Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(17)

“No one was hurt,” said Christopher.

“I believe she’s objecting to the possible, not the actual, which is something I can understand,” said Jack. “I spend a great deal of my time contending with the possible, and sometimes must reject ideas I was deeply infatuated with because they have the potential to do more harm than I care for. I’m sorry I frightened you. It wasn’t my intention. I won’t say I would have done anything any differently, because I barely had time to calibrate the lightning rod before the fact that I was touching it with bare fingers—bare fingers that technically belonged to someone else—overwhelmed me, and I passed out from the shock. Our escape was a narrow thing. I would have been my sister’s first meal in her new life had I remained where I was long enough to be taken, and so I can’t apologize for fleeing. Only for the consequences it carried.”

Cora paused, looking at Jack. She still didn’t quite understand why identical twins trading bodies was so upsetting. That didn’t change the fact that Jack was upset. Kade trusted her. Christopher trusted her. And Alexis trusted her, enough to stroke her hair and kiss her temples, even though Jack was currently in the body of the girl who had killed her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

Jack inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Appreciated. Your hair—are you a Drowned Girl, like Nadya? Did you visit … I’m sorry, I can’t pronounce it. The world with the Russian name and the fondness for turtles.”

“Belyyreka, the Drowned World,” said Cora. “No. I didn’t go there. I went to the Trenches. I’m a mermaid.”

“You’re extremely bipedal, for a mermaid,” said Jack.

“And Sumi is really talkative for a dead girl, but that doesn’t shut her up,” said Cora. “I’m a mermaid. I went into the water and I saw what I was always supposed to be, and I’m not giving that up because some stupid door decided I wasn’t sure enough.”

“Ah, surety,” said Jack. “Have you noticed that the doors come for us when we’re young enough to believe we know everything, and toss us out again as soon as we’re old enough to have doubts? I can’t decide whether it’s an infinite kindness or an incredible cruelty.” She looked at her hands, tugging the gloves more securely into place. “Perhaps it’s both. Many things exist in a state of patient paradox, waiting for some change of circumstance to tilt them one way or the other.”

“This is probably weird to say, given the circumstances, but I missed you,” said Christopher.

Jack flashed him a quick, oddly shy smile. “Well, things must have been quite dull in my absence. I doubt any of these gutless churls would know how to de-flesh a body.”

“No, that’s not a common skill among the rest of the current students,” agreed Christopher. He glanced at the door before asking, “So … Alexis, huh?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have an objection to my choice of partners?”

“Not at all! I mean, my true love is literally a skeleton, so I figure I don’t get to judge. People love who they love. I just never thought you were into…” He paused, waving his hands as he tried to finish his thought.

“Fat girls?” asked Cora, a dangerous note in her voice.

Christopher snorted. “Please. Anyone with skin seems fat to me, including myself. Once you have working musculature, you’re not my type.”

“Disturbing but accurate,” murmured Jack.

“I’m honestly more thrown by the ‘person with a physical body’ part,” continued Christopher. “I guess I sort of assumed that one day you’d reproduce by budding, or by digging up a bunch of dead things and stapling them together.”

“Alexis has been dead twice, and while she might be able to get pregnant via conventional means, neither science nor necromancy recommends she attempt to do so,” said Jack. “I, on the other hand, am capable of reproduction when inhabiting my proper body, but find the idea abhorrent. It’s a messy, dangerous process, and I want nothing to do with it. Should Alexis decide she wants to be a mother, I’ll construct her the child or children of her dreams, and I won’t use anything as primitive as a stapler.”

“Why does that sound romantic when you say it?” asked Cora.

Christopher laughed. “Fair enough, biology bows before you. I got it. She seems nice.”

“She’s more than I, in all my weakness, could possibly deserve,” said Jack. “She’s the moon that lights my way and the stars that steer my course, and I spent every day I was enrolled in this school sharing a room with the sister who killed her, who’d never been able to understand what it was for me to be in love. When I arrived home and saw Alexis standing by Dr. Bleak’s side, I felt…”

She stopped for a moment, throat working. Finally, in a soft voice, she said, “I felt like I’d been forgiven. I felt like I’d been rewarded for my willingness to stand against my sister, who I loved once—who I love still—with the restoration of the thing I cared for most in this or any other world. She’s everything to me, and the Moors are her home, and I’ll save them, for her. I won’t pretend there’s no selfishness here. I want my body back. Remaining in this one will surely drive me mad. But I’d accept that madness if not for the fact that Alexis would never forgive me for leaving her family behind.”