Lore and Gabe froze, eyes wide. The moment right before the trap’s teeth closed on the rabbit’s leg.
“Thank the gods I’m here.” Bastian stepped out of the shadows with a lazy smile on his face. “Otherwise, you’d be shit out of luck.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Children, strive to be above reproach, for forgiveness is not easily earned.
—The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 403
Lore’s tongue felt thick and clumsy in her mouth, her thoughts packed in wool. She couldn’t untangle an excuse from them.
Next to her, nearly invisible in the gloom, Gabriel wasn’t trying for excuses at all. A dagger was in his hand—when had he gotten a dagger?—and it caught the candlelight as he held it to Bastian’s throat.
That broke Lore’s paralysis. “Bleeding God, Gabe, do you want to hang?”
“You know, I think he might.” For having a naked blade at his neck, Bastian seemed incredibly nonchalant. “The final act in his endless personal drama.”
Gabe’s teeth flashed bright as his dagger. “Bold words for someone at the sharp end.”
“Truly, I’m wounded.” Bastian made a show of craning his neck to look over his shoulder at the narrow door. “But not quite so wounded that I’d wake up the guard outside. Not yet, anyway.” His almost-golden eyes glittered in the dark. “I already paid off the Sacred one in the corridor, so he’s probably carousing at some tavern or other. But I’m sure I could find him if I wanted.”
As threats went, it wasn’t exactly subtle. The three of them stared at one another, Gabe still holding the dagger at Bastian’s neck and Bastian looking singularly unbothered by it.
It came to Lore to break the silence, since Gabe and Bastian seemed able to sit in it for hours. She rounded on the Sun Prince. “Do you have someone following us?”
“Of course not. I followed you.” With a flick of his eyes toward Gabe, Bastian reached up and pushed the dagger aside with one finger. Gabe’s knuckles whitened, but he lowered the blade.
“Unlike my father,” Bastian continued, “I prefer to do my own spying.”
A bead of sweat slid down Lore’s back. She’d been a fool to think they could outsmart this man, to think there was a way to stay here unharmed while Bastian knew she was a spy. August’s underestimation of his son was going to be the death of her, and of Gabe, too—
But Bastian didn’t suddenly produce a sword or shackles, didn’t call for guards that would send her to the Burnt Isles before the sun came up. Instead he turned back toward the doorway that led into the Citadel proper, pinching out the flames in the alcoves as he went. He glanced at them over his shoulder, one curling black lock falling over his eye. “You two coming?”
“Absolutely not.” Gabe spoke through clenched teeth. The carefully reined deference he’d shown the prince this afternoon was all gone now, nothing but cold rage in its place.
“Pity.” Bastian shrugged. “And here I was going to get you into the vaults. After we take a detour, anyway.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, pushed back his artfully mussed hair. The prince wasn’t dressed for bed or debauchery; instead he wore a loose white shirt and dark pants, boots that climbed to his knees. Similar to the clothes people wore out in the Wards. “Think of all the exciting things you’ll have to report to my father and uncle, afterward.”
Lore swallowed. Gabe’s hands tightened to fists.
Bastian grinned. “So, I ask again. You two coming?”
A pause. Then Gabe gave a truncated nod.
“Excellent.” Bastian turned to move down the dark hall, extinguishing the last of the candles as he passed.
They fell into step behind the Sun Prince, Gabe fuming, anxiety chewing at Lore’s stomach. They were caught, decisively so, and she had no idea what Bastian would do with them now. Turn them over to Kirythea, if August’s suspicions were true? Blackmail them into reporting on August and Anton, playing both sides?
She shot a look at Gabe. Going down by herself was bad enough; she hated dragging him along, too.
Warm fingers caught hers. Gabe. He gave her hand a squeeze, gave her a laden look from the corner of his eye. It settled her nerves, squared her shoulders.
Even if the body she’d raised had reanimated, like Horse, there was no one there to give an order. The child might be aware, insofar as something dead could be, but it’d be like he was sleeping, safe inside the vault. As much as she hated to leave him that way, things would hold for however long this detour with Bastian took.
Assuming he kept his word.
Bastian pushed open the door, its corner nudging the still-sleeping bloodcoat on the other side. The guard readjusted but didn’t wake, pillowing his head on his bent arms, breathing just this side of a snore.
“You really took him out.” Bastian glanced at Gabe. “You’ll have to teach me that trick.”
“Is that an order?” Gabe growled.
“We’ll see.” Stepping over the bloodcoat, Bastian led them back through the winding halls. He took a different route than they had and passed a few courtiers giggling in corners, skin gilded in candlelight. A handsome man with a crimson-haired woman in his arms beckoned to Bastian, wordlessly asking if he wanted to join in, but the Sun Prince waved a dismissive hand. Neither courtier seemed fazed by his rejection.
Lore tensed when they reached the doors into the back gardens—the ones they’d gone through this morning to reach the North Sanctuary—but the guards barely reacted to Bastian’s presence, and said nothing when he opened the doors to the chill of midnight.
It appeared the Citadel guards were used to the Sun Prince coming and going at all hours. The knowledge did nothing to soothe Lore’s nerves.
Bastian led them silently through the gardens, walking over grass instead of on the cobblestone. They went the opposite direction Lore had wandered earlier, but still ended up in another false forest with manicured paths. A breeze riffled through the trees, spinning green needles and the scent of pine. An Auverrani summer was scorching in the day, but surprisingly cool at night.
Gabe stopped, planted his feet. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere interesting,” Bastian answered. His hands were in his pockets, his stride almost jaunty. “It will make a great tale for August, since he’s apparently so interested in what I’m doing with my free time. And you both need a bit of fun.”
“What if we don’t want it?” Lore asked.
The prince grinned. He stepped up to her with fluid grace, the night air lifting his dark curls, wafting the scent of red wine and expensive cologne. “I think,” he said softly, “that it’s exactly what you want, Lore. And you strike me as the kind of woman who doesn’t waste time denying the things she wants.”
She’d spent a lifetime denying what she wanted, denying who and what she was. “You don’t know me at all.”
He was too close. So was Gabe, glowering behind her. She felt trapped between the two of them, too warm, too charged, too much.