Invisible

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 nowhere else to go.

Ink slid his lips into the hollow space between her neck and shoulder. Joy leaned her head back and groaned. He lifted her easily, twisting them onto her bed. She held on to his hips with her knees, taking the weight of him as they landed. He kissed her again—her face, her eyes, her throat—pushing pillows out of the way, knocking over everything in their path as they climbed higher across the mattress, their breath filling each other’s mouths. There was bumping, crashing, thumping, breaking—but none of that mattered. There was only the want. Joy could feel his kisses all over her body. Her leg snaked behind his knee, pulling him closer, tighter. He pressed against her, flattening the ripples of her shirt. She ran her hands along his ribs, sliding from his chest to his back to his shoulders. He kissed the side of her neck, her collarbone, her breastbone, her throat. He shook the dampness from his hair.

Joy squirmed. She couldn’t seem to get enough air to breathe. Her clothes felt uncomfortable, stuck to her skin. She pulled at her blouse, wanting more than anything to feel his bare skin against hers, lifting the hem in bunched fists. As he kissed her cheek, she turned her head and saw the pale, glowing slash on his wrist. It hit her like ice water.

“What...?”

Ink froze. He didn’t need to ask what she’d seen.

He gasped quietly into her hair, the sound of it deep in her ear, before he lifted himself up, turning his left hand over. The signatura looked like a jagged crescent moon.

“It’s a mark,” he said. Catching his breath, he swallowed. “Grimson’s mark.” He kissed her temple once, as if saying goodbye to the moment. “He lays claim on those who have murdered someone of the Twixt.”

Joy twisted beneath him, no longer burning with need. “Did Inq put it there?”

“It is her job,” Ink said. “It was my doing.”

“But...” She struggled to understand. “I thought marks were meant for humans? I didn’t think the Folk marked one another!”

Ink sat up, the muscles of his chest bunched and taut as if he were expecting a blow. He hung his head, ashamed. “You have seen Inq,” he said. “She is covered in marks, proof of her experiences. I think she likes to collect them like trinkets or boys, as if they might somehow tie her tighter to the world.” Ink touched the spot on his wrist as if he could feel its foreignness, someone else’s signatura on his skin. “That is what marks are for, of course—tying our two worlds together, keeping the magic that binds us alive with so much string.”

Joy traced the edge of his pinkie finger, not daring to touch the sigil. “I don’t understand,” she said finally. “I know you and Inq mark humans for the Folk, but not why the Folk need to mark things in the first place.”

Ink turned his hand over, breaking her touch, and threaded his fingers together over his knee with a sigh.

“Imagine a dirigible,” he said.

“A what?”

He paused. “A hot air balloon,” he amended.