The Presque Mort took a step toward her, and she was reminded, against her will, of that night in her room, his mouth on her neck, his roaming hands. She wondered if he’d kiss her like that again now. It seemed to be what they defaulted to, the only way they could communicate when everything else piled up in jagged mountains, unable to be climbed.
“I wanted to keep you safe.” It rumbled from him, low and dark, but he stopped paces away and held himself there, not allowing his body one inch closer to hers. “And if that meant Bastian got hurt, so be it.”
Lore bared her teeth. “I am gods-damned tired of being the rope in your and Bastian’s tug-of-war.”
“Especially since you’ve already chosen the winner of the match, right?” He laughed just like she had: no joy in it, none at all. “You did the moment you told him where you came from.”
There it was.
“You didn’t know that until an hour ago,” Lore said. “Don’t act like it’s an excuse.”
“How long?” Gabe growled. “How long has he known? I asked you, that first day. I asked you how you came to channel Mortem, and you lied to me. Did you ever lie to him, or was he worthy of the truth from the beginning?”
He stood straight and unbowed as ever, but there was a crookedness to the line of his shoulders. Gabe worked so hard not to show hurt on his face; it came out in other places.
“I told him the night he took us to the boxing ring,” Lore answered. “The first time.”
His eye fluttered closed, then open. “That long, huh?”
She said nothing.
Gabe nodded, his lips twisted in a bitter smile. “You two have been laughing at me for a while, then.”
“It wasn’t like that, Gabe. The only reason I told him was because he threatened—”
“Maybe you weren’t laughing, but he certainly was. And maybe he did threaten you, Lore, but we both know you would’ve told him eventually. You trusted him enough to follow him into the damn catacombs.” He shook his head with a sharp laugh. “One more way he’s beaten me. One more way he’s better.”
“Bleeding God, not everything is about you and your guilt!” Lore shook her head. “You want to know why I didn’t tell you where I came from? Because I knew how you’d react. I knew you’d think I was some kind of monster.”
“You don’t know me at all,” Gabe said, and it was true. Him and her and Bastian were somehow bound, yes, but it didn’t truly make them known, not in all their intricacies. Their odd connections emphasized that point, rather than obscuring it.
“No. I don’t,” Lore said wearily. “And maybe it’s best if I keep it that way.”
As if she had a choice in the matter. As if she didn’t feel the walls of something closing in, trapping the three of them in its center.
There was no flicker of emotion on Gabe’s face—no hurt, no anger. He’d scrubbed it all out, left blankness in its wake.
“Get some rest.” Flat, cold. “I’ll be outside.” He skirted around her, opened the door.
Lore turned to follow him with her eyes. “And when can I leave?”
“Eclipse ball is two nights from now, at eight,” Gabe answered. “So about ten minutes before that.”
The door closed. The lock clicked.
She didn’t mean to fall asleep.
It almost seemed out of her control. One moment, she was sitting in the tiny study, curled up on the one chair, and the next she was by the vast blue ocean, white sand crumbling beneath her feet, the tide gently rolling in to slide against her bare ankles.
“Huh,” Lore said, and then realized it was the first time she’d been able to speak in one of these dreams. That felt important.
The figure beside her seemed to think so, too. Lore didn’t turn her head to look at them, but she felt them stiffen, as if they’d grown more corporeal. “Your time grows near.” Smooth, textureless, a voice that didn’t seem to go with a throat. “And I don’t know how the process will change, so we might as well get as much out of this as we can.”
The voice seemed to be convincing itself.
A tug at her heart, as if it was being pulled through her ribs. The stream of black smoke, spilling from her and across the sky.
It was an effort to turn her head. But Lore did.
The figure turned, too. And it was Cedric. Cedric’s perfect, unblemished face above the ruin of his body, his bloodstained teeth spreading in a wide smile.
But the figure shifted. The child from the vaults, mouth hanging open. Another blur, and it was her mother’s face staring back at her.
Her hair was long and straight and pale, her eyes the same bright hazel as Lore’s. With a gentle smile Lore had never actually seen her wear, she leaned forward, pressing a hand to her daughter’s cheek.
“She just never stops trying,” she murmured as her thumb brushed Lore’s skin, though the voice wasn’t right. It was unnaturally smooth, the same voice from before, everything human stripped out of it. “She doesn’t understand that He cannot allow Them to return.” The facsimile of her mother sighed, smoothed her hair. “It’s not your fault. At least we can use what She gives, this time. It will all be over soon.”
The tugging feeling in Lore’s chest became unbearable, as if her body was trying to turn itself inside out. She screamed as smoke plumed gracefully across the sky.
“Shit.”
Lore sat up, pushing tangled, sweaty hair from her eyes. Her neck felt like it was on fire—she’d fallen asleep with it angled on the chair arm. Cursing again, she rubbed at the ache and stumbled into the main sitting room, squinting at the clock.
After a day of isolation, the darkness outside the window told her it was the very early morning of her birthday.
Tonight was the eclipse.
Food was on the table behind the couch. Easy things, apples and bread and cheese, things that could be set out and forgotten.
She read it like it was a code. No one would be opening that door, not until they were ready to escort her to the eclipse ball.
Escort her to her Consecration, and whatever ritual August had planned around it to make her magic his own. A ritual she had to trust Anton to stop, or she and Bastian would both be dead.
It was almost funny, how easily she accepted that Bastian was magic. That he was born to channel life the same way she was born to channel death, that she was his dark reflection. Down there in the catacombs, with the unquiet dead making their slow way to the door and threads of Mortem tangled in her fingers, she’d felt it when Bastian pulled the clinging threads away. Life, rushing, her veins flooded with too much blood, her lungs full of too much air. In that moment, he’d commanded both life and death, he’d held them both in his hands.
She’d been his lightning rod, the darkness that made the light shine brighter after his Consecration. And now, hers approached. She’d felt her power growing stronger as she spent more time with Bastian, as time marched her down to twenty-four years. A moment that, for others, meant holy celebration.
For her, it meant possible murder.
That figured. Lore grabbed a piece of cheese and flopped back on the couch.