“Tell me more,” I said. “Does it work?”
“What do you think?”
“Has anyone in the Society ever died?” I asked. “That would be the proof in the pudding, wouldn’t it? Or in the Elixir.”
“It would. And the answer is yes. They drop off as easily as anyone.”
“Doesn’t that put an end to the argument?”
“To me, yes,” Sage said. “To the believers, no. They’d say using the Elixir to save lives is outside the natural order. It should only be used in the tiniest amounts to relieve pain and suffering as someone is on their way out.”
“So they have the power to grant eternal life and they never use it? Seems like a waste.”
“A waste of time! Each meeting is three hours long! Do you have any idea what I could do with three hours, Olivia?”
He had set me up for it that time, and I took the bait. “I can think of a few things you could do,” I said, giving him another wicked smile. This time he returned the grin and leaned in close to kiss me, first on my lips, then my cheek, my neck.…
“Sage,” I murmured as we slid down to the floor of the boat. “I really can’t swim.”
“Hmmm,” he breathed into my ear, “then we’ll just have to be very careful, won’t we?”
I woke to the sound of light scratching, and for a long time I was positive it was something scraping along the bottom of the boat. Little by little I remembered myself. I wasn’t in a boat, I was in a cave. I wasn’t Olivia, I was Clea.
But I was with Sage.
My body was still heavy with sleep, so I didn’t move, just opened my eyes.
The quality of light coming into the cave was subdued now. Moonlight.
Sage crouched on the ground, leaning over the cave floor a few feet in front of me. He held a small rock and concentrated on scratching something into the dirt. I could see the tension in his arms as he worked, and the small concentrated furrow between his brows. The moonlight cast a glowing aura on his skin. He was beautiful.
Whatever else he was, Sage was by far the most magnetic man I had ever seen. I had felt it in my dreams, and it was even more true in real life. I welcomed the chance to study him without his knowledge.
He glanced up, and I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Had he seen me? The scratching stopped. He was looking at me, I knew it. I held my breath and willed my eyes not to pop open and see if he was staring.
Finally the scratching started up again. I forced myself to slowly count to ten before I opened my eyelids the tiniest bit and peeked through my lashes.
Good—he wasn’t looking at me.
I opened my eyes a little wider. What was he doing? Moving only my eyes, I glanced down at the dirt floor in front of him …
… and saw a picture of me, fast asleep.
It was incredible. I could see his tools laid out beside the picture: rocks in several sizes and shapes, a couple of twigs … the most rudimentary materials, and yet what he was etching into the floor wouldn’t look out of place on an art gallery wall. It was beautiful … far more beautiful than I thought I actually looked in my sleep. Is that how he saw me?
Sage lifted his head again, and I shut my eyes. I imagined him studying me, taking careful note of my features and filtering them through his own senses. My heartbeat quickened, and it took all my willpower to remain still.
“You can keep pretending to be asleep if you’d like, but I don’t see a career for you as an actress,” he teased.
My eyes sprang open. Sage’s head was again bent over his etching, but a grin played on his face as he worked.
“You knew?” I asked, mortified.
Sage put a finger to his lips, glancing toward Ben. “About two minutes before you woke up, I knew,” he whispered. “Your breathing changed.” He bent back over the drawing, then impishly asked, “Pleasant dreams?”
My heart stopped, and I felt myself blush bright crimson as I remembered our encounter in the bottom of the rowboat. I sent a quick prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening that I hadn’t re-enacted any of it in my sleep, then said as nonchalantly as possible, “I don’t know, I can’t remember what I dreamed about. Why?”
He swapped out the rock in his hand for one with a thinner edge and worked for another moment. “No reason … just heard my name.”
I hoped the dim moonlight shadowed the worst of my blush. “Your name,” I reiterated. “That’s …interesting. They say dreams sort out things that happen when we’re awake.”
“Hmm. Did you sort anything out?” he asked.
“Like I said, I can’t remember.”
I knew he didn’t believe me. Time to change the subject. I nodded to the etching. “Can I come look?”
He sat back on his heels and gestured to his artwork. “By all means. I’m done.”
I got up, happily noting that my ankle was now pain free. I carefully tiptoed around the two square feet of floor over which his drawing sprawled, and settled in next to him. “It’s beautiful,” I told him. “I’m flattered. I’ve never had anyone draw a picture of me before.”
Sage cocked his head and studied what he’d etched. “You think it looks like you?”
Again a hot crawl of embarrassment raced up my neck and flooded my face. I looked more closely at the etching. The image did look like me, but only if you really wanted to see the resemblance. The woman in it had the same hair, and slept in the same position I had, but on closer inspection her features were quite different. Her eyes were farther apart, her nose more pointed, her cheekbones less defined … differences that seemed insignificant when I’d assumed the picture was of me, but knowing it wasn’t …
I was an egocentric idiot. My dreams about this man may have been vivid, but they were dreams. They had nothing to with reality; not mine, and clearly not his. I stammered, groping for some kind of explanation. I had nothing.
“She does look like you, a little,” Sage admitted. His eyes lingered on the contours of the drawing’s face. I was eager to change the subject, but I felt like I had to ask.
“Who is she?”
“Someone I loved a long time ago,” he murmured.
I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to comfort him and take away his pain, but I didn’t know how. Then I thought of something.
“Let me look at your back,” I said.
“My back?”
“Your scratches. I dug in pretty deep. I should make sure it’s not infected.”
“No, no, it’s not,” he said, waving me off. “It’s fine.”
“Just let me look.”
Sage shook his head. “We’re in a cave. It’s not like you can clean it anyway.”