Otherbound (30 page)

ow?” Cilla shouted. She gripped the bars of her cell. “Tell me
how!
”

“Maybe later,” Ruudde said. “Lorres, thank you for your assistance. You can leave Amara to me. Gacco, keep an eye on the girl. Remember: a single drop of blood …”

Nolan stared through Amara's eyes at Cilla in that cell.

“Got it.” Gacco adjusted his marshal helmet. Tufts of woolly hair spilled from underneath. He took a spot on the bench opposite Cilla's cell—

—they must've found Cilla at the harbor. Nolan wrote furiously in the new journal. Every word they said. Every name they mentioned. Every odd expression or look of surprise. He needed to stop himself from freaking out, and this was the only tried-and-true way he knew to do so.

So far, he'd confirmed two things: One, Ruudde hadn't wanted them to know the truth about Cilla. Two, Ruudde didn't want her harmed.

At least Cilla hadn't known she wasn't the princess. At least she hadn't lied to Amara. The how of faking the tattoo was
easy. Control of the palace meant control of its mages and ink. But why?

Nolan chewed his pen until the plastic cracked—

“—Amara?” Ruudde jerked his head. “Come.”

“I know you're working with Jorn!” Cilla shouted. “Tell me what's happening.”

“Just keep yourself alive while I talk to your friends, all right?”

Friends
. Plural.

Ruudde gripped Amara's neck the same way Gacco had done to Cilla and shoved her down the hall. Amara saw a flash of Lorres, mid-sign, then he was gone. She tried to keep up with Ruudde's pace even as Cilla shouted behind them. Though not tall, he took firm steps, directing her around the corner of the cell block. In this wing, the floor tiles smoothed, and the walls turned light, like a whole other world.

Leaving Cilla behind.

With his free hand, Ruudde opened the door to a room—a bedroom, it looked like, with an open bed instead of one recessed into the wall. Luxury guest quarters. They hadn't been used in a while. Dust covered the windowsills, cobwebs dangled from the corners, and cocoons clung to the far wall.

Ruudde shut and locked the door. He pulled the storm cover over the window just as Amara was calculating the distance between her and the glass.

“Kid, if you're thinking of escaping—don't. I can heal faster
than you, and you've never known the first thing about magic. So sit. Let's talk.” Ruudde dropped onto the unmade guest bed and motioned at the single chair in the room.

Amara took a step toward it but made no attempt to sit. “Cilla isn't the princess,” she said. Signing the words herself made them feel no more true.

The real Cilla had died in the coup, just as everyone thought. The Cilla Amara knew shouldn't even be using the name.

Which name, then?

“Nope. The girl you know is just a regular girl,” Ruudde said. “And it's not you I want to talk to, Amara. Sit the hell down.”

“You want to talk to …”

“To whoever's in there, yes.” Ruudde looked flatly across the room. “You'll only irritate me if you keep me waiting.”

Nolan felt Amara's hesitation, her questions; she wondered why he hadn't already taken over. Then she remembered—he wasn't supposed to unless she invited him.
It's all right
, she thought. The distaste that ran through her told Nolan it wasn't. At least not in any way that counted.
Do it
.

Taking over came more easily every time. He simply focused on moving, and Amara's mind faded out of reach.

Ruudde smiled, pleased. “I've waited so long to talk to you. What do I call you?”

“N-OO-L-U-N.” He sat in the chair, sending a puff of dust billowing.

“Nolan,” Ruudde repeated. He pronounced it correctly, even better than Cilla had. “Where are you from?”

“E-A-R-D,” Nolan spelled. The unsurprised look on Ruudde's face confirmed Nolan's suspicions. If Ruudde wasn't from Earth himself, he knew someone who was. “Which world are
you
from?”

Ruudde cocked his head. A beaded lock of hair dropped from behind his ear to dangle by his face. “Apparently you kids know more than you've been letting on. Yes, I'm like you. I enjoy Ruudde's body, but it's not my own.”

“Mages don't heal,” Nolan said, something between a question and a statement. He itched for a pen to write all this down.

“Well, they
can
, given enough time and energy, but it most certainly causes backlash. For the likes of us, not so much, eh?”

“Are all ministers possessed? How can we travel like this?”

“How do mages receive their power? Spirits?” His tone was mocking. “We're born this way. I suppose we're just special.” He propped his elbows onto his knees. “No, not all ministers are ‘possessed,' but most are. The others don't have a clue. I found this body a long time ago. Ruudde was already the minister of the greater Bedam area—and a mage. I'd always wanted to try a mage. I already knew I healed every body I was in, but when I started doing heavy spells without paying any kind of physical toll, I realized the possibilities. I located other travelers and found mage bodies for them to use. You know the rest. You know we have power. Magical, political, financial. Name your price.”

