Page 19 (1/2)

CHAPTER 35

Schuyler

"Sky, wake up! Wake up! You’re having a night up, the bed a messy hurricane of blankets and sheets Oliver sat next to her, a hand on her shoulder "You were dreaain?"

She nodded, pulling her knees up to her chin "the same one Always" Ever since she had escaped froht in Paris, Schuyler had had the saht, as if her subconscious were stuck on one channel, repeating the same eerie television show

She could never remember what it was about, only that in the drea despair For days she had woken up crying

"You okay?" Oliver asked His eyes were puffy from sleep, his hair tousled and ht up, as soft as a baby duck’s down He earing a Duchesne sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms, his usual bedti school spirit Oliver had never worn anything branded with the school name in the daytime in his life, as far as she had known

"I’m okay," she said "Go back to bed"

They were in a capsule hotel in Tokyo It had been a week since they’d left Paris They had spent three days in Berlin first Tokyo seeo, as far away from France as possible

When they’d arrived in Japan, Schuyler had been drained, with no energy even to perfororate her She was beyond exhausted, but after seeing Jack again, and having all the old feelings stirred up, it felt disloyal to rely on Oliver sothe Sacred Kiss

For once she wished that she had taken a docile stranger as her human familiar instead of her friend, but it felt like a betrayal to even think it That night in Tokyo, Oliver lay back down, his head on the pillow, facing away from her as he curled up on his side, the way he always did This was how they slept, how they had always slept ever since their journey had begun, in one bed, yet back to back, facing outward to their ene each other’s back, literally This was the way Oliver had been taught This was the way the Conduits had protected their va tiht when Schuyler woke up, she was always co of warainst her own

A year of sleeping back to back, never once turning to each other, not even for the Caerimonia In bed, it would have been too inti that they had resisted so far, an unspoken agreeht time Because what else did they have but tiether always That much they knew

"Are you awake?" Schuyler asked Their room was approximately the size of a small coffin She could only just sit up The pods were little boxes stacked on top of each other, with a fiberglass door and a curtain for privacy, and oneThe capsules were popular with Japanese businesso home It was the cheapest accommodation Schuyler and Oliver could find They had stored their packs in a locker in the lobby

"Uh-huh"

"I’"

"Uh-huh"

"Do you not feel like talking?"

"mmm"

Schuyler knew that Oliver was upset And she understood why he was being cool with his one-word answers So had changed their easy friendship; so had come into the hermetic little world they had made

Schuyler had believed Jack Force was part of her past, that after she had left him in that aparts But seeing Jack again in Paris had not felt like the end Especially when they’d kissed She didn’t knohat to think She felt so guilty about it, sometimes she couldn’t even face Oliver But sometimes when she reme It had felt like a beginning, like a proun to diainst Oliver’s back, when she closed her eyes she would dreareen and not hazel, and she hated herself for it

So what if Jack was still free? So what if he was not bonded? She had ht of being away fro it into aof Jack That kiss How did that song go in that movie she and Oliver used to watch all the tih It was nothing It

Maybe she was confused because she was tired of waking up in a different city every three days Maybe that was all it was She was so very tired of airports and train stations and hotels and bland, overpriced hotel food She missed New York so much it was like a physical ache

She had tried to forget how orated it had always ed there

Outside the porthole , Schuler could see a view of Tokyo’s neon cityscape: endless blinking lights, skyscrapers lit up like video ga, she was about to drift off , when Oliver suddenly spoke "You knohen I sent you off with hi I’d ever had to do"

Schuyler kneas talking about when he had sent her off with Jack, not with the baron

"I know," she said, speaking to her pillow

"I thought you would run aith hi the wall

"I know"

She knew all this: she had read it in his blood, but she understood he had to tell her Had to say the words aloud