The next few minutes will determine our fate. If we’re caught sneaking our way into the exhibit when it’s off-limits, our lives could depend on our ability to bluff. I have to say something before we do this. I have to try. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, taking my turn to whisper in her ear. “I have excuses, and I know you don’t want to hear them, so I won’t try. I just—I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hunt you.”
She turns her face up to mine, and our eyes meet—it’s as though the crowd around us simply melts away as she holds me captive. Then she whispers, perfectly clear, dousing me with cold water. “Gideon, I don’t care what you think, and I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I’m here for one thing, and that’s LaRoux. He deserves to die.”
Ice trickles down my spine. In that instant, our gazes locked, I see the depth of it in her eyes. “Death is simple,” I murmur. “We…” But I trail off. Because it’s right there in her eyes. I see just how far she’ll go—I see what she wants.
I don’t know how she’ll do it, but I see what she means to do.
I lean in closer, robbed of breath, scrambling for words. I have a minute, maybe two. “Sofia, I…I didn’t sleep last night.”
Her lips part as she draws breath, and I shake my head, blocking out the unsympathetic response I know is coming.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was talking to my brother. Do you ever talk to your father?”
Her mouth snaps shut, lips thinning, and she tries to push away from the pillar. Desperate, I tighten my grip on her arm to hold her there.
“Please, I’m begging you, just hear me out for one minute. I realized last night what this pursuit of LaRoux has made me. It’s turned me into someone who’ll walk over anyone, who’ll pay any price to ruin the man I hate. The man who took my only brother from me. And I did it, Sof. I tried to destroy your life because I thought you were someone remotely connected to LaRoux. I realized, while I lay there, not sleeping, talking to the guy who used to be my hero, that I haven’t listened to him in a long time.”
“How nice for you,” she replies, deadly quiet, her whisper rasping like the words are being dragged out of her. “This has nothing to do with me.”
“Don’t you see?” I’m practically tripping over my words, my own whisper fierce. “It has everything to do with you. I realized last night that there’s a price I won’t pay, no matter what. That there’s a price my brother never would’ve wanted me to pay.”
Our gazes are locked still, and I see something stir in hers. I press on, desperately. I have to make her see.
“I think your father would tell you the same thing. I think he’d tell you there are some prices not worth paying. What it would do to you, what you’d lose—you’re not this person. Trust me, I’ve been to the edge of this cliff, I’ve looked right over. I won’t let you do this.”
“You’re not me, Gideon,” Sofia hisses, her expression fierce. “And you don’t know me. We’re different. I’ve lost my father, my home, everyone I’ve ever cared about—if I lose one more thing taking LaRoux out, so be it. It’ll be over. It doesn’t matter.”
Her eyes are brimming, and I’m aching desperately to touch her—not like I am now, my hands banded around her arms to keep her from running, but properly. Slowly, carefully, so she could turn her head if she wanted, I lift my thumb to brush it across her cheekbone, wiping away the tears. “It matters,” I whisper. “You don’t know how much you’ve got left to lose. Oh, Sof. It matters.”
She doesn’t turn away, and the fact that she’s letting me hold her makes my whole body hum. She’s one degree softer, just one, but when her eyes flick up to meet mine again it feels like the first drops of the thaw. “I don’t know what else to do,” she whispers. “This is all I have.”
“We do what we planned. We find the rift, we stop LaRoux from taking over the Council. We can do it,” I promise, heady, knowing I shouldn’t—knowing I can’t make that promise. And then, when we’re done, there’ll be time to earn your forgiveness. There’ll be time to leave the Knave behind.
Another degree. Another couple of drops, the snow melting. She tilts her chin up just a fraction, and my heart seizes as I recognize the invitation. Slowly, reverently, I duck my head to brush her lips with mine, then deepen the kiss. My hand presses into the cold marble at her back, and hers slides under my jacket, fingertips pushing over the equipment I have strapped to my torso to find a place they can press through the thin fabric of my shirt, against my skin.
I’m buzzing, I’m electricity, and it takes me several beats to realize that some of that buzzing is external—the dancing has halted for applause. Something’s happening on the dais, but I’m still too distracted to care. I lift my head, blinking, and she shows me her dimples for a moment as she lifts one finger to check her lipstick hasn’t smeared.
“He’s here,” she whispers, though she’s still looking at me.
I nod, still reluctant to pull away. Still searching her gaze. “Promise me,” I murmur. “We do this together.”
“Together,” she whispers, and my heart soars. Now, all she needs is the gentlest of pushes to ease me back and away, so I can turn and trace the applause to the platform at the front of the ballroom.