Chapter Thirty-Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Hold tight the rein of your body, for it will lead you into ruin.

—The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 67

She woke late the next morning, achy and tired, her eyes gummed with sleep. Last night felt like a dream, and she might’ve convinced herself it was, were it not for the slight bruise on her shoulder. A place where Gabe’s control slipped, lavender proof of near-sin.

Lore scowled at it and hiked up her nightgown. His control had won out, in the end. And as frustrating as it had been in the moment, part of her was glad for it now. Daylight through the windows chased out idle fantasies, limned everything stark and real and simple.

Things were complicated enough without all that.

Embarrassment made her middle a writhing knot, but Lore kept her chin high as she pushed open her door. Gabe would act like nothing happened; she’d let him. It was easier.

But when the sitting room lay before her, it was empty. Gabe’s nest had been reassembled into carefully folded blankets and left on the corner of the couch.

He’d left before she got up, then. Good. Simple, easy.

Gods-dead-and-dying-damned easy.

A breakfast tray gleamed on the table behind the couch. A note was stuck under the tray’s lip, short words in a familiar elegant hand.

Last night made me hungry. I assume it did the same for you. Rest up. —Bastian

He surely hadn’t delivered breakfast himself, so the double entendre of the note must’ve been for the benefit of possible prying eyes. Lore’s lips twisted. The whole Citadel thought she was sleeping with the Sun Prince already; might as well lean into it.

Especially if they were going to be traveling to the stone garden tonight on their own. A lovers’ tryst would be a convenient excuse if they were caught.

Thoughts of lovers and the stone garden naturally led to Gabe. Lore opened the tray with a clang and set to the fruit and pastries inside, staunchly refusing to think of him, to think of last night and what they’d almost done. What it might mean.

Nothing, she told herself, shoving a cherry tart between her teeth. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

When the tray was nearly empty and she’d poured herself a cup of coffee to wash it down, Lore sat on the couch with a sigh. Rest up, Bastian’s note said, and she took it as code for stay in your room. Probably a good idea. If she kept far from courtiers, there was little chance she’d be questioned by Bellegarde or anyone else who might have some connection to the bodies in the catacombs.

She’d have to raise one of those bodies tonight. The back of her neck prickled at the thought.

At least now she knew what to expect. The open, unmoving mouth, the whispering. She could only hope that this time, the corpse said something helpful.

Lore dropped her head into her hands with a frustrated growl.

She was stuck in her room, and there was nothing here to do. Nothing but those books of erotic poetry she’d taken from the gilded library. Exploring the halls with Gabe, laughing at the ridiculousness of the Citadel, felt like lifetimes ago.

With another long sigh, theatrical as if someone could hear it, Lore got up and retrieved the books from her bedside table, then took them into the tiny study to the right of the door. She sat down in the single chair at the desk, hooked one leg over the arm, and opened the book to a random page. The poem seemed to be about a priest forsaking his vows for the favors of a deep-bosomed lover.

“Ironic,” Lore mumbled.

When her stomach was rumbling insistently enough that more pastries wouldn’t satisfy, Lore disobeyed the Sun Prince. Throwing on clothes, she left the room, nearly slamming the door behind her, and started the winding trek down to the main hall.

The long table was set with just as many delicacies as it had been before. A wine fountain burbled in the center, surrounded by vegetables and bread and meat, including Bastian’s hated peahen. Lore served herself a heaping plateful, and it felt like spite as much as hunger.

“Lore!”

Alie. Her gown was a pale orange today, matching the jeweled pins holding back the white curls of her hair. She looked like a butterfly, something meant for air and flight.

Lore allowed herself to be hugged. An affectionate touch that didn’t require something of her in return made a mortifying lump rise in her throat; Lore swallowed it down.

Alie kept her hands on Lore’s shoulders when they parted, eyebrow cocked. “Please tell me you were invited to the eclipse ball and the dinner afterward? It will be dreadfully boring, otherwise. At least, I assume so. It’s not like I’ve gone to one before.” She giggled. “My father has always insisted that we attend all-night vigils in the sanctuary during eclipses. This is the first time he’s allowed us to do something livelier.”

