and confused—she felt the same way. She couldn’t go to work, not now, not after this! As if he could read her thoughts, he shook his head gently. “Act normal. Otherwise, it will call attention to...” Ink stopped and sighed. “Please go. I will come back tonight and escort you home.”
Joy walked around the pool of blood, speckled with gravel and tiny links of chain, and hurried up the back stairs into Antoine’s low lighting and the smell of hot bread. The last thing she saw was Inq moving to touch her brother and Ink standing very, very still.
* * *
Joy waited by the restaurant’s front window twisting her apron strings around her knuckles, watching the raindrops fall in a smooth sheet beyond the awning. Main Street shone like a river stippled with tiny splashes. Cars drove by, shearing sheets of spray. People walked under umbrellas. A knot of teens passed, laughing as one tipped back his face, mouth opened wide to catch the droplets. It was a fresh, clean summer storm. To Joy, it smelled like Ink.
She trusted that the rain would wash away the blood.
She’d tried not to think about the look on Ink’s face in the back lot, or the armored body that had disappeared along with Ink and Inq when she’d been brave enough to check. It was as if they had never been, as if she’d imagined the whole thing, everything from the moment Inq had appeared at work to the moment when she’d walked past Neil with the scalpel still in her hand. It had been easy not to think about it while she’d rushed mindlessly between tables, but now it all came back to her in a crazy montage: ice cubes melting in a saucer, blood spouting over gravel, Mr. Vinh in a black robe behind a secret door at the C&P.
The rainy day world was as foggy as a dream.
“Need a ride?”
Neil appeared next to her, staring out at the rain.
“No,” Joy said. “Thanks. I’m waiting for a friend.”
Neil nodded and tapped his cheat pad. “Friend-friend or more-than-a-friend?” Joy turned and noticed him smile. “Just asking.”
Ink appeared just outside the door, slipping between one flap of reality and the next. Joy watched him unzip a doorway along a parking sign and check the sidewalks and streets, heedless of the rain wetting his clothes. He raised a hand, inviting her to join him.
“I have to go,” she said.
Neil frowned. “But there’s no one—”
“Bye.” Joy pushed out the door, hugging her purse close to her body. Ink had his straight razor in his hand and led the way past the window
“Are you all right?” she asked into her collar.
“Let’s get you home,” Ink said, slipping into rare contractions and walking quickly around the corner, out into the rain. Cool pinpricks tapped her arms and scalp as she walked beside him. Joy blinked through the rain on her lashes. On Ink’s face, they looked like tears.
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at her. The rain matted her hair and slid a wet finger down her back. She glanced around awkwardly and felt drops trace down her cheeks.
“What is it?” she asked.
Ink blinked in surprise.
“The water is cold,” he said as a shudder passed over his body, muscles quivering under the silk shirt plastered against him. She’d forgotten how he still needed to concentrate to feel things.
“It’s not really,” Joy said, but Ink still looked amazed. He placed a hand against his chest. The shiver came again, shaking raindrops from the tips of his hair.
“It is cold. I can feel it,” Ink said, pressing his palm flat. “I am alive.” He said the words as if he’d never thought them before, as if their very meaning had changed. His eyes lifted and saw her with wonder. “I am alive,” he said again in his crisp, slicing voice. “And you are beautiful.”
Joy wiped the wet bangs from her eyes and stepped forward.
First she tasted the rain, which tasted like him—cool droplets on his mouth that melted against her tongue. The lightness bloomed into something warmer. He pulled her closer, and Joy forgot the touch of raindrops. Her arms felt heavy in her wet clothes, her fingers tangling in his hair.
He pushed her back.
“No!”
Joy stopped, confused at the sudden space between them. Her hands were empty and open, the rain running through her fingertips like a question.
Ink did not look at her as he flicked the blade with an expert motion, sliced a door and, grabbing her hand, quickly stepped through.
They spun into her bedroom with the scent of limes, the cleansing breach cocooning them between one space and the next. Her white blouse clung to her body, ripples of white cotton outlining the wet patches. She shivered. It was cold in her room. The AC was on.
Ink let go of her hand, the last bit of his warmth leaving her as he strode the perimeter, checking that his wards were still in place. His silvery shirt hung off him like a limp sail, and the spikes of his hair dripped rainwater on the carpet. He moved with a feral grace, anxious and fervent. Joy watched him circle, feeling less and less secure.
“Ink?”
“The wards,” he mumbled. “The wards are whole,” he said, pacing. “Your room is sealed, as is the building. I even strengthened them to repel you from danger outside your door.” He was speaking quickly, almost babbling, which was unlike him. Joy had never seen him so unsettled. His nervousness crawled in her stomach, curdling her fears. “I met with Graus Claude and he said that he should have answers for us soon—”
“Ink.”
“—Inq delivered the sword to Kurt—no one knows weapons better than he—though he says he cannot be certain that this is a singular act, but any formal declaration would have had to pass through the Council—”
“Ink!” Joy shouted, and it stopped him in his place. She dropped her purse and the scalpel on her nightstand and flipped wet bangs out of her eyes. “What’s the matter?”
He looked up.
In three quick strides, he was kissing her. Their bodies pressed against the wall. He held on to her desperately, feverishly, a sudden heat washing over him that Joy could feel where they touched. She kissed him back harder, plastering her wet body against his. The fabric of their shirts slid between them, slick and wet against their skin. He held her hips, pulling her impossibly closer, matching her growing intensity with nips of teeth and tongue. She grabbed his arms to steady herself or pull him closer or hang on. He kissed the wet curls of hair at her neck.
“I cannot lose you,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Ink,” she whispered, still uncertain of this mood, and wrapped her hands in his hair. He held her waist, and she bunched the silk of his shirt. He pulled back and lifted it like a curtain over his head, slapping it to the floor and pressing his bare chest against hers. She felt the skin of his back, imagining his signatura spinning there. She was spinning, too. Clenching. Burning. Wanting. As they clung to one another, Joy felt like they were climbing the walls. Her feet kicked against the baseboard. They had
