I feel shame though, because the last thing I want to do is judge him for his magic. He certainly didn’t judge me. “Why are you keeping him alive?”
“Because I want to,” he replies, making something scrape down my gut. Slade watches me like he wants me to see every word he’s saying, to envision his every intention. “I want you to understand something, Goldfinch. I am not good. I will rot every person in my way, will bring a blight to every corner of the world if I have to.”
I shake my head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re good. You’re—”
“No, Goldfinch,” he interrupts. “I’m good to you. But I am every bit the villain that I warned you I was.”
His previous words ring in my ears.
I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.
I can see in his face that he means what he says, and based on the man he’s keeping... But I can also see the bracing. Like he’s steeling himself, waiting for my impending disgust. Waiting for my rejection of it, for my argument against his nature.
Yet I went to Slade with my eyes wide open. I told him I wanted everything, and when you ask for everything from a person, you don’t get to pick and choose. You take them as they are. Even King Rot.
Which is why I don’t even hesitate to reach over and clasp his hand in mine. It’s why I can hold his gaze, without fail. It’s why I say, “If you’re a villain...then I’ll be a villain with you.”
A slow, sexy grin rises from the grounds of his grim lips.
“But…” I go on. “I still want you to put that man out of his misery now. There has to be a limit to your villainy.”
He laughs, stroking a finger over my hand. “Alright, Goldfinch.”
A noise from behind abruptly cuts off the moment between us, and Slade and I swivel around. At the door, Ryatt walks in, entering the same way Slade did. No knocking, no calling, just letting himself in.
“Hey, I brought you some tarts from Jelma that she—” His words cut off at the same time that his eyes find us across the room. He hesitates for a moment before shutting the door behind him and turning back around.
Slade rises to his feet, and I follow suit, while Ryatt infuses the whole house with a pregnant pause.
We all saw her in that ballroom.
Are you ashamed?
I want her gone.
My eyes flick away. No wonder he didn’t want me here. Their mother is here.
Ryatt clears his throat, and from my peripheral, I see him walk over to Elore. “Here,” he says with a soft offering.
I look up as she takes the tart that’s wrapped in a gingham cloth. A smile spreads over her face as she uncovers it, and then she goes up on her tiptoes to peck a kiss on his cheek. Ryatt blushes.
She grabs a spoon from the counter and then sits down with it, happily eating right from the tin. Ryatt watches her for a moment before he finally turns and approaches us.
Beside me, Slade goes rigid, and the blackened veins at his neck pulse and jolt just past his coat’s collar, their sharp ends like the mouth of an irritated snake.
There’s an awkward shift of Ryatt’s feet as he stops in front of us. “So...you brought her.”
“I did.” Slade’s voice is clipped, and I wonder what other words were exchanged back at the pavilion before I overheard the tail end of their argument. I’m incredibly curious about their dynamic. The line between love and hate seems to have blurred between them, and I’m not sure I understand it. I’m not even sure if they understand it.
While I’m busy trying to guess at their brotherly relationship, Ryatt’s eyes fall to me. “I apologize for the things you heard back at the pavilion,” he says, surprising me. “I didn’t intend for you to overhear. It’s clear you’re in control enough not to destroy Drollard,” he says as he motions around his mother’s house.
“No apology necessary,” I reply. “You were right to be worried.”
Slade slams his eyes into me, and I know he’s about to jump in to defend my honor, but I don’t let him.
“No, Slade,” I go on. “It’s true. My magic pretty much exploded out of me uncontrollably, and now it’s not working at all. You and I both know I don’t have a handle on it, so I understand why Ryatt doesn’t want me here.”
To his credit, a look of contrition tugs at Ryatt’s expression.
“I’m glad I overheard.”
Both of them look at me like they don’t quite believe me, but I mean every word.
“I won’t hurt this village.” My eyes move over his shoulder to where Elore sits at the table. “Especially when I know how important it is.”
Even if I have to keep my magic blocked off forever.
Ryatt studies me for a moment and then gives me a single nod of acknowledgement before he looks at Slade. “How was Mother when you came in?”
“Fine. Happy,” he replies, still a little gruff.
Ryatt looks over his shoulder. “She misses you when you’re gone too long.”
Slade doesn’t reply, but his gaze is tracking his mother, a flicker of pain dug into the strained lines around his eyes. After a second, he notices me watching him, and just like that, the expression is gone.
“Why does your mother live separately from everyone else? And how is she…here?”
A condensed, heavy breath slips from his mouth and seems to burden his shoulders. “I suppose it’s time to show you the rest now. Though I’m sorry I can’t space out all of these revelations, but I don’t want you to think I’m keeping anything from you.”
Ryatt’s eyes go comically wide. “You’re going to show her...that? Right now?”
At his tone, I feel my body fill with uncertain tension. “What exactly are you going to show me?” I ask, wary of the resigned look on his face. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’m even more nervous about this than I was about the existence of a possible lover.
He takes my hand, expression resigned. “I’m finally going to tell you why they really call me Rip.”
I leave Slade’s mother’s house feeling like I’m walking straight through the silk strands of a spiderweb. This uneasy, viscid feeling clings to me all over, no escape from their unsettling fibers.
“Do you have to have so many damn secrets?” I grumble into the dark.
Slade chuckles. “Sorry. I’ll do my best to tell you all of them.”
“So, just to be clear, there is definitely no favored saddle you have locked in a cage somewhere or an ex-lover that you keep in this village?”
He shoots me an unamused look. “No.”
“Good. Good.”
I’m trying to fill in the silence with nervous chatter, because I have no idea what to expect. Every single one of Slade’s secrets has always been pretty groundbreaking, and I don’t think this one will be any different.
Now that we’re back out in the heart of the cave, the buzzing sound has returned. Even pitched at its low hum, it sets my teeth on edge. Slade leads me around Elore’s house and then deeper into the cavern. The bright, cheerful blue glow soon dims, the huge rivers of fluorescence splitting off and becoming nothing but small rivulets in the stone. Without enough light from the mountain to counteract the size of the space, it feels as if the shadows close in on us, the massive space seeming smaller than it really is.
And still, there’s a constant hum that I can feel vibrating through my skin.
“You can hear that too, right?”
“I can.”
He doesn’t seem concerned, nor does he elaborate, so I have to believe that whatever the reason is for this hum isn’t dangerous. It also must have to do with whatever he wants to show me.
My nervous chatter returns. “In my head, I’d pretty much narrowed the reason for your nickname down to having ripped abs. Or making women want to rip their clothes off. Something like that.”
He laughs beside me, the sound counteracting the awful hum and making my anxiety subside just a bit.
“Very good to know where your head has been. But to be extra clear, I have no desire for anyone to rip their clothes off except for you.”
“Clarity is really good.” I nod firmly. “We should keep doing it.”