Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Later, they went outside and sat near the shelter entrance where the House roads still threw pale light across the damaged intersection. Vehicles remained where people had abandoned them during the first days after the Veil fell, though several had been pushed aside to keep a narrow lane open.

A few meters away, Kellan and Rhovan had started arguing about something near the abandoned vehicles. Marek paid them no attention.

Mara leaned against his arm for a while before speaking again.

”You never told me what happened with Mom after you found each other.”

Marek looked out across the intersection. ”It’s complicated.”

”I figured.”

Marek took a moment before telling her about Celeste. Even after everything Amara had explained, he still did not know how to make it sound simple.

”Mom is still Mom,” he said. ”But Celeste has been with her for a long time. Longer than Day 367. They share the same body, and some of the same memories, but they’re not the same person.”

Mara stayed quiet, listening.

Marek told her about the attempted extraction, why it had failed, and how Amara had eventually left again. He kept the explanation shorter when he reached the water.

”She disappeared through it?” Mara asked.

”Yeah.”

Mara stared at him. ”Through water?”

”Yeah.”

”I spent fourteen years thinking Mom’s strongest supernatural ability was finding missing socks.”

Marek almost laughed.

Mara’s expression softened afterward. ”Is she okay?”

”She was when she left,” Marek replied.

Mara looked down for a moment before leaning against his arm again. ”She’ll find us.”

”I know,” Marek agreed. ”I believe her because she said she would.”

”Then she will.”

Marek knew she was worried too. He let her keep the certainty.

They stayed there for a while, and the weight of her shoulder against his arm pulled an older memory forward.

Years before Day 367, the power had gone out during a storm. Mara had been nine when she appeared at his bedroom door carrying a pillow and insisting that her room was hotter than his.

As a solution, Marek told her to open the window.

She complained about mosquitoes.

He told her to use the mosquito net or grab the swatter.

Mara reminded him there was a hole in the net, conveniently leaving out the part where she had made it herself.

Eventually, she slept on the floor beside his bed. Thunder woke Marek hours later, and when he looked down, her hand was curled around the lower edge of his blanket even though she was still asleep.

He lowered one arm from the mattress and let her hold his wrist instead.

He had never told her about that.

Now Mara was leaning against that same arm.

She noticed him looking down. ”What?”

”Nothing.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she let it go.

The thought that he could tell her another time came easily enough that Marek moved past it without thinking.

Before Venielle called Mara back inside, she noticed a loose seam near the left pocket of his trousers.

”Sit down for a second.”

Marek looked at her. ”Why?”

”Your pocket’s coming apart.”

He glanced down at it. ”It’s fine. I don’t use it that much. It’s just where I put my phone most of the time. So, it’s fin—”

”No, it isn’t. Sit.”

Mara pulled gray thread and a small needle from her bag. Marek stared at both. ”Why are you carrying sewing supplies through mirror routes?”

”Mom raised at least one competent child.”

He sat down mostly because continuing the argument would take longer.

Mara threaded the needle and started on the loose seam. She noticed the older repair a moment later. ”Did you do this one yourself?”

”Yeah.”

Mara studied the uneven stitches. ”It looks like insects died on the fabric.”

Marek glanced down. ”It stayed closed at least.”

”Barely.”

Then, she went back to sewing.

The first stitches were small and even. Near the end, one became noticeably longer when Mara started rushing. Marek stared at it long enough for her to notice.

”What?” Mara asked.

”Nothing.”

”Stop judging my sewing.”

”I didn’t say anything.”

”Oh, I sure know you were about to! Hmph!”

He left the stitch alone.

Afterward, Mara opened his backpack without asking and rearranged the medical supplies until the gauze and antiseptic were closer to the top.

”You keep putting the noodles above things you actually need,” she said.

”I need the noodles.”

”You do not need eight packets before some gauze.”

Marek looked at the bag. ”Depends on the emergency.”

She gave him a look, pushed the gauze into a side pocket he could reach without removing anything else, and handed the bag back.

They ate not long afterward. By then, the others had started eating too, and for once nobody seemed interested in pretending they were not exhausted. Dario had filled most of a tray, Kellan was eating fast enough that he barely spoke, while Nadia, Rafe, Silas, and Eren had all gathered whatever food they could from the shelter supplies. After everything they had done over the past several days, everyone was hungry.

