Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [20]
“Ari!” The cry hurt my dry throat.
He fell to his hands and knees, backpack sliding to the floor. “Run,” he whispered, his accent back, his voice hoarse.
No way was I leaving him. “Stop it!” I told Muninn. The raven made a low clicking sound, like laughter, and kept flapping his wings.
The jacket had completely engulfed Ari. His body stretched like clay within it—nose pulling into a long snout, ears shrinking back against his head, black claws sprouting from his strange flat hands and feet. My heart pounded. He’d tried to rescue me.
White fur sprouted from black leather. He was growing now, impossibly fast—impossibly large. He lifted his head and roared. The sound echoed off the stone walls and reverberated deep in my chest.
He was a bear. A huge white polar bear, his shoulders as tall as mine. Only his eyes were human, the same bright green as before. Nausea washed over me. I stepped toward him, then froze as polar bear facts flooded my brain. Polar bears were one of the few predators who wouldn’t hesitate to attack humans. Red blood stained their white fur when they fed on seals and walruses and other arctic prey, anything they could find.
I backed away, but I kept focusing on those human eyes. “Ari?”
The bear raised his enormous paws and leaped at the air. When he landed, he broke into a powerful loping run and disappeared down the hall into the dark. The small birds flew after him, squeaking and clicking all the way.
I ran at Muninn. The raven flew up out of my reach. “Turn him back!” Whoever Ari was, he didn’t deserve this.
Muninn landed on a ledge with a krawk, and I knew he was laughing at me and Ari both. His wings lazily beat the air. “Would you give me your silver coin in order to make the boy forget his warrior ancestors once more? Or do you still seek to trade for your own memories? I have made my decision. I will accept your gift, but the coin will only buy so much. Decide, Haley.”
I couldn’t leave Ari trapped as a bear. Yet I couldn’t leave myself trapped forever without my memories, either. “Would you take the coin in exchange for just freeing us both?”
“You are not prisoners,” Muninn said. “I deal in memory, not bindings. I cannot hold you here without your consent. Yet I’ll not help you find a way out, not for a far greater gift than you offer. Time is fluid in this cave, not firmly bound to the outside world. As long as you remain here, the bond between you and the other one is muted. Should you leave, you would surely meet her again, though none can say when, in your life or hers. I will not risk seeing you harmed by that meeting. I’ll not risk seeing the fire set free.”
I reached into my pocket. The coin was warm. I remembered holding it as I stood by the edge of the sea—the memory slipped out of my reach as I grasped at it. I clutched the coin harder and remembered other things, bits and pieces with nothing to connect them.
Myself, running down a cactus-lined street, dusk smudging the sky and a hot desert wind brushing my skin. I ran for the joy of running, but also to forget.
A man in an airport, walking toward me. His battered backpack was slung over his shoulders, and his face looked as crumpled as his clothes. I looked past him, searching the crowd for someone else, though I knew I wouldn’t find her.
A woman with long blond hair and a long red cloak. “Haley,” she whispered. “Come here, Haley.”
A boy—Ari—throwing down a menu and opening his mouth to speak—
The coin flared hotter, burning me. I jerked my hand free, leaving the thing in my pocket. Whatever Ari had been about to say, I didn’t want to hear it.
“So you see,” Muninn said, “you do not wish to remember.”
Remembering hurt. I rubbed at my palm. Should I turn the coin over to Muninn? Tell the raven to turn Ari human again and leave my memories safely hidden away?
Yet my few broken memories told me that I could handle the hot desert wind. I could handle the pain of broken bones without crying out.
“We have no bargain.” My memories were somehow