Lore nodded. Stepped back. Bastian led her into the shadows again, and neither one of them spoke.
But she thought of that not-kiss, and how there’d been a moment when she felt a twitch in his control, like he would’ve really kissed her if he’d thought she would let him.
And she didn’t know whether she would have or not.
Finally, a narrow and nondescript door, set between naves presided over by small statues of the Bleeding God, chest empty and hands full of garnets. Bastian twisted the wrought-iron handle; it moved soundlessly, and the door glided open into night air. “After you.”
Lore stepped out onto the soft grass. To her right, the walls of the stone garden butted up from the manicured lawn, rough blocks of darkness in the moonlight. No one was around, the only sound the wind soughing through the rock flowers, rushing against the edges of granite petals.
They approached the gate. Bastian fiddled with the lock for only a moment before it glided open in his hands, then nodded her inside.
The garden had been strange but pretty the first time Gabe brought her here—in the moonlight, it was eerily beautiful. The stone roses cast solid shadows on the cobblestones, the dark leaching everything of color so it all looked gray, even the plants that hadn’t yet been turned by Mortem’s careful application.
And beyond, in the center of the garden—the well, cold and dark, leading to the catacombs.
Bastian approached it cautiously. The circular lid rested on top of it, held in place with the statue of Apollius. He grasped it, pulled, grimaced. “It’s damn heavy.”
“That’s by design,” came a familiar voice from the gate.
Lore turned.
Gabe.
At the sight of him, Lore froze, but Bastian barely reacted at all. He straightened from where he’d been hauling at the statue, ever graceful. “Gabriel,” he said conversationally. “And here I thought you’d decided against joining us. Whatever changed your mind?”
Mouths and hands and fumblings in the dark. Blood rushed to Lore’s face.
Gabe didn’t look at her. His arms crossed over his chest, the black leather of his eyepatch eating the light, making that side of his face look lost in a void. “What changed my mind,” he said, “is the certainty that if I wasn’t here, you’d invariably fuck it all up somehow.”
“Listen to the Mort now.” Bastian rolled his neck, shook out his shoulders. “We’ll have you renouncing your vows in no time.”
She was glad of the dark. The heat in her cheeks could light a damn candle.
Bastian inclined his head to the well. “Some help, then?” He went back to pushing at the statue, apparently much heavier than it looked, inching it along the wooden platform toward the wall of the well.
With a rumbling sigh, Gabe stepped forward, his shoulder brushing Lore’s as he passed her. She didn’t move, and that was meant as a challenge. The way his eyes flickered to her said he took it as one.
“Where have you been?” Lore asked.
“Thinking.” The line of his jaw was harsh, casting a deep shadow over his neck.
“And did you come to any interesting conclusions?”
He finally looked at her, then. Turned so that one blue eye blazed down at her like a lighthouse at a rocky shore, danger and safety at once. “I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t let you do this by yourself.”
“I have Bastian.” Truth and a weapon and a memory of breath shared in an alcove. “I was never going to be doing this by myself, Gabriel. Just not with you.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched.
“What you should’ve been thinking about,” she said, “is what you’re going to do when it’s finally proven to you that Anton is a liar.” Then she turned around to go help Bastian move the statue.
After a moment, Gabe followed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
In our observation of the captured necromancers who worked in pairs, the more powerful necromancer would channel the Mortem, while the less powerful one would direct it. In this way, they were able to raise more of the dead using less energy by binding them together. Some necromancers were also able to shape raw Mortem before channeling it through themselves, causing things like increased strength or stamina once this shaped Mortem was finally taken in. Theoretically, this practice could be harnessed for military purposes, but so few are capable of it that further research into the possibility is impractical.
—Notes from Thierry LeMan, researcher working in the Burnt Isles circa 10 AGF
With all three of them working, moving the statue was fairly easy. Gabe directed them—the statue was on a track, barely visible against the wood grain in the dark—and they inched the statue forward until it slotted into a notch carved into the top of the well wall.
“Upon reflection,” Bastian said, hooking his hands on his hips and scowling at the statue, “moving it toward the notch seems obvious.”
“What an auspicious start we’re off to,” Gabe muttered.
Lore was too out of breath to say anything. Even sliding along a track, the damn statue was heavy.
Bastian moved the wooden piece covering the top of the well, now unencumbered by stone gods. Inside, a perfect ring of pitch-black, so thick it looked almost liquid. Cold emanated from the depths of the well, and all three of them took a tiny, instinctual step back.
“Do you have a key?” Gabe’s voice was low and dark, still suspicious. He arched a brow at Bastian, who looked utterly confused.
“A key for what?”
“The chambers,” Gabe said. “The chambers within the catacombs. They aren’t just left open.”
“Well.” Bastian pushed back his hair. “Fuck.”
“I can get in.”
Lore didn’t look at either of them. She looked at that vast well of darkness, an entry to deep parts of the earth where the living weren’t meant to go. “I can get in,” she repeated.
Gabe’s brows knit. “How?”
Behind him, Bastian said nothing.
A swallow worked down her dry throat. “I can get into any chamber we find. Just trust me.”
She knew it like she knew the shape of the catacombs, like she knew her name and the crescent edges of the scar on her palm. No part of that world beneath the earth would remain closed to her.
The war in Gabe’s mind played out on his face, cut through in silver moonlight. They circled trust, but never quite landed, carrion birds with a body dying slowly.
“She was a poison runner,” Bastian said, cast in darkness beneath the lip of the well’s roof. His arms were crossed, his voice low. “She knows how to pick a lock.”
Gabe could tell there was more to it, and could tell she wasn’t going to share. Lore could read it in the line of his mouth, hard and unyielding and shaped like well-hidden hurt.
Gabriel Remaut had lived a lifetime of subtle wounds, and she just kept giving him more.