Tessellations [BOOK TWO]

Chapter Twenty-Four

Red like the sunrise. Red like the moon.
Red like the heart that stopped beating too soon

For a moment, there was nothing but air in front of my fingertips. Then I heard Jasper shout, and sparks of gold seized my hands and pushed me forward until I met stone.

Gasping, overwhelmed with relief, I clung tight and looked up to see Jasper going limp on Caleb's back, his arms hanging, his head falling back so that his face aimed towards the white sky. Caleb cursed at the sudden deadweight, nearly losing his grip before catching himself.

"Bird!" Channing called out. The snow had picked up—he was veiled in white. "Are you alright?"

Still voiceless from shock, I managed to squeak out, "I'm fine."

I pictured the reactions of the villagers as my body struck the ground, motionless. Would Ash mourn? Would he think I'd gotten what I deserved?

Jasper was unconscious, and I was thinking of Ash. My arms shook. I pulled myself upward.

Then I was at the top, and Lily and Channing were catching my wrists and dragging me up.

I sprawled in the snow and just panted, unable to gather the energy to do anything but breathe. Caleb joined us moments later, cutting the ropes with his knife and lowering Jasper to the ground. He checked his pulse. "He's alive. The whites of his eyes look healthy...he shouldn't be out for long."

I felt like a coal in cold water. "That was stupid of him. He could have died."

"Aye, as could you, and you didn't, and he didn't, and we're all here." Caleb picked Jasper up again and beckoned to Channing. "Come on—we've got to build a shelter."

Lily and I joined them. The forest continued here as if completely unaware of the space between its two edges, and we dragged fallen branches together to make a sort of slanted roof over our heads. We bound our bloodied hands tightly with strips of cloth. Caleb got a fire going.

Jasper woke slowly—he was conscious, but incapable of motion more complex than wiggling a thumb. "Two thumbs," he corrected me, concentrating and alternating between one thumb and then the other.

I laughed and grabbed his hands, stilling them. "You should be resting."

We squeezed together, exhausted, binding our hands to stop the bleeding, our numb faces stinging as the fire's warmth thawed us out.

"This is like a bad dream," said Channing, tugging on his scarf. "I thought we'd left all of this behind us."

"That's exactly what we're doing," said Caleb. "Leaving Ash far behind. We've seen him possess Vakari, the dragon, the mountain dwellers—anyone we let near us. So we won't let anyone near. We'll flee north, and we'll give every town a wide berth, and we'll go until we're too far for Ash to follow."

"His magic isn't his," interjected Jas, his words labored. "If it were...he'd have limits, but it isn't. There are no boundaries for him."

Caleb's jaw was set. "We've no other option."

Jasper sighed. "Running...could be a temporary solution." He heaved a breath, seeming almost too drained for even that. "If we manage to keep ahead of him for long enough—not forever, but long enough, which isn't unrealistic—my magic could have time to restore, and once there's enough of it I could...dissolve it to ward the four of you from his sight. Permanently."

"Permanently?" Caleb repeated, eyebrows raised. "I was wrong. That sounds like an option."

"Only the four of us, though? Why not yourself?"