The Fake Heart (Time Alchemist Series) (17 page)

But instead of following after her I waved for her to come in.

And here we were, sitting on the floor and munching on the sweets
(and she did like sweets; I’d have to make a note about that)
as I told her over and over wh
at had happened in the library’s basement archives.

“It’s not like I had a choice,” I muttered between bites of sugary donuts, “For one thing, the doors were locked. For another, he didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me.”

“That’s complete nonsense!”

“But it’s
true
.” And even if I didn’t want to admit it, it was the truth. “We were alone for…about
two
minutes or so, maybe even less, but he didn’t try to hurt me at all.” Except when he grabbed my ankle and
I
fell, but I think that was more of an accident than on purpose.

Besides, he had a bloody nose and I had a sore back. We were kind of even. Dove seemed pretty impressed when I told her I almost broke his nose. What can I say? I had pretty good reflexes (only when they didn’t seem to count. Where were they when Mallory practically bombarded me in the girl’s bathroom, or when I oh so
heroically
jumped in front of Dove to save that far off September day?).

“I just don’t trust him,” she said, her lips pressed in a thin line, “What does he think he’s trying to do? Buy your trust?”

I rubbed the edge of the shiny red stone on my bracelet, feeling the metal slide against my skin. It was true. Did Leon th
ink he could bribe my trust by
returning my lost bracelet? But I couldn’t really forget the hurt in his eyes.

I never said I would forgive him, but I sort of felt sorry for him, too.

I wiped a few crumbs off my face and took a sip of my now cold hot chocolate, “What about the pages he left?” I eyed it uncertainly in its placed between me and Dove. The pages looked so worn and old, as if it would have crumbled with the simplest touch. But to my surprise when I showed it to Dove, she didn’t try to hide it. She wanted me to see it.

“They look like…papers from Guinevere’s journal,” she said, picking it with care. “I thought it was lost—or maybe she had hidden it somewhere—I don’t know how Leon got his hands on it, or why he’s giving it to you.” she gritted her teeth, and I had to nudge her with my foot so she would
n’t
rip the papers with her iron grip.

“Maybe it’s a peace offering?” I tried. “And what about that old alchemic book that you lent to me?” I pointed at it, the heavy tome sitti
ng on my desk next to my abandoned
homework.

“That was just a simple text
. Every alchemist has one.” She shook her head, “And I don’t believe this is a peace offering. Not for one minute,” the acid in her voice was thick. I had to keep from flinching at her scary tone, “It’s most likely he’s just trying to buy your trust and use us at the same time.”

I tilted my he
ad, “What do you mean by ‘use’
us?”

She handed the pages to me
—there were about two dozen or so, maybe a lot more—
and I took it with great care. They felt crinkly and warm against my palms.

I didn’t know what to expect, but not this.

The pages were filled with s
trange, foreign text
and symbols
, mixed with detai
led drawings of maps and odd
objects. With every yellow page I sorted through in the small stack, nothing made sense. It wasn’t until I was nearly half way that I came across a
small
piece of thick paper folded up between the pages. It fell out wit
h a light flutter,
and I grabbed it before it hit the floor.

It crinkled as I unfolded the edges. When I laid it down on the floor my eyes widened—it was an old, old picture so aged it was
a stained, pale coffee color
. The edges were torn and brown, and the picture itself was so faded
I almost couldn’t make out who
it was; there were two women
,
and a little girl clutching a small baby doll,
sitting as still as
stone next to each other.
Their clothes were old fashioned, possibly something from the Civil War era or earlier.

“What is all this?” I breathed, completely enthralled with this piece of history laid out in front of me.

“This is our clue to where the Elixir is,” Dove said, her voice barely above a whisper. I could hardly hear her over the heavy pelting of the rain. “These must be the pages that will lead us to the location of the fragment of Elixir here in Savannah.”

“But…it’s in a completely different language!”

She smirked, leaning over to
grasp the book back, “Guinevere
wrote in her own secret language so nobody else could discover her secrets—except me.”

My jaw dropped, “You know how to
read
this?”

“Well…kind of,” she admitted sheepishly, “It’s been
such
a long time since she taught me, but with some time I could figure out a way to translate it.”

“Then that means we’ll be closer to the Elixir!
” I jumped, feeling giddy
like I was on a sugar rush (and I probably was!). But my good mood quickly deflated when I remembered something “Does this mean Leon is just using us to get to the Elixir? He can’t read any of this?”

She shook her head, “Only I can.” She folded the pages and placed the stack on the bed before getting up, stretching her arms above her head. I got up too, fearing she might suddenly leap out the window and head back to her church. But that was silly, considering the rain was
falling so hard that you couldn’t even see the trees. She continued, “That’s what infuriates me. He’s just trying to use you into getting what he wants. What nerve!
Especially after he
killed
you!”

“
Almost
killed me.
You saved my life, remember?” I reminded her, but felt a tiny pang of guilt. I hadn’t told her about his proposal to meet him tomorrow. And why was it that I felt sorry for him? I shouldn’t be! “Let’s just focus on trying to figure out this book, and forget about Leon.”

