Unmade (The Lynburn Legacy, #3)

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“You lied to me, you lied to Kami, you’re acting like a sympathizer to murdering sorcerers, and you don’t even seem to understand why what you’re doing is wrong. I don’t even recognize you anymore. I don’t trust you with my children. I don’t want you here.”

Edmund Prescott had been his aunt Lillian’s boyfriend. Rob had killed him for that. Edmund’s whole family believed that Edmund had run away. Holly had never even met her uncle. He had died long before she was born, and nobody but Jared knew.

Rob wasn’t stupid, Jared reflected, or perhaps it was just blazingly obvious what dark things Jared had thought about Kami: how he would have made any bargain to keep her.

“Uh, are you planning to violate my body?” Jared asked. “I request to be buried alive instead.” “I cannot believe that you never shut up,” Amber said in a fraught whisper.

“I’m with Kami,” she said. Kami nodded approvingly. “Because we are best friends forever.” “Also the longer we leave Jared there, the crazier he’s going to get,” Angela remarked. “Let’s face it, he was not the mayor of Sanityville to start with.”

After a moment, Jared let one hand drop and patted Ash’s back tentatively. “Um,” he said. “There, there, buddy. I’m alive, but you don’t need to take it so hard.” “You’re not funny,”

“I remember all the details of how you look, and I use them to tell myself stories about you,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t look at anyone else like that. I don’t think about anyone else the way I think about you.”

“Kami,” he murmured, and his voice scraped in his throat. “Can I?” All the breath left her in a dizzy rush. “Are you sure?” She thought she should check: she had never seen him sure before, not about touching her, but one corner of his mouth lifted as if he found the idea of saying no laughable. “Yes,” he said.

“Yes,” Kami murmured. Smiling was like breathing, utterly natural and impossible not to do. “Yes, yes.” The thundering rain of blows on the door made them both jolt. “Guys,” Ash said from behind the door, voice strangled. “I’m sorry, but no.”

“Sorry,” Jared bit out. His focus on the brick wall remained intent. “Nothing to be sorry for,” Kami said. “Awkward situation. I think Ash is off to rock back and forth in a corner and seriously wonder how his life got to be this way. He’s a sensitive plant.” Jared nodded. “Might be better than stalking out to a balcony to wrap yourself in a cloak of bitterness and self-hatred like metaphorical Batman, though.” “Or trying to make light of a situation with constant awkward jokes,” Kami agreed. “Whatever. Emotional health is for losers.”

“You think it’s going to work out for the best.” “Yes,” Jared snapped. Kami said, with slow-gathering fury, “But you’re breaking up with me anyway.”

She didn’t want an apology for what was supposed to be a magical first time of taking wanton liberties with each other’s persons. She just wanted him not

“I don’t know,” she said. “He—we talked about you, once.” “That one time you two made out?” Kami asked with a sinking feeling. “Uh, I don’t remember exactly when.” Holly looked shifty. “It was totally that time you made out, wasn’t it?” “Oh, come on,” said Holly. “What’s that thing you say? The past is another country. You make out with different people there.”

He takes you seriously. You matter to him in a way no one else does. That’s obvious.”

Kami kept one arm around Holly’s neck. “I shan’t watch anything, I’m too happy,” she declared. “Ahhh! I’m so happy! This is so great!” “Yeah?” Holly asked, shy again. “You think so?” “Uh, you are two of my favorite people in the world, so yes, I do,” Kami declared. “Oh, wait, okay, you need my help. What do you need? Do you need practice kissing girls? That’s totally fine. I can do that. Come here, I’ll kiss you right now.” The creak of the door made Kami look away from Holly and Holly look up from the book. Ash looked as if he seriously wondered why it was always him. “Ah, don’t stop on my account,” he said. “Please go on.”

You’ll never know, sucker, she told Ash. “Hi, Ash,” she said out loud. “Hi, darling.” Jared’s face looked slightly less unmoved. “One moment. Holly, please keep my place in the book,” Kami said, and rose from her position leaning against the window to make her way purposefully across the room. Ash got out of the way very quickly. In fact, he went to stand behind a chair, as if there was about to be an explosion and he wanted protection from the blast. Jared stayed where he was, leaning against the doorframe and watching her. His hands were in his pockets, which Kami thought was excellent because it meant he couldn’t defend himself when she caught him off guard. “I just wanted to make something clear, cupcake,” she told him, and his eyes widened fractionally as she grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt, stood on her tiptoes, and pulled him down into a kiss.

