Pearl Before Swine ch 27: Crimson and Glitter
~THE PEARL~
Unsteady feet carry me to my room, but Tulip is not here. I call her name as if that will make her appear, but instead, it summons a rumbling laugh.
Lance lounges in the window, one knee bent to support his arm. The other dangles outside. “What do you think Tulip does in those moments you don’t need help?”
“Tell me where she is?” I word it as a demand but pitch it as a question.
“I’ll do even better.” He extends a massive hand so reminiscent of Terra’s, my first instinct is to crawl into it.
As I place my palm on his and revel in the smooth warmth that wafts into me—a gift of energy—he tugs me into his arms and drops out the window. The ground shakes beneath his landing, but no jolt reaches me, cradled against his chest, as the cropped grass blurs at the speed of his strides. I grin.
“Stop healing the islander. You need that energy for yourself.”
My smile twists. “Halcyon said I have no connection to an Essence, and I think it may be because I belong to the fourth Essence, but she is yet too young to support me.”
Lance tilts his head and looks at me from the corner of his eye. His lone spike of hair is a pale silhouette against the overcast sky. I linger in his silence and try not to give into the vacuum of where his response should be. If he finds my theory absurd, he should say so instead of leaving me to wallow in my doubt.
It is preposterous. How can I belong to the fourth Essence yet know so little about her? I feel a familial sameness with Aurora, though, a connection deeper than with the Golems. We must be from the same realm.
“Let’s run with that theory,” Lance says finally, and my lips invade my cheeks in recognition of the pun. We are running. “You have so little energy because your growth spurt is using it all. It’s concerning.”
My smile is a flower, blooming and wilting in rapid cycles. “Why should my growth be concerning? Will my existence tax my Essence too much?” I bite off the last word, wishing to be wrong. I do not want to bring harm to my Essence, yet nor do I want to be stagnant—or worse—non-existent. If I am too much for my Essence, would the best solution be for Mare to take me, as she will if I lose the bet?
Yet, I do not want to lose. I do not want to be trapped and useless.
Brows so low they touch my lashes, I throw out another possibility. “Or are there some who fear my power growing?”
A distant spark flashes in Lance’s eyes. “One can always find a point of view where the answer to anything is yes.”
“That is not a useful skill in this instance.” I shake my head. “Please tell me what you mean, Lance.”
He sighs, steps slowing as we approach the university’s largest building. It faces the land, not the sea. “For over a century, you weren’t more than a speck. You weren’t even an infant. You were an embryo, an egg that might never hatch because no one knew how to make the whims that sustain you real. So, what has happened after all this time to spur you forward?”
Beneath a porch of interlocked arches, he sets me down but leads me by the hand.
“My growth means growth for my realm and my Essence. It means progress and discovery. Is that not good, Lance?”
“It makes one question what exactly the humans are progressing in.” As the front door swings open, prompted by nothing except our approach, he leans down and whispers in my ear. “Whatever they are up to, I feel its danger like rain upon my skin, yet I am not the one who will get wet. If you wish to protect your islander or anyone, Pearl, you must first secure your own power.”
He shoves me through the doorway, and my response dissolves into a yelp.
A hundred paces across a gilded foyer, Tulip sits within the circle of a desk. She greets me with a smile and a beckoning wave, then when I stand opposite the counter from her, she waggles her brows. “Someone was out all night and all morning. Did you and Jun have fun?”
Tears burst over the dam of my lashes and flood down my cheeks. “Where is Sal?”
Tulip is a blur of muted reds, rich browns, and shimmering emerald. “Great mythical giraffe, girl, what happened? If Jun—”
I draw in several shaky breaths and force words between the sobs. “Jun wants to…go back to Mare with me…to win the bet.”
She slides over her desk and gathers me into her arms. She smells of warm strawberries and her favorite mint tea. “Was that not your goal?”
“I cannot take him to Mare. Anyone but him. She will kill him, and I am just like her because I want him anyway.” I bury my face in Tulip’s chest, and she strokes my hair but says nothing. “I want him even if he only thinks of our kisses as a price to be paid because I am evil, Tulip. I am the villain of his story.”
“I told you that you could fall in love.” She lifts my chin, then taps me on the nose and leaves her finger on my lips so I cannot argue. “If this were only a selfish desire to have him—evil, as you put it—then you wouldn’t care about the danger to him or how he felt. So, what are you going to do? It’s already day four.”
I step back, swallow, and clear my throat. “Would it be alright if I told Sal the truth? He is strong, and he knows how to fight but also when to flee. He is not a Koa, and he knows more about the Essences than anyone.”