It would be rude to shove bread in her mouth to keep from answering. Still, Lore contemplated it for a moment. “We were,” she said finally.

The mistake of using we wasn’t clear to her until Alie’s eyes brightened. We, meaning she and Gabe. Gabe, for whom Alie still held a guttering candle. Gabe, who’d come to Lore’s room and kissed her like a dying man before disappearing.

Her smile was very hard to hold.

“Oh, thank all the gods.” Alie’s hands fell; she half turned to pick up an apple and polished it on her gown before taking a bite. “If I had to spend all night with the King and my father, I’d go raving mad.”

“Are those the only people attending?” Lore’s hands clawed around her plate, her taste for peahen suddenly gone. “Just August and your family?”

If so, that would obliterate any chance of coincidence.

Alie took a moment to swallow, unwilling to speak around a mouthful of apple. Courtly manners. “Not quite,” she said, after a sip of wine to wash it down. “There were quite a few people invited to the ball. As for the dinner: Anton will be there, of course. And a few others. But it’s going to be a quiet affair, apparently. Very exclusive.” She leaned in a bit closer, like she didn’t want to be overheard. “Bri didn’t get invited to the dinner portion, though Dani and her family did. Not that Bri is complaining; there’s a huge party happening at Fabian Beauchamp’s estate outside of the city, so she’s taking a carriage over there after the ball.” The wistfulness in her voice said she’d much rather be at that party than August’s. Lore couldn’t blame her.

“But we’ll have a good time, if you and me and Gabe and Bastian are all there.” Alie’s smile widened when she said Gabe’s name, just a bit. “Bastian can liven up even the most boring court functions. He’ll make sure it isn’t dull.” She took another sip of wine and moved away. “I have to go to my piano lesson, but send me a note when you have a free afternoon! We still need a croquet rematch, I hope you’ve been practicing!”

Then she was gone, weaving between the courtiers in their afternoon finery, leaving Lore with a plate full of food she didn’t really want anymore but couldn’t bear to waste. With a sigh, she started back toward her room.

Whatever the eclipse ball would be, she was sure dull wouldn’t qualify.

Lore walked quickly to the carpeted steps leading back up to her turret, head down. So she didn’t see August until the Sainted King cleared his throat.

She froze, hands full of china plate and heaped vegetables. Panic spasmed through her chest; she dipped her head and bent her knees in a truncated curtsy, hiding her face in case it spasmed through her expression, too. “Your Majesty.”

He looked… awful. Deep shadows stood out around his eyes, his skin pale and almost clammy looking, as if a fever had recently broken. There was a slight, tired stoop in his shoulders, but it didn’t diminish his presence, and she still felt herself standing up straighter as he narrowed his eyes.

August didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “You’ve been spending time with my son?”

His mouth wrenched on the word son, like it was something disgusting he had to spit out.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Lore nodded, brows drawing together. “We’re following your orders to the letter.”

Considering that the orders had never gotten more specific, she wasn’t even lying.

“Good.” The King fumbled at his waist, pulling that thin flask from within his doublet and taking a hearty drink. “There will be a resolution soon. The whelp will finally get what he deserves.”

Then the Sainted King pushed past her, breath reeking of belladonna. He didn’t say goodbye.

Lore stared after him for a moment before wearily mounting the steps to her room.

Lore sat at her window and waited for the sky to darken. There was a smear across the glass, one that hadn’t been there yesterday; either from sweat-rumpled fabric or a grasping hand. She scrubbed it away as the clock on the wall ticked by the time, inching ever closer to midnight.

Gabe was still gone. She’d stopped listening for him in the halls. She wondered if he’d moved back into his cloister. Back to walls that would keep him safe from himself, from all the things he wanted that he’d been taught were sin. Surely Anton would relent after he confessed that he’d nearly broken his vows for a poison-running necromancer.