For a moment things were sweet and simple, and then Kami leaned back and looked into Jared’s eyes. “I’m Determining the Relationship,” she told him in a low voice. “We’re going out. I refuse to be broken up with.”

“Nah, Dad, I’m good. Please leave me in this hotel bedroom with my handsome boyfriend. And several of his relatives, and a very sharp weapon.” “Clearly I went badly wrong somewhere when raising you,” said Dad. “Well, best to go down before Tomo gets into the vodka.”

“You need to go to bed,” Kami decided, and hauled him away and out of Lillian’s room. “Come on. Everything will still be ruined in the morning.” It was a brief walk down the narrow hall to Jared’s little room. They did not speak until they were at his door. “Can you believe that we screwed up everything about twice as much in the space of a couple hours?” Kami asked. “I can,” said Jared. “But only because I truly believe in us, the utter depths of our incompetence, and that it must inevitably lead us to our ultimate epic failure.” “Aw, sugar flower,” Kami told him. “You always know just what to say.”

“I once told you I was always on your side,” she murmured. “I will always be on your side, even in times of ultimate epic failure. I’ll see you in the morning and I’ll be glad to see you, even on a ruined morning. Good night.” Jared did not kiss her, but he leaned his forehead against hers

“I didn’t achieve you. You are the greatest achievement of your own life. And you are great beyond my imagination.”

Don’t waste time blaming yourself when you can spend time planning how to destroy our enemies.”

“So you will be terrible. But that does not mean you have to be unloved, or unforgiven.”

“What happened?” “Well,” said Jared. “Your mother threw her bedside lamp at me.” Kami looked over at her mother, who looked apologetic. She could picture the whole scene: her mother waking to fire and chaos, and finding a Lynburn’s face framed against the nightmare. She was quite proud of her mother for fighting back. “That’s what happens when you insist on going around wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle,” she remarked. “When you start dating a girl, parents are going to have strong words. Deliver lectures. Set curfews. Hurl projectiles.” Jared shrugged. “About how I always expected it would go, yeah.”

“Do you want my jacket?” Jared asked. He was taking it off as he spoke, a little awkwardly as he still had to hang onto her. “Yes,” said Kami instantly. He drew it close around her shoulders. “Also your pin and your class ring. That’s how you do dating in America, isn’t it? You see, I know the ways of your people.” “I don’t really know how dating works,” Jared told her. “High

school for me was mostly musical numbers. That’s how it is in the States, you’ve seen the movies. Every time someone had an emotional dilemma or epiphany, they would burst into song, and we would all have to break out into perfectly choreographed dance sequences. It took a lot of intensive training. So many jazz squares, no time for love.” Kami laughed,

“It’s possible I can make up for lost time. I hear girls like bad boys. I hope that’s true,” Jared said. “Because, baby, I’m bad at practically everything.”

“I’d make a joke about falling for you,” she said. “But that’s cheesy and terrible, and I’ve decided I don’t believe in falling. I believe in something else.” “What’s that?” asked Jared. “The opposite of falling,” Kami said, after a long time. “I did not fall. I climbed, to a place high enough that I could see clearly. Once I saw, I was certain.”

“Also a terrible driver,” Kami said. “Wild about the eyes. Daddy issues so numerous the issues may be compiled into a book called Who’s the Daddy? Both Options Are Evil.”

that, but apart from that, it’s okay.” “Anyone would be lucky to be emotionally blackmailed or physically forced into romance with you, friend,” said Angela. “What a jerk.” “Thanks,” said Kami. “Anne Lynburn’s grave isn’t here.”

evil. Kami saw why so many teenagers who had adventures in books were interestingly tragic orphans. Parents were a real buzzkill, adventure-wise.

