

"No, but it  is accurate," I teased. "Anyway, you were the one who wanted to play the withholding game."

"And don't tell me it wasn't fun... while it lasted," Altair growled playfully under his breath.

Even though we were walking on flat ground, I nearly lost my footing.

We dropped the subject as we reached the others, and Carys walked us through the dance steps. It was pretty straightforward, but I was so distracted by Altair's wanton stare that I could barely retain anything that was said to me.

"Remember, just keep looking at each other — it'll help with the spinning!" Carys called to us before Noel swept her off as the dance began.

Just keeping looking at Altair... yeah, that was going to be difficult.

Contra dancing was all mathematics and physics, so it really shouldn't have been a surprise that Altair moved confidently through all the spins, changes and returns. The world revolved crazily, and I found myself twirling past Roderick and Noel, chaining hands with Carys and Tiresias, but I trusted Altair enough to follow his shouted cues whenever I lost my way, and even when I went severely off course I always found myself back in his arms again.

Then, in the middle of one dance, I found myself facing Graffias. It was one of the more energetic numbers, but even so the older man kept up with ease. Altair watched us warily from his place across the circle.

"I know you still don't like me very much," I told Graffias, emboldened by adrenaline, "but I'm not going to hurt him. I won't take him away, and I'll never leave."

His eyes were hard. "See that you don't."

Graffias wasn't as threatening now that I knew where his anger was coming from. "It's okay that you're still not sold on me," I said as our part of the dance together drew to a close. "I'm stubborn, and I'm going to be  here a long time. I'll prove you wrong."

I popped up on my toes and gave Graffias a quick peck on the cheek, and then returned down the line as the dance demanded, pleased to note that my move had taken the old warrior by surprise.

"What was that all about?" Altair muttered as I came back to him.

"Well, you forgave  me for being paranoid and afraid," I murmured back. "So let's just say I'm trying to learn to pass it on."

He smirked. "Are you saying I'm having a positive effect on you?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I think you know exactly what kind of effect you have on me."

Altair's fingers tightened on mine, and his features lit with sudden purpose. "All right, that does it."

He pulled me out of the dance, away through the blazing tents and into the meadow toward the labyrinth. The world around us was the strange silvery-blue of moonlight — but no, that couldn't be right—

For the first time I remembered to look up into the window into space that hung beyond the crumbling gazebo, and gasped as I saw for the first time that the moon had crept almost entirely into sight. It was huge, much bigger than it ever was on Earth, and I could see it craters clearly with my naked eyes.

"That's why we have the festival now," Altair said breathlessly, eyes gleaming as he pulled me under the labyrinth's arched entrance. Without the hedges the crumbling stonework had seemed like grey ruins, but now they seemed somehow nobler, if no less tattered.

He led us forward through the myriad twists and turns until I was completely certain that he'd lost his way. Then, without warning, we emerged into one of several alcoves that each now contained a polished stone sculpture. Here it was an old school slanted writing desk, completely rendered out of a single piece of rock even down to the pen in the inkwell.

Altair pushed me back against the stone desk, his mouth crushing mine. "It's not mine, but it'll have to do," he mumbled around my lips as his hands gathered my skirt, pulling it out of the way.

"What — here?" I hadn't seen or heard anyone nearby, but the distant thumping of the drums and the occasional cry of voices was a testament  to the presence of the others. I wasn't about to launch a real complaint, though, so I wrapped my arms around his neck as he boosted me onto the edge of the desk.

"I've had enough restraint for one day, haven't you?" Altair tugged my panties off and tossed them aside. I shivered with longing as his eyes bored into me. "Hesper, I want you thinking of me completely as you bind yourself to me."

Holy  fuck ... "Don't think that'll be a problem," I muttered as my heart thumped into overdrive, and I  leaned to kiss him again.

Altair swayed backward, evading me. "Not this time."

I frowned, quizzical.

"I want to try something different," he murmured. One of his hands was still supporting my leg, but with the other he cupped the side of my neck, forcing me to stay in place, neither too  near nor too far from him. His black gaze permeated my vision, filling the world like an inescapable shadow. "I want to see what I do to you. Will you let me?"

Breathless from his intensity, I tentatively nodded.

Altair kissed me again, hard, and I felt him fumbling with his trousers. Then he pulled away and I felt him brushing against me, taunting me as his eyes locked on mine again. The ghost of a smile flashed  across his face, and then he set his jaw and eased into me.

A jagged groan burst out of me at the measured movement. I instinctively tried to look away but Altair's thumb pressed into my jaw, forcing me to stay with him, stay fixed on him as he moved in me with tectonic deliberation. I almost always felt so pinioned by his gaze that I couldn't have ever realized it was just the veiled version of a Tartaric inferno that burned in him like perdition. But I saw it now with terrifying, wondrous clarity. He was Hades — and like Persephone, I was his prisoner.

His coal-dark eyes were like the pain I always so  primally craved, and once I surrendered to him, tranquility flooded through me like a river. I opened myself entirely to his penetrating gaze, unable control the gasps at each rigorous invasion and equally unhurried retreat, but the agony of staring into him kept me grounded. His sensual lips parted in a gasp as the electricity raged through my nerves, threatening to consume me, and I twined my fingers in his hair, gripping viciously to hold onto sanity as long as I could.

"Don't let me go," I begged as the edge approached.

"Never," Altair rasped. "I love you too much."

Then — blessedly — his lips were on mine, his hips were digging into me with his weight, and we were falling to pieces together as he thrust. I pushed even closer to him as he came, and his teeth dragged ruthlessly along my lower lip until he was able to gasp for breath again.

Altair kissed me again, at once ravenous and gentle. "Thank you, Hesper," he panted.

"I almost couldn't take it," I admitted, still trembling with aftershocks as he handed me back my panties with a devilish grin.

He chuckled as my legs nearly gave way when I tried to stand again. "Here's to restraint, who'd've thought?"

I flung my arms around Altair's neck but only gazed coyly up at him, and he burst out laughing as I ducked away from his attempts to kiss me.

"You are  incorrigibly stubborn!" he chuckled after his lips finally found mine.

"You're the one who decided to spend his not-insignificant life with incorrigibly stubborn," I returned with a cheerful shrug.

"I suppose that makes me even more strong-willed than you," Altair teased as he retook my hand and pulled me back out of the labyrinth.

I glared at him in mock defiance. "Never!"

~

We ran back up to the festival, arriving with barely enough time to catch our breath before we were called forward.

Everyone watched as I looped the red thread around Altair's wrist several times and then fastened it off before handing it off to him to do the same for me. The thread would fall away in time, Altair had explained, but as he wrapped the soft flax around my wrist with his free hand, glancing at me every few seconds with that adoring gaze, I knew I'd be able to feel it there for the rest of my life.

Altair tied off the thread, and snicked through the short length of thread that separated us with a knife Roderick handed him. Then it was done.

Everyone around us cheered, and the drums banged a chaotic, nonsensical cacophony. Altair pulled me to him with a grin, and kissed me deeply as faces both familiar and not whooped and hollered good-naturedly at us. The noisemakers chattered and dissolved into a beat, but Altair and I just held each other as the dance began around us, until the moon had begun its inexorable recession from that eldritch window over the unchanging, nighted ocean.

* * *

#  Chapter Seventeen

Decadent

We were sitting in the meadow when the first tremor hit. I was leaning back against Altair, and he was smoothing windblown tangles of hair out of my face as we chatted with Carys and Noel, and then suddenly there was a terrible silence as the sea fell eerily silent. A moment later the clanking, rending sound began, and the ocean screamed its way up the cliffs in a massive burst.

I was looking at the gazebo when it happened. One minute the fatigued structure  was trembling on the edge, and then it exploded into ancient shrapnel as the curve of the wave blasted it apart. Mercifully, the water curved outward again as it rose, and for a brief instant I could see the smudged sky reflected along its roiling face, trembling as the very air around us shook. Then it crashed back into the depthless basin to shatter like ice.

