The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(116)

There was a pause, like we were all thinking about small James, hurt and kidnapped. And small Tobiah, unable to help his best friend.

“I started screaming around the gag.” Tobiah raked his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. “No one heard me over the horse hooves. There were birds chirping and everything was waking up—except for you. After an hour, maybe, they noticed us. We stopped and they took you off the horse. You were pale, bruised. But still limp. They said you were cold, except for the front where you’d been leaning against me. You didn’t have a pulse.”

Horror crawled over my skin.

“The general had his men throw your body over a cliff.”

I pressed my fists to my mouth, but I couldn’t look away from the boys, couldn’t stop listening as the story grew worse.

“What happened?” James spoke in a whisper, as though anything more would shatter the spell of memory. “Because I’m not dead.”

“A lot of that is a blur now. I know we changed horses. We stopped for a few hours so the soldiers could rest. I was in and out for most of that. The next thing I really remember is waking up in an office, and a girl freeing me from where I’d been tied to a chair.”

Tobiah’s eyes locked on mine, haunted and dark. “You showed me your magic,” he said. “And after my father’s people came to rescue me, I remembered it.”

“But I can’t”—I glanced at James—“bring things back to life. I tried once. There was a stillborn kitten when I was a girl. Nothing happened.”

“I know.” Tobiah swallowed hard and looked down. “Saints. I wish I could stop there.”

“I deserve to know,” said James.

Tobiah smoothed his hair down with both hands, and linked his fingers behind his neck. He let out a strained sigh. “Wil, do you remember the trip to the Indigo Kingdom?”

“Not really.” Was he about to tell me how I’d died, too? “Some of it, I guess. The way the wagon jumped over rocks. The other children crying. Trying to calm the babies. I don’t remember much until the orphanage.” I’d just seen my parents slaughtered in the courtyard, cut open by one of Tobiah’s rescuers. Everything after that was a wash of nausea and terror.

“The journey back to the Indigo Kingdom was slower.” Tobiah turned back to James. “I kept getting questions about you—whether you’d been with me. But I couldn’t answer. On the second night, when I was alone in my tent and wishing I didn’t have to tell your mother what happened. Or my own. Or anyone. I wished so hard that you were still with me, and then—”

Silence rang through the study as Tobiah caught his breath. He couldn’t even say it. So I did. “You wished so hard, and then he was there.”

Tobiah closed his eyes and hung his head. He seemed to deflate. “Yes.”

“You’re a flasher,” James whispered.

“Yes.” Tobiah crossed his arms, shoulders hunching. “You were just there. I wondered if I’d somehow transported your body from the cliff, but you weren’t scratched up or broken.”

A new James. He’d made a new James.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I went to find the only person I knew who might be able to help. The girl who could bring things to life, and make them do what she said. The animator.”

Me.

More voices sounded in the hall, some raised, but Oscar held them off. When it was quiet again, Tobiah continued.

“Wil, I sneaked through the camp to find you. You didn’t want to use magic, but I insisted it was an emergency. I was exhausted from using my power. That must have convinced you.” Tobiah licked his lips and looked at me like he was waiting for me to remember, but I couldn’t. I didn’t remember that at all. “You said you couldn’t wake the dead, so I wasn’t sure if it would work—whether I’d made something new or transported something to me—but I asked you to try anyway. You did. You said, ‘Wake up. Be Tobiah’s friend and cousin. He is the one who commands you.’ And that was it. You’d transferred control to me, just like that, and James was awake. Alive. After that, Wil, I took you back to the wagon and never saw you again. Not that I realized anyway.”

James spoke quietly. “I’m not real.”

“You are.” Tobiah’s attention snapped to James. “You are real. You’re my best friend. You always were.”

“No, he was. He was your best friend, that boy General Lien threw over the cliff. I—I don’t know what I am.” James surged to his feet, blinking rapidly. “Do I even make my own decisions, or do I do everything you say, like Wil’s notebooks or the cathedral? Am I any different from the wraith boy? Just a little more tame. More useful.”

“You’re my friend. My best friend.”

“No, I’m not.” James strode out the door without a backward glance.

Tobiah started after his cousin, one long stride and his hands curled like claws.

“Don’t.” I reached, but didn’t touch him. “Let him go.”

“I need to explain.” He faced me, looking desperate and haggard. Red rimmed his eyes.

“You’ve already said everything. Now let him absorb it.”

Tobiah dropped his gaze. “I never wanted to hurt him. I didn’t want him to feel like a replacement.”