Chapter 41

"No more secrets," I told Coen.

We were back in the gemstone-riddled cave, letting the roar of the waterfall drown out every other sound of dawn.

Garvis had left for bed with a muttered goodnight and a concerned pinch of his brows, and I'd walked Willa back to the house to ensure none of the owls got to her. But I wasn't about to go to sleep until I had all the answers.

We had no blanket this time, so we stood, crossing our arms at each other, in the center of the cave. I hadn't felt this much animosity between us in a long time.

"Coen?" I ground out when he didn't answer. "No. More. Secrets."

He huffed a breath.

"Your life is more important than the truth, Rayna."

"I actually beg to disagree," I shot back.

"Really?" He stepped closer. "Because I don't think you do. You're the one who asked me to erase Emelle's memory of Lord Arad to keep her safe."

"That's different," I hissed. "Emelle's memory wasn't about her. It was about me and my family and my heritage. So as much as it sucks to keep her from that part of me, it isn't the same as you hiding information about my own blood."

I went on before he could interrupt.

"And if you and Garvis are helping the pirates—sorry, faerie fleets—in a war that's invisible to everyone else, I need to know because I'm involved whether I like it or not."

"You want to know until Kitterfol Lexington comes back," Coen said, and now I noticed his arms trembling against the widespread planes of his chest. "You want to know until I'm not around to defend your mind and he pulls the truth out bit by bit, and strings you up in front of everyone, and lashes you until your skin is in bloody strips, and you're puking and screaming and pissing yourself."

My words got caught somewhere in my mouth. Close. He was so close to mentioning that one death that haunted his every step from so long ago.

I considered him a brother, he'd told me once, and he died from it.

"What was his name?" I asked, something in me softening ever so slightly.

Coen's shoulders remained rigid, but he said, "Mattheus."

I exhaled. "And Kitterfol Lexington killed him?" I asked carefully. "After his own faerie power exploded in response to drinking even more bascite?"

"Yes." Coen's voice fractured. "Lexington tortured Mattheus in front of the entire village, then hauled him off—to the sea, he claimed, to dump him into the ocean for the monsters lurking in the water. But not before our adoptive father—a Mind Manipulator himself—erased Matt's entire identity, every piece of knowledge he held about us and the faeries." Coen closed his eyes. "Matt passed out without even knowing who he was. I remember trying to catch his eye during one of the final lashings, and his gaze passed right over me. He was nothing but a picked-out shell by the end."

Which was what I'd be, if Lexington got to me after Coen graduated from the Institute.

I'd never loathed my Whispering magic so much as I did now. If only I was a Manipulator, too, I wouldn't be in this position, having to choose between knowledge and life, truth and safety.

The key to happiness isn't love or gratitude or any of that shit, Don had always said, much to Fabian's exasperation. It's ignorance. Well, perhaps Fabian did agree with that even if he wouldn't admit it, considering he'd fed me ignorance my whole life by keeping my birth and mother a secret.

Should I choose ignorance now? Let Coen and Garvis fight on their own? From the way Coen's jaw still seemed to be ticking, I knew he'd be steadfast in his secret-keeping. He wouldn't give me a single thing more even if I begged.

So I wouldn't beg. I would put the pieces together on my own. In front of him.

"We're in the middle of a war," I said. "But only the Good Council and the faeries know about it. Everyone else in here is oblivious in our little bubble."

Coen didn't nod. But his pupils widened in the glittering light.

"You and the others weren't sent here as distractions," I plowed on. "You were sent here as spies. To grow up here and learn the ins and outs of the Institute and return to the faerie fleets when you're finished." I almost gagged on the words. "You're all leaving this island as soon as you pass that Final Test."

Once upon a time, I'd been terrified of exile. Now the man I loved was going to exile himself, and I wanted nothing more than to follow him out of here.

Coen unfolded his arm and took a half-step toward me.

