Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky #2)(62)

Perry forced himself not to break eye contact with her. He couldn’t blame her for knowing what she did. She was like him. It was the way they took in people. Down to the core of their emotions. Down to their deepest truths.

“You have a strong bond with Marron and Reef,” she continued, “but your relationship with one is harder on you than the other.”

True again. Marron was a mentor, and a peer. But sometimes Reef seemed more like a father—a connection that had never felt easy.

“Then there’s Cinder,” she said. “You’re not rendered to him, as far as I can tell, but there’s something powerful between you.” She paused, waiting for him to comment, and continued when he didn’t. “What’s really interesting is your temper around women. You’re obviously—”

Perry gave a choked laugh. “All right, that’s enough. You can stop now. What about you, Kirra?”

“What about me?” She sounded calm, but a vibrant green scent reached him, shimmering with anxiety.

“For two days you’ve been trying to draw me in, but today you’re not.”

“I’d still try to draw you in if I thought I stood a chance.” She said it plainly, no apology. “Anyway, I’m sorry about what you’re going through.”

He knew he was being baited, but he couldn’t help himself. “What I’m going through?”

She shrugged. “Being betrayed by your best friend.”

Perry stared at her. She thought Aria and Roar were together? He shook his head. “No. You heard wrong. They’re just friends, Kirra. They both had to go north.”

“Oh … I guess I just assumed, since they’re both Auds, and they left without telling you. Sorry. Forget I said anything.” She looked up at the sky. “That’s looking bad.” She stood, brushing off sand from her hands. “Come on. We should head out.”

As they rode back to the compound, Perry couldn’t block out the images.

Roar lifting Aria into a hug that first day, at his house.

Roar standing at the top of the beach, joking after Perry had been kissing Aria. That was killing me too, Per.

A joke. It had to have been a joke.

Aria and Roar singing in the cookhouse the night of the Aether storm. Singing perfectly, like they’d done it a thousand times before.

Perry shook his head. He knew how Aria felt toward him—and how she felt toward Roar. When they were together, he scented the difference.

Kirra had done this to him on purpose. She’d planted the idea to throw him into doubt, but Aria hadn’t betrayed him. She wouldn’t do that, and neither would Roar. That wasn’t why she had left.

He didn’t want to think about the real reason why. He’d pushed it back, where he’d kept the thought for weeks, but it wouldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t let him go.

Aria had left because she’d been poisoned. She had left because there—in his home, right under his nose—she’d almost been killed. She had left because he’d promised to protect her, and he hadn’t. That was why.

Because he’d failed her.





30



ARIA


It’s called a Smarteye,” Aria said, holding the device in her trembling hands. She sat at the dining table with Sable, a steady rain pattering outside on the stone balcony. Night was falling, and she heard the Snake River, swollen with rainwater, rushing far below.

“I’ve heard of them,” Sable said.

Aria remembered the look in his eyes from the last time they’d sat at that table. He’d snatched her wrist then. He’d hurt her with no hesitation.

Liv sat in silence beside him, her face emotionless. At the far end of the room, Roar looked calm, leaning against the wall, but his gaze moved from Sable to the guards by the door, calculating and intense.

Aria swallowed, her throat tight and dry. “I’ll contact Consul Hess now.”

She’d never felt more self-conscious as she applied the device. Even the guards by the door stared at her. At least Sable had sent the scraggly gossipmonger away.

When she fractioned, she appeared in Hess’s office again. He stood by the wall of windows behind his desk. Like before, she saw the even levels of the Panop and felt the same twist of homesickness.

“Yes?” he said impatiently.

“I’m here with Sable.”

“I know where you are,” Hess said, his irritation plain.

“I mean he’s here,” she said. “Sable is in front of me right now.”

Hess came around his desk, suddenly focused. Alert. She continued. “He knows where the Still Blue is, but he needs transportation. He says he’s open to a trade.”

Aria heard herself speaking, the sound of her own voice oddly far away. In the real, she felt the wooden back of the chair pressed against her spine, the sensation dull and distant. She was in Sable’s dining room and Hess’s office, but everything felt unreal. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Sable offered to negotiate?”

Aria shook her head. “No. It was my idea. I took a guess at what he needed, and I know what we have.” She’d seen the hangar lined with Hovercraft months ago in Reverie, the day she’d been left on the outside. “I followed a hunch,” she said. “I had to—and I was right.”