It set an ache in her gut sharp as a bayonet’s end. Lore tried to reason it away. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done the same thing before—played hot and cold, ultimately decided on cold. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Still.

She shook her head like she could knock him out of it, closed her eyes. It’d be better to spend this time actually preparing for what would happen at midnight, rather than worrying over a monk who’d seemingly decided she wasn’t worth his questionable salvation.

Instead, she concentrated on her forest, the wall she’d built around her mind to keep out the awareness of death. She concentrated on close trunks and interlaced branches and the subtle weave of smoke beyond her trees, black against an azure sky, thick as if something was always burning.

The minute hand of the clock ticked toward twelve. As soon as it reached its zenith, a knock came on the door.

Lore stood up. Tried not to think about what waited for her down in the stone garden, where the catacombs seethed their darkness.

Bastian stood in the corridor, dressed all in black. The Bleeding God’s Heart sconce was full of candles on the wall at his back, outlining him in hellish light and hiding the vagaries of his expression. She could see his eyes, though, a dark glitter, and there was nothing playful in them. Tonight’s Bastian was all business. “Ready for a chat with the dead?”

“Ready as I’m going to be.” Lore stepped out into the hall and closed the door softly. Beyond the sconce’s glow, the corridor swam back into shadow.

“Gabriel decided not to join us, I take it?” Bastian fell into step beside her.

“No.” Lore stared down the hallway; the dark was preferable to talking about Gabe. “I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Hmm.” Bastian didn’t ask any further questions.

He overtook her as they reached the branch in the hall, weaving in front of her to lead. The route they’d taken to sneak out into the back compound and through the culvert to Dellaire would be too obvious tonight.

She thought of August earlier, drinking poison and looking half a corpse. The whelp will finally get what he deserves.

In abstract, she’d known that August hated Bastian. But actually seeing it—naked hatred, not disdain veiled behind false concern—made pity coil at the base of her throat, pity she knew Bastian wouldn’t want. Still, it stayed there. She’d taken it hard when Val turned her over to Anton; she couldn’t imagine how one lived with the knowledge that your true-born parent wanted you gone.

“Are you all right?” she murmured to Bastian’s back as they turned down an unfamiliar corridor. Thick tapestries lined the walls, muffling her voice. Sculpted suns and stars wheeled over the ceiling in three-dimensional gilt.

He glanced over his shoulder, brow arched high. “Yes, sneaking through the halls is not an act that engenders in me much turmoil.”

“I mean…” She waved her hand, pursed her lips. “With… everything.”

He would not want her pity, but she wanted to give him something. A place that offered softness, if he wanted it. Tenderness didn’t come easily to her, but she’d try.

A gleam in his eye; he understood despite her fumbling. Bastian shrugged, turning back around. “I,” he said decisively, “am coping.” He pulled something gleaming from his pocket—a flask, tipped quickly into his mouth, then passed back to her without looking.

Lore took it. Sniffed just enough to make sure there was no whiff of poison, then sipped. Whiskey, strong enough to make her nearly cough. “That’s quite the method of coping.”

“Better than it could be.” Bastian took the flask back. The corridor branched; he took the left one, gleaming marble. “Stay close to the wall. There’s a long pool in the middle of the floor all the way down this hall.”

“Who thought that was a good idea?”

“Some ancestor of mine with too much money and too little taste. So really, it could’ve been any of them.”

The questionable corridor ended, widening into an atrium filled with night-blooming flowers beneath a domed glass ceiling. It was beautiful, and Bastian slowed his pace. Lore allowed it. She was in no rush.

A few of the flowers she recognized—hellebore, the color of dried blood. Datura, climbing up a wooden trellis to open twisting blooms to the moon. Poisons she knew, poisons that anyone outside of the Citadel would be arrested for growing, and here they were just decoration.

“My father is a bad man.”

She turned away from the hellebore—Bastian wasn’t looking at her, instead standing with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted up to the moon, like he was some night-blooming poison himself. “That makes it easier,” he said quietly. “Easier to deal with the fact that he wants me dead. Maybe it makes me good, even.” A snort, his eyes closing as his head tipped back further. “The Law of Opposites, right? If a bad man wants me dead, that makes me good. In the most technical sense.”

