“But are you going to be all right? Without her, I mean?”
My eyes well up. Clara is the only one who has asked me that. Everyone else is too worried about the Aether, or about the Dwellers, or about Cinder and Roar. “You’re back, Clara. So, yes. I will be. ”
“I should be too. Because I’m back. ”
I set the brush down on my lap. What she isn’t saying is much louder than what she is saying. I can’t pretend I don’t know what she means. “But you aren’t, are you?”
Clara shakes her head.
A lump rises in my throat. “Why, sweetie?”
Her narrow little shoulders shrug. It was a stupid question anyway.
Clara wasn’t harmed in Reverie. The Dwellers treated her well enough, it seems. But she was taken away from us for a year and made into a test subject. Now we’ve gotten her back, but the world is burning, the sky is one great blanket of Aether, and we’re living in a rotten, dark, horrible cave.
Clara isn’t the only one who has changed in the past year. The Tides have. Everything has.
She has every reason in the world to be scared and lost.
“Have you told Mom?” I whisper.
Clara shakes her head violently, and I know we’re thinking the same way. The least she can do—the least either of us can do—is spare our parents any more pain. They have suffered enough.
It’s the same reason I haven’t told my mother how I hurt over losing Liv. How I ache whenever I see Perry. How I even miss stupid, irresistible Roar, who should be here. Roar is exasperating, but at least he’d understand what I’m going through. But he’s not here.
My closest friend is dead. Roar is away. Perry has chosen another. There are no other options for me. I can’t turn to anyone else.
We are all hurting and missing people. Everyone is scared, so you can’t talk about your worries because worries are everywhere. When everyone you know is on the verge of drowning, you don’t stop to tell the person next to you that you don’t like swimming.
You just don’t.
I set the brush aside and wrap my arms around Clara. She is bigger than I remember, but she still feels so small. I pull her close and she curls against me, turning so I can see her face. Clara’s wide eyes look up at me. Beautiful Seer eyes. I know what she’s feeling. She’s lost, but I’ll help her. I’ll be anything she needs me to be.
“It’ll be fine, Clara. You’re here. We’re together. I promise nothing will ever happen to you again. ”
That seems to calm her, so I keep saying it. Over and over. Gradually, I feel some of the tension seep out of her rigid little back, and she relaxes, her weight settling more fully on me.
I press my nose to her forehead and breathe in her sweet smell. I haven’t seen a strawberry in weeks, but somehow my sister smells of them. It’s her natural fragrance; even Perry and Liv always said so.
She is a sunbeam that smells of strawberries. Everything to me.
I kiss her head and hold her tighter. “I missed you so much. ”
Clara doesn’t reply. She has already fallen asleep.
I hold her for a while longer, feeling grateful. So grateful she is here. And then, like a landslide that begins with a small pebble, my mind turns to Perry, and then to Liv, and then to Roar, and finally to how the four of us used to be.
I used to feel so carefree and alive when we were together. Lighter than air. Now when I think of them, I feel only the heavy, hot coals in my stomach.
I have to change this. I can’t do anything about Liv or Roar, but I have to let go of Perry. I don’t want him to take up space in my mind any longer. I need to be strong so I can help Clara.
I decide right then: I’ll do whatever it takes to put Peregrine behi
nd me.
I am moving on.
Starting now.