guard,” I say again, letting my lips brush against the hollow of his throat. “You come here and you do what you are supposed to do. You guard. You stand and be true.” Those last words hurt.
“There haven’t been any threads in a few days,” he says. “I don’t know what that means.” He’s right. It’s been almost a week since Corwin was buried, and not once has Cal been called away, not once has a thread made itself known to him.
“Maybe they hired someone else to take over for Roseland,” I try to tease, but it falls flat.
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Benji. There’s protocol, procedure. At the very least, I would have expected Michael by now.”
“Or more of the Strange Men,” I mutter, shuddering at the thought. I was sure they were going to descend on the town in droves after Dark Man and Light Man were sent into the black, but there’s been nothing. It’s been quiet, aside from Corwin.
“It’s like I’ve been cut off,” Cal says. “Like I’m alone here. I’ve done something, and I can’t remember what it is. I don’t know what I did.” He sounds so forlorn that I can’t help but twist in his arms and kiss him soundly. He huffs his surprise, but he lets me in, my tongue touching his. He kneads at my back almost desperately, and I can feel his breath, hot and harsh against me.
“It may be a test,” I say, pulling back, allowing my lips to brush his cheeks. “And you may be cut off, but you are never alone. Even if the majority of the town hadn’t already fallen at your feet, you’d still have me.” I kiss him again, hoping he can feel how true my words are.
He smiles weakly at me as I run my fingers over his cheeks. “You say that now,” he says. “But Benji, I had something to do with your father’s death. You can’t deny that. Not anymore.”
I ignore the dark twinge in my chest. “Dreams are just that,” I manage to say. “Dreams.”
“Except when they’re not,” he replies.
He’s right, of course. I’m at the river almost nightly now, sometimes able to get close enough to see the feather in my father’s hand before Cal pulls me away. There are times when I feel like he allows me to linger, like he wants to see what else there is under the river’s surface, but he remembers his duty and pulls me away. I’m on the brink of something; a precipice. The edge of everything.
“Something’s coming, isn’t it?” I ask him, making sure I can see his eyes.
He hesitates, but then: “Yes. Yes, I think so. I think this whole thing has been a beginning and that the end is coming. This is my test. I think this is my test.”
Chills, like ice, spread down my spine. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”
He tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. I press my forehead against his, making sure I’m as close as I can get to him. “Little things,” he says finally. “Like flashes of light. Pieces that don’t quite fit. I can see the threads as I used to see them when I was On High. I remember praying, but I can’t remember what for. I remember Nina talking with me before I fell, but I can’t remember what she said. I remember the surprise I felt at her hearing me, but knowing it was because I was close.”
“Close to what?” I ask, trying not to let him see how my heart is aching.
“To you, Benji,” he says, bringing a big hand to the back of my head, holding me tight. “It may be pieces, but it’s you. It all comes back to you. You are in my pattern. My shape. My design. Even through everything, it all comes back to you.”
“Well, then, whatever it is,” I tell him fiercely, “whatever is coming, we’ll face it together, okay? I don’t care what it is, Cal. I don’t care how long it takes. We’ll do it together.”
He smiles sadly at me. “I really hope that’s true, Benji. I do. I really hope so, because I don’t know anything else right now. I don’t know anything else but you. I can see the others in this town, and I care for them because I must. They are mine to protect. But it’s you. You are the one I want.”