Gabe mirrored her nod. Then he turned to Bastian and slammed him against the wall.
“Gabriel!” Lore snapped, but the Presque Mort was beyond hearing. His palms pressed against Bastian’s shoulders, his nose mere inches from the prince’s, teeth bared.
“So how are you going to kill us, Bastian?” he growled. “You know why we’re here, that your father knows you’re sending information to Kirythea, and I’m supposed to believe you’ll just let that go?”
Bastian’s neck was tendon-tight, but he laughed like this was a game. “They really got to you, didn’t they? Made you think the only way to absolve yourself of treason by association was to see it in everyone else.”
Gabe’s arms trembled slightly. Lore couldn’t tell if it was with the force of pressing Bastian to the wall, or with the restraint of not punching him.
“It’ll never be enough for them, Gabe.” Despite the wicked grin, Bastian’s voice was soft. “The Church and Crown don’t forget, they don’t forgive, not any more than the gods did before them. But they’ll keep holding it in front of you like a mirage in a fucking desert. And you’ll keep chasing it, even when you know it’s not something you can touch.”
They stared at each other. Then Gabe slammed him into the wall again.
“Both of you, stop it.” Lore gripped Gabe’s arm and pulled him back—for a moment, she thought he’d shake her off, but he relented, albeit reluctantly. “Bastian, shut up.”
Bastian shook his shoulders out, wincing. But he did shut up.
Lore turned to Gabriel, breathing hard, as if she were the one who’d been seconds from a brawl. “We can use this,” she said quietly, not looking at the Sun Prince as she did. It skirted too close to what he’d said in the tunnel, all these questions about using and being used. “There’s a good chance August is framing Bastian.”
The Presque Mort gave her a withering look. “Did he tell you that?”
“Does it matter?” Lore didn’t know how to explain that she knew Bastian was telling the truth, at least about this.
“You don’t know him.” Gabe shook his head. “Lore, Bastian is—”
“Has it occurred to you,” Bastian interrupted casually, “that you are basing all of your assumptions on me as a child? Seems unfair, to be honest. Especially considering how it went for you when people did the same.”
Gabe’s fingers turned to slow fists by his sides.
A moment, then Gabe straightened, his one eye flinty. “If you want to believe him,” he said to Lore, ignoring the prince completely, “we won’t go immediately to August. We’ll go tell Anton first and see—”
“No.” It came from Lore and Bastian at the same time.
Gabe’s brows rose.
Bastian pushed off the wall. “My father wants me gone,” he said, as if he were commenting on the weather. “I’m not eager to see what he’ll do if his plan to get rid of me legitimately—at least in the eyes of Auverraine—is upset.” He gathered up his long hair, wet with sweat and water from the culvert, and tied it into a knot at the back of his neck. “And there’s still the issue of villages dying overnight. I’d very much like to get to the bottom of that, personally.”
“You’ve still given me no reason to trust you,” Gabe said through his teeth. “You may have fooled Lore, but I’ll take more work.”
He said her name like an admonishment. Like he’d expected better from her. Lore tightened her arms over her chest, shame and anger kindling to an ash-taste in the back of her mouth.
“How about this for a reason, then.” Bastian drew himself up, somehow managing to look regal despite his bare chest and bedraggled hair. “If you involve my father and my uncle in any way I don’t want you to, I’ll have you both sent to the Burnt Isles.”
Lore couldn’t swallow her harsh intake of breath.
Gabe’s eyes darted her way, the stiffness with which he’d held himself slowly uncoiling. Finger by finger, he unclenched his hands.
“Fine,” he growled.
“Perfect. That’s settled.” Bastian grinned. “I suppose you two work for me now.”
But just because Gabe had given in didn’t meant he was going quietly. “So when exactly did you decide to take an interest in your subjects dying?”
“Gabriel.” Lore’s voice was sharp, but they were off again, though thankfully without violence this time.
“I’ve taken an interest since the beginning, Remaut.” Bastian dug in his pocket and pulled out another cigarette. Lore didn’t know how he’d managed to keep it dry enough to light, but it did without issue. He breathed out a cloud of smoke. “As much of one as I’ve been able to, since both Anton and August tried their hardest to keep me in the dark about the details.”
“Do you really need the details when you’re probably involved?”
“There’s an easy way for you to find out, Gabe.” Bastian stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. “Why not just ask the corpse when we go to the vaults? That’s what Lore is supposed to be doing anyway, isn’t it?”
She thought of what happened this afternoon, when August had admonished her for asking questions of the corpse she’d raised instead of telling it to obey his orders. She hadn’t thought much of it then, but now she wondered why August and Anton hadn’t wanted her around when the dead started answering questions.
“I’ll ask again,” she said. “When we go, I’ll ask again.”
“Excellent.” Bastian ambled forward, casually strolling back into the manicured woods. The sky already looked lighter, the threat of dawn lurking around its edges. “If we have any further childhood traumas to work out after that, we can do it over breakfast.”
Inside the Citadel, the hallways were empty. Even the most dedicated of the debauched had finally retired to private rooms. Their steps echoed on the marble floor as Bastian led them back through the tangled warren of gold sconces and oil paintings and bejeweled statues to the narrow, unmarked door of the vaults once again.
The guard Gabe had incapacitated earlier was awake now. He stood at sleepy attention, the sharp end of his bayonet sagging slowly to the floor before he roused every few seconds and pulled it back up. His brow furrowed when he saw them coming, but when he recognized Bastian, he stood up pin-straight and inclined his head, apparently not discomfited in the slightest by the prince’s half nakedness. “Majesty.”
“Hail.” It was the most regal Lore had ever heard Bastian sound, not at all like he’d spent the last few hours getting beaten up on a dock. “I and my friends have business here. Lady Eldelore’s mother is in poor health and recently purchased a vault, with specific instructions that her daughter inspect its views at all different times of the day and night.”
Horseshit, but in that measured, princely voice, it sounded convincing. The guard’s face didn’t betray whether he bought it or not, but he nodded, opening the door behind him. “The Sacred Guard is still at his post.”