“That—” He paused, gulped, started waving his hands again. Flakes of snow caught on the robe, made him blend into the backdrop of the night. “That was amazing.”
I sighed, chuckling, at the person gelling into shape in front of me. “Fuck me. And you just expected a dove-soul or crow-soul to be lingering about to play with you? Please tell me you didn’t trek across the whole damned tundra just for that.”
His slender hand brushed hair away from his brow. God dammit. He was flushed, and I couldn’t help but notice. I’d never seen anyone so unshaken by such danger—not anyone mortal, anyway. His smile tilted suggestively into a grin. “Well. I have always wanted to be caught by an angel in flight.”
My amusement escalated, became a belly laugh. “You cannot be serious.” An angel in flight my ass. I was doubling over laughing now.
But his energy seemed to be fading, as if satisfied. “No. I’m Hei.” That hand slipped back from under the sleeve, extended toward me. “My name is Hei.”
I stared at him. What the hell was he? This wasn’t how people who came to Serenity acted, whether living or living-again. “Well. Hei. You are absurd, if you don’t mind my saying so.” I cleared my throat. And took his hand. Warm and small in mine. Definitely mortal. And still shaking.
One pretty eyebrow shot up. “You’re not going to tell me your name? Oh my. A man of enigma.”
I coughed. “No. It’s Ari.” I had to gather something up in me, courage or care or resolution. I didn’t know why. Except that giving my name always made me feel so naked. Because it was the only thing I had. The one piece left of the person I’d been before I died. It was all I had to say for myself, whether my life had been great or small. Because none of it was left. For one reason or another, I had given it all away to the merchant of amnesia.
“Ari.” My name took on heat in his mouth, shivered like a flame. He seemed to toy with it, taste it. “It’s a good name.”
I almost couldn’t bare that strange, glittering, thrill-hungry gaze on me—so I looked away. “You don’t look loaded down to cross the ice just for a holiday. You realize there are other places where winged moon-souls frequent to toss you about like a ball?”
Past the wrinkle of the mountain’s feet, the waste became flat—so flat, more smooth and dimensionless than anything else seemed able to be. Sometimes its white, featureless surface was all I could look at.
“You’re right.” Hei’s voice was gentle now, low enough that I may not have caught it had I not been so close.
When I peered to the side, it hit me that I hadn’t let go of his hand. And he hadn’t let go either. He was looking out over the tundra with me, and the reckless joy was gone. A tired, dim, but still smiling shadow was left.
Without warning, this boy who’d jumped seemed to become two. First, there was the one who had asked to be caught. And then the boy I’d thought he was, the one who craved a clean death more than anything. And I wanted, desperately, to be able to talk just then to the one who’d planned to die. That was the only one of the two I would have any idea how to speak to.
And just like that, I didn’t want to know why he’d come here.
I released his hand. Whether he noticed or cared or not, he did nothing.
My wings disturbed the snow as I whirled toward the gate. The stone gleamed like a huge lapis lazuli. “Are you trying to enter?”
Hei seemed to consider it a moment. “I already have a place to stay inside. I was planning to stay out a bit, but I’ll go back in since you are. They don’t seem to approve of opening the gates for only one person, so best not to trouble them.”
I sniffed, then sketched a theatrical bow. “I shall walk you inside, then. Don’t even ask me to fly you over. I don’t trust you not to break your own neck.”
He blushed and grinned again. We walked up the slope together.
And at the mouth of the gate, the wide, frozen trail became Bare-Sky Road. The path was exposed to the sun, transmuting to diamonds in the smiting glare of day. Sunlight wouldn’t kill moon-souls like me, and it didn’t seem to bother the ghosts. But it did hurt, made even the air feel like smoke. I would endure it, though, sometimes. Long enough to stand above the city and watch the tundra pretend to burn.
As we approached, the gate began to crawl open, its panes of celestial blue turning outward. The gate had to be the one edifice that received the most care in the city, because its groan of motion remained musical even after centuries. Its custodians came into view. Shapes spun out of mist, out of snow, of moon-glow and clouds of perfume. Human shapes, clad in the favored symbols of their afterlives. The ghosts bound to Solemnity. They opened it for anyone who drew near, whether living, dead, or living-again. I had once felt so bad for those ghosts, chained by their spiritual fetters to this gravid place. But the spirits seemed to shine with a kind of joy each time they carried out their task. Or, if nothing else, purpose. They kept watch as perhaps no one else did.
Hei shifted nearer to me as our path focused; the gate wouldn’t be opened wide, but more than that, the sight of all this had to be overwhelming even to those who’d passed through a few times. It probably would have been for me, had I not been able to fly from the beginning of my stay here. The gate-ghosts clamored with their chorus of sounds—speech, laughter, songs, muted strains of weeping. It was like passing through a river, bathing us in the essence of Serenity.
Then we were on the other side. The chorus dwindled as the ghosts completed their task, went back to however they spent their idleness. Moonlight stained Bare-Sky Road a dreamy blue. Hei was shivering next to me.
I spun so I was facing him, making eye contact again. “You all right?”
I shouldn’t be acting so familiar with him. His playful impulses had enchanted me, distracted me, and I should have seen that for what it was. He was just a traveler, and I was just a stranger on the road. But I had already made him a person in my head. Attached him to things I cared about. To the gaps where my memories might once have been.
“Just feeling the cold, finally.” His smile was back in force. “Ari. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”
I thought of how he’d felt in my arms, how light he’d been. About how long it had been since I’d been touched, or touched someone, in a way that didn’t feel as cold as the Road. That didn’t sting to remember.
And how if I did see him again, it would probably be in the bowels of the city, where an attractive young mortal new to the city would be a favored target of some of the most cutthroat lurkers of the night-streets.
“I hope not,” I said, regretting it and not, at once.
That seemed to bring his lightness to ground, made his face solemn. His eyes flicked down, and after a moment, he nodded. “Thank you for catching me.”