Some people had already begun to drift away, back to the city or to their hidden homes off in Ynys Afallach's mysterious wilds, but there were still several hundred people in the meadow when it happened. We were spared the brunt force of the wave, but we cowered against spray that drenched us like a thousand angry needles, stinging our skin and leaving us numb.

I would've expected screams, but as the last rebounds of the  wave sloshed and resettled, there was only a deathly silence in the meadow. People seemed unhurt — a little stunned, perhaps, but in some ways they looked almost resigned, not given to panic. My shoulder and knee began to throb, and I  realized Altair had shoved me down when the wave hit, covering my body with his. Somehow now I was on my feet staring out at the water in horror, the memories of however many intervening seconds lost without a ripple.

There was a distant crackling sound, and the blaring of a klaxon sounded across the meadow as something flashed green in the corner of my eye. I turned my head to see the jump building was flaring with that sort of heat lightning — only blinding now, vibrant like the aurora.

"No!" The word tore itself from Altair's throat, and I saw he was staring at the building, too. It was a plaintive, angry cry, the only sound in the entire meadow apart from the hissing and thundercrack popping of that cornea-searing emerald energy.

"What?" I demanded.

"The rebound wave, it's coming." He stared at me with wild eyes, in shock. "We're going to have to jump."

Altair pulled me into a rib-crushing embrace, and I felt his heart hammering against my shoulder. His baffling reaction frightened me. "But we knew this was going to happen."

Altair pulled back and vehemently shook his head, a rising wind ruffling his chestnut hair. The sky's brilliance seemed to be fading, thunderheads building and roiling under what was fading to cold blue light. "It's too soon ... Hesper, you haven't said goodbye to your mother!"

"I said I'd think about it," I flared through the fear constricting my throat. "But there's no time—"

Altair looked up, measuring the sky. "We'll have to hurry, but we've a few hours yet." He dropped his chin, and glared insistently at me. "You promised."

"I did not, for this very reason," I shot back.

Carys put her hand on Altair's shoulder. I'd completely forgotten that she or any of the others were around us. But now everyone was in motion, the vast majority heading inland, but a few others moving against the tide, toward the jump building. There was a  horsed rider coming from that direction, galloping toward us at breakneck speed.

"Hesper can come with Noel and me, we'll look after her," Carys told Altair.

He grabbed my hand in a  bonecrushing hold. " Hesper's mine to protect. I need to know she's safe."

Hearing his words, relief surged through me. For a moment I'd been terrified he was going to send me away, but so long as I wouldn't be in the way, I couldn't bear to be anywhere but by his side.

Carys nodded — understanding if not agreeing — and I clasped her in a quick, desperate hug. She patted my cheek as she drew away, raising her voice to be heard over a wind that was fast becoming howling. "Take care of him."

I nodded vehemently, and tightened my return grip on Altair's hand as we watched Carys and Noel hurry away toward the path leading to the farmlands. "Thank you."

Altair pulled me to face him. "Going back to tell your mother goodbye is my price.  I'm going to tell her if you won't, so you'll be coming with me regardless."

His face was resolutely set — there was no arguing with him. Anger flashed in me, resentment that he'd push me like this. "What did we just say about making decisions on our own?"

"Then consider it a wedding present," he suggested in that same maddeningly even tone he'd used on me back in Camden. Altair was determined, and no amount of squirming was going to get me out of this. "Hesper, my whole life I've been haunted by knowing my parents didn't know what happened to us. If not for your own peace of mind, please do this to assuage my guilty conscience for stealing you away."

Given the amount of time that I could waste trying to talk him out of this, it honestly might be worth the trip, if only to make sure Altair wasn't upset about this for all eternity. Even if by some catastrophic mistake we did get shut out, we could bide our time the months or years before Ynys Afallach popped back into the world — they'd know to find us, and we'd still be together in the meantime. It was a horrific possibility, but not completely unbearable so long as we were together.

"You're sure we can make it?" I demanded. "If there's even the slightest risk there won't be enough time, I'm not going — and believe me, I won't let you go, either."

Altair growled in frustration and looked around wildly. Finally he sighted on someone and dragged me toward them.

It was Graffias. He stood at the north of the festival encampment impatiently conversing with the  horsed rider, who had dismounted. The woman wore various layers of heavy leather or some kind of protection gear — against the jump building's green energy, I now realized.

"Bloody moon," Graffias snapped as we approached. "Too late now, at any rate."

"How long?" Altair demanded, interrupting the conversation.

Graffias's eyes flickered over me, and I saw such loathing in them that I shrank back a little. I almost thought he blamed me for this, but if the moon had something to do with it, I didn't see how that could be possible. "Few hours. Less, maybe. You'd best get straight there and—"

"There's something I have to do first. I'll be back in time," Altair said, and moved to pull me away.

Graffias seized Altair's shoulder and jerked his head, indicating the jump building. "They need you, Altair!"

"I only presented the theory —  they're the engineers," Altair argued forcefully. "I can't be of any use to them now anyway, and I'll be back by the time I'm needed." He turned and strode away toward the city, hauling me along behind him until I could trot fast enough to keep up.

Graffias glared after us and shouted Altair's name, but when Altair didn't respond, Graffias mounted the horse and rode off in the opposite direction.

"Why do they need you? What aren't you telling me?" I asked angrily, struggling against Altair's unrelenting grip.

"Do you remember when I said I was working on some new calculations?" Altair asked.

I'd nearly forgotten — nothing seemed to have come of that, so I hadn't remembered to ask him about it later. Yet at his mention, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I'd worked out a theory that might counteract the shock wave and stabilize Ynys Afallach once and for all."

I was still furious about the keelhauling routine, but now I was too busy gaping at him to keep fighting. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Altair's brow was furrowed, and he didn't meet my gaze. "All my readings indicated we had more time. I was going to tell you once it was sorted out, but the engineers haven't finished the upgrades. They should be done in time, given the circumstances, but it's all still just theoretical until we test it, as we're about to."

Realization dawned on me like a winter sunrise. "So Graffias was right."

Yes, Graffias was right," Altair said crossly as we reached the treeline. "He has his hunches every single time, and he's never been right before, but contrary to all logic and information readily available, he made a lucky guess. Does knowing that make this experience easier for you to process?"

I scowled, stung. "No, I guess not."

"Then let's focus on what  does matter: getting out there and back in time." Altair said, picking up his pace even more as we headed into the forest. The wind slashed through the trees, and we had to almost yell to be heard.

"What if something goes wrong?" I demanded.

Altair's dark gaze was answer enough to knock the air out of me, and he pulled me close to him as we hastened along the trail. To find this place, to find each other and finally be together, only to be parted by death just as quickly... it wouldn't be fair!

"I don't think that's likely to happen," Altair shouted in my ear, barely  discernible over the growing tumult. "If I'm right, the different pulse we're going to emit will close off the tunnel from Earth's universe, possibly forever. If Ynys Afallach collapses or is sealed off, that world will adjust to account for the changes we've effected there. It might be as though you'd never been born, or that you died in a horrific accident — and if you try to tell your mother farewell, you might somehow be able to make it easier for her. Hence my insistence on bringing you back one last time."

Much as my mother and I had been at loggerheads whenever we'd been together over the last few years, I didn't want her to live out the rest of her life thinking I'd been run over by a semi  on the road in front of our house or something equally gory. If there was any weight I could throw toward tipping the scales in a more positive direction, I owed it to Altair at least to give it a decent try. Maybe if I told her I was running away to the other side of the world with my dark-eyed lover, the machinations of the universe would have me die in a plane crash far from home, and she'd be spared some of the sensationalism of death in a small town.

I glanced up at Altair, who was watching me even as we  tumbled along the blustery landscape. "Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm terrified," he yelled into my ear. "But do you think I'd present something like this to anyone, thinking they might try it, if I thought it meant I'd found you just to kill you by bringing you here?"