It didn’t seem like a conversation that wanted another participant. Lore just watched him, smelling sweet poison and tracing the lines of his face with her eyes. Far too handsome, she’d thought before, but in the moonlight, Bastian was the kind of beautiful that rent hearts in half.

The air around him almost seemed to glimmer, gold dust in the dark. Moonlight made him more beautiful, yes, but in the same way that darkness emphasized a flame. He didn’t belong in it; Bastian Arceneaux was antithetical to night.

“My mother wasn’t good, either,” she murmured.

His eyes slid her way, a subtle invitation to continue, but Bastian kept his face toward the sky.

“After I was born—after all the Night Sisters realized what I could do—she stayed distant. I don’t remember her ever touching me with any kind of affection.” The razored lump in her throat that Alie’s embrace had risen tried to return. She swallowed, again, rubbed at her neck like she could physically force it away. “By that point, she was totally devoted to the Sisters. To their mission, to keeping the Buried Goddess from ever rising again.”

Go, she’d said, pushing Lore out into stabbing daylight while her palm still ached from her branding, a bird shoving a fledgling from a nest. Maybe not totally devoted, then. But enough.

“Something about me…” Here, Lore’s voice broke, and she paused until it mended itself. “Something about me was wrong. Something about me went against everything she’d dedicated her life to.”

She didn’t realize she was staring at her moon-scarred hand until it was covered by Bastian’s. He’d crossed to her, shadow-silent, and closed his fingers around hers. She could feel the lines of his scar against her own, the now-healed runnels of half a sun.

“I get it,” Lore murmured, staring at their hands. “People are different, and just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you’re good for each other. But she was all I had, and she looked at me like I was a monster.” Lore closed her eyes, briefly, took a breath. Looked up at him. “But even she didn’t want me dead. She saved me. Took me to the mouth of the catacombs when the rest of the Sisters wanted to send me into the Buried Goddess’s tomb.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, a shaky smile. “That’s something.”

They stood in the atrium for a handful of heartbeats, hands entwined, her scar against his. In the corner of Lore’s eye, something like fog twisted around them, a dance of darkness and gold, glitter blown into smoke. But maybe it was just lurking tears she wouldn’t let fall; when she tried to focus on the strange shimmering, it disappeared.

“Well,” Bastian said finally. “We aren’t dead yet.” He dropped her hand and started forward, toward the door of the atrium.

Wordlessly, Lore followed.

Past the atrium, Bastian led her down a flight of narrow stairs, and after that, the corridors slowly became more familiar. They’d wound their way to the main floor, headed toward the front of the Citadel rather than the back. Lore heard courtiers, giggles and soft voices and lovers’ moans, but they didn’t see anyone.

Not until the bloodcoat appeared at the end of the hallway.

Bastian was quick; he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a recessed alcove framing a window. There wasn’t a curtain to draw over it, nor were there any on the other alcoves close by.

“Shit,” Lore hissed. “Shit shit shit.”

“Hold your smuggler’s tongue.” Bastian’s back pressed against the alcove’s arch; he looked around, measuring the distance between them and the guard. His eyes swung back to her, dark and serious. “We will get by him, but you have to follow my lead.”

“Fine, lead on.”

“Kiss me.”

Her eyes widened. The booted steps of the guard drew closer.

“Oh, come on,” Bastian muttered, rolling his eyes even as he grabbed her arm, tugged her forward, and sealed his lips to hers.

Lore made a small noise in her throat before she realized Bastian wasn’t really kissing her. Sure, their mouths were pressed together, but he didn’t move, didn’t try to deepen this light and technical embrace. His hand curled around her hip, the other bracketing her wrist, still held in the air from where he’d pulled her.

Slowly, Lore let her hand settle on his shoulder, realizing what this was, what he was doing. Two courtiers trysting in the hall at midnight would be a common sight, nothing to raise hackles. The guard would walk right by them.

