She worked for him. In his office.
Adult nephilim remained in the community, under the Rule that governed every aspect of their lives, that brought them closer to their un-Fal en perfection, that unified and defined them. The younger ones lived in the dorms as proctors. A few qualified as teachers at the school. Most graduates, however, went to work in the settlement’s glassworks factory. Rockhaven Glass had been in operation for a hundred and thirty years, providing exquisite stained and textured art glass for designers al over the world and a steady income for the nephilim.
Lacking any other skil s, Lara had expected to put her business education to work in the distribution center. But Simon had found a place for her in his own office. She’d always liked to imagine that the headmaster took a special interest in her, in her future.
“I can look after him and stil do my job.”
“You are mistaken,” Simon said with icy calm. “From now on, you cannot see him, cannot speak to him, cannot visit him, is that clear?”
A direct order this time, Lara thought dul y. He was taking no chances on her disobeying him again.
“Until I can trust your judgment, you cannot work for me,”
Simon continued. “Tomorrow morning, report to the raptor house. For the time being, you may assist Keeper Moon.”
Crazy Moon, the mews mistress, who preferred her injured birds to people.
Lara’s hands shook. Her throat constricted. “You’re banishing me to the birdcages?”
“By your own actions, you have endangered the community we are sworn to preserve. You leave me no choice.”
“But I’m wasted in the mews. At least. ” She floundered for a compromise that would leave her pride intact.
“Send me to the glassworks.”
“You are not an artist.”
“No,” Lara admitted. Maybe once she’d dreamed. But she wasn’t Gifted like the rest of her kind with an artist’s creativity. She couldn’t sing or play, spin or weave, paint or draw. She had a head for figures and a knack for organization. That was al.
“Your chemistry marks were never high enough to consider you for the lab side,” Simon continued with dispassionate brutality. “You have neither the strength nor the training that might qualify you for the furnace.”
His assessment was no more than she expected. Maybe what she deserved. But she winced, al the same.
“I can stil answer phones. Track orders. I’ve got computer skil s. ”
“I think. Something quieter. More contemplative,”
Simon said. “The Rule cal s us to self-knowledge and obedience. You have proven yourself sadly lacking in both.
This is an opportunity for you to reflect on your true place in the community.”
Her true place? she wondered bitterly. Reporting to Misfit Moon? Cleaning up bird shit?
Her eyes stung. Her heart burned. Al the reflection in the world wouldn’t make her see this as an opportunity.
This was punishment.
She blinked, her gaze flitting to the bed. The worst part was, she wasn’t the only one suffering for her insubordination. Justin was being punished, too.
The chil, smal room pressed in on them. She and Simon stood face-to-face, toe-to-toe, like fighters, like lovers. She raised her chin again, a gesture of defiance. She had never defied him before.
Another first, she thought, trembling with exhaustion and daring. It was a night for them.
“Can I at least say good-bye?”
Simon’s eyes flickered. “He won’t hear you.”
“Then it shouldn’t matter to you. But it does to me.”
His face was cool and impervious as marble. “As you wish.”
A tiny victory. She would make the most of it.
She approached the bunk. Even spel bound and unconscious, Justin looked messy and attractive and vibrantly, painful y alive. She knelt beside his bed like a girl at prayer, hands in front, resting on the rough wool of his blanket.
Awareness traced down her spine like a bead of perspiration. She looked over her shoulder. Simon stood in the center of the room, his eyes gleaming silver in the mage fire.
“Do you mind?” she asked pointedly.
His jaw set. “Not at al,” he said politely and turned his back.
Taking a deep breath, she leaned over Justin’s pil ow and pressed her lips to his. Her hands fumbled in her skirt.
Her heart drummed wildly in her chest, in her ears. She held the kiss as long as she dared, wil ing her breath into him.
Her right hand slid from her pocket and thrust under his mattress. He never moved.
She sighed. “Al right. I’m ready.”
She pushed to her feet. Simon was waiting. Head bowed, eyes lowered, she walked past him, leaving her smal defiance behind.
Along with Justin’s dive knife, a lump under his mattress.
6
H e wa s s h a k en. C h a n g e d. S h e h a d c h a n g e d him. Lara’s kiss— soft lips, warm breath, her life, her strength, in him—had ripped through him with the force of a tornado, churning him to the depths. He floundered in a sea of memory and desire, at the mercy of his dreams, a plaything of the waves, a prisoner of his own mind.
He wanted.
He needed.
His world was ended, everything lost, drowned, submerged beneath the waves. He had to find.
“Find what?” A man’s voice, deep and penetrating, dragged him back to his body, to his splitting head and the flat, hard cot. “What are you looking for?”
He disliked the voice instinctively. An impression surfaced, too fleeting to be cal ed a memory, of a large hard man wearing black and a sneer. No name.
“Who are you?” the voice asked.
The question pried at his brain like an oyster knife, slipping through his weakened defenses, threatening to rip him open, to plunder the soft gray flesh inside. Pain speared his head. His throat burned. He recoiled in self-defense, retreating deeper, down, down, through levels of pain.
But the voice pursued him. “Where are you from?”
The sea.
Al his memories began with the sea, warm and sunlit, gray and storm cast, the clear cold salt dark.
A sense of loss swept over him, leaving him parched and alone with his pain. Too much pain. He couldn’t find his way through it, he could not think, he could not remember.
Why couldn’t he remember?
God, he was thirsty.
“Would you like some water?” A woman.
For a moment his heart leaped, buoyed by her memory.
Her arm around his shoulders. Her breath, mingling with his. Her mouth, warm, moist, sweet.
But she wasn’t the one. He knew it before she touched him, before he surfaced to see the dark, worried face bending over him. She smel ed wrong, like rubbing alcohol instead of like dawn, fresh and ful of possibilities.
“I’ll be back, ” she had promised.
But she did not come again.
“Where. ” he croaked.
Is she?
“Ssh. Drink this.” A straw poked his lips.
He closed his mouth grateful y on the plastic, holding the water careful y in his mouth before letting it trickle down to soothe his throat. Only as the flat taste lingered on his tongue did he realize it was drugged.
Time stretched, passed, hours — days? — measured by F o r g o t t e n s e a 69
the rasp of his breathing and the sound of footsteps and the coming and going of the silver light.
And the questions, always the questions, pursuing him into the dark.