He pressed his lips to mine in a quick, anguished kiss. No, I knew Altair would never be that incautious. I trusted him — and if I trusted him, it just meant I had to do everything in my power to get him back here in time to be in position if and when he was needed.

"Should we run?" I shouted.

"Can you?"

With mental apologies to Carys, I tore off the lowest layers of my skirt and we took off, barrelling along the familiar liquid landscape — from the gnarled and rutilated trunks of the forest to the gambreled roofs and balustraded courtyards of the city, its myriad spires and minarets groaning and bleeding dust as the earth trembled underfoot. The breath should've been burning in my lungs, but I only felt the exhilaration of pure focus as our feet pounded the cobblestoned sections of the streets. Altair's hand was clamped on mine, and we surged forward like deer, sprinting through the sickening blue light.

The ground shuddered again as we were summiting the overlook, and Altair caught me as my feet went out from under me, dragging me up the last rise in the dirt incline. The mist was pulsing ahead of us, rippling and agitated like a puddle beset by raindrops.

Altair caught my worried stare as he fumbled in his pocket. "It'll be  all right , but I have to give you another shot to get you through the indeterminacy field now it's disrupted."

I looked away over the landscape as he drew up the shot. Everything was that awful riot of black shadow and pale blue light, as if all the color had bled out of the world. The wind screamed past my ears, clawing at me as the ocean lapped and roiled at the land with ravenous teeth. I shrieked in horror as a small tower near the water that I knew to be abandoned tumbled into its hold.

"Hush, darling," Altair murmured in my ear, and the side of my neck stung as the needle jabbed home.

He turned me to face the mist, and we walked forward together into oblivion. I struggled for the edge of the other world, but it kept eluding me, slipping through my fingers like a wraith. The sounds of Ynys Afallach died, and there was darkness all around, pure nothing. I was suddenly afraid Altair couldn't hear me anymore, that I'd somehow slipped out of the world again.

"Help," I panted, both terrified and relieved to hear my own voice.

"It's all right," Altair's voice drifted to my ears from somewhere close ahead. "Just calm down, you'll find your way."

I stared into the unchanging darkness,  panting with hysteria, waiting for something, anything to change. Then, suddenly, all the particles of the world snapped together around me like toy bricks, and I found myself hurtling forward onto Ragged Mountain, into Altair's waiting arms.

It felt like every atom of my body was roiling in its own minute dance of discomfort, threatening to shake me apart. The sensation was both tingling and leaden, and my body refused to respond to the commands I gave it with any decent reactivity.

"What happened?" I croaked to Altair.

He shook his head, troubled. "Let's just get this done with. I need to get back."

We stumbled down the slippery trails, skidding over wet stone and ice-frosted mud. Though the ground here wasn't shaking, it felt like I could still feel that same shaking in my legs, like an electrical  current was running through me each time my foot touched the ground.

"Shouldn't have — come in the — first place," I huffed, puzzled by a sudden wave of vertigo.

Altair's arm was around my waist. "Hold together, Hesper, we're nearly there."

By the time the trail leveled out I could only manage a walk, and gravity was becoming a slippery concept. I felt Altair push me first one way and then the other, navigating me along toward something important that I'd already forgotten about.

A feather duster flag of a tail brushed beneath my slack fingertips, and I felt Bastian skimming along beneath me, heading up the trail in the opposite direction. I giggled. "Kitty!"

"What's so funny?" Altair asked as the world lurched awkwardly forward beneath me and I giggled harder.

"I'm trying," I laughed. "I'm trying, and I'm being trying. Don't you see why it's hilarious?" I knew Altair was trying to get me to stay serious for some reason, but it was all nonsense. There was a invisible island floating over our heads right now, for fuck's sake! And Altair — my sweet, wonderful Altair—

I draped my arms to his neck. "You're my husband now."

"I am, and  always will be ," he said solemnly. My lips found his, and he responded for a moment, but then firmly held me away. "Come, we haven't much time."

"I'm sorry I ran away," I murmured as we staggered on. "That was stupid."

Altair's voice was tight. "I think I understand now why you did it. You felt you were saving me. You couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to me because of your actions."

" Yes ," I said emphatically, making the word last for several seconds. "But you were right... as long as we're together—"

"No, Hesper. You were right," Altair said quietly as we emerged from the trail mouth and stopped beside the highway. There were several unfamiliar cars nestled in the driveway to my mother's house. A party? Mom and Stan didn't ever have parties...

Then I saw the grave expression on Altair's face, and realized what he was saying.

"No," I whispered. I tried to push away his arms, but my hands twitched feebly as I tried to move them. My blood was becoming lead in my veins, enslaving me within my own body, and the strange euphoria had left in its wake only this cold clarity. My knees shuddered, threatening to give way. "You can't."

Altair caught me as I collapsed, and swung me up into his arms. My head fell against his chest, and I heard his thudding heartbeats as he carried me across the asphalt expanse toward the front door.

"No, please ... please..." I begged, even my voice faint and useless. My fingers clawed limply at him, at his unfathomable betrayal. Tears poured freely from my eyes as Altair set me on the stone stoop and sat beside me, cradling me in his viselike arms. "Why?"

"You sweet girl." Altair trembled like an aspen, eyes glistening with pooled tears of his own, his jaw set as he refused to let them fall. His lips pressed brutally against mine, and when he broke away, his voice shook. "I love you so much more than anything biology or neuroscience should rightfully allow. I love you down to your very bones."

"Don't leave me, Altair," I whimpered. I could've withstood anything, even his anger, but not this terrible selflessness. "You said the... only right thing... was for us—"

"You dying because of me is not the right thing, Hesper," Altair growled. He kissed me desperately, trying to urge me to see reason — or convince himself. "If this fails, at least I won't have dragged you down with me. And if it works, oh Hesper, if it works..." Altair cupped my face in his hands, and his beloved black eyes raged into me, burning his words onto my soul. " I will come back for you ."

"No," I pleaded. "Don't do this, please..."

"I'll find you. That's my wedding vow." The teardrops spilled from his eyes, pouring down his cheeks as he wrenched the words out of his shaking throat. "I will rip apart time and space and all of existence if I have to, but I'll find you again, Hesper."

I gasped for air, trying to keep the dark curtain in my vision from descending, as Altair kissed me one final time and murmured, "I love you," into my lips.

He rapped on the door. Then he was gone — away back across the road, safely hidden in the night-dark tree trunks.

The world tilted as someone pulled the door open and I fell over the threshold. A woman — my mother? — screamed, and there were strange, unfamiliar hands lifting me, boosting me into the stuffy warmth of the house.

"No," I begged with the last of my strength. I could still see Altair there, waiting to make sure they found me safely, still heaving with the same sobs that were racking my body, too. His tearstained face glistened silver and black under that hateful, evil moon, and he was so close but I couldn't reach him...

Altair turned away, and everything in this lonely world was lost to shadow.

~

I knew I was in an unfamiliar place even before I opened my eyes because of the stink of it. It was dusty and stale, the  aromas of several different types of greasy food layered over each other in a rank bouquet. The bed wiggled as I did, and I had the sense of being high up.

My eyes popped open when I realized where I was.  Home .

"NO!" I screamed, and flew to the closed door.

I barely had the door open a couple of inches before the handle was torn from my grasp and the door slammed shut again.

"Well, at least she's awake," a familiar voice grumbled.

"Jackson?" I demanded.

"And alert," another voice chimed in. Was it Zack? ...and had I seen Cara's face, drawn and pale, beside my mother's under the fluorescent kitchen light at the end of the hall?

The doorknob wouldn't even budge now — someone was holding it shut from the far side. I slammed on the cheap balsa with my open palms. "Jackson, let me out!"

"Well, sorta alert. Delusional, though," Jackson rumbled from the far side of the door. Yup, it was definitely him. " When'll they be here?"

"Just another few minutes," Cara told him quickly.

I heard my mother sobbing, but it meant nothing to me. I had to get back to him, catch up to him before we were torn apart forever. He thought he was doing the right thing — as I had — and I couldn't let him make the same mistake.

