Lapidary

The night flew by, and I wished I knew what was being said at the VIP table. But I couldn’t hear over the noise, and I don’t dare go close enough to try to eavesdrop. As the bar closed, the members of the VIP table slowly left, and Neron made his way toward me. I turned my back on him, but he ignored the hint.

“Natka,” he said.

I forced myself to look at him as he held up his hands in a gesture of submission.

“I really need to talk to you.”

I shook my head. “You’ve insulted Ryker with your actions. I have no desire to talk to such a dishonorable male.”

“Because Ryker was so honorable?” He laughed.

Did he know something about Ryker that I didn’t? What could Ryker have done that wasn’t honorable? It chilled me to think that Ryker might have had an affair with Lakelyn, and her brother, Neron, knew. I couldn’t find it in myself to ask.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a twirling shell, dangling from a chain, which he handed to me. I didn’t take it.

“Blow on this, and I will find you. Then we can talk.”

“No,” I said.

He drew a deep breath, as if he was struggling to control his emotions. “I didn’t give Bellevue the safe.” His eyes are serious.

“I heard you did…” Ace told me he had, and Ace wasn’t a liar. But, then again, lately I learnt that he was good at keeping secrets.

“I gave her a fake safe filled with gems – I knew she’d think it belonged to Ryker. I kept the real safe for you.”

I swallowed. Ace hadn’t lied – he had been tricked, like everyone else, and had told me what he believed to be the truth. I should apologize to Neron, but I couldn’t find the words. I had been so rude to him with words, and I had thrown a beer in his face.

“If I open that safe, what will I find?” My thoughts went to the White Crystal. Maybe Lakelyn had given it to Ryker, and he had locked it up, which meant it had been in Arameer all along.

“A side of Ryker that you won’t like,” he warned me. I accepted the shell and caught a glimpse of his palm. He did not have a hellfire tattoo, which meant he wasn’t a member of The Risen. “Goodnight, Natka.”

I said nothing as I watched him leave and wondered what secrets Ryker had kept from me. No one ever knew everything about everyone. I’d never told him the truth about why I had left my family. Whenever he had asked, I just lied and told him we didn’t get on. I was glad he had never pushed the topic.

I put the shell in my pouch and headed toward the doors.

“Goodnight, Natka,” Megzith said.

“Night,” I responded.

Devton was waiting for me in the doorway. Had he seen me talk to Neron? Then again, it was none of his fucking business whom I talked to. I passed him without saying anything, and a moment later I heard his footsteps on the stones.

“Following me is asking to get your ass whooped,” I warned him.

I knew he was grinning, without looking at him. “You can try.”

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. He became smoke, particles and blackness, and resumed a solid shape when he was in front of me. Traveling in shadow form was a talent few daimons had, and since this was the first time I’d seen it, I couldn’t help but look at him in awe. I snapped out of it quickly. It was time to go home.

“Let’s go on an adventure,” he said.

That was the last thing I had expected to come out of his mouth. I expected him to always be serious, or deceptive or have some ulterior motive. Then an image of him, shirtless, holding a surfboard under his arm flashed through my mind. There was certainly much more to him then I’d given him credit for. “No.”

“It will be fun,” he teased. I had hesitated too long to answer, and he knew that meant I was considering it.

I thought about Kellie asking me what I was passionate about now and how sad it was that I didn’t have anything I enjoyed or anything that made me happy. I certainly hadn’t had fun in a long time.

“What kind of an adventure?”

He held out his arm, I took it, and he led me in the direction of my house – but then we cut a corner and I was certain we were going somewhere else.

“Are you always this mysterious?” he asked me.

“You’re the mysterious one!” I countered. “Where are you taking me?”

“We are here,” he said.

We were on the north side of Swordfish Chain which was, by far, the most underdeveloped part of the island. I couldn’t help but wonder why there were no buildings and no one walking around. The beach was beautiful and clean, and the moon reflected on the silver waves. It would be a perfect spot to build accommodation for tourists who came to enjoy the night life.

I let go of Devton’s arm, and he walked onto the beach. He looked back at me, grinned, took another step and vanished into thin air. I clasped my hands over my mouth, confused. The next moment he appeared from a different spot to my left. My first thought was teleportation, but daimons couldn’t teleport.

“Aren’t you coming?” he called.

I went to the spot where he had first disappeared and realized that he hadn’t teleported himself; he had passed through a half-rift. The half-rift was see-through and easy to miss. It had lines, moving, like sunrays under water. I knew half-rifts existed, especially here where a full rift had been opened years ago by the White Crystal.