"I'm not leaving you, Rayna. I'm not abandoning you."

"But that was the plan," I persisted. "You planned on leaving until I showed up. And now you don't know what to do. You—" I almost laughed as I stumbled upon a final realization. "You've been getting the pills from the faerie ships. They provide you with the suppressant to stifle our immature power, not some random merchant from your home village."

Being immune to the shield, Coen would be able to do such a thing—reach through the barrier and take the pills from a boat on the other side. Probably in the dead of night when no one was looking.

"You said you had to pay for them. What are you paying them with, Coen? Information?"

Yes. I could see that answer splayed all over his face. He truly was a spy. For the people I'd once been so terrified of, faceless men and women at sea. No—faceless faeries.

God, I'd been so stupid.

Coen wavered on the spot. For a moment, I thought he was about to spill it all.

Then he snapped his mouth shut, and his face hardened again.

"I can't tell you anything more than this: you, Rayna, weren't just born in the middle of a war. You were born in the enemy's territory. In the enemy's cage."

I understood the sentiment. Dionysian and her Good Council elites already had me shackled; they didn't need much of an excuse to snatch me away from the Institute and haul me to their torture chamber on the mountain, and every piece of information I gathered in here just gave them one more reason to do so. Coen wanted me to stop asking questions, to stop attracting potential attention, but… what if the only way I could protect myself in the long run was by uncovering those answers?

I chewed on my lip, frowning.

"I understand you can't tell me everything, that there's sensitive information you might have found out as a spy that… that I don't get to know. But when it involves me, when you're keeping secrets about me, then…" Something inside me crumpled. "Then how can I trust you?"

Coen stuck a finger beneath my chin, near the throbbing pulse of my throat.

"I never said you could trust all of me, little hurricane."

The sultry tone of his voice nearly had my knees aching to collapse, especially as I remembered what had happened during our first time in this cave.

But then he was lifting my chin with that single finger and saying, in a sadder, more serious tone, "You can't pick and choose which pieces of my magic to use, Rayna. You can't ask me to alleviate your stress for a test, but expect me to give it back whenever you please."

Shit. He was right. I'd taken advantage of his power, tried to use a slice of it for my own benefit. But I couldn't do so any longer. I could accept Coen as he was, edged with lies and deceit and half-truths… or I could let him go.

Back to the pirates. The faerie fleet. Back to the ships he'd come from.

I knew what I had to do before my heart could even falter.

If Coen had a way out of this cage after his Final Test, there was no way I was going to be the thing that held him back. I wouldn't let him be caged with me. But he would never leave me unless I pushed him away.

"Then I guess I won't be needing any part of your magic from here on out." I forced out a shrug, hating, hating, hating myself when Coen withdrew his finger from beneath my chin as if I'd shocked him. "I guess we should both focus on what's most important to us and move on."

"Rayna… please don't." Each of his syllables cracked.

By the orchid and the owl, I was really breaking up with this man. As if it didn't splinter every bone in my body. As if it didn't bruise my heart and twist my lungs and send panic flaring to the tips of my fingertips and toes and…

"I don't want you to stick around after your Final Test," I said, enunciating each word. I don't want to hinder you slipped through my inner thoughts, but Coen wasn't in my mind to pick out those words. He was far, far away, sinking into his own mind, blinking rapidly down at me. I said my next words carefully. "I don't want someone I can't fully trust."

"Fine," Coen said, his shock vanishing as quickly as it had sprung upon him. Nothing but cold nonchalance masked his face now, tightening every muscle there.

"Fine," I said back, and was surprised to hear the nonchalance still coating my own throat.

Liar. I was such a goddamned liar. I wanted him whether I could trust him or not, but it would be safer for him if he left, and healthier for me if I wasn't constantly suspicious of my own partner.

I turned and marched back up the tunnel without saying another word.

Away from the dazzling glimmer of stones and into the Throat that swallowed me whole.