I went to my favorite window, but it was locked from the outside.  All my windows were locked from without. I paced across the room in helpless fury. They didn't know what they were doing, but they could keep me from him long enough for the quantum field to become truly impassable.  Fuck!

Without even thinking, I cocked my fist back and slammed it into the upper quadrant of the door. The wood split my knuckles, but I made a decent dent in it for a first-timer.

"The hell is she on, PCP?" Jackson demanded as I yanked and twisted on the doorknob with all my might, trying to shake him loose. "Cara, tell 'em to hurry the fuck up!"

There had to be another way out of here. There, on my desk. My laptop. With mental apologies to the ancient beast, I threw it through the window.

" Jesus! " I heard someone shout from beyond the door as the glass exploded into crystalline sound.

I reached out the window, quickly flipped the lock open, then yanked the frame up out of the way. Blood was dripping from my arm — I must have cut it reaching through — but I ignored it, jumped out the window and sprinted across the front yard toward the trail head.

The front door to the house flew open, and Zack burst out, Army training coming in handy as he beelined toward me. He was trying to force me away from the road, where intersecting amber lights evinced that cars were approaching from both directions. I could calculate it quickly enough — if I stopped, Zack would be able to catch me, and it would be all over.

I put on an extra burst of speed and shot out into the road.

Tires screamed and horns honked behind me, and there was the telltale thump of vehicles colliding. I didn't dare look back, but sprinted on.

My eyes were dazzled by so much light that I was running through the woods blind... but I knew this trail. I thought of Altair, of each time I'd come this way to see him, and suddenly the path was clear before me even though my vision was still dappled with inkblots.

Zack and Jackson crashed along a fair distance behind me, confused by the darkness and the unfamiliarity of the place. My boots churned the earth and I tug in my toes, shifting my momentum into a hard uphill sprint as the trail steepened.

This wasn't like running in Ynys Afallach. Here — whether to due to the dosed shot Altair had given me or to the sheer abomination of the place — the breath seared in my chest like I was inhaling flames. Each time my momentum faltered I thought of Altair's face, Altair's eyes, the way he'd looked as he teased me, as he married me, as he said goodbye to me... and I scrabbled my way forward with renewed strength.

The blessed mist closed in as I got higher, and suddenly I could feel Ynys Afallach fluttering at the edge of my awareness, shimmering like a snapping flag or a mirage. I grasped for it eagerly, but it rolled away from me like a marble beneath a bed. I couldn't push forward for it... but if I tugged at it, inhaled with some part of my consciousness, I could bring it closer.

I could see it as though it was right in front of me, layered on top of this ground like a double exposure.

Bastian galloped forward up the far side of a rise that in Ynys Afallach lay beneath the rim of the world lookout. He could sense enough about this world to know what was coming, and I  dreaded to think what would happen if he didn't get out of the way in time. But I couldn't help him — Bastian was faster and smarter than me, and his thumbed paws churned the earth in full-on thunderbolt mode.

The klaxon screamed in my ears as I clawed my way forward into the vision, scrambling to find those I loved.

Carys and Noel were bunkered down in the house as it shook, clinging to each other with a sort of secret serenity. Roderick was in the street in the city, watching and directing people out of danger as masonry fell and scaffolding collapsed. Tiresias and Moura were in their beloved library, deep in the memorial grotto, reciting something together as the lights of the portraits alternately flamed and went out around them. The very earth shook.

I kept forcing my way forward, gathering the city like a rug beneath churning feet. The spherical building winking with that green light lay on the furthest edge of the island from where I was standing, but I was there inside it, too, looking through the omnipresent mist to the edifice's otherworldly guts — the living vines, the brass, the steam, the incomprehensible clockwork controls and the crackle of that green energy shooting amid the sphere like a Tesla coil.

They wore that leather insulation gear over their baroque clothes from the festival, goggles over their eyes as they fought for control against the shuddering hum. Graffias was at the center of the fray, hunched over what seemed to be the command center of the machine. He barked out orders and the anonymous figures ran to and fro following his shouted commands.

An arc of energy went awry, and suddenly Graffias stiffened as it lanced through his body, frozen in the act of reaching for some switch that he would never touch. He slumped over the edge of the panel and collapsed backward, tumbling to the ground like discarded laundry suddenly toppling over from a neat stack.

Someone leapt to Graffias' side — and even through the protective gear and goggles I knew it was Altair. He checked Graffias, beckoned others to come pull the man's body away to safety. Then Altair took up Graffias' place at the brass panel.

His hands danced over the incomprehensible components too alien to even be called proper controls, and I could see the practiced skill in his movements. Altair shouted something, and everyone in the jump building ducked into brace-for-impact stances as the high-pitched hum of electricity faded into a low  wub-wub-wub and the light faded, plunging the entire island into darkness.

"ALTAIR!" I screamed, throwing my voice across the divide like a javelin.

He tugged the goggles from his eyes. And even though he was diffuse and physically distant, I saw him clearly. Saw the knife in his heart twist as his black eyes flared with recognition. Saw my lips move as he called my name.

Then Altair's brow furrowed in anguish, and there  was an apology in his eyes. His hand moved to a switch, and he determinedly flicked it on.

"Hesper, I love you," Altair gasped. Then he clawed his goggles back up over his eyes, and dove to the floor to evade the shotgun blast of sudden brilliance.

Parts of the jump building ceiling began to  rain down like lethal hail as an immense tearing sound rent the air. The world was cracking, crumbling, collapsing around them, my Altair was dying...

I was flung backward. There was space and trees and nothing, and suddenly I was snapping back into myself like an elastic band, gasping for air amid the aged pines.

The mist had disappeared completely. A cold, clear wind blew over the mountain's spine, bringing the scent of brine from the harbors. I reached out for Ynys Afallach, but there was nothing.

"No," I begged, but it was already over.

My eyes adjusted to the dark light, and only then did I see the bundle on the trail in front of me. Just a lump of a thing, no larger than a sack of oranges. Furry oranges.  Oh, god...

Bastian lay still and silent before me.

I sobbed and gathered the cat to me. He was cold and stiff — already long gone by whatever cause indeterminacy had chosen to mortar up the cracks Ynys Afallach's disappearance had left.

Altair was gone right out of existence. At first my stunned mind rebelled — I could still remember him, couldn't I? — but then I remembered it was only thanks to the grace of the eos, however long as that remained in my system.

I was the soil the roots were torn out of. I was empty, inside-out. All I could do was scream and clutch the poor dead cat, wondering the fuck I couldn't have died along with him. Along with Altair. Along with all of them.

That was how they found me.

* * *

#  Chapter Eighteen

Madness

I pretend to be more out of it than I am. This helps them, I find. They're  calmer that way , more willing to let me alone instead of prodding me with their barbarian spears, their words, words, words...

There are no words to express this. If there were, they were lost in that beautiful, torqued library tower I so loved, which must have been crushed to ash and earth and infinity. I saw the masonry crumbling — not of the buildings, but that of Ynys Afallach itself. It's gone. Along with him.

"Polaris, polaris, polaris," I chant under my breath, disgusted with myself, and they have no idea what it means. Maybe that's the word I seek. Maybe that's all the explanation I can ever give.

My mother is talking with the doctor. They think I can't hear them, that I'm too out of it. They're emboldened by my emptiness.

"Do you really think that's wise?" my mother is asking. She's talking about the notebook on my lap, the place where I've been writing, sketching, pouring out everything I can remember before the eos is gone from me and my brain drains of purpose. I can't be bothered to hide it from them, because there's too much to do. Too much to say, to remember.

Some things are already gone. I can't know what they are, but I feel the hollows they leave in my mind like pockmarks in sand. Like gums without teeth. Lethe will rise up and even efface those residual sensations someday, so I must preserve, archive, catalogue for later. For when these memories are from someone else's life.