“Why does it sound like you’re asking my permission?”
“You were the one who told me not to tell humans about the bet.”
With a laugh, she flips stray hair out of her face and pats my head. “I’m not some omniscient being.” Her eyes bounce over my shoulder at the open door, then return to me and crinkle at their corners. “Sal’s choice whether to go with you or not should be an informed one. Tell him, and make sure to smile. Smiling prompts your brain to produce feel-good hormones. It’s also contagious.”
I lift the corners of my lips, a task made arduous by the strings tying them to the needles in my stomach. “I do not know where to find him or what to say once I do.”
She pokes my nose again. “I can help you with the first. After the monster attacks last night, Sal reported that he was too injured to attend classes today. He should be in his room.” She leans over the desk and rummages through a cabinet of tiny drawers and tinier cards. She copies numbers onto a slip of paper and sketches a map beneath. “Here, directions to Sal Smithe’s room.”
My heavy smile slips. “He has the same name as the dean?”
“He and his roommate Beau are cousins and the dean’s nephews.” She shrugs and leans against the counter. “I heard Sal’s mother was estranged from the rest of the family, though. Hey, if he’s recovering, it would be endearing of you to bring him lunch. Do you know what he likes?”
* * *
Sal likes sweet things. He said so when he learned Professor Cookie Baker’s name.
As Lance and I approach the balcony across from the chasm, a stranger stands behind Vidal’s podium. He is tall and impossibly thin like a sheet stretched to its limit. His face is as forgettable as his ears are huge. They stick out, one higher than the other, and his red uniform follows that disheveled pattern.
“Welcome to Great Minds Think Café. I’m Vidal. What can I get you today?”
“Are you the manager Vidal who gives out free hugs?”
He leans over the podium. “For you, I will be.”
I hope he is not, or else I understand why the hugs are free. He smells of rotting leaves and rancid puddles. Yet, for him not to be means a third Vidal must be employed at this establishment, and that seems too much.
I decide not to ask and to ignore the offered embrace. “I would like to order the sweetest thing you have.”
His chin dimples as his lips scrunch to his nose. He strides to a counter along the back wall and tosses me a small paper sack closed with a tie. “Sugar packet. I won’t even charge you.”
Its scent prickles my nose. Of course, sugar is sweet, but this will not do. On upturned palms, I hold it out to him. “I am going to ask a very large favor of someone, so I will need a larger packet. If there is a price, Dean Smithe will pay it.”
His mouth invades his nose’s space again as he plucks the packet from my hold. His chin resembles the nub of a long-ago broken branch on a very old tree. “What’s this favor? Maybe I can recommend something.”
“I will ask that someone love me despite the danger inherit in doing so.”
“Ah, you need chocolate cake.” He tows me behind a wall near the food counter, where mound-like confections of all colors wait in glass displays. He chooses one glossed in even darker brown than my skin, stabs it with a fork, and pops a moist crumble between my lips.
Greed takes over. I bite and swallow as my legs give out and my vision blurs. “That is chocolate?”
“Chocolate is magic,” he says with a shrug, briefly frowns as he inspects the remnant of his fork, then tosses it behind him. “Of course, the best kind of cake for your purpose is one you make yourself with love, but ours is delicious enough, your special someone won’t notice. So, we’re charging this to the dean?”
As he boxes up a generous slice, I taste the echo of the chocolate on my lips and think of Jun’s kisses. Does my blue-eyed human like chocolate?
You have not said you love me, I told him on the roof. He vowed he will not say it until he means it. Can this magic chocolate tip the balance in my favor? Once I am free, will I find Jun again? I can learn to make cake for him as Vidal mentioned, with love. Tulip says I love Jun, though Terra claims that is impossible. Tulip says she is not all-knowing, and neither is Terra, though between the two, he is closer to it. Surely she is the one who is incorrect.
Yet, how I wish hers to be the truth.
If I love Jun, is it wrong to want Sal to love me, too?
Boxed cake in hand, I head for the stairs, but Lance leans on Vidal’s podium and announces that he wants to try one of everything on the menu.
Vidal snorts. “You can afford that?”
“Sure, I can. It’s all free.”
I turn back, but Lance waves me on as Vidal blinks at him.
“It’s free?” the human repeats in a stilted, not-quite question.
Lance touches Vidal’s forehead. “That’s what I said. It’s free.”
He speaks it so casually, yet this Creature of the Land times his actions with focused purpose. He wants me to witness this use of his power over humans as if it serves as his silent answer to the question I did not voice.
The bet is not about love, he believes. It is about scheming and whether or not I have the intelligence and the gall to win. If I do not acquire Sal’s love—or the love of any human who will survive meeting Mare—then I will not be free to love anyone.
