Page 49 of The Last Aether

“Pretty much. My mom works a lot.”

He seemed to mull that over as he scanned our surroundings. “That must be hard, not getting to hang out with your friends after school or work on homework.”

“It’s not so bad.” Sometimes my friend Lainey would come with us. Or we’d all go back to our house, and Lainey and I would study while Charlie watched cartoons. It was only bad when I saw how tired Mom was.

“What is it?”

My gaze snapped back to the boy. “Huh?”

He motioned to a spot between my brows. “Worry lines. You were thinking about something.”

“My mom.” Something about the boy pulled total honesty out of me, as if he’d put me in some sort of trance.

“What about her?”

I resisted the urge to go for the spot in my cheek again. “She’s working too hard. We’ve been…struggling.”

His full lips pulled down into a frown. “I’m sorry. That has to be hard for all of you.”

“We’re figuring it out.” Or I was trying to. There was a restaurant near our apartment that would let me bus tables for cash. I needed to do that. To help. Because I knew my medical bills were a huge piece of why we were drowning. I tugged at my sleeve, hiding my scars.

The boy’s gaze tracked my movement, settling on the small piece of twisted skin I couldn’t cover.

My cheeks flushed bright red.

He took that in too. It was as if he could see every detail about me. Long fingers reached out and he rolled up his sleeve. I couldn’t look away from the deft movements. But the skin he exposed had me sucking in a breath.

His scars weren’t like mine, but they were burns. From a cigarette? My stomach churned.

He looked up at me. “Scars aren’t ugly. They’re badges of honor. They show just how strong we are.”

A gasp startled out of me as I sat up, my chest pounding. Soft snores and deep breathing sounded around me. I blinked a few times, getting my bearings. We were in the soft calm of Atlas’s room.

My shoulder ached and I glanced down to see a new dusting of silver where my burns had been. Memories from the day slammed into me, one after the other. I tried to shake them off, to ground me in the here and now as my breaths came quicker.

The bed moved as arms came around me. “Hey, you’re okay. We’re right here.”

Phoenix’s raspy voice was the perfect balm. I leaned into his hold, breathing him in.

Then Kai was there, his honeyed-whiskey voice cutting through the dark. “Bad dream?”

“Something like that,” I muttered. Only it wasn’t. It was bliss. My mom had always wondered why I’d suddenly had peace with my scars at fourteen. I’d never been able to explain to her my shift in perspective. Seeing them as badges of badass honor instead of something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I was simply changed.

So much uncertainty swirled in me now. A million questions and what-ifs.

Atlas turned on a soft lamp at the side of the bed. “What is it?”

I stared down at the scarring on my arm. “I think Riven came to visit me in the human realm.”

28

Kai jerked up straighter. “He what?”

I toyed with the edge of the blanket. “I had a dream, but I’m almost positive it wasn’t just a dream.”

“You think it was a memory,” Phoenix supplied.

I nodded. “I was fourteen and this gorgeous, older boy sat down next to me, and we talked. He showed me his own scars and told me not to be ashamed of mine. That they were just proof of how strong I was.”