The shrink thinks the notebook is good for me, and tells my mother so yet again. He thinks it will help me sort out reality from my twisted fantasy.  I think he's full of shit, but I'm in no position to be picking my allies.

I've tried staying rational, but that only makes them more upset,  more convinced that my delusion is like some abstract facehugger, blinding me to the truth — that there never was an Ynys Afallach, an Altair. That I made it all up while high on bath salts or heroin or morning glory seeds. Or whatever today's theory is. The tox screen hasn't come back, so suggestions are still running rampant.

I try to explain quantum superposition, dimensional interaction, how things can be entwined and yet separate. How Ynys Afallach was here and then not, and how they couldn't possibly be expected to see changes in the fabric of reality, since they can't have the same parallax view the eos has provided me. They tell me my delusions are grandiose and tenaciously self-reinforcing, which is how I've found myself having destroyed my made-up society by effacing them from the entire knowable universe.

Which is it? I ask them. Death, or did he really never exist?

They say it's up to me to decide that. How can they prove it?

How can  I ?

One of the boys in the junior shrink brigade looks at me with hungry eyes. Not for me, but for what I am: a complete meta mashup headcase. He likes hearing about Ynys Afallach because he sees himself writing some  paper about me that might get him into a conference someday and prove his prowess by tearing me down to my guts.

He can take my guts — they're not me. I'm already gone.

~

My roommate's a screamer. She's a trashy little brunette named Brandi, maybe nineteen or twenty years, all bent  out of shape because her significantly older boyfriend went back to his wife again. She cut her wrists, but the wrong way, and gleefully shows me the bandages at every opportunity. She says she's just here to put on a good show, but I can see the glint of something unhinged in her eyes.

Brandi settles back on her bed, cheerful after the latest round of medication. She plays hard to get, and always relents just before they decide to run for the needle. It's difficult to say for sure who's training whom.

"I just love the feeling of someone else's fingers down my throat, don't you?" Brandi asks me with a leering grin.

I focus on my scribbling. She's still just amped up over the adrenaline of the scuffle, but she'll settle down in another few minutes. She likes the drugs, so she'll be tolerable for the rest of the evening once they kick in and she's back to being blissed out.

Brandi gets up and pads over to me, stands behind my shoulder to look at the book. I'm drawing his eyes again, as I always do when my exhausted mind is too tired to hold onto more complex concepts. I draw them crinkled and smiling. I thought at first it might be an abomination committing this secret moment of  his to paper , but then I remembered that if I don't mark it down somewhere, file it someplace outside my own mind, I'll forget. As with the others, this set of eyes are good, but they're never quite right.

"Cock star again, huh?" Brandi asks sympathetically as she gazes at the page.

Evidently I talked to Altair in my sleep when I first got here. Brandi likes to bring this up because she feels like it gives her some measure of control over me. I don't react too much, even when she gets so graphic that I want to throttle her with her stupid mouse-colored ponytails, because I know it's a trust thing for her. She pushes people away, but she can't reject the apathetic. She's a kitten, and I'm a ball of string, just disintegrating one loop at a time — might as well let her play with my innards as I go.

I scratch away at his eyes with the black pen, laying the ink until the wet page threatens to sag into nothingness. Still not dark enough.

Brandi's hair rustles as she shakes her head. "I don't know how you stay so calm. It  sicks me out." She wanders back to her bed and tosses herself down, waiting for the come-up. "Least you have a decent excuse to go with it, though.'

But I almost had so much more than a decent excuse — I had a life. I had a love. Unseen to Brandi, I crumple up in the middle like a soda can, and don't breathe deeply again until my own meds have kicked in, until the urge to cry is past.

~

My mother comes to visit. Cara and Jackson will be back up again soon, but for now it's just her, all stylish in her spring finest. She finally won that lawsuit with Dad, which means not only is she trying to dress up for the staff to put on as much of a show as Brandi, but she knows his insurance will be covering me for at least another six months, as per their settlement. She's happy enough for my "breakdown" so long as it reaps rewards like these.

Mom prattles on about Cara and Jackson's northward move, and Zack's promotion — and, of course, the lawsuit. She squeezes my knee, trying to be reassuring. "So you stay here just as long as you need to."

I'm torn. Part of me wants to go running out in the world, trying to find any last traces of him, but I know it'd be in vain. Those doors are closed, the pathways silent. There's nothing I can do from here — that's why he brought me back. If he ever really existed, of course.

It's probably best for me to stay here, though, where the screams and cries throughout the night remind me I'm not alone, that pain on whatever level is universal. Better that than the silences, when I can still hear him singing to me, calling me, and knowing which methods I would employ to try and follow.

Mom insists there never was an Altair, that the A-frame has stood unused for years. Maybe he was right, maybe I should've told her about him sooner. Maybe then there'd at least be some hope of her believing me. Instead, she focuses on what she can understand.

"Stan's still upset," my mother says, brushing invisible lint from her skirt. She says this to remind me that in their version of things, I killed Bastian. That I throttled him with my bare hands. They say I didn't want to do it — that it was part of the particularly fierce stranglehold this delusion has on my mind — but I know Mom still has trouble believing deep down that I haven't done any of this on purpose.

"I'm sorry," I say woodenly. I don't mean the words because I don't know what to believe, but they provide her the space to be forgiving, which is what she needs. She brightens.

By the end of our visit, my mother's laying it on thick. "Is there anything I can get for you?" she asks before the locked,  passcard-protected door that leads into the next section and, from there, to the lobby and outside.

I can practically hear the nurses' hearts melting. After about a decade's gap, Mom's gotten herself back into contention for mother of the year. If I was feeling more energetic, I'd probably give her a round of applause.

I shake my head and let her give me a hug before she scoots out into shallower waters. What a foolish question. What I need can't be given or gotten or found, it's just lost.

~

I have to consider the possibility that I am insane.

Days stretch away into days, and nothing changes. I get older. Between the meds and the constant attempts to drag me into the world of the living, the memories become fainter.

As part of my therapy, they make me say goodbye to Altair. I'm supposed to wish him well on his journey — a sort of conceit to my bullheadedness, I think — and release him back into the world.

It's a single word. Two syllables.  Goodbye .

I say it easily, quickly, because I'm sure it means nothing. Then the betrayal takes root in my core, and the tears surge back. I thought I was done with crying, but there it comes again. I sob until I'm too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

I dream of him. He's sleeping beside me, and I pull him awake because he's so real, and I have to have him. I know it's a dream because of how everything around us is eerie and amorphous, but as the walls of the cabin warp and buckle, he stays solid against me, inside me, and I come apart in his arms.

"I'm coming to find you," he tells me as he fades, and I know it's a dream because his eyes are wrong — they're someone else's, brown and not that soul-crushing black. Or the eyes from my sketchbook, not quite right. It's difficult to say.

I cry again after I awaken. But now I know where Altair lives: in my own head. Things start to become fuzzy, and time pushes me onward.

~

Cara and Jackson have finally arrived, and I'm still here. Maybe I'll be able to leave in another couple of weeks, but things haven't been fully settled yet, and the doctors have said it isn't wise for me to move back into the Rockport house.  For a myriad of reasons , my mother is inclined to agree.

"I feel bad you guys came back here because of me," I tell Cara. She's never actually admitted this is what prompted their return, but once they made up their minds, they moved with conspicuous alacrity.

She waves a hand, blowing me off. "The  economy's started picking back up, so we should be able to get work at one of the yards this summer. Just think, it'll be camping and canoeing aplenty!"

"Wish I could live at the A-frame," I muse without thinking.

Cara and Jackson both immediately stiffen. Ah yes, here comes the panic. They've both been very understanding about this whole debacle, but I know Jackson's close cousin died from a drug overdose, and some of his paranoia's worn off on Cara. She feels like she let me down by moving away, and won't listen despite my many protestations to the contrary.

"Correction: I wish I could live on a lake this summer," I say to make them feel better. "Jeez, I go crazy and you guys lose your sense of humor, where's the fun in that?"

