Bound (Bound Trilogy) (31 page)

“Half-sister, actually, and I don’t admit it unless I have to. I trust he’s been behaving himself?”

“Of course,” he said. “Don’t I always?”

Cassia rolled her eyes.

Aren, Cassia, and I sat by the fire for a few minutes, and I grew drowsy as the flames melted the chill from my bones. Kel paced between the fire and the water, and dunked his head into the water a few times, apparently listening for something.

Cassia shook her head at him. “We’d better get moving before he faints from the pressure,” she said. He glared at her, and she added, “It’s probably a good idea to get past the first changing before we really relax, anyway.”

“Changing?” I asked. Kel and Cassia smiled, and suddenly I saw the resemblance between them. I wondered if all of the mer folk looked that good.

“The tunnels,” Kel said.

“Interconnected caves,” Cassia added. “Enclosed subterranean pathways. That change.”

“I still don’t understand. I mean, I understand the caves part,” I added, before Cassia could explain that again, “but not the changing.”

“They’re different every time you go through them,” Aren explained. “No one ever sees them change, but it’s impossible to remember how you got anywhere because the route is different every time.”

“And you can’t follow anyone because the caves change behind them?”

“Exactly. It’s a brilliant way to keep something hidden, and the fastest way I know of to travel.”

“But how?”

“Magic,” Kel and Cassia said at the same time, and laughed.

“So you’ve been in these caves before?” I asked Aren.

“Of course he has,” Cassia said, “when he used to visit the Grotto. He
used
to be one of our favorite people.” She mock-glared at Aren, but she was still smiling.

When she winked at him, my stomach clenched. I forced myself to relax. She wasn’t being any more flirty than Kel had been with me, and that had meant nothing. Maybe it was just a mer thing. “So we’re going to the Grotto now?” I asked.

Cassia beamed. “We are. You’ll be safe with us, and very comfortable. Our hospitality would be legendary if it wasn’t such a well-kept secret. Shall we?”

We gathered our things, and Aren and I slipped our feet back into boots that made wet squishing noises when we walked. I pulled my blanket tighter. Walking around in nothing but what amounted to a large towel would be awkward, but it was better than being wet. I stuffed my wet clothes into my bag and hoisted it onto my shoulders.

Cassia led the way with the rest of us in single file, Cassia before me and Aren behind. He asked Kel what had changed the elders’ minds about letting him come.

“Nothing yet,” Kel said. “We’re bringing you in as a…” He hesitated, and Cassia glanced back at him.

“Seeker of political asylum?”

“That’ll do. It will be up to Mariana and Arnav to decide if you can stay. Best we could do.”

“I appreciate it,” Aren said. “I hope you don’t get in too much trouble for this.”

“Well, we all do stupid things for people we care about, don’t we?”

Aren ignored Kel’s question.

The walls seemed to glow with a dim, greenish light that made me think of dragon scales. It wasn’t bright enough to be good for much, but it kept us from bumping into the walls or each other. The tunnel soon opened into a wide space with three more corridors branching from it. They all looked the same to me, curving off into darkness.

“Left?” Kel asked, and Cassia shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter to me. One’s as good as another.”

“Wait,” I said, “you don’t know where we’re going?”

“No,” Cassia said. “It’s always changing, remember? For me and Kel it’s a case of all paths eventually leading toward home, but we’re not going there, unless you want to end up underwater again. We’ll pick a tunnel, find a guide, and see what happens. Left it is!”

She set off down the right-hand tunnel. Kel shook his head. “She’s as bad with directions as she is with names,” he told me, “but she’s actually quite brilliant, and she knows the caves better than I do. Just don’t tell her I said so.”

Very reassuring
, I thought, but followed Cassia. A few turns later we came to a place where orange light flickered against a wall ahead of us. Cassia turned and stepped through a round opening opposite it.

“Perfect!” she called, and leaned back out into the passage. “Come on in.”

The room was a rough oval shape with a flat floor and pitted stone walls. Another small fire burned beside the entrance, and a flat ledge with rounded edges protruded into the room, topped with a huge cushion.

