Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(20)

“I thought . . . never mind.”

“No, tell me,” I say.

She sighs, then smiles. “After what you’ve shared with me, I guess I don’t have the right to hide anything from you. I have seizures.”

She explains how a quirk in her brain makes her have seizures. “It’s kind of like a lightning storm in my brain. The neurons go crazy. The episodes usually aren’t too bad, and I can almost always feel them coming on. The world goes kinda . . . different. Floaty. I get a little dizzy. That’s why I thought I was going to have a seizure just now. The ground seemed to shift and I felt off-balance. Did you feel it?”

I shake my head. I think my heart is pounding too fast, too loud in my chest for me to notice any other sensation.

She smiles at me, and we walk on, still hand in hand.

When we finally reach my house, I almost don’t recognize it. I’ve always seen it from the inside. My only glimpse from the outside was when I was fleeing it, and I didn’t look back. It seems strangely staid after the opulence of the rest of the city. The gray stones look . . . natural.

The rest of the city is all artifice. Beautiful, bright, but not natural.

The sight of home, with its interlocked pattern of real stones, its muted mossy gray color, makes me homesick in anticipation. This is where I belong, I think. I can’t leave home! I can’t . . .

Lark lays a hand on my shoulder, distracting me. “You are so lucky to live here,” she says.

I know I am, but I ask, “Why?” expecting a conventional answer.

She surprises me. “I can’t imagine what a thrill it must be to live in the home of Aaron Al-Baz. Always wondered why there isn’t a plaque on the wall, commemorating it.”

I look at her blankly. “The creator of EcoPan lived here?”

“You didn’t know?”

I shake my head.

“My dad told me. He was the only one in Eden allowed to have a real stone house. Everything else is synthetic, but he insisted on keeping a connection to the Earth. Stones aren’t alive, people said, but he told them that stones are the Earth’s bones.”

I process for a moment, then say, “So I’m living inside a skeleton?”

She tilts her head and laughs. “An ossuary—a bone house!”

“Why don’t I know this?” I ask.

She shrugs. “We all have our secrets,” she says, and winks at me. “Are you going to be in trouble when you go in?”

I honestly have no idea what awaits me.

“Thanks for getting me back safely,” I tell her, thinking I should make some formal gesture: a bow, a handshake. “I really like you . . . I mean, meeting you . . .” I stammer.

“Can you sneak out tomorrow?” she blurts out.

“Of course,” I say without thinking. Will it be possible? After tonight’s escapade I doubt I can elude my parents again. Would I be brave enough? I look into Lark’s earnest eyes. Yes, I think I will be.

“Good,” Lark says. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow. Just after dark. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ash what you’ve been up to.” I asked her not to earlier. I’m still undecided about whether I want to tell Ash about sneaking out and meeting Lark. On balance, I don’t think I will. At least, not yet. I want this to stay mine. I don’t want to share.

She tilts her head to peer up at the wall around my courtyard. Her wisps of lilac hair fall away from her face. “Can you really climb that?” she asks, amazed.

Remembering how I had to fall the last few feet, I have my doubts. Nervously, I find a tiny handhold and grip, tensing my muscles to pull myself up.

“Hold on, silly,” Lark says as she catches my shoulder and gently wheels me around. “Aren’t you even going to say good-bye?”

Just say the word, I tell myself. But I can’t. She’s looking at me with a quirky smile, curled up at one side, down at the other. Good-bye feels tragic.

“Until tomorrow,” I say instead, and she laughs and hugs me.

“Until tomorrow,” she repeats, as if it is a magic spell.

Suddenly I want to impress Lark. She’s been the strong one, guiding me through the city, soothing my worries. Now I want to look strong and capable. While she’s watching, I leap onto the wall and with nothing but instinct find the perfect holds. Though they’re hardly more than hairline cracks, my fingertips and toes seem glued to the wall. Smoothly, hiding the effort under a veneer of pure grace, I ascend halfway up, then throw my head back to look down at her. It’s a reckless move, almost pitching me off balance . . . but isn’t that what this night is about? Throwing caution to the wind?

I’m gratified to see her look at me in open-mouthed amazement. Her lilac hair is almost glowing, a bright spot against the gray of my house. “Rowan, you’re . . . quite a surprise,” she says, almost too softly for me to hear.

Elated, I scale the rest of the wall without a single mishap. At the top I pause and look at her for a long moment. Then I swing my legs over the wall to continue the last few days of my prison sentence.

I’m prepared for anything. Mom weeping. Dad shouting. Everyone gone, searching for me. But to my surprise the house is quiet and dark. I creep inside, slip off my shoes, and pad silently to Mom and Dad’s bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. Peeking in, I can see their shapes as they sleep: Dad on his back on one side of the bed, Mom curled away from him at the far corner. Did they really not know I left, or did they just give up?