keep his voice from peaking on the final word. “They said they’d take me away. You were my best friend. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. But you would have done the same thing if they’d come after your family. You would have had to.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she says. “I would have lied. I would have said ‘oh, that was a game, I didn’t know it was bothering anyone,’ and I would have promised not to do it anymore, and I would have been more careful. I would have told them it was over, and I would have kept going, because you were important to me. I was supposed to be important to you, too. That’s what you always said. So I would have lied for you, because that’s better than leaving you alone.”
Roger is silent.
“That’s what you did, Roger. You left me alone. You left me with no one to . . . to explain things, or to tell me everything was going to be all right. You said we’d be friends forever and I believed you. I don’t believe anyone about anything, but I believed you, and you left me alone. You decided for me that I didn’t deserve to be your friend anymore. Maybe it’s selfish to be mad at you, because you were scared about your family and we were little and you thought I was stronger than I was. I don’t know. I don’t care. You left me. I can’t forgive you for that, no matter how much you want me to. No matter how much I want to do it.”
Dodger stops talking. Tears burn her eyes, turning her vision blurry. What Roger can see of the room is smeared and out of focus, like a badly done watercolor painting. It seems so unreal. This began with a girl he used to think didn’t really exist speaking inside his head; maybe it’s right that it seems unreal now. Maybe this was always the way it had to be.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t have any words but those ones. I did what I thought I had to do. I know I was wrong. I can’t get those years back. Time doesn’t work that way.”
Dodger has a vague idea that time could work that way, if she figured out how to twist the numbers. More and more, she’s starting to feel like time is an intricate puzzle box, and she has the key hidden somewhere in the space between breath and heartbeat, as much a part of her body as blood and bone and marrow. She doesn’t say anything. It’s her turn to be silent, to see what Roger is going to say. She’s made her speech, and she’s exhausted. Words were never—will never be—her forte.
“But you weren’t the only one who was hurting, and you’re not the only one who got punished when I shut the door. I left you alone. I left me alone, too.”
Dodger knows that isn’t true, has seen the evidence: the girl with the possessive hand and dubious eyes, holding Roger’s elbow like she might lose him if she loosened her grip. There’s no point in saying that, though. It would look like self-pity if she admitted how there’s never been anyone in the world who looked at her like that girl looked at him—if she tried to explain how much time she’s spent by herself, trapped and trembling on the borders of her own life.
And it doesn’t matter. He’s said sorry. He’s invoked the magic of apology. Dodger closes her eyes, leaving them both in blackness.
“Okay,” she says. “But don’t do it again.”
On the other side of the city, Roger smiles.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says, and everything is going to be all right.
CALIBRATION
Timeline: 12:01 CST, June 20, 2000 (the next day).
“Master Daniels. What a pleasant surprise.”
This is not a pleasant surprise. This is a danger, a disaster, a calamity in all senses of the word. Reed holds himself perfectly straight, perfectly still, blocking as much of the entrance to the compound with his narrow frame as he possibly can. He has often wished that Asphodel had taken the time to build him a body with more heft: he is tall and slim and attractive to the eye, but none of these are things that get a man taken seriously in the presence of other men. If the alchemists accompanying Master Daniels wish to move him, he will be moved.