Rhovan, naturally, had somehow turned eating into something unnecessarily elegant. He formed a low golden table from condensed light and arranged three places around it for himself, Marek, and Mara. The others noticed almost immediately that there were no seats for them.

Kellan asked why there were only three, and Rhovan, without even looking up from his food, told them they deserved to suffer.

That earned him several complaints at once.

Dario reminded him that they had nearly died together more than once. Nadia pointed out that he could obviously make the table larger if he wanted to. Rhovan calmly agreed that he could and then made no attempt to do so, which only made the grumbling worse.

Mara was trying not to laugh by the time she sat beside Marek.

People throughout the shelter kept glancing toward Rhovan as well, though most of them were paying less attention to his table than to him. Word about the Leo had spread quickly. Some had seen what he could do, while others had heard enough from the people around the shelter to know that he had helped keep several of them alive.

More than once, Marek caught someone looking at Rhovan with the kind of relief people usually reserved for someone they believed would know what to do if things went wrong again.

Rhovan seemed perfectly aware of the attention and continued eating with the same ridiculous elegance.

Mara heated both portions of noodles herself, before dropping the egg from hers onto Marek’s plate.

”You always take it,” he said, his eyes slightly widening.

”I ate earlier.”

”When?”

”During training.”

Marek accepted the answer and ate the egg.

After that, Mara started asking about ordinary things from before Day 367. She asked whether Marek had heard anything from the university, whether the laboratory was still standing, and what had happened to the equipment he used there.

Marek told her most of it was probably gone or under government control now.

Mara asked another question, ”Does that bother you?”

”A little.”

”You complained about that place all the time.”

”I complained about the equipment.”

”Same thing.”

Marek let that pass without throwing a counter-argument.

A while later, Mara asked if he was still skipping meals whenever he got too focused on something. He hesitated just long enough for her to notice.

”Less often,” he said.

Mara gave him a look.

”That’s better than before,” Marek defended.

”Barely.”

Marek went back to eating.

The conversation moved to ordinary things after that. People they had not seen since the Awakening. Their apartment. Whether the plant Mara left beside the kitchen window had survived. A charger Marek had borrowed months ago and apparently never returned.

Mara also asked whether he still kept coins in the ceramic cup beside his bed, whether the neighbor downstairs had ever returned their folding ladder, and if he remembered the name of the small bakery near her school.

Marek answered most of it without asking why she suddenly cared. The questions sounded like the kind people asked when they had been away from home too long.

He had spent so many days looking for his family that sitting beside Mara while she complained about an old charger felt stranger than crossing altered roads ever had. He thought she was only catching up. The number of ordinary things she asked about did not seem strange to him then.

When she finished checking the seam she had repaired earlier, she pressed it flat with her thumb. ”Try not to ruin it before tomorrow.”

Marek looked down at the pocket, then at her. ”Before tomorrow?”

Mara’s hand stopped, and Marek’s suspicion returned immediately.

”What happens tomorrow?” he asked.

She glanced toward Venielle, who was speaking quietly with Nadia near the mirror.

”I need you to agree to something,” Mara said.

Marek looked at her.

She stayed quiet for a few seconds, picking at the edge of her sleeve before finally moving closer.

”Before I go back with Venielle, there’s something I have to close.”

”What?”

Mara lowered her voice. ”A route connected to me here on Earth. As long as it stays open, people can use it to reach my House records.”

Marek’s hand stopped halfway to his plate. ”And you want to close it.”

Mara nodded. ”Completely.”

Marek became still. ”Closes how?”

”Venielle can explain the technical part better.”

”I asked you.”

Mara looked down at the repaired seam for a moment. When she raised her eyes again, she no longer looked annoyed. ”It doesn’t kill me.”

Something tightened in Marek’s chest. ”Nobody asked whether it kills you.”

”I know.”

”Then why was that the first thing you clarified?”

Venielle did not interrupt from across the shelter. She had clearly heard them, but she made no move to answer for Mara.

Mara held Marek’s gaze and said nothing for a while.

When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet.

”Because it is something I chose.”