“Bros before hoes,” said Jared. “By which of course I mean gardening tools, because I hold all the fine ladies of Sorry-in-the-Vale in the highest regard.”

slightly. Kami got a firmer grip on it. “It’s okay if you’re scared.” Holly lifted her chin. “I’m trying not to be.” “You don’t have to try. I mean, you’re still awesome if you’re scared. You can

“Want to know what it was called? You’ll like this,” Jared added, and he looked at Kami. It was a simple glance from his gray eyes, but it felt like being put in a room that was just the two of them. “Lady Day.”

Kami pushed her chair back, prepared to follow Angela and talk about party decorations, but before she reached the door, she heard her name, spoken quite softly. She looked around at the only other person left in the room, and her hand fell away from the door handle. “Whatever it is that you’re hiding from me,” said Jared, “you have to tell me now.”

“I’m not …,” she said. “I don’t want to hide anything from you.” “Then don’t do it,” Jared said, and swallowed on the words, as if he was in pain. “I know I’m not—smart like you, but don’t lie to me just because you can do it now.”

Nobody could tell a love story by themselves: people told love stories to each other, and Jared had refused to tell her what she had been hoping to hear.

“Young Jared was standing at the door and he was wet to the skin. He has a look about him sometimes, like a stray dog that has been kicked too many times and has gone all the way past snarling and biting until all it does is shiver, waiting for the next kick. They’re almost patient about their misery, creatures like that, and they look at you with such eyes, beseeching you to make it all stop but not—not hoping that you will. It’s like they know you won’t, that the world isn’t going to be kind to them. Do you know what I mean?”

ask. But he said ‘I don’t drink’ in this straightforward kind of way, as if he’d thought about it and he wasn’t going to do it when he grew up either.

“Come on, Ash,” Kami said. “Don’t make me say it. Don’t. You know why I can’t. You know.”

“Amber said that Rob Lynburn is after us?” was Angela’s verdict. “I hope she also wowed you with some radical statements about water being wet and oranges being orange-colored.”

“There was always Jared,” she said. “Before he ever came, before I ever met him. I don’t know what I would be without him. It’s like wondering who I would be if I grew up in a totally different place, or if I’d had a different grandmother, but it’s more than that. Every thought I ever had, for years, I shared with him, and they were different from the thoughts I would have had on my own. He shaped the way I think, and the way I think is who I am. Maybe you wouldn’t have liked me if I was someone else.”

Rusty smacked her lightly on the top of her head. “You were a beautiful dream to me, you brat; please cease inserting your unpleasant and hurtful reality into my dream. It was the kind of dream that’s not supposed to come true. It was the kind of dream that does something else. It taught me who I wanted to be.”

“I say ‘extreme weirdness’ with love,” said Rusty. “Kami said that for years that every thought she had was shared with you, shaped by you, and every thought was different because of you.”

“Kami’s brothers,” Rusty said, his voice slow and unaffected by Jared’s sharpness. “What would you do for them? Would you do anything to save them, if you could?” Jared would have thought that was obvious. From the way Rusty was looking at him, careful, a little wary, as if he was testing him, he supposed it was not. He figured that it was reasonable enough for Rusty to doubt him. “Anyone who is Kami’s is mine,” Jared said, trying to explain,

“What?” Jared demanded. He hated the way his voice sounded, like a distraught abandoned child’s. “What are you talking about? What are you doing?” Rusty’s voice was so kind. It had always been kind under the put-on detachment and drawl, Jared thought numbly, but it had never seemed as kind as it did now. “Take care of yourself too, if you can manage it.” It was only then that Jared understood.

Your Lynburns will protect you. But they didn’t protect him.

She had been so blithely arrogant, so happily stupid. Beloved people died every day. Her love was not special, and her wishes would not order the universe.

“The way he made you feel, the way he felt about you—they can’t wipe it away. They can’t take away all he was to you. It was too much. They don’t have the power. Nothing can take that from you.”

“Whenever I thought about dying, I always thought that you would remember me,” said Jared. “I thought about living on in your mind. I knew I would be safe there, that I would be good there, remembered as better than I had been. I know all you have lost, I know everything is changed, but when I thought of death I didn’t think of going away. I always thought of it as still being with you.” Kami knew she was crying, but had not realized how hard she was crying until she tried to talk and could hardly speak. “That’s because you’re kind of crazy,” she said, sobbing and tender, and it seemed strange and miraculous that tenderness could survive when she was in such pain, that she loved him through even this.