“How do you know when I draw the number eight?” Kane asked.
“I see it.”
“But how?”
“It’s one of my powers. I can see things in my mind.”
“So like clairvoyance?”
“Something like that, yes.”
Kane rung out his cloth. “You were watching us tonight?”
“I was. But I got shy when Adeline and Elliot arrived. Then I wasn’t going to show up at all, but when Poesy called I had no choice. It was a mistake to go to her sanctuary. It’s where she’s most powerful.”
“Where is it?”
Dean nodded, as though he liked that Kane had asked this. “It’s unknown. An in-between space.”
“Like a reverie.”
Dean thought about this. “Similar, but with some key architectural deviations of Poesy’s own devising.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for instance, people can enter and exit it.”
“Like through those doors?”
“And teleporting, like we did earlier.”
Kane felt sick at the thought of that stretched oblivion. He was not eager to reenter that space between spaces that were between other in-between spaces.
“I don’t get it.”
Dean blotted his elbow. “Teleporting is actually very simple once you get the hang of it. Distance matters, but not as much as trajectory and momentum. You have to be able to see your entry clearly. That’s why I can’t teleport in and out of reveries, which warp distance in a similar—”
“No, about Poesy. She’s your boss, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” Resentment flashed in Dean’s eyes, but he stayed focused on his cuts. Kane understood that. He was angry with himself, too, for being taken in by Poesy’s authority.
“But you saved us from her.”
“Yes.”
Dean’s tenderness was gone now, replaced by a face as cold and faultless as marble. And Kane realized he wasn’t resentful toward Poesy. He was resigned.
“Are you disobeying her right now?” Kane asked.
And, like the first crocus breaking winter’s frost, Dean smiled. A confession. An unspoken yes. Kane was smiling, too.
“Give me your arms.”
Kane put out his arms, and Dean gently washed out the scrapes, erasing the drying blood from Kane’s skin. Then he applied some hydrogen peroxide to another cloth and dabbed. “This will sting,” he said too late. Kane didn’t mind. He watched the bubbles fizz under his skin, as though their effervescence was his excitement escaping his body. Then it was Dean’s turn. They sat close, Dean tense as Kane cleaned the scrape on his neck, Kane doing his best despite the distraction of Dean up close. His jaw, the brownness of his skin, and the browner brown of his freckles.
Kane got to count them this time. There were twenty-nine, total.
“We’ll need to change,” Dean said. He left and then returned with two fresh shirts. He began to peel off his bloodied clothes but stopped when he saw Kane’s expression. “Did you want to change in the bedroom?”
Kane blushed. “Oh, no, here’s fine.”
Dean turned away. Dutifully Kane removed his own shirt and thought of something Ursula once had said about Dean being on the swim team. It showed. His body looked meticulously drawn, like an anatomy diagram. It was not because he was especially bulky, nor because he was especially skinny. It was the way his muscles moved beneath his skin; there was such a beauty to them that it was hard to imagine Dean had not been designed with lovely intent.
He saw a cut he’d missed on Dean’s collarbone.
“Wait, come here.”
Shirt halfway on, Dean slid back onto the stool and Kane dabbed at the cut. Yesterday Kane had been trapped within the imaginings of who he and Dean had been to one another, and what they might have done. Now, he was singularly focused on pretending they were perfect strangers. Dean, half-naked, was doing the same.
Dean winced, his hand grabbing the back of Kane’s thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” Kane said.
“For what?”
“For trying to blow you up.”
“You were scared,” Dean murmured.
Kane nodded.
“Are you scared now?” Dean asked.
Kane thought about this. He thought about the way he held the Others and Dean apart, like they could never be combined. He thought maybe part of losing his memory was letting go of the distrust that defined it. He thought about how Dean had not let go of his thigh.
The sound of Kane’s phone vibrating saved him from answering. Dean slid into his shirt while Kane fumbled with the device.
“It’s Ursula,” Kane said.
“So, aren’t you going to answer it?”
He knew he should be concerned about the Others, but here he was more concerned about ending this moment too early.
Dean took the phone and answered it on speaker. “Hallo?”
There was a great deal of shushing. Then Ursula, in an contrived tough voice, said, “Listen up, Flores, and listen good. We know you’ve got Kane. We don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but you’ve made a gregarious mistake—”
In the distance Elliot whispered, “It’s egregious, Urs.”
Ursula was back. “You’ve made an egregious mistake. If you don’t return him in the next hour we are prepared to—”
“Ursula, it’s me. I’m okay.”
“Kane?”
After some scuffling, Adeline was on the line. “Where the hell are you?”
“Dean’s apartment,” Kane said. “He’s…he’s…”
Dean nodded.
“He’s the Dreadmare. He teleported us out of Poesy’s sanctuary. He saved us.”
Adeline’s voice did not conceal her incredulity. “He separated us. Where are you? The condos at the Cobalt Complex?”
“How did you know that?”
“We may or may not have broken into the school to get his file. Seemed as good as any other hunch you’ve had lately.”
For all the animosity between them, Kane had to laugh along with Adeline at this. His triumph swelled further.
Elliot entered the conversation. “Tell him to bring you back.”