"So," I said to Marek. "I've rethought my position on learning how to shut up."
"Oh, no," Marek said airily. "Don't worry, I've decided it's funny. Please don't stop."
"Oh yeah, it's funny," I said crossly. "Hilarious. Remember the part where I declared my love to Tia?"
"Yeah, that's kind of what I meant."
Tia's mood had changed completely. The instant the whole ill-advised I-love-you incident had occured, she'd gone from spitting wildcat to practically whistling. I should have known she was that kind of girl. Still, I thought she might make a break for it once we got to the gates, but she didn't—just waited docilely for them to open, hands clasped in front of her.
I had to say, it was weird to be actually going through the gates like a normal person, instead of, you know…climbing.
"You should have let her go," I said, but my motives had certainly changed on that one. Now it was more you should have let her go because then I wouldn't have to look her in the eye ever again. Why the hell had I said it? Why had I said I loved her, because I was pretty sure it wasn't true. Not entirely sure, since I didn't technically know the difference. But why the hell would I fall in love with her? That didn't make any sense at all.
"Sorry," Marek said, not sounding all that terribly sorry at all. "You're both pretty hot commodities at the moment."
"But not to you," I reminded him. "You know you want to let us go." I was just short of everybody's doing it! And I would have used that one too if I thought it might work.
"Benjamin," Tia said as the gate swung open for us, in an innocent voice that put me instantly on my guard. "Benjamin, come help me up the steps."
"No!" I yelled back. Didn't matter if I loved her or not—I was going to try my best to hate her anyway.
"But Benjamin, my feet hurt," she said, batting her eyes at me. I knew what this was. This was the part where she tested me—she was trying to see how far that love thing went, what she could get out of me. How much of a hold she had over me.
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you wore four-inch heels to a prison break, princess!" I said, refusing to budge an inch.
"If you loved me, you would help me up the stairs!" she yelled.
"Well, maybe I don't love you," I said, stalking up the stairs to meet her. This was what I wanted to establish, this was what I wanted her to believe. I would repeat it over and over until she believed it, or I believed it, or both.
"You do love me," she said, catching my sleeve as I walked past. "I knew it even before you said it. You should see the way you look at me, Ben, I can always tell."
"Hush, dear," I said. "Time to shut up now."
"You might as well just admit it!" Her voice was getting louder with every word, spiraling up. "It'll make it all easier, I don't mind. You can love me all you want, I won't stop you!"
"What—" I tripped over the next step.
Vampires were graceful. Vampires were coordinated, vampires never missed a beat. Vampires never tripped over stairs, but here I was. Falling sideways and catching onto her for balance, grabbing her arm until I realized what I was doing. Dropping her like she'd burned me.
"It must be love," she said, suddenly quieting, dropping back down to normal. "Because you feel so stupid."
I opened my mouth to respond to that, it was my turn in our vocal tennis match—but she'd stopped me. She was so silly and so full of fluff, but then every once in awhile she would say something that was—right.
I hated that I couldn't dismiss her. I wanted to dismiss her.
"Close your mouth, kiddo," Marek said as he walked past. He didn't seem all that concerned with watching us anymore, keeping us in line. We were a little too wrapped up in ourselves to be thinking of any escape attempts at the moment. "If you want her, take her. She'll never respect you if you keep chasing after her like this."
"Okay," I said, feeling very confused and disoriented, and very put-upon. Why was this happening to me now? "Thanks. I'll—keep that in mind."
"Hey Ben," he said, sharp warning voice.
"What?"
"Too late," he said, and when I turned back around Kebi was literally two inches in front of my face. I stifled a yell.
"Blow," she said, and she held up a dandelion in front of me. It was a late-summer dandelion, puffed out to explosive white seeds, completely normal but suddenly looking alien when shoved this close.
"Sorry?" I choked out, still trying to recover from the shock. Good thing it wasn't possible for me to have a heart attack.
"Blow," she said insistently, pushing the dandelion closer. At least it wasn't hard to figure out. I sucked in my breath to blow the seeds away—it seemed to always be the best idea to just humor her—but her other hand snaked in and covered my mouth. "Not with your mouth."
Good Lord, who had let her out? She should have been in a mental institution, not out wandering around where she could startle people and harass them about dandelions. "Well, what's my other option?" I demanded, pulling her hand away.
"Blow it out with your head," she said impatiently, and wrapped the hand over the side of my face, over my temple, like an octopus that had attached itself there. "Blow it out with your brain, spider."
"What—why did you…call me that—" I spluttered, derailed.
"Blow. It. Out," she said sternly, as if speaking to a dog or a disobedient child.
I stared uncertainly at then over at Marek, then back to the dandelion. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug. "You should try," he said. "There is a reason she's like this, Ben."
So I sighed and reached back into my mind, searching for access to my freakishness, trying to clear my thoughts as much as I could with her bloody-ruby eyes staring straight into me. Blow it out with my brain? I reached experimentally for the closest gust of wind, and to my surprise I got a grip on it, cupping it in imaginary hands like a caught firefly.
Impressive. And I wasn't even angry—just a little freaked out.
I dragged the trapped breeze over with me to the dandelion, and then released it, letting it sweep off in Kebi's direction. She laughed when it ruffled through her hair and dress—my aim hadn't been fantastic—but the edge of it caught the dandelion, blowing the seeds out into a million pieces. A few of them caught in her hair and stuck there, bright white against the black of it.
"Very good," she said, patting me on the top of my head. "Very very good."
"Air," I said, half to myself. "I can move air? I didn't know that." I was awesome. What else could I do, move mountains? Learn to fly?
"Well," said Tia loudly. I'd almost forgotten she was there—Kebi demanded a lot of attention, which was what she was probably objecting to. "That was productive. Shall we move on?"
Kebi was already drifting away, whim accomplished, off to find somebody else to direct her weirdness at. She stopped only once. "Oh," she said, as if she'd just remembered it. "Tall man. Your daughter's in danger."
Marek reacted as if he'd been electrocuted, his spine snapping straight, his frame lunging forward. "Alice? She's in danger? Danger from who?"
"Amun," Kebi said, unusually direct. "And possibly paper cranes. Alligators. Loud yelling. Sleet…"
She floated slowly back up the last three steps as she spoke, and after awhile we couldn't hear her listing things. She was still speaking, but she didn't look back at us as she disappeared in through the door.