Or I can take this cake to Jun. We can speak to Sal, Professor Baker, the combat students, and the scientists. I can return to Mare with a human who loves me and an army to protect him.
Yet, our first encounter flashes on the inside of my eyelids and rings in my ears. The bear would kill Jun, or he would kill it. I wanted to save them both. I failed.
I do not want to belong to Mare, but I do not want her to die. The only way to save them both is to ensure Jun and Mare never meet.
* * *
The hallway outside Sal’s door is an open, spacious place. It is a railed balcony much like those around the chasm, though steam chokes the center and hides the view below. Prismatic clouds waltz in front of the windows above the widely-spaced doors.
Numbers identical to those on Tulip’s map stamp the metal plating that bars my entrance. I cup my mouth and call Sal’s name. The rapid clack and churn of spinning gears tries to drown out all noise, but it fails to hide a rustle. A thud.
“Sal? Are you alright?”
Of course he is not. Aurora carried him away last night, and it is a wonder he is anything more than ash. He is too injured to attend class. He should have at least gone to his healer’s class. Could they not have helped him?
I push on the door, and it swings open.
Beau leans on it and the wall with a grimace as deep as the ocean. As he drinks in the sight of me and the present in my hands, it transforms into an open-mouth smile. “Did you bring me cake?”
“No, I…” I hold it closer. “Is Sal here?”
After a pause, he grunts. “Sal. He…ran off.”
I do not believe Beau and shove past him. “Was he not injured?”
“Yes,” he says through a hiss as he falls against the wall behind the door, hands pressed to his left side.
Their room is much larger than the one Tulip, Issoria, and I share. Giant leaves circle high above and push a breeze down onto my head. The room breathes yet I do not as I take in the sight of the overturned couch and the crimson and glitter that stains its white fabric. The same human and Essence blood pools on the floor in front of it. It coats the rug hung over the rail of the outdoor balcony at the far end of the room. Wet towels fill a waste container alongside it.
“What happened?” I have no voice, yet somehow, Beau hears me.
“I was trying to help him. Then he stabbed me and took off.”
I whirl toward Beau, eyes uncomfortably wide. “This is your blood?”
He tsks and looks away. “My wound’s not that deep, really. I already cleaned it, sewed it, and changed clothes. I was trying to scrub up the mess before anybody saw, so thanks for barging in.”
Despite the nonchalant hop of his shoulders, he stands at an awkward angle, all of his weight on his right leg or his right side against the wall. The crisp, unsoiled state of his uniform testifies to his story, as does the tightness of his face. The words are true, yet their terse delivery speaks of an unseen side.
I narrow my gaze and step closer. “If you were helping him, why would he stab you, and why would he leave?”
The harsh line of his mouth slants and somehow grows even sharper. “I don’t want to talk about it. But since you’re here.” He pivots off the wall and completes two shaky steps before he stumbles.
My shoulders play targets for his outstretched hands. Unlike Jun’s touch, no thrill accompanies the contact, nor does it carry reassurance like Sal’s hold. Yet, a shock sizzles along my bones, part lightning, part fire. I stand straighter and perhaps a smidgen taller.
When I kissed Jun in the forest, his wonder fueled me—I did not take energy from him as with Sal, Halcyon, or Lance. His emotion generated it. This is similar yet a thousand times more potent. I want it, and I fear it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here.” His voice strains, too quick and pinched. Invisible tremors wrack his hands, and I do not move. “I want to show you something. If you meet me in the science wing, the building closest to the sea, at sunset, I promise you’ll find the surprise fascinating.”
The invitation reverberates, so similar to Sal’s when he asked me to the beach at sunrise. Sal, who is missing and injured, perhaps more than Beau will admit.
My eyes gravitate toward the outdoor balcony, the stained rug, and the filled waste container.
Beau shakes my shoulders. “Say you’ll come?”
A “no” teeters on the tip of my tongue, but doubt tortures it beyond recognition. What if Sal refuses to return with me to Mare? Or worse, what if he is dead? My gaze flicks again to the large cylinder of the waste bin. The gory towels may hide something more gruesome.
Or the golden blood may be Sal’s.
It may be Beau’s.
It may be neither. Beau may have concocted the story to hide what he was up do. Sal might never have returned from the woods.
“Beau!” The original Vidal, the one with charcoal eyes and narrow features, barges through the open door. Out of breath, he sags, hands on his knees. “The combat class pulled up something at the docks, and your professor wants you to have a look. They think it’s a mythical Sea Swine.”
Continued in chapter 28
Thank you for reading!