“Rest area!” Cassia announced. “There’s food here somewhere, but I’m not sure what—” She pushed the lid off of a dusty crate and rummaged through the contents, leaning over so far that I had to look away.

“Someone hasn’t been keeping up with replenishing supplies. There’s water, though, and this.” She pulled out a small vial with a tiny, jeweled stopper, and held in her other hand what appeared to be a small, rock-hard bread bun. A drop of silvery liquid from the vial made the bun blossom into a fluffy, round loaf of bread. She held it out to me. “It’s not what I’d hoped for, but it will do.”

“It’s warm!” It felt like it had just come out of an oven, and the smell was sweet and buttery enough to make my mouth water.

Cassia looked confused. “Of course it is. You didn’t think we’d preserve stale food, did you? Anyway, you two can share that, we ate earlier. There’s a bed over there, blankets will be underneath. It’s warm in here, though, so I don’t think you’ll need those unless one of you will be sleeping on the floor.” That last part was almost a question, but neither of us answered. “Um… there should be another room off here with a hole in the floor for, you know. Oh, there. And I think that’s everything.”

“It’s amazing,” I said.

“It’ll do,” Kel replied. “Cass, we should go find a guide and let these people sleep.” Then, to us, “We’ll probably be a few hours. Try to get a bit of rest, if you can. I don’t know how much farther it’s going to be.” Cassia waved to us and followed him out.

The bread tasted as good as it smelled, even with nothing to put on it. “This is strange,” I said.

“Which part?” Aren lifted the big cushion and pulled out a blanket, which he spread over the top. I watched him, barely ashamed of how much I enjoyed the sight of him wearing nothing but the blanket wrapped around his hips. He spread his wet things out around the fire, and I did the same with mine.

“All of it. Underwater caves, changing tunnels, fresh bread in dusty boxes. Just all of it.”

“I suppose it is. There’s a lot I haven’t told you about. It’s good though, right?”

He turned back to me, and I dragged my gaze up to his face. “Very good,” I said, and he smiled. “And maybe you can actually sleep now. We’re probably as safe as we can get here, right?”

“I’m not tired,” he yawned, and lay down in the bed, nearly disappearing behind the edge of the mattress.

“Aren? That dream back at the cabin. Was that real?”

He rested his head on the edge of the bed. “Real as a dream can be, I suppose. Do you mean was I really there?” I nodded. “Then yes, it was real. I can change now, if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, not at all. I liked it.”

“Hmm.” He yawned again and moved out of sight.

I was exhausted, but couldn’t fight the curiosity that pulled me back to the crate in the corner. There was one set of clothes there, pants and a cream-colored shirt made of a fabric with a loose weave, too large for me or Aren. There was nothing else, no more magical vials or frozen-in-time foodstuffs. I pulled the lid closed and climbed into the bed. The sides were thicker than the middle, like a nest, and I rolled toward the middle when I lay down. I just had time to see that Aren was asleep as the fire shrank down to glowing embers.

He slowly rolled over to face me. The light was just bright enough that I could see his face, and his body above the waist. He’d left the blanket wrapped around him, but the thought of sleeping next to him like that made me warm all over. “I’m still awake,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes.

“No, you’re not.” He wrapped his other arm around my waist and pulled me close. His skin and hair still held the metallic smell of the lake water.

I wanted to remind myself that there was plenty of time, that we were safe now, but there were no guarantees of that. If the mer elders said he couldn’t stay, that would be the end of our safety, and then what would I do? I sighed.

His hand moved gently over my hip and rested on my thigh. We fell asleep tangled together, sharing our space and our air.

#

The fire flared to life as Aren climbed over me and sat on the edge of the bed, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

I reached out to touch his arm, and he pulled away. “Did you see that?” he asked. “Were you there?”

“No. Did you have a bad dream?”

He didn’t answer, but went through the passage into the toilet area. A minute later, Kel stepped into the room. Without sunlight I couldn’t tell how long it had been, or what time it was. It could have been midnight, dawn, or midmorning. It made little difference. I felt rested, and that was enough for me.

“Good morning,” he said, and I hurried to tighten my blanket around myself.