There's more than just my morbid reference at work here. Jackson and Cara are having some kind of war of wills, and they don't break away from their mad staring contest until Jackson slumps in aggravation and defeat.

Cara surreptitiously pulls her phone from her pocket. Visitors aren't supposed to show patients anything that could disrupt their therapy, but I'm certainly not  going to complain . Jackson stands casually over us, reluctantly blocking us with his body to appease Cara.

"We went walking out by the lake the other day," Cara says as she cues something up. A video, by the looks of it. I might actually have hope for what it holds if Cara's expression wasn't so apologetic. "We wanted to see if we could help find out anything you'd been doing out there." Her eyes  dart up to meet mine. "I hope that's cool."

I shrug. The woods don't belong to me — even if I apparently belonged to them for a couple of weeks.

Cara presses play on the video. The A-frame is standing at the edge of the lake, as always, but there's something very wrong about this image. Part of a nearby tree has broken off and plowed down through the  A-frame's roof, stabbing clean through from one side to another.

"Ho lee shit," Jackson's tinny voice says on the recording.

They muck around the building, investigating the extent of the injuries. It's going to be a total loss, I know just from looking at it.

"Your mother said they're tearing it down soon, before you get out of here," Cara says quietly. "She isn't telling you because of everything, but I thought you should know."

I swallow — but painfully, because my mouth is suddenly dry. "Yeah, I figured," I rasp eventually. "Knew there was something to the radio silence from her end."

Cara holds out her phone so I can see the video better. The platform he built is gone — of course. It never existed in the first place. The  motheaten postcards are stuck on the A-frame's now-splintered walls exactly as I remember from my childhood, while the  mildewing deck chairs hide in a corner. The  woodstove is rusty and has a broken front window, and the entire place is filled with cobwebs.

This is exactly how it has always looked — sans the shattered roof, of course. No sign of habitation for years. This is it. I have to believe my own eyes.

Then I see the thing lying against the far wall.

It's just a little flash of glass and green. Something that I'd know anywhere, that I've drawn a hundred different ways in my notebook, almost as many times as I drew his eyes. A vial of eos.

I grab the phone out of Cara's hands and back it up by a couple of seconds. She's alarmed by the movement, and Jackson almost interferes, but then I hand the phone back to her with a sheepish expression. "Sorry, just a reflection on the screen. Really freaked me out for a second."

Cara nods, not entirely convinced at first as she clutches her phone to her shoulder, but I ply her with mindless conversation and she relaxes. By the time she and Jackson leave, I have a reasonable hope they've forgotten the whole thing.

~

I go back to my room after they've gone and pretend to read, but my mind is ablaze. There wasn't  enough time to get a real look at the thing, not without alerting Cara and Jackson, so all I have is a quick impression. It might be that my mind's playing tricks on me, that it really was just a flash of light off the phone's face, which I somehow transformed into what I wanted to see. It could be that, even through these talking sessions and pills and guilt over how my mental weakness, my selfishness has affected others, the delirium pervades.

Maybe even I saw it because of that — because I'm so damn stubborn that my brain will see exactly what it wants and no different.

I know I'm probably a fool for doing it, but I cheek the nightly dose of sedatives. I've been a good girl for long enough that the nurses don't bother to double-check me as I head off to get ready for bed, and as I settle down my nerves thrill with excitement, even though I know I'm waiting for something that will never come. Cannot come.

I stare out the window between the intermittent bed checks, looking around the building and along the side of the road that leads into town, but I don't see a single pedestrian. Certainly no one that could be mistaken for a tall, dark-haired man with eyes like the night sky.

I try to be vigilant, but I know when sleep is taking me. Too many days and nights of softness, of living in this cushioned place, have worn me threadbare. I drift into darkness in time to Brandi's measured snores.

~

I awaken in the labyrinth. The brambles are low again, but the stone desk is chill underneath my bare legs, and as I look out over the cliff, I can see the sky peeling away in giant puzzle pieces, drifting down to land in the thunderous ocean with the collision of massive drums. It's another lucid dream, one so real that when I see the ghastly light pouring through that hole in the sky, I have to resist screaming at the moon for all it took from me.

"Hesper."

His voice comes from my left, at the far end of the alcove, but I can't turn. I can't bear to see whatever lonely avatar my subconscious has dreamed up to replace this void that gnaws at me whenever I think of him.

"Hesper, look at me."

It isn't fair for his voice to cajole me like this, both sweet and insistent as he always is. Always was. Never was.

"Fuck off," I distinctly tell the thing wearing his voice. I want to tear it apart for puppeting him through my mind like some sick doll.

"Shan't," it replies in his indignant tone.

There's the sound of footsteps — it's coming toward me. I  hop off the desk and  turn to run, but there are hands on my waist spinning me sharply around and then his lips are pressed to mine, and I  taste his clear, sweet flavor of parchment and earth.

He takes my face in his hands and holds me away so I'll look at him. And it's really him — it's Altair, he of tall, dark and foxy with his brilliant black eyes burning into me and those fjordlike creases beside them that I can never quite capture, no matter how many times I try to draw them.

I throw my arms around Altair's neck and he holds me so close against him, his face buried in my hair. I kiss his neck, his scruffy jaw, his angular cheekbones, his lips — oh, god, his lips! I could live and die in this moment and have had a full life. Nothing else in my existence will ever equal this.

Then I remember... this is a nightmare.

As if in response, something about Altair de-rezzes for a moment, and he lags like a computer with a slow connection.

"No," I sob, trying to back away. "I can't dream about you. You're not real."

Altair  restabilizes and buries his hands in the hair at the nape of my neck, and the pain focuses me on him entirely. I'm anchored in that dark gaze — furious at him, relieved, terrified, but tethered again.

"I  am real," Altair insists. "And you're not dreaming. Well, not entirely."

"Then what is this?" I ask warily.

Our surroundings flicker, and somehow we're in the forest with the lantern fungi again and the pattering rain.

He grins in delight, and looks all around in wonder. "I'm inside your mind."

"What?"

"The eos — the particles are quantumly entangled," Altair explains quickly, and his eyes return to mine, glowing with excitement and triumph. "Moura and I redesigned the neural reader and I'm hijacked right into your brain on that energy — the residual eos in your system."

I press my face into his chest, feeling the reassuring thump of his heart against my cheek. "I thought you were dead. Or imaginary. I'm so angry at you."

"I know, and you've every right to be," Altair thrums through his chest. Then his hand is on my chin, lifting my gaze to meet his, and I see how unbelievably tired he is, the grief lining his face. "But I couldn't risk losing you. Not again."

"Who?" I ask him, seeing his deeper meaning and dreading the answer.

"Graffias and Tiresias," Altair tells me heavily.

Graffias is not a surprise, not from the way I saw him crumple in the jump building. But Tiresias is a terrible blow, and I sob in shock. The Ynys Afallach will never be the same. Poor Moura must be devastated — they were such good friends.

Altair's arms tighten around my waist, and I nuzzle into his neck, desperate to feel all of him I possibly can while this fleeting moment lasts. Another piece of the sky tears itself away and floats down like a sheet metal parachute, deafening as it lands in the ocean.

"Are you safe?" I ask, bidding myself not to cry. Whatever this is, it will only last a while. I can't spoil it.

He nods. "There was a lot of damage, but Ynys Afallach is stable now, as far as we can tell. The island's quite different — even stranger, if you can believe it." He cups my face again, and caresses my cheek with his thumb. His eyes are wild with longing. "Darling, it's time to bring you home."

Words freeze to glaciers in my throat. He feels so real, so wonderfully solid against me, but his edges keep blurring, as does the world around me. Am I just deluding myself with more fantasies — now even in my sleep? Maybe this is all because I didn't take the sedative, I almost regret that now, taunted with these visions...

Altair peers at me. "How is everything there? Have there been changes?"

We're suddenly at the A-frame, as I saw it in Cara's video today. Altair gapes as he regards the limb stabbed through the wooden structure, peers inside to see how it's all reverted.

