“That’s because you’re not fully manifest. When you are, you probably won’t even need to be touching to see things the way she does—or vice versa. She’ll get depth perception, you’ll get color, it’ll be a wonderland for everybody.” Erin’s voice has gone bitter.
“Erin? What’s wrong?”
She laughs brutally. “Everything. You get her back, okay? Be grateful for that. My other half is gone forever, and what he gave me, he took with him when he went.”
“What . . .”
“I’m the living manifestation of Order, Roger. I see chaos everywhere I look. If it’s out of place, if it doesn’t belong, that’s all I can see. I live in a world that can never be harmonious, because the only person who could describe actual order to me is gone.” Erin’s fingers drum a hard staccato on the steering wheel. “Wake her up. We need to figure out our next move, and she’s a part of that.”
“Why—”
“Just do it. We don’t have much time.”
He could argue. He could try to make her explain. But she’d have to explain again after Dodger was awake, and he doesn’t want to talk to her without his sister to act as a buffer between them. Part of him still insists on looking at her as the woman he’s loved for the last seven years. No amount of telling himself it was never real is going to make the adjustment any faster.
He’ll probably hate her when this is over. He wishes the thought weren’t such a relief.
He turns to Dodger, putting a hand on her shoulder (red rushes back into the world, red; he can’t resist stealing a quick glance at Erin, seeing the strawberry color of her hair for the first time in years, and wishing he didn’t find it quite so beautiful) and shaking gently.
“Hey,” he says. “Dodge. Wake up. You’ve been asleep long enough.”
She makes a small mumbling noise and slaps at his hand.
Roger smiles. So much has changed, about both of them. After seven years, he figures it will take a while before he feels like he knows her. But this, at least, has stayed the same. On the rare occasions when she slows down enough for sleep to catch her, she hates waking up. He shakes again.
“Wake up,” he says. “We need to let my terrifying ex-girlfriend tell us how we’re supposed to manifest a primal force of reality before asshole alchemists set us the fuck on fire.”
As a sentence, it shouldn’t make any sense. It does, though: he’s proud of that.
Dodger opens her eyes. “What,” she says flatly.
“There you are!” He shouldn’t be smiling. This isn’t the situation for smiling. He can’t help himself, because she’s awake, she’s here, and they’re talking again. They’re together again. They can figure everything out from here. “Erin, she’s awake.”
“Fine and dandy,” says Erin. She looks at the rearview mirror, studying the cuckoos in her backseat. Dodger is groggy and disoriented; Roger is smiling like his entire world hasn’t just been turned on its head. She suspects that’s a sign of shock. None of this is real for him yet. “Dodger, where are we going?”
“What?”
“We’re on the improbable road, and you’re the one with the head full of numbers and the compass where your heart ought to be. Where are we going? If you give me directions, I’ll follow them.”
Roger sits up straighter, suddenly remembering a long-ago night in the fog. One second it’s not there; the next it is, flooding his mind in living color. “You called me Jack Daw.”
“So you remember now. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, but I guess we’re going to live with it either way. I called you Jackdaw because that’s what you are, and Jack Daw because that’s who you are, or who you’ll become. She”—a nod toward Dodger in the mirror—“is a Crow Girl, but she can mature into a Rook if you help her. If the Page of Frozen Waters isn’t already on her way here, she will be soon.”
“What’s with all the Up-and-Under imagery?” asks Dodger. “We’re not six. You don’t need to turn things into a children’s book.”
“Ah, but see, the Up-and-Under was never about the children. It was always about the symbols, and you both got them, all the way down to your bones. Bones the Page would very much like to get her hands on, by the way. She’ll fold them into herself without a moment’s hesitation, and come away even harder