The Blue Woods (17 page)

His arms came tight around me. “I love you too,” he murmured into my hair. I twined my legs through his, bringing him closer, close enough that I could feel how much he wanted me. I tilted upward and kissed him long and slow.

“Do you have something?” I asked into his mouth.

He pulled away and kissed my forehead, the arch of my brow, my cheek. “No,” he said softly, “but that's not why we're not going to make love tonight.”

I jerked back, but he cradled me closer. Now I was the one being held like I was the most precious creature on earth. As I looked into his eyes, their green glow so warm on my face, I realized that to him, I was. Everything squeezed tight inside me, my veins overflowing with love. “It's okay,” I said. “I want to.”

“I do, too,” he said, his voice strangled. “God, I do.” He dipped his head and smothered my face and neck with kisses. His hands gripped me tight and I could feel him tremble, like there was an earthquake inside him that he couldn't contain.

“Then why not?”

He held my gaze for a long minute. “Because I don't deserve you. Not yet.”

I laid my hand on his cheek. “I'm not a saint either, Jonah. We're both human. We've both made mistakes.”

Jonah reached up and took my hand, weaving our fingers together. “I've made significantly more mistakes than you have, Alessia.” Still, always, the way he said my name sent ripples through me. “When I've done enough good things to make up for those, then I'll be worthy of you.”

I breathed in deep, the smell of sawdust mingled with Jonah's scent of pine and spice. “Okay,” I whispered, and drew him down so that we lay tangled together, his head on my chest. My heart cracked beneath his cheek, like a tiny fracture in a blown-glass ball. “Okay,” I said again, and waited for the dawn—both outside and within—to come.

A Trip to the Other Side of the World

Bree

I had to hand it to the
Concilio Celeste
; they'd invested their money wisely. So wisely, in fact, that Nerina was able to charter a private jet to take us to Tibet.

I'd been on my fair share of private jets. The Guild had flown us on their company jet many times. It really was true that once you go first class—or private—you never go back. I secretly thanked the
Concilio
's accountant that we weren't flying coach to Lhasa.

“Adamo, Magdalena, and Cecilia are meeting us there,” Nerina said as the plane lifted into the air.

“Sounds like the cast of
Mob Wives
,” I said.

Nerina pointed sharply at my face. “I don't want to hear any of your sarcasm when we are with the
Concilio
.”

“But I can't help it,” I said. “It's just who I am.”

“Well, you'd better hope they're so impressed with your abilities that they overlook it.” Nerina pulled a bag stuffed with files onto the seat next to her and rifled through it.

“Are they all as old as you?”

“No. Magdalena is the youngest. She's a little over two hundred years old. Cecilia is about a hundred years younger than me. Adamo is older than me—he's over five hundred.”

“Tell me again why the rest of the
Concilio
isn't showing up to take a site we've never had control of.”

Nerina peered out the window into the black night. “It's too risky to leave the sites we do control without
Concilio
backup. With only half of
Concilio Argento
in Tibet, we should be evenly matched.”

“And then there's me against the Rabbit,” I muttered. I guessed everyone was counting on me to be able to deal with him on my own. But I'd gone up against the Rabbit twice and won only once.

Nerina opened one of the files she'd pulled from her bag and tilted her seat back. “Try to get some sleep, Bree. Once we get to Lhasa, things will move very fast.”

One thing I'd learned in the last several years of crisscrossing the globe was how to sleep anytime, anywhere. I reclined my seat until it was nearly flat and pulled one of the soft, fluffy blankets over me. The whoosh and hum of the engine beneath me was like an old familiar lullaby. I fell asleep quickly, but my overactive mind kept me only barely below the surface, jumbled images twisting themselves into vivid dreams.

It felt like only a moment had passed when a jolt and a long shudder woke me. I rose up on one elbow. Artificial orange light flooded into the plane. “We're in Vancouver to refuel,” Nerina said, glancing up from the file she was reading. It was a different file than the one she'd been looking at when we'd left Bangor; there was a small stack of them next to her. “We still have a long way to go.”

“Shouldn't you get some sleep too?”

Nerina ran her hand through her long, snaky hair. “I couldn't sleep if I wanted to.”

“Well, we have no idea what we're up against in Tibet,” I said. “That's enough to keep anyone awake.”

The cabin door opened, and the pilot walked in. “We'll be taking off in just a few minutes, ma'am,” he said and headed into the cockpit.

Nerina narrowed her gaze in the direction the pilot had gone. “Did he just call me
ma'am
? That hurts.”

I laughed and snuggled down into my blanket. I tried to close my eyes as we taxied then sped down the runway and lifted back into the air. But there wouldn't be any more sleep for me on this flight. At last I sighed and sat back up.

“It's not just Tibet,” Nerina said. I looked over at her. She stared out the window, watching the dark clouds shift over the wings of the plane. “That's not the only thing that's keeping me awake.”

It didn't take a genius to know what—or whom—she was talking about. “Heath.”

She nodded, still not looking at me. “We, ah,
reconnected
last night.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “You don't need to use euphemisms with me.” I sat forward in my seat. “So while we were all blissfully asleep, you two were doing it in the living room?”

“Must you be so crass, Bree?” Nerina rubbed her temples. “It was wrong. We can't go down that path again. It will only end in heartbreak. The
Concilio
. . .”

“Screw the
Concilio
.” I pounded my fist against the side of my seat. “This is totally unfair of them.”