"Fascinating," he mutters, and then his attention's back on me again as the image shudders and the ground shakes. "Where are you? At your mother's house? Moura says there's something interfering — she's trying to isolate it, but it seems to be on your end."

There's a flicker as our surroundings momentarily change to something I'd rather not see, and we're back to the platform-less, broken A-frame.

But Altair knows. He takes my shoulders, brow creasing in worry. "Show me."

Then, abruptly, we're there in the facility, in the room that says  Hesper & Brandi on the door in the too-cheerful letters. I'm standing next to Altair, but another part of me's sitting in  the chair by the window, silently staring out at the snowy field and the rural road that sweeps past.

He stares around aghast, realizing where I am, and takes me in his arms, beside himself with horror.

It's too much to see him in this place, and I push thoughts of the facility away. Suddenly we're back in Ynys Afallach on the rim of the world, and things are as they were the first time I saw the city, tranquil and lovely in its permanent dusk.

Altair's hand is on the back of my neck and he guides my head, pressing his lips to mine as he desperately seeks me. "I'm so sorry," he mutters. "Please forgive me."

I want to be angry at him, but he's too wonderful to behold and I'm too lost without him. "They told me that I had some drug-fueled meltdown and you're all in my head."

"Please tell me you don't believe that," he beseeches me, and his arms are around me again, his scent filling my nose. "I'm right here with you, Hesper, I promise."

I wrap my arms around him, too, and laugh to keep myself from crying. "I think this is what they call a tenaciously self-reinforcing delusion. And right now I don't even care if you are."

"I'm not. I swear to you I'm not." Altair's tongue invades my mouth and I open myself to him, welcoming him as he takes charge of me. He makes me want to succumb. But he pulls away too soon, and his eyes are violent with emotion. "Hesper, I'm coming to get you. Where are you?"

I tell him the address. It's in a town about forty minutes from Camden.

"Get out if you can and meet me at the intersection down the street at six o'clock tomorrow evening," Altair commands. He saw the place — as I do daily — through my window. "The fuel station — that's where I'll be waiting. It might be our only chance."

I've never really given any serious thought to escaping. With Altair gone completely out of the world, it  didn't matter if I was here or there. "And if I can't get out?"

His eyes narrow, and challenge glints in his gaze. "If you aren't in my arms by six-oh-five, I'm coming in to fetch you."

Despite the world slowly decaying around us, despite the hellish silver-blue moonlight and the strange hedges that ebb and flow in the air like kelp, we kiss, and a violet-and-tangerine fire wreaths the sky, charring the wan heavens back to life.

I feel the dream-world dissolving, cracking like an egg and tearing us apart again. But this time, I know I'll see him again soon.

"Hesper, come back to me," Altair calls, his black eyes ablaze as the ground splits beneath  our feet and we're sundered one last time.

~

I wake from the dream with a shout, and despite the overwhelming oppression of these circumstances, everything rational telling me to forget this obstinate insanity... I know immediately what I have to do.

* * *

#  Chapter Nineteen

Indescribable

When I finally put my mind to it, escaping the facility isn't really that difficult at all.

I enlist Brandi's help to swipe a nurse's passkey. She's only too happy to oblige, as she finds the idea of me causing some serious shit to be really amusing. The fact that it gets her that close encounter with one of the learning docs she's been drooling over for the past few days is just gravy.

Then it's Brandi's turn to slip into the staff locker room and pick up a spare pair of civvies for me while I distract Hungry Eyes med student with tales of Ynys Afallach. I make up a bunch of bullshit and watch him nodding, active listening as he scrawls on a pad. It amuses me to lie to him because, unlike some, he can't write and think at the same time.

Once we're done with the passkey we surreptitiously drop it by the nurse's station again while their  backs are turned with some run of the mill brouhaha. They won't guess we ever had it.

I hide the clothes under a corner of my mattress and anxiously bide my time until visiting hours draw to a close at four-thirty. This will be my only chance.

I slip out of the room between two families, my hair braided back so hopefully I won't be as easily recognized as the lank-locked girl who's been brooding here for the past few weeks. The forward group is laughing, and I smile along with them as we  clear the first nurses' station beyond the door. Then it's through the second ward, and as the two groups pause at the front to sign back out, I walk smoothly out the door.

I'm afraid I'm going to hear someone shouting behind me as I quickly skirt the lighted parking lot. This can't be the kind of place that endures many escape attempts, because I make it safely to the road and cross into the woods on the far side without incident.

It's unfamiliar ground, but I'm at home in the trees, skirting through the shadows and the increasingly chill wind. I lose track of time, the chemicals still dogging my senses, dulling my reflexes. My legs have grown weaker already, and as the fluorescent lights start to knife through the treeline ahead, I'm panting for breath, my forehead slick with sweat, my knees  trembling with exertion. It hasn't even been that far — perhaps a mile — but the slightly uneven terrain has almost kicked my ass.

I lurch out of the shadows behind the gas station, startling some poor bastard who's around back taking a whizz on the building, apparently too desperate to wait to use the restroom inside. I have to force myself not to gasp with nervous laughter. I don't want to attract any more attention than I must.

There are a group of scurrilous-looking people that could be my own age around the other side of the gas station. I lean against the outer wall near them, trying to look like just another jackass slacker. It won't be long until my absence has been noted, and this is entirely too close to the facility for comfort.

I mosey around the front of the building and peer through the window to check the clock behind the counter. It's five fifty-three.

There's a wretched crawling in my gut, and I  start to question myself again. What if, as they've been telling me, I made all this up? If those drawings are, indeed, mine — if this isn't just the feeling of cosmic indeterminacy exacting its terrible will on me, but if I'm fundamentally flawed, slave to my own disconsolate imaginings?

Do I even care anymore?

Cars dart into the gas stop like minnows, stopping long enough to fill up and scurry on their way. My companions outside the store move along, no doubt in search of warmer haunts, and I'm left dangerously exposed to scrutiny. I don't even know where Altair might be coming from. The woods behind me? The street? I shove my hands into the pockets of the maroon hoodie Brandi stole for me, but the gasoline-scented breeze  knifes at me regardless.

Two police cruisers scream up out of nowhere and round the corner toward the facility. My heart stutters in my chest, and I take another desperate glance at the convenience store's clock. Six-oh-two.

I look up the road at the facility's hulking form. The building is spattered with the cruisers' neon blue lights, but it's more distracting than illuminating. Shit, what's happening back there?

Then I hear his voice, and it's the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Hesper!"

I spin around to look at the pump island. There he is standing beside a humble black sedan with studded snow tires. He's improbably dressed again in a black leather jacket, white t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, but it's Altair all right, and he grins as he sees me and sprints forward.

We barrel into each other in the slushy parking lot, almost falling to the ground with the force of our collision, and Altair nearly breaks my spine because his arms are around me so tight. He's laughing in my ear, his beautiful chuckle that makes me hold on even tighter, afraid to let him go for a single second.

"I told you I'd tear open the universe to find you," he murmurs, and as he cradles my head against his chest and I breathe him in, I realize I'm finally home again. That everything will be  alright .

"I love you," I gasp, and he laughs again, overjoyed for both of us.

We kiss quickly, desperately, and then he tugs the passenger open and indicates it with a jerk of his head and a lopsided grin. "Let's go."

~

It doesn't take a genius to realize the car is stolen — there's papers and junk piled high in the back, but it runs, and that's all that matters. Altair slides his lanky form into the driver's seat and gets us moving as I steal a final, worried glance back at the facility. The cruisers have moved now, and it won't be long until they start sniffing further afield.

We pass out of sight and head away north, toward Rockport. It takes a few minutes for it to really sink in that I'm safe, and I realize after a few minutes that neither one of us has said anything since we got in the car. He's watching me, though, stealing occasional glances at the road.

"Still can't believe I'm real?" His voice is low and gentle, only half-teasing.