Half-rifts allowed travel from one place in this world, to another in the same world. A full rift would allow you to travel from one world to the next – but all of those had been permanently closed after the White Crystal had been lost. There was no way for angels to return to Heaven and no way for black-eyed daimons to visit from the Netherworld.

I stepped into the rift and embraced the shaky feeling as if someone had stuffed me into a box, without any lights and shaken it. As I stepped out on the other side, I realized I might have a bruise or two. Devton waited for me, most certainly too strong to have gotten hurt. I didn’t mention my bruises because I didn’t want him to consider me weak.

He grinned and stepped backward – into another rift. These rifts were everywhere on the north coast of the island, and they prevented the fae from developing here. I stepped into a rift, and once I was next to Devton, he stepped into another. This was a game, and I gave in to the chase.

He stepped into a rift, disappeared, and I followed him every time. He laughed at me playfully, and I realized there was no way I’d ever be faster than him. I had to beat him with skill. I counted the rifts where we had been and where they went. Devton waited for me, clearly thinking I’d give up. To let him know that I was still playing, I stepped into a rift. And once I appeared, and he was gone again. I figured out where he was going to appear next, and instead of following, I turned around and ran to the spot. He appeared, quicker than I expected, and I ran into him. We both fell to the ground, with me on top of him.

I blushed, and he grinned broadly. I shoved him playfully before I rolled off him, onto my back, and looked at the stars. I was panting, while his breathing was as calm as if he were asleep.

“It’s not often that humans chase after me,” he teased.

“Maybe that’s because you’re so slow, and catching you isn’t challenging enough,” I teased back.

He barked a laugh, a sound that started in his stomach and worked its way up. I caught myself smiling and then stopped, as if I was not allowed to be happy. As if I was not allowed to feel joy.

“How often do you come here?” I hoped he didn’t pick up on the change in my mood.

“I don’t come often – I don’t have time,” he said. “But as a child I used to come here every night and run through the half-rifts. I knew they couldn’t take me to my father – but I wished they could anyway.”

“Where does he live?” I wondered.

Devton hesitated, and I glimpsed the gold in his eye that reminded me that although he appeared human, he was not. “He’s dead.”

I didn’t know if I should ask more, so I reached out to touch him on the shoulder. When he accepted the comfort, I asked, “What happened?”

“He died during The Shaking,” Devton said. “I was there – I saw it happen. I saw the tsunami, the rift open, Duras jump.”

I shuddered. That had happened twenty-two years ago – when I was only three years old. Devton had said he was a kid, which meant he was younger than I thought he was. Daimons, like most magical creatures, lived forever.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty-eight,” he said.

For a mortal, twenty-eight might seem like an adult, but for a daimon it was still very young. The older you were, the more respect you got, which made me wonder how Devton had become one of The Risen. My hand was still on him, and I slid it away, but he caught it and sat upright.

I lay in the sand and watched him observing my scars in the dark. I’d never felt more vulnerable, and I held my breath. Please, please don’t ask me what happened. I couldn’t talk about Ryker’s death. I couldn’t talk about how I endured living without him, how I had slit my wrists. How I sometimes still regretted that Ace had found me in time to save me.

He turned my hand over and studied my silver engagement ring with its black stone. “Had I known about the scars, I wouldn’t have asked you to remove the gloves. I’m sorry.”

His apology caught me off guard. I’d never had any magical beings, other than Ryker, talk to me like an equal. My throat felt tight, and I said nothing.

“I can take them away,” he said.

Had I heard him wrong? “What?”

“I can take the scars away, if you want me to.”

I snatched back my hand. “No.”

He turned his curious eyes to me, but I didn’t explain to him that I needed to keep the scars to remind me of what I had done and how I didn’t deserve to be helped.

“No, thank you,” I said more gently.

He didn’t push the matter but reached for his pockets and frowned. I grinned at him and pulled my gloves, which I had snatched from him, out of my pouch.

“You’re a talented little thing, aren’t you?” he said. “You can wear them to work.”

I put them on. I didn’t want to tell him how I used to live on the streets and steal, which was why I was such a good pickpocket.

“Tell me about your tattoos?”

“Which one?” he asked.

“I am what I am,” I said, thinking of the curved writing on his chest.

“I am a half-daimon,” he said, “and I don’t pretend to be anything else.”

“Did you get it to scare people?”

He smiled. “Do you really think I need a tattoo to scare people?”

