Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(62)

“So let’s say she is alive. How are we going to find her?”

And if we do, neither of us said, does she have our mother? And could she give her back to us?

We stalled out there every time, islanded in a sea of questions. If Mara existed, how, and where to find her? Maybe Natalija—Naisha—knew, but she had disappeared—why? And Sorai too might know, but why hadn’t she come back for us after that single glimpse of herself she’d let me have? Why had she given me back that stolen memory, like a note pressed into my palm, and then melted back into nowhere instead of approaching us?

Finally I flung the light covers off me, my limbs so heavy with fatigue that they almost felt light, like a magician’s trick.

“Lina, I have to go,” I said, pacing the length of the room. “I have to walk. There’s something, I almost have it, it’s that perfume Ko?tana made for Mama. My mind keeps snagging on it, and I don’t know why. I’ll think better if I’m walking.”

She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes, like a little girl. “Then I’ll come with you.”

“You’re tired. And you don’t think better on your feet like I do.”

“You’re tired, too. And I don’t want to be alone. Please?” She peered up at me, fists still balled against her cheekbones. “Let me come? Or stay with me?”

“I can’t.” She closed her eyes so slowly, like shutters lowering, and I steeled myself against the pain of abandoning her like this, of how selfish I was being. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Just try to sleep.”

“I know why you’re really going, Riss. I can feel it.” She shifted, covers and mattress rustling like husks beneath her, until her back was turned to me. I nearly winced at the venom in her voice, so unusual from her. “I wish you’d at least try not to lie to me, you know?”

I stood in the darkness for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, listening to her ragged breathing and trying to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t be a lie. When I couldn’t, I climbed out the window before I could say anything worse.

Outside, I leaned against the side of the house, stones still warm from the day breathing their heat into my back. My phone screen glowed overbright, like an artifact from the future that had no place in my hands.

Are you awake? I typed, my fingers trembling. I’d seen him just the night before, and I couldn’t understand why I felt this way, so desperate and fretful. Like I would sooner collapse from his absence than beneath the weight of everything I’d learned tonight.

The response chimed in seconds, only three snaps of my wristband in. Of course.

I snorted a laugh, a wave of relief washing over me. He was there. I would see him soon. Why? It’s so late.

Waiting for a rare specimen of the Night-Blooming Iris. I’m told the color and the scent are second to none.

My cheeks rushed with blood. That was cheesier than expected. Not saying I don’t like it, exactly. Just an observation.

I’d like to see you say that to my face, flower girl.

What’s my prize if I do?

Anything you like. More of a promise than a prize, really.

I leaned my head back against the stones and took a long, openmouthed breath. The beach again, then. I’ll see you soon.

HE’D BROUGHT ME flowers and fairy lights. The flowers were clipped, stemless and strewn all across a fluffy red blanket, with battery-powered LED strings spooled around and through them. There were candles, too, along a broader perimeter, little tea lights that marked out the edges of our territory. An oasis on the dark beach.

I smiled at him as I eased myself cross-legged onto an edge of the blanket, the petals spotlighted in the glimmering, holiday light between us. I rubbed one between my fingers, silk on the topside, fuzzy velvet underneath. He smiled back, so wide and white, his face breathtaking with its Valhalla angles lit up from beneath. He was shirtless already, an amber pendant dangling from a leather cord around his neck, a tiny fossil suspended in it. I couldn’t quite tell what it was. A centipede caught midwriggle, maybe, something sectioned with too many legs.

“Did I miss something?” I said. “Is it our two-day anniversary, and me without a gift for you?”

“That’s five-day counting from when we met, and not to worry, we aren’t official,” he assured me, running his hand through his hair. It was already down, the spiraling silver earrings glinting from amid the blond, and I wanted to reach over and bury my hands in it with an almost feral desire, as if touch had become a need like breathing. “Though I did bring you something special to mark this nonoccasion.”

He twisted behind him—the muscles in his abdomen leaped at the swivel in the most interesting way—and turned back to me with his hand held out, a cupcake glistening with dark berries sitting incongruously small and dainty on his large palm.

“It’s a skyr cake, with blueberries,” he said at my bemused look, and for the first time he looked a shade uncertain. “A very small one, obviously. Usually they’re full-size, proper cakes. I thought you might like it; it doesn’t taste like anything you have here. We were speaking of flavors the other night, and your mother’s desserts . . . my mother always prepared this for my birthday. It tastes like home to me, more than anything else. The happiest of my home. So I thought I would make some for you, whisk you there with me for a moment.”