“Are you certain…?”
For once, I do not feel apart. I kiss him again, letting my tongue explore the warmth just inside his lips. Kartik’s eyes flutter, and then he opens them wide, with a look I cannot describe, as if he has just glimpsed something precious that he thought lost. He pulls me tightly to him. My hands grip his shoulders. Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.
When I open my eyes, I am back in the Caves of Sighs. My fingers just graze Kartik’s on the stone. My breathing is heavy. Did he see what I saw? Did we dream the same dream? I dare not look at him. I feel his finger, as light as rain, beneath my chin. He turns my face to his.
“Did you dream?” I whisper.
“Yes,” he answers, and kisses me.
For the longest time we sit in the Caves of Sighs, talking of nothing and yet saying everything.
“I understand why my brothers in the Rakshana wanted to hold fast to such a place,” he says. He strokes the underside of my arm with his fingers. “It would be hard to leave it, I think.”
My throat is tight. Could we stay here? Would he stay if I asked him?
“Thank you for bringing me,” he says.
“You’re welcome,” I answer. “I’ve something else to share with you.”
I press our palms together. Our fingers tingle where they touch. His eyelids flicker and then they open wide in understanding of the magical gift I’ve given him.
Reluctantly, I take my hand away. “You can do anything.”
“Anything,” he repeats.
I nod.
“Well, then.”
He closes the small distance between us and puts his lips against mine. They are soft but the kiss is firm. He puts his hand sweetly on the back of my neck and pulls my face to him with the other. He kisses me again, harder this time, but it’s just as lovely. His lips are so necessary that I cannot imagine how I can live without tasting them always. Perhaps this is how girls fall—not in some crime of enchantment at the hands of a wicked ne’er-do-well, a grand before and after in which they are innocent victims who have no say in the matter. Perhaps they simply are kissed and want to kiss back. Perhaps they even kiss first. And why should they not?
I count the kisses—one, two, three, eight. Quickly, I pull away to catch my breath and my bearings. “But…you could have whatever you wished.”
“Exactly,” he says, nuzzling my neck.
“But,” I say, “you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman’s carriage.”
Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. “To each his own magic,” he says, and kisses me again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
WHEN WE EMERGE FROM THE CAVES, ASHA IS THERE.
“Lady Hope, the gorgon is below. She would speak with you. She says it is urgent.”
“Gorgon?” Kartik says, eyes wide. His hand moves instinctively to his knife.
“You won’t have need of that,” I say. “The worst she shall do is vex you to death. Then you may wish it to end your own misery.”
Gorgon waits on the river. Kartik gasps at the sight of her fearsome green face and yellow eyes, the many snakes wriggling round her head like the rays of some forgotten sun god.
“Gorgon! You’ve returned,” I say, beaming. I have missed her, I find.
“I am sorry, Most High. You asked me not to seek you out, but it is of the utmost importance.”
My cheeks turn pink. “I was wrong. I spoke too harshly. May I present Kartik, late of the Rakshana.”
“Greetings,” Gorgon says.
“Greetings,” Kartik replies, his eyes still wide, his hand still on his knife.
Gorgon’s slithery voice is tinged with apprehension. “I have been to the Winterlands through a route my people once knew ages ago. I would show you what I have seen.”
“Take us,” I say, and we climb aboard.
I sit at the base of Gorgon’s thick neck, avoiding the snakes that hiss and writhe about her head. They venture too close at times, reminding me that even the most trusted of our allies have the power to maim. Kartik steers well clear of them. He stares at the strange, forbidding world ahead, for we are passing into the Winterlands. Green fog rolls in. The ship slips quietly down a narrow channel and into a cave. We pass under icy stalactites as long as a sea serpent’s teeth, and I recognize this place.
“I have seen Amar here,” I tell Kartik, and his face becomes grim.