"Not entirely." I sigh. He frowns sharply and I clarify: "My head's still pretty woozy, I'm having trouble thinking anything's real."

"The eos will clean all that out of your system, but I'll have to wait until we get closer to give you the shot." Altair's scowl deepens, and he checks the temperature of my forehead with his wrist. "I should never have left you."

"No, you shouldn't have," I agree quietly. I'm relieved enough, safe enough that the anger seeps to the surface for a minute — but it quickly dissipates. "But I shouldn't have left you, either."

"No, you shouldn't have," Altair says with a sage nod. His eyes take me in, from my unruly hair down to the uncomfortable sneakers that belong to someone with slightly smaller feet than mine, and even in the seat of the car I feel wobbly.

"What?" I murmur as his eyes click home on mine again.

Altair shakes his head, smiles a little. "I'm thinking about what I'm going to do to you when I get you back home."

"Sounds promising," I manage wanly.

He laughs. "Not like that, you insatiable woman. I'm going to fix you something to eat, because you look dreadful. Then I'm going to put you in the shower, dry your hair, and put you to bed."

I purse my lips and pretend to glare at him. "That had better not be  all you want to do with me."

He growls as he laughs, and from the dangerous flash in his eyes, I know it isn't.

I kiss the back of his hand and press it to my cheek as I gaze at him. I don't want to tell him how terrifying it was to think he'd never been here beside me, that any world could be complete without his presence, but I know he feels my fear because his hand becomes like an iron cage on mine.

The red thread is still looped around his wrist — dingier now, faded from wear, but I can see my own knots holding for a while longer. I touch it gently, and not for the last time wish we were in Ynys Afallach already. "How is everyone?"

"Coping." There's a sudden set to Altair's jaw, and I know he's thinking about Graffias.

I thread both of my hands around his. "I'm so sorry."

He nods, the grief overshadowing his joy for a moment. "They're deeply missed. Carys is working on their portraits already, and repairing the others." He pauses, and then says in a softer voice, "I wish you  could've known him before. How I hoped he could be again."

"Me, too."

Altair hits the clutch and I release him to let him shift, but he pulls my hand along, keeping my fingers laced between his.

"Don't," he says softly. "I keep coming so close to losing you."

I hold on.

The smoldering energy that is us crackles in the enclosed space of the sedan, but we don't speak, too many words ahead to start giving voice to them just yet.

~

We leave the car in the Barrett's Cove parking lot and walk across the deserted street to the Maiden's Cliff trail head. I'm still feeling bleary from the antipsychotics, but clarity bleeds back in the sting of the needle and the familiar thrumming of the eos in my veins.

Altair retakes my hand, and we begin our climb.

It's a difficult journey upward. My legs burn within the first few hundred feet, and the only thing that keeps me moving upward is the reassuring grip of his fingers and his occasional radiant glance.

I think of the cabin. The overlook. The library. Carys and Noel. Roderick. The forest and the cliffs and the hidden desert plains. All the things that are calling us back there. There's so little time left, I know it from the tension in his body as we hurry along.

We begin to hear the sirens when we're halfway up to the top, and they spot us. They think they know what we're going to do, but they can't see the molten silhouettes shivering in the sky over Megunticook Lake. They don't know we're not planning the unthinkable, but the impossible.

I have to stop to catch my breath at a plateau in the trail. Altair checks his gear-faced compass and keeps watch on the moving silhouettes below, the emergency workers sprinting up the trail after us. As soon as he senses I'm ready he tugs my arm, and we're off again, our feet flying over the gnarled roots and jagged stones.

We're at the overlook sooner than I'm expecting, and the land falls away before us down a boulder-and-pine infested slope that's been curiously covered by a diffuse, flowing sea.

Altair stares down at it in confusion — realizing, as I do, that it isn't Ynys Afallach spread before us but a vast beach that stands between the water and a temperate jungle.

"I don't understand," Altair yells over the sudden wind. "It was right here, this was where I crossed!"

Not wind — bright lights flood us, and a chopper suddenly swings into view before us. An angry voice blares over a loudspeaker, but the reverberations are too great for me to pick out individual words.

We're being hemmed in. Herded. Ynys Afallach is gone, and we have nowhere left to run.

Altair pulls me to him, trying to shield my face from the whirling grit. I know he's baffled to see the vista spread below the cliff, but it's all too familiar to me. It used to strike such a thrall of fear in me, but now it brings a sudden hope.

"We have to jump," I shout into Altair's ear.

He pulls back far enough to stare at me in shock. "What?"

I point to the mirage, which seems to ripple as air blasts down on it from the helicopter's rotor. "If Ynys Afallach is gone, we have to go find it. Come with me."

"But how can you know where we're going?" he demands. I can see him measuring the side of the cliff, realizing, as I know, that if we don't jump far enough out, we could smash into the incline and  die of internal injuries over the  course of several  agonizing days.

"I've been there before," I call in his ear over the blaring helicopter. "If they capture us here they'll tear us apart, and without the eos we'll never have this chance again. I can't live without you, Altair. I think... I think this might be a stepping stone. And as long as we're together, maybe we can find our way back."

I can see that he knows what this place is, and he's apprehensive. But he can read my face, and I can see he, too, thinks this is our best shot. Our only shot for someday making our way home.

Altair cups my face in his hands, his eyes stark in the searchlights as he gazes into me, penetrating me to my core. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I reply, and our lips collide in a final, clumsy, desperate kiss.

Then they're bursting out of the trail behind us, and we're running pell - mell toward the edge of the cliff together and jumping out as far as we can, our hands clasped tight as we fall into oblivion.

* * *

#  Chapter Zero

The beach

I wake up in his arms. Who he is, I can't say, but he has a handsome, angular face, dark chestnut hair that's dusted with the sand, and his arm is flung protectively around my waist.

His lashes flutter as I stir, and he opens his eyes to reveal the most shocking pair of jet black eyes I've ever seen. His gaze hits me like a blow, and my heart thumps in a syncopated response.

"Hello," he says in a pleasant low tenor, and smiles to see me.

"Hi," I say back, fervently wishing I could remember who he was. His accent and mine are different, but I feel as though I know him.

We stand and brush the sand from our clothes — and it seems very natural to help each other. I run my fingers lightly over his brown vest and the pale linen shirt, while his hands smoothly skim my shoulders. He pauses a moment as he touches my reddish-brown hair, turning a lock of it over in his fingers and frowning as though he can't remember something.

"Are you all right?" I ask.

His frown deepens. "I think so." His dark eyes meet mine again, and I think he sees something in me because they flare a little.

The hulking skeleton of a ship lies offshore, battered by teal breakers. Ahead of us, beyond dunes at the top of the beach, there's some kind of rainforest, and I can see mountain peaks emerging from the grey mist.

My eye falls on a piece of large wrack nearby with a word on it, which I say aloud. "Tempest."

My companion turns to look, and nods his agreement. "I suppose that must've been the ship we were on. I'm sorry, I can't quite recall — can you?"

I shake my head, abashed at my ignorance. "Sorry."

Suddenly a tremendous rumbling shakes the earth from far onshore, and the ocean lurches a little in its basin. We both turn to see what might be making the sound, but there's nothing readily apparent. I'm unnerved but curious, and wonder what could possibly make such a din. My leather boots seem well-suited for hiking through a jungle, even if this pale dress isn't.

My fingers are surprisingly warm, and I look down to find he's put his hand over mine. Or I've put mine in his — it's hard to say, since we both look equally surprised to find ourselves touching like this.

"Do you perhaps want to stick together?" he asks me, and his breath catches strangely, as if worried I might say no.

I nod and grin, and the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles back at me.

* * *

#  About the  A uthor

Elegy Goldsmith is an award-winning fantasy, science fiction and horror writer.  Eos is her first novel.

Visit Elegy at  elegygoldsmith.com for news, updates, and more.
  1. Eos EPUB
  2. EOS
  3. Elegy Goldsmith
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Prologue
  6. Two months earlier
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Zero
  27. About the Author