I gazed into his eyes and felt like I might drown. As a member of The Risen, a dangerous gang, I could understand why people were scared of him. “You’re not scary.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a first.”

The truth was I wasn’t scared of him. He had never attempted to hurt me, and there was something good about him. Something made me think that he wanted to help, and that was why he had offered to take me to Shark Bay Prison. I couldn’t figure out what was in it for him. Surely, he didn’t care about what had happened to Ryker.

“You’re deep in thought,” he said.

“I’m thinking about him.” I caught myself. I’d never talked to anyone about Ryker’s death. I had so much on my chest that I never got off. “It’s just so strange that his death was labeled a suicide. He hadn’t left a suicide note, and he’d asked me to marry him. We had planned our wedding and honeymoon at The Edge.”

The Edge was the edge of the world, where you could look out into nothing. Some people would spit off The Edge or toss a coin that would never be found again. I’d always wanted to go there and see it for myself.

“So, you think someone pushed him?”

I shook my head. “I was the only person home, but he didn’t have any reason to jump.”

“He knew some dangerous people,” Devton said.

I was about to ask who, and then reminded myself that he had been in Sky Watch and had often dealt with criminals. He must have put many dangerous people behind bars, and others no doubt hated him for it.

“I heard his mother got everything,” Devton said.

Of course, he heard – everyone had. It had made headlines how Ryker hadn’t even bothered to leave me a penny.

“She stole it,” I said. A year has passed, and I had not, and would never, forgive her. But a small part of me suggested that she had given Ryker most of the things he owned and maybe she had a right to take them back. “She forged a new will with a fake signature. She even had his old attorney tortured and killed. And now, I have nothing left. Someone broke into our apartment and stole all of his things – including the crystal necklace I had given him.”

“What did it look like? The necklace?” Devton asked.

“Well, it was long, white with a black string and—” I had a moment of epiphany and sat up. Devton somehow knew about the White Crystal and that was why he was asking me all these things and he thought the crystal I gifted to Ryker might be it – it wasn’t. That was why he was taking me to Shark Bay tomorrow – so that he could also find out where it is.

“You bastard,” I snapped. “You know about the White Crystal!”

His eyes grew darker, as if he hadn’t expected me to be smart enough to figure it out. He kept silent, which was confirmation enough.

“How do you know of it?” I asked.

“The Sky Watch found a letter from Lakelyn, saying she was going to send the crystal, in Ryker’s apartment after he died. News among the angels spread quickly, and my boss controls the angels in Vesea – so he found out and told me.”

Devton’s boss was Volgrun Sozgemon, a half-daimon, and leader of The Risen. If he controlled the Sky Watch, it was no wonder that the crime rate in Vesea was so high. I couldn’t help but pity Rhinsel Grosstreet for trying to make the city safer.

“What do you want with the crystal?” I met his gaze. That the crystal could open rifts and bring people back from the dead and then I answered my own question. “You want to resurrect your father.”

The muscle in Devton’s jaw jumped. “Yes.”

I nodded, understanding his loss. Could I use it to bring Ryker back? I was suddenly hoping to find the crystal sooner.

“So, you’re taking me to Shark Bay for your benefit.”

“For both our benefits,” he said. “I want my dad back, and you want to find out what really happened to Ryker.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked in a low voice while keeping my eyes on Devton.

He shook his head. “I don’t.”

It was quiet for a moment, and I watched the waves break on the shore. It made me think that no matter how strong something is, it can always break or come to an end.

“Bellevue might have inherited the White Crystal, without knowing it,” I realized.

Devton shook his head. “After I found out about the White Crystal, I thought it might be between his things. I sent several half-daimons to break into her safes and scratch through everything that he left for her. She doesn’t have the crystal.”

“Which means that either Lakelyn never sent it, or he had hidden it,” I said.

Much was still not adding up, but I believed that I could figure it out. I would keep Devton around, even if it was just so that we could use each other. He was a powerful ally, and I would use him every way I could – like he was using me.

I yawned and got to my feet. “I need sleep.”

“I’ll walk you home,” he said.

We stopped by a donut store, and he bought each of us three donuts. I devoured mine on my way home and wondered if he had bought them because he was worried about my weight. But he didn’t care about me, so surely he thought he could get more out of me if I didn’t starve to death. We walked quietly on the sea sand, and I was surprised just how comfortable it was. But then the voices in my head began again with their senseless whispering and ruined everything.

“Goodnight,” I mumbled and headed toward my cottage.

I assumed Devton thought I was rude to just abandon him there, so quick and cold. It was better he thought me rude, than know I was crazy.