“Of course I don’t know something.” Bastian looked irritated. “But I don’t have a good feeling about it, and when it comes to you, that’s enough for me.”
“Why do you care so much about protecting me?” She planted her feet in dry dirt and bone dust, faced him like an oncoming cavalry. “Why do I care so much about protecting you?”
“I don’t know.” Rounding the bend to what they’d said before, this feeling of knowing each other, of being pulled along by strings they didn’t tie. “I don’t know.”
Lore sighed, looked away. “Fine. I will try to get out of going to the eclipse ball.” But even as she gave the promise, it sat heavy on the back of her throat, and tasted like a lie. Her thoughts turned to Gabe, to how he’d take it if she suddenly decided to completely defy Anton. He’d gone along with all this so far because of the threat of the Burnt Isles—the threat to her, specifically, since his connections and title could probably get him out of it. But after last night, she didn’t want to test how far he’d go for her, whether that line had finally been crossed.
Bastian nodded. “Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t go, either,” Lore said, ripping her mind away from Gabe. “What with your father trying to get rid of you, and all.”
“I’ve been bringing in my own food,” Bastian said. “And I won’t drink or eat anything at the ball, so that rules out overdosing me with one of his poisons. If I were someone who partook in such things, it would make his job easier, but I’ve always had a distaste for it.” The corner of his mouth lifted, his bared teeth gleaming in the light of his torch. “And if he tries to kill me in a less subtle way, who can blame me for returning the favor?”