Aren stepped back into the room, appearing calmer. “Back already?”

“Actually, I was going to apologize for taking so long,” Kel said. “I hope that means you both slept well.”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Aren said, and stretched as I climbed out of bed.

Cassia appeared in the doorway. She and Kel were dressed in proper clothes, she in a simple, white dress and he in brown pants and shirt similar to what I’d found in the box. Something like a large, gray moth buzzed around Cassia’s head, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. “Good morning, Aren. Rowan.” She hesitated. “It is Rowan?” I nodded, and she seemed pleased. “I knew I’d get it. I found a dress for you, too, if you’d like it.”

The dress, like the other clothing, was huge, but the fabric pulled itself tight and fit itself to my body when I slipped it on. “Is everything here like this?” I asked, and Cassia laughed.

“Not all of it,” she said, and watched as Aren took his clothes back to the other room to dress. “These clothes are made by a woman in Tyrea. It’s an interesting gift, isn’t it?”

“It is.” I ran my hands over the fabric. It didn’t seem special now. Just a dress. “Is all of your clothing like this?”

“No, but we have plenty of options at the Grotto. We just leave these special ones where they might be needed most. We’ll send yours back here when you’re done with them. If we can find ‘here,’ right, Jasper?”

The moth thing buzzed closer, and I saw that it wasn’t an insect at all, but a tiny man with a round belly and long, thin limbs. The wings that fluttered on his back were the color of dust, and a thin layer of fuzz in the same shade covered his body. His disproportionately large, black eyes studied me, and then he grunted and buzzed back to sit on Cassia’s shoulder.

“Jasper’s a little ornery at the moment,” she explained. “He was sleeping.”

“Hibernating, actually,” Kel added. “Cave fairies like their sleep. He wouldn’t have wakened for anyone but Cassia.”

She turned her face toward the creature on her shoulder and smiled. “And we couldn’t do it without you, you know.” Jasper pinched her ear and turned red under his fuzz.

“The fairies know the caves well, and can find their way anywhere,” Cassia said as we stepped back into the tunnels.

Jasper rode most of the way, sitting on Cassia’s shoulder and making strange noises into her ear to tell her where to go, or sitting on her head and tugging on her hair to give directions. He didn’t seem to like anyone else speaking, so it was very much a silent trip.

The caves were like nothing I’d ever read about or imagined. We passed through one with a thundering waterfall, and later came to a place where massive, glowing crystals hung from the ceiling like chandeliers, and jutted out from the walls so that at times we had to turn sideways to squeeze past them. I was so mesmerized by a spectacular formation overhead that I didn’t realize I was walking into danger until Cassia grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side.

“Careful there,” she said. “We’re underground, but there’s still a whole lot more down under us.”

I looked down. A wide, black crevasse opened up in the floor next to my feet.

“Thank you,” I whispered through the lump in my throat.

“A bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” She gave me a reassuring smile and squeezed my arm. “Just be careful. We don’t want to lose you.” And just like that, she won me over again. Cassia was becoming nearly as confusing to me as Aren was. I gave up trying to figure her out and just followed her deeper underground.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rowan

J
asper let us stop to eat in a cave that reminded me of my aunt’s garden, but ten times as lush and beautiful. The space was bright, though without an identifiable source of light, and plants covered every surface except for a few paths, climbing the walls and dripping with fruits.

“I love this one!” Cassia exclaimed as she pulled an emerald-green gem of a cherry from a branch overhead and popped it into her mouth. I followed her example and tried several of the fruits that looked at least somewhat familiar. Some were sweet, some rich and savory, but everything was good.

Our stop wasn’t long enough for a proper rest, but our guide seemed eager to keep moving, and we had to leave the garden cave all too soon. We walked until we reached a flat, stone wall that stretched so high above our heads that the top was lost in darkness in spite of the glowing crystals surrounding us. Cassia thanked Jasper, who patted her cheek and buzzed away without even a glance at the rest of us.

“He’s not usually like that,” she said. “They just get really pissy when you wake them up.”

She and Kel each pressed a hand to the wall, and a doorway opened in front of us as the stone seemed to melt away.