Bastian angled his head so their faces were hidden from the hall, the curls of his dark hair falling against her cheek. His lips broke from hers, though they were still close enough to brush when he spoke. “There’s our poison runner,” he said softly. “Thinking on her feet.”

His breath tasted like mint leaves. His every exhale became her inhale. He was too much, too close, inescapable, and the damn guard was walking so slow.

Boots approached. Passed. Not even a pause. Lore and Bastian waited in the alcove, pressed together edge-to-hollow, breathing the same air until she felt light-headed. Their faces were too close for her to see his expression in anything but pieces, but she could see the bend of his grin, and it was near-feral.

When the boots didn’t echo anymore, Bastian leaned away, head lolling against the wall. His hands stayed on her hips. “Ready?”

Lore nodded. Stepped back. Bastian led her into the shadows again, and neither one of them spoke.

But she thought of that not-kiss, and how there’d been a moment when she felt a twitch in his control, like he would’ve really kissed her if he’d thought she would let him.

And she didn’t know whether she would have or not.

Finally, a narrow and nondescript door, set between naves presided over by small statues of the Bleeding God, chest empty and hands full of garnets. Bastian twisted the wrought-iron handle; it moved soundlessly, and the door glided open into night air. “After you.”

Lore stepped out onto the soft grass. To her right, the walls of the stone garden butted up from the manicured lawn, rough blocks of darkness in the moonlight. No one was around, the only sound the wind soughing through the rock flowers, rushing against the edges of granite petals.

They approached the gate. Bastian fiddled with the lock for only a moment before it glided open in his hands, then nodded her inside.

The garden had been strange but pretty the first time Gabe brought her here—in the moonlight, it was eerily beautiful. The stone roses cast solid shadows on the cobblestones, the dark leaching everything of color so it all looked gray, even the plants that hadn’t yet been turned by Mortem’s careful application.

And beyond, in the center of the garden—the well, cold and dark, leading to the catacombs.

Bastian approached it cautiously. The circular lid rested on top of it, held in place with the statue of Apollius. He grasped it, pulled, grimaced. “It’s damn heavy.”

“That’s by design,” came a familiar voice from the gate.

Lore turned.

Gabe.

At the sight of him, Lore froze, but Bastian barely reacted at all. He straightened from where he’d been hauling at the statue, ever graceful. “Gabriel,” he said conversationally. “And here I thought you’d decided against joining us. Whatever changed your mind?”

Mouths and hands and fumblings in the dark. Blood rushed to Lore’s face.

Gabe didn’t look at her. His arms crossed over his chest, the black leather of his eyepatch eating the light, making that side of his face look lost in a void. “What changed my mind,” he said, “is the certainty that if I wasn’t here, you’d invariably fuck it all up somehow.”

“Listen to the Mort now.” Bastian rolled his neck, shook out his shoulders. “We’ll have you renouncing your vows in no time.”

She was glad of the dark. The heat in her cheeks could light a damn candle.

Bastian inclined his head to the well. “Some help, then?” He went back to pushing at the statue, apparently much heavier than it looked, inching it along the wooden platform toward the wall of the well.

With a rumbling sigh, Gabe stepped forward, his shoulder brushing Lore’s as he passed her. She didn’t move, and that was meant as a challenge. The way his eyes flickered to her said he took it as one.

“Where have you been?” Lore asked.

“Thinking.” The line of his jaw was harsh, casting a deep shadow over his neck.

“And did you come to any interesting conclusions?”

He finally looked at her, then. Turned so that one blue eye blazed down at her like a lighthouse at a rocky shore, danger and safety at once. “I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t let you do this by yourself.”

“I have Bastian.” Truth and a weapon and a memory of breath shared in an alcove. “I was never going to be doing this by myself, Gabriel. Just not with you.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“What you should’ve been thinking about,” she said, “is what you’re going to do when it’s finally proven to you that Anton is a liar.” Then she turned around to go help Bastian move the statue.

After a moment, Gabe followed.