The words swam before him as he read them a second time. A third. He slipped the paper back into the envelope and calmly tucked it into his pocket. But his gaze cut through the crowd. He found Iris again as if she were the only one in the courtyard. A glimmer of light in the growing shadows.
He began to walk to her, nudging people out of the way. He didn’t care if he caused a scene. He didn’t care if Dacre saw him striding to her. To Iris E. Winnow, a woman Roman was only supposed to have an acquaintance with.
Something terrible was about to happen, and neither Roman nor Iris would be here to witness it. He was going to take her hand and flee with her, far away from this place. From this city, from the war. It had bruised and wounded them enough, and he simply did not care—
Someone grasped his arm, their grip like iron. It stopped him in his tracks.
“Come with me,” an unfamiliar voice said in his ear. “Don’t draw attention to us.”
Roman swallowed, his eyes remaining on Iris. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” But he felt the prod of a revolver in his ribs, and his shoulders curved with submission.
“Yes, you are,” the man said. “Now.”
Roman allowed himself to be propelled through the crowd, a gun jammed discreetly into his side. When they stepped into the empty corridors of the Promontory, he jerked away and spun, glaring at the person who had come between him and Iris.
To his shock, Roman recognized him.
Even wearing a nice suit and hat, his father’s associate couldn’t fully disguise his rough edges. Bruce, Mrs. Kitt had called him, boasting of how he kept their family safe.
“What are you doing here?” Roman asked tersely.
Bruce kept the gun trained on him, but Roman sensed it was only to make him comply. This man had no intention of shooting his boss’s son.
“I’ll tell you on the way back to the house.” Bruce took hold of his arm again, twisting Roman around, forcing him to step forward. “Your father wants you home. And this is not a safe place.”
“You don’t understand.” Roman dug his heels into the floor. His shoes squeaked as he slid over the polished marble. “I need to return to the courtyard.”
“You’ll thank me later.”
“My wife!” Roman hissed. “My wife is in that crowd!”
That revelation made Bruce pause. But whatever he planned to do—whether it be to go back for Iris or to propel Roman onward—Roman would never know.
There was a flash through the windows, followed by an ear-splitting boom that Roman felt in his chest like his heart had torn free.
The explosion rocked him from his feet.
PART FOUR
A Crescendo for Dreams
{40}
Come Up for Air
Dazed, Roman let Bruce haul him up to his feet. Smoke drifted in through the shattered windows. Glass glittered like constellations on the floor.
“Get up and walk,” Bruce ordered, dragging Roman down the corridor, farther and farther away from the cries that were rising from the courtyard.
Roman coughed, light-headed.
“Iris,” he whispered, remembering the red slant of her mouth, the silver of her dress. The way she had stood in the middle of the crowd.
Roman struggled to pull free, glancing over his shoulder. The smoke and screams continued to intertwine. Gunshots rang out. His heart lodged in his throat.
“Iris!”
It was the last thing he said before the side of Bruce’s revolver came down hard on his temple. Roman saw stars glide across his vision. But Iris bloomed in his mind’s eye, her pale hand reaching for him.
He watched her dissolve into mist, just as everything went dark.
* * *
When he woke, he found himself sprawled across the back seat of a vehicle. They were taking a hard turn, the tires screeching over the cobblestones. Roman slid across the leather bench and vomited, all over himself and onto the floorboard of the motorcar.
The world felt as if it had turned inside out.
He gagged and heaved again, his vision blurring. Or perhaps it was only the streetlamps, which flashed as they sped by, their golden auras smudged through the window.
The car took another sharp curve. Roman scrambled for purchase. He could feel vomit smear across his shirt.
“We’re almost there,” said a gruff voice.
Bruce.
Roman squinted, his head throbbing. Something was tickling his face. When he reached out to touch his temple, his fingertips came away sticky with blood.
“Last turn,” Bruce said. “Try to hold your guts in this time.”
The vehicle jerked.
Roman closed his eyes. He counted the seconds that ticked by, tasting acid in his mouth. But at last, the car came to a skidding halt.
He panted, still sprawled on the seat, until Bruce opened the door.
“Get up. We need to move quickly,” he said.
“Where are we?” Roman rasped.
Bruce didn’t reply. He took hold of Roman and dragged him out of the car.
It was dark, the hour just after sunset, when only a vestige of pink light could be seen fading from the western horizon. But the moon was full, and the stars teemed in a clear night sky. Roman swiftly recognized where they were: Derby Road, on the footpath between estate numbers 1345 and 1347.
“What happened?” he asked when he saw the fence line come into view. “How are you involved in all of this?”
“You’ll have to get those answers from your father,” Bruce said, finding the oak tree and the broken fence, buried beneath the brambles. “Quickly, now.”
Roman hissed through his teeth, irritated by the lack of answers. By the fact that he wasn’t strong enough to break away from this man and return to the Promontory for Iris.
As he pushed through the brambles, feeling the thorns grasp his hair and his suit jacket, he asked, “Was the plan to kill everyone in the courtyard?”
“I told you to ask your father,” Bruce grunted from behind, pushing Roman to go faster, as if a spell would break at midnight, turning them into stone. “But because your wife was there, I’ll say this … no. Only him.”
Him as in Dacre.
Roman couldn’t hide how he shuddered. How his hands were freezing but his chest was burning. He felt caught up in a strange medley of relief and shock, indignation and hope, and he pulled a string of brambles from his hair when he emerged on the other side.
He paused, his breath ragged. Bruce must have sensed he needed a moment because the man finally didn’t urge him onward.
“A bomb alone won’t kill him,” Roman eventually said, remembering the message he still held in his coat pocket.
Bruce frowned. “What do you mean? It was directly beneath the stage.”
Roman winced as he envisioned all that wood splintering in the blast, flying through the crowd. Impaling innocent people. He swallowed hard and said, “It takes more than that to kill a god.”
“I pray you’re wrong. Because if you’re right…” Bruce didn’t finish the thought.
Not even Roman knew how to complete that sentence.
They hurried through the back half of the property, where even now it felt like a different world. One far removed from Oath and the war. But before the estate came into view, Bruce stopped in the shadow of a hawthorn.
“This is as far as I can go without the soldiers seeing me,” he said. “Go directly to your father.”
“Are you part of the Graveyard?”