I’ll make this right
, I thought. I’ll see him tomorrow and figure out what he really wants, and then I will wipe my hands of him completely.

But even though I was confident in the plan, I didn’t really feel too confident. What if he did try to hurt me again? But…he didn’t at the library.
Was it because it was in a public place?
Or was it just because he wanted me to give his sister the journal? But then he wouldn’t have given me back my bracelet. Or was that just
some act
to
gain my trust
?

Aw, hell! I was just
gonna
have to take that chance! At least Dove had the
pages
—even if I end up dying from this stupid ass decision at least she had a one up against him!

Dove’s ice blue eyes flickered with concern. “Emery—”

“Are you leaving already?” I interrupted, “It’s raining outside.”

“Yes,” Dove said, “The sooner I get on this, the closer we’ll get to
locating
the shard of Elixir. Don’t worry about training tonight. The weather’s too bad out.”

“Exactly!
It’s raining so hard. Do you even have an umbrella? And what about staying at the church? You’ll probably catch your death there.” Last I checked
,
there were a few gaping holes on the slanted wooden roof, easy places for water to leak. “Besides, what if the pages get wet and we lose everything?” I added lamely, but I saw Dove ponder the thought. After a long pause, she finally agreed to stay until the rain passed.

We spent the time ta
lking and playing board games
, and I introduced her to some
of my favorite
novels.
Anything to get her mind just a little off of Guinevere and Leon and the Elixir.
  It was times like this that I almost forget how…wise and strong and powerful she is—and even so, she still felt as if she were weak and useless. Even if she didn’t have any alchemy, she looked like the type who didn’t even need it to survive. 

The rain continued to fall, faster and harder as the hours ticked by. It wasn’t until
the House Mother,
Mrs. Watterson
,
came by to tell me the storm would continue all through the
night and that I should have a flashlight close by (for emergency, I guess), that it seemed like Dove wasn’t going anywhere.

She didn’t seem too bothered by it as I snuck out to the laundry room to grab extra blankets and a pillow as we made a makeshift bed on the ground.

But instead of being happy about finally getting to know Dove, I still had so many questions I couldn’t bring myself to say. It didn’t seem right—it felt like I was just a third party caught in the middle of a sibling feud, and I had to suffer the consequences for it.

As the time crawled to a slow pace, and my eyes burning from staring at the blinking lights of my clock finally change to 1:14 am, the questions kept piling up, like some huge weight pressing on my skull.

I needed answers. I’ve always need answers, but there was some small part of me that kept holding back. What if I asked the wrong things and Dove just left me? She wouldn’t do that, I’m s
ure of it, but….it wasn’t impossible.

I had to get
stories from both sides
about this fight
and the answers to the Elixir. It had to be s
ometime soon, because who knew how long my fake heart was going to keep ticking?

CHAPTER 16

The storm continued
all through the night and into the next
peaceful Sunday morning. Dove wanted to go back to her “base”, but I insisted she stay here while I did some studying.

She was reluctant, at first, but I sort of bribed her with a hot breakfast and a change of clothes. When I had gone to fetch breakfast in the dorm’s small kitchen, I noticed a lot of people were stuck inside. I waved to a few kids lounging in front of the TV in the living room and took our breakfast back to the dorm room.

I nearly collided with Samantha, spilling a few
Froot
Loops on the carpet; t
he
multi colored pieces
abruptly crushed by
the heels of her slick, black boots
. We just stood there, staring. I expected her to yell at me for getting her shoes covere
d in cereal crumbs, or to make some sort of
snide remark about how much that food would go to my hips (which was starting to get heavy. I didn’t know what Dove liked so I pretty much grabbed one of everything and toasted it. The blue bowl of cereal was my morning meal.)

Instead, she ran her fingers through her
luxurious strawberry
blonde hair, “Good morning.” Her southern accent was thick, but it sounded strained, as if she
hadn’t slept well in the past week or so
.

“Morning,” I replied back. I shifted my arms, trying to adjust the bagels and toast balancing on a paper plate.

“We’re heading to the Auditorium for Sunday prayer. And then after that everyon
e’s meeting up at the gym
for some…club activities. Want to join us
?” Samantha said, flicking her eyes over me.
I was a little touched
, albeit cautious
. She was trying to be nice
after what had happened, but I couldn’t really take the chance. I mean, she wasn’t the one who gave me the cold glare these past months, and compared to all of Mallory’s other sheep, Samantha seemed a lot nicer than that. But still…she did just stand there and let Mallory push me in the bathrooms. But…I can’t really blame her for something like that. Can I? Is she guilty just be association?

Well,
there was no way I was going to be a part of any sort of “club” that had Mallory as leader. I’d rather
wear a suit of meat and take my chances with rabid dogs in a junk heap.

“Thanks for the offer, but I have a lot of
studying to catch up on.
” I said, stepping aside, “Be careful in the rain.”

“Oh…okay,” Samantha started, until Mallory’s head popped out of her door. Hair pilled high in a tight bun so tightly that it seemed to stretch her fac
e back. She gave Samantha a poisonous
look before turning to me with a sickeningly sweet tone laced in her voice. It wasn’t hard to tell that she had been listening in to our conversation.