Nolan let the information sink in. If they could choose which people to possess, they had far more control than he did, medication or no medication. So what could they need him for?

“My price?”

“People want Cilla dead. You know that. And, no, those mages are not working for us. We want to keep Cilla alive—or the girl we call Cilla, anyway—but she's too easy a target if we keep her in a static location like the palace.”

Nolan had already suspected the mages who chased Cilla and the possessed ministers weren't allied. But … “You were one of those mages to curse her. What changed?”

“Ahh. You think I cursed her, then changed my mind? Interesting theory.”

Nolan didn't know what to make of Ruudde's amusement. He'd found Cilla so quickly that he must have been able to trace her. They'd removed all possible anchors; that left only the curse.

“Let's get back to my point: Cilla needs to stay on the run, and she needs to do it with a healer who will keep her safe. I don't know what made Amara come to Bedam, and I don't care. Make her return to Jorn. Bully her, take over permanently, do whatever you like. In return, name your price. Money. Mansions. Truly excellent food. Women, men, whatever the Jélis call those others. As long as you keep Cilla alive, we'll arrange it.”

“I'm not taking Amara back to Jorn,” Nolan said. “He tortured her.”

“That bad?” Ruudde looked as if he genuinely regretted hearing
it. “We told him not to … Look, we can fix that. He'll be harmless.”

“I'm not taking over! It's
her
damn body.”

“You seem to feel at home in it, though. It could be yours easily. How long's it been now?” Ruudde raised an eyebrow, then plucked at his topscarf, which was wrapped to dip at his chest and reveal a triangle of olive skin with a glowing tattoo in the center. “I've gotten used to being Ruudde over the years. Some of my colleagues even prefer their new bodies. You might find you like Amara's, too.” He gazed at Nolan steadily. “Consider this alternative, Nolan: If you like Amara so much, we'll hurt her. We can hurt Cilla, too. You don't want to know all the things we can do without spilling blood.”

The way Ruudde looked at Nolan didn't match his threats. He sounded interested. Open to suggestions.

Nolan tried to see beyond the body to the person in control, just as everyone had done to him and Amara. Ruudde—or whatever his real name was—had controlled this body for over a decade. Had its owner been stuck there all that time? He'd be nothing but trapped thoughts, watching his body paraded around. Executing people. Having sex. Abusing magic and wrecking his country.

And Ruudde wanted Nolan to lock Amara up the same way.

“If you don't cooperate, we'll make do. It'd be easier if you were on our side, though. I don't want to hurt anyone, but I've learned how. Don't make me, will you?”

Nolan shook his head fiercely to chase away Ruudde's words. “Why do you even want Cilla alive? Who are those mages who've been trying to kill her? The knifewielder? Why did Jorn lie about all this?”

“So many questions.”

“Why lie about Cilla being the princess? At least tell me her real name.”

“That was a neat trick, wasn't it? Great motivation for her to stay protected, out of sight, and
not ask questions
.” Ruudde kicked off his boots and dragged his feet onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. “Think, Nolan. What'll it be?”

Nolan couldn't make Amara go back. Even if Jorn changed, she'd still need to distract the curse. She'd still have her every thought listened in on; she'd still be trapped.

Nolan would be trapped, too. Alongside Amara, he'd endure the same pain as before, and this time Jorn wouldn't give him permission to pull back to his own world and write through the hurt. Something might happen to Amara in those few seconds he was gone. Nolan wouldn't be able to bear
not
staying now that he knew, anyway.

Forget the pills; he wouldn't need them anymore.

He let his head dangle, staring at Amara's boots, torn and stained from the storm and seas. He saw her fingernails. They were finally growing back properly.

“She decides,” Nolan said.

He drew back—

—and there, at his desk, he wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to vomit. The sun heated his room even through drawn curtains. Sweat sat at his hairline in tiny, hot beads. The air smelled musty.

He couldn't betray Amara. But which option betrayed her more? She had to decide—

—but she didn't.

Amara simply stood from her chair, and Nolan felt her fury fill every part of her. It pushed and pulsed at the edges until it threatened to spill.

“She's not in control, Nolan,” Ruudde said. “How many mushrooms are you on? Anything Amara decides, you can overrule. Her, we can control. You're the wild card.”

Amara stood mere footlengths in front of him, but Ruudde looked past her, at that boy in another world who ruined everything just by being.

Amara had thought of Cilla that way, once.

“I'll give you some time to consider my offer,” Ruudde said. “Let's find a place to keep Amara.”

mara got a cell just like Cilla's. They moved in a mattress, a pot, a privacy screen. They cut her hair to her ears in an uneven bob that left her neck cold and bare.