“Luc.” Luc watched as the man lit his pipe. Whatever he was smoking had a clean, floral smell. Definitely not tobacco. “I’m from San Francisco.”
Rhys returned to his chair. “Don’t know it. Don’t know much about Humana, actually.”
“Humana?”
“The human world. I can smell it on you.” Rhys chuckled.
Human world. Luc’s heart squeezed up in his chest. “Where am I?” Luc asked.
Rhys moved the goggles to the top of his head and Luc could see both his eyes now. They weren’t just cloudy; they were totally white from edge to edge.
He was blind?
Luc passed his hand quickly in front of Rhys’s face. Rhys scowled.
“I may not be able to see what you’re doing, boy, but I can feel it. I can smell it, too.”
Heat climbed up Luc’s neck. “S-sorry,” he stammered.
Rhys waved dismissively with his pipe and motioned for Luc to sit. There was a bright red settee also crammed into the space—it reminded Luc of something Karen’s parents might have in one of their formal rooms. Karen. Jesus. Was it possible that only last night, he’d been at Karen’s party?
When would he wake up from this nightmare?
Luc suddenly felt unsteady on his feet. He sat down heavily.
“To answer your first question—” Rhys stopped and directed his eyes at Luc. “I assume you have more than one question, correct?”
Luc nodded, then remembered Rhys couldn’t see him. He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
Rhys continued without missing a beat. “This is the aptly named Land of the Two Suns. Not terribly original, but then the Figures aren’t known for being overly clever.”
“Figures?”
“That your next question, then?”
“I guess.”
“The Figures,” Rhys said, “are what we call—”
Mags squawked suddenly, so loudly that Luc jumped, heart in his throat. Rhys cocked his head to the side as though listening—much the way his bird did. “Ah, we have a patient to tend to. Come on, then.” He pulled down his goggles and moved as briskly as possible past Luc, holding open the tent flap to permit Mags to swoop through it. A few seconds later, the vibration of the engine ceased and the boat stopped its lurching movement. As Luc pushed back into the blazing light, his head hurt.
Rhys leaned over the side of the boat. He was talking to someone, but Luc couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Luc advanced closer to the edge of the boat. All he saw was darkness.
Then, as he watched, the water shifted. A black hand—insubstantial, translucent—extended out of the water. Luc stumbled back a step. Mags began clucking.
Rhys pulled out a vial from his jacket and removed the cork. Now a face—was it a face? Luc could just make out shadowed contours that looked like eyes and a mouth—had surfaced as well. The mouth, an even deeper dark than the rest of the thing, opened; Rhys poured the contents of the vial into it. When the vial was empty, Rhys tucked it back into his pocket and the thing disappeared back under the surface.
Luc’s heart was pounding. Questions spun in his head, but he couldn’t make enough sense out of what he saw to form a coherent thought.
“Where was I?” Rhys rose to his feet, wiping his hands on the back of his pants, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
“What—what was that thing?” Luc finally stammered.
Rhys tilted his head, looking alarmingly like the bird that perched on his shoulder. “That? That was a Figment, boy.”
“A what?” Luc was getting tired of trying to decode so many unfamiliar words. Blood Nymphs. Figments. His head ached.
“A long time ago, everything and everybody had two shadows, on account of the suns.” Rhys moved to the rowing mechanism and made a couple of adjustments. The vibration started in the floor; the oars began churning in and out of the water again. The raft lurched forward.
“The Figures and the Figments lived together just fine. Then one day, the suns changed orbit and the Figments grew longer, stronger. The Figures got all sorts of nervous and waged war on them.” Rhys’s strange accent flowed like thick honey. “Eventually, the Figures drove the Figments here, to the Ocean of Shadows. The dark keeps them contained, but they want out. Naturally.”
“Figments,” Luc said slowly. “You mean, like, shadows?”
Rhys shrugged and spat. “They been called different things.”
Luc remembered the feel of thousands of hands on him, pulling at his clothes, touching his skin. He’d thought he was hallucinating—but really he’d been feeling the touch of thousands of Figments.
He leaned over the boat and blinked hard. He scanned the ocean in disbelief. His head felt light, as if his skull were slowly filling up with helium. This isn’t real, he told himself. But it was. There were thousands of shadows writhing their way to the surface, and the darkness below him extended to the horizon. He saw that shadows clung to the oars each time they broke the surface. The Figments stretched like rubber bands, until it looked like they would snap, before retreating into the blackness. He wondered where his own shadows were, and whether they were safe. And whether it mattered.
“Will they ever escape?” he asked Rhys.
“Suppose so. When the Figures remember, anyway.” His voice had suddenly changed. It was quieter, filled with longing. He squinted toward the shore, and Luc could have sworn that—despite his blindness—he was staring off into the distance.
“Remember what?” Luc asked.
Rhys’s lips curled into a small smile. “You don’t know, do ya? No matter, we all get there in time. Don’t look at me. I ain’t gonna tell you—I’m just a Healer. Trapped out here, the shadows start to lose it. They blend. Forget who they are, forget what they were. I’ve developed a tincture that’ll help them remember until the right time comes. It’s the balance of the universe, boy, the light and dark, the earth and the sea.”
Luc didn’t know what Rhys was trying to say, but he didn’t want to press it, either. More riddles. And riddles weren’t going to help him find Jas.
“Is there a Forest of Blood around here?” he asked, and then felt his cheeks heat up. He couldn’t believe any of this—it was crazy.
Rhys shook his head slowly. “Don’t know that I’ve ever heard of it. Why?”
“I’m looking for my sister.” Luc sucked in a deep breath, then blurted out, “I met a woman on the beach. She said—she warned me my sister was in trouble.”
Rhys turned away from Luc and spat again. Then he swung around and abruptly jabbed a finger at Luc’s chest. “This will lead you on the straight and narrow.” Then he pointed at Luc’s forehead. “This will lead you to the logical, which isn’t always the best truth, if you know what I mean.”
Luc didn’t know what Rhys meant. Mags made a sound, almost like a snort. Anger and helplessness built in Luc’s chest, like hot oil welling there. He didn’t know any more than he had when he’d been pulled onto the raft. Judging by the way the suns had moved across the sky—both looming directly overhead, side by side—time was passing quickly. As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, he moved the shaggy black hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. Christ, it was hot.
“The universe is a tricky place,” Rhys said, seeming to sense Luc’s growing frustration. “The roads don’t always go where they’re supposed to. But I might have a map that can help you find a gateway.”
“A gateway?”
“An entry point to the Crossroad. Boy, don’t give me that look like I’m crazy.” Luc wondered again how a blind man could see the things he did. He sat silently, waiting for Rhys to continue. “I suspect you’ve come and gone through the Crossroad already, so you’ll need to find an entry point. But the map is back on shore, so let’s make our way there. …”