“No, it is not. They are trying to save me from the consequences. As they have saved me so many times before.” She spoke the last sentence almost to herself. I raised my eyebrows. She faced me. “I would do anything for the
Concilio,
Bree. You have no idea what I owe them.
No idea.
”

I would've gone another round with the Rabbit to find out exactly what she owed them, but I stayed silent.

“And yet . . . how can they ask me to live for the rest of eternity without love? Even if it is only for a brief moment in my long immortal life, don't I deserve to have the kind of soul-shattering love that we all dream of?” She turned her head to the window again. A tiny tear glinted in the corner of her eye. “I am made from two halves. One that would do anything for her family. And one that only wants to love Heath. I have become so used to these two sides of me that I cannot imagine living one without the other.”

I understood her better than she knew, maybe even better than she understood herself. It wasn't just the
Concilio
that kept her from Heath. It was the fear of what came after. After that one moment was over and Heath was long gone and she was still alive forever. I knew that because, minus the immortality, it was the same thing that kept me from making friends at any of the schools we'd gone to over the last seven years, from having a real boyfriend. The same reason I knew I'd never do more than flirt with Cal. Sooner or later, everyone leaves. Especially me.

Still, if it were me, I'd tell the
Concilio
to go screw themselves and have fun while it lasted with Heath.

The descent into Lhasa was rocky. I tried not to look at the jagged mountaintops just outside the window or notice how ridiculously tiny the airstrip looked. At last we hit the ground with a bump that nearly knocked me out of my seat. I followed Nerina off the plane and through the throng of tourists in the airport. A group of Patagonia-clad Everest wannabes clustered near the entrance. I wondered how many of them would actually summit, and how many would die trying.

Once out of the airport, Nerina headed straight for two wrinkled old men who stood next to a couple of rickety mopeds. “Ah, Nerina!” they cried, greeting her first with little bows and then big hugs.

“This is Jintao and Quinglin,” Nerina told me. “They'll be our Sherpas up to the temple. Their two families have been friends of the Clan here for generations. Climb on.”

I eyed the moped she gestured to with trepidation. I was all for thrill-seeking, but the thing looked like it was going to fall apart two miles up the road. “Isn't the Temple at the site controlled by the Malandanti?”

“The Benandanti Clan has another temple not far from the Temple site that they use as their home base.” Nerina secured her bag in the little luggage compartment on the back of the moped and settled herself on the seat behind Quinglin. I stored my own bag away and, taking a deep breath, swung my leg over the moped. If I'd been Alessia, I probably would've crossed myself.

“You ready?” Jintao asked me. I nodded and tightened my arms around his waist. He stepped on the throttle and the moped roared to life. We zipped away from the airport and into the mountains.

After a little while, I began to forget that I was on the back of a deathmobile and take in the sheer magnificence of my surroundings. Mountains rose up on either side of the twisty road, their peaks so high I had to crane my neck back to see the top. Fat clouds drifted across the blue sky, which seemed so close I had only to stretch my arm up to touch it. And the air . . . I hadn't really gotten to enjoy how fresh it was when I'd shadow-walked here. The taste of copper and water, of all the elements mixed into one, was strong medicine on my tongue. “The air here is amazing!” I shouted into Jintao's ear.

“For now!” he shouted back. “It will not be long before the Chinese pollute this part of the world, too.”

I watched a herd of yaks graze on the bright green grass in the valley below us and could totally imagine a cluster of stinking, Malandanti-constructed smokestacks billowing filth into the clear air. Well, that was what we were here to stop.

The road narrowed into barely more than a hiking trail and wound its way up into the mountains. The moped tires kicked up clods of dirt and pebbles, and Jintao gunned the engine to get us up the mountainside. As we rounded a steep ridge, a little cluster of gray buildings loomed into view. They were built right into the cliff, almost as if nature, and not man, had put them there. “Is that it?” I yelled over the whine of the moped's engine.

Jintao nodded. Now we began to descend toward the compound, the backside of the moped swinging back and forth on the steep path. I clung to Jintao and whooped as he floored it for the last few hundred yards and skidded to a stop at the entrance.

Nerina popped off the moped in front of us. Somehow, her hair still looked perfect. I could only imagine what mine looked like. I grabbed my bag and followed Jintao in through the wide wooden doors.

We emerged into a small courtyard with a well in the center of it. Prayer flags of every color crisscrossed the courtyard and danced in the constant wind. The walls surrounding us were carved with images of animals: yaks, snow leopards, and then more fantastical ones like a phoenix, a dragon, and a griffin. Quinglin whistled and people poured out from every doorway leading off the courtyard. Tibetan men, women, and children, their hands filled with flowers and bowls of fruit, chattered in Tibetan as they approached. They were all dressed simply, but they looked happy and well fed. Like somehow these walls had kept the Chinese oppression out.

“These are the families of the Tibetan Clan,” Nerina said to me as we were handed flowers and fruit and embraced like long-lost relatives. “They live here together.”

“So that whole secret-identity thing doesn't exist here?” I asked, bowing to a smiling woman as she pressed apples into my already loaded hands.

“The rules here have always been a little different,” Nerina admitted, “because this site has never been under our control. Just as Friuli is different.”

A fact I'm sure everyone just forgot to share with the rest of the Clans. Wait until Alessia heard about this.

Three decidedly non-Tibetan people came out into the courtyard from the main entrance. “Ah!” Nerina cried. She shoved her offerings into the arms of the closest person and galloped over to them. I watched her embrace each one. “Bree, come!” she called to me.

Jintao took my gifts, and I walked over to meet the
Concilio
. A squiggle of nerves shot through me. Sure, they were immortal, but I was the most powerful mage they'd had in centuries. That was worth something too. I raised my chin.