When he opened his eyes, on all fours, the frosted grass dampening his trousers, Grayson felt another pair of eyes boring into the crown of his head.
Grayson got to his feet. A pair of hands shoved him hard in the chest and propelled him back to the ground.
“We trusted ye!” Rory towered over him. “Ye said the hellhounds were under yer command.”
“They were.” Grayson rebounded to his feet. “At least, I thought they were.”
“You led them here?”
Nolan crossed through the dark arcades, the tip of his broadsword slicing into the earth as he dragged it.
Grayson didn’t know how to explain what had happened. “I’m sorry—”
“No, you’re not. Not yet.” Nolan flipped up his sword and drove it toward Grayson. Vander slammed his crossbow into Nolan’s silver blade and brought it down.
“Not now,” he said, raising his eyes to the Daicrypta windows. “We need to leave. Before they have another fit of bravery.”
The skin under Nolan’s eyes looked bruised as he stepped back and saw Lennier’s lifeless body for the first time. He stilled. “What dagger is that?”
Rory bent to extract it, the blood black on the blade. “Mercurite.”
Nolan forgot his fury with Grayson and turned it on Rory. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Rory calmly sheathed the bloodied dagger. “I know what I’ve done tonight, cousin, but I dinna think Gabby does. ’Twas her deed, no’ mine.”
The last ounce of Nolan’s color drained. He took a panicked look around the courtyard and, when he didn’t see Gabby anywhere, ran for the arcades once more. He passed Luc and Ingrid, who were already limping in retreat. Vander hurried to shore up Luc’s other side.
Grayson felt someone approach from behind. He knew who it was. He’d always been able to feel his father’s disappointed glare before meeting it head-on.
“What are you?” his father asked.
Grayson sucked in a breath and saw Ingrid stop up ahead, her eyes bouncing between him and their father. She’d begged to know what happened that night in London. Well, Grayson was done hiding.
“I’m exactly what you thought I was.” He turned toward his father. Brickton appeared unusually old and haggard. Undone. “Did you never wonder how I ripped out her throat?”
Beside him, Chelle let out a gasp. Good, he thought. Let her hear it, too. He’d been fooling himself, thinking he could hide from what he truly was. Best to tell them all and get it over and done with.
“I did,” Grayson went on. “I wondered. I tried to imagine how human teeth could manage such carnage. Obviously, human teeth didn’t.”
He wanted to see shock spread across his father’s face, but Brickton didn’t acquiesce. Ever unflappable and hard, he only flared his nostrils.
“You are no longer my son.”
A bitter laugh crawled up Grayson’s throat and he bowed low. “With pleasure, my lord.”
Grayson had spent his life feeling tethered to the man standing just feet away. As the invisible threads finally released him, the gulf of freedom was as invigorating as it was terrifying. It spread out before Grayson, open and empty and full of promise. Bad or good, Grayson didn’t know, but it was promise just the same. He wasn’t afraid to drift out into that open gulf. He backed toward the arcades.
“Grayson, stop. He doesn’t mean it. He can’t mean it.”
Ingrid’s voice was so small and uncertain. Grayson knew she didn’t believe a word she was saying. He’d once known everything his twin felt. Everything she thought. She had been inside him, a second person. Lately, though, he’d lost her. As he walked away from her now, ignoring her pleas for him to stop, to come back, he realized it was better this way. Not for him, but for her. For them all. She didn’t want him to be a monster, but he was. Chelle wanted to believe that he was more human than demon, but he wasn’t. The sooner they realized these things, the sooner they could get on with their lives.
A hand rested gently on his shoulder. It was Léon, his expression drawn. Another murderer. The only person Grayson pitied more than he did himself.
“Come” was all Léon said.
And Grayson went.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Constantine’s brougham rolled down the steep, winding streets of Montmartre, toward the frozen Seine. Vander was at the reins, his mount from earlier fettered to the back and trotting behind. Ingrid sat on the driver’s bench with him, the winter wind rustling what remained of the brittle poplar leaves overhead. She didn’t care about the cold. She would rather turn to a block of ice than ride in the back with her father. After what he’d said to Grayson, Ingrid didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive him.
Ingrid pressed a little closer to Vander’s side and wondered when she would next see her twin. The way he’d left hadn’t given her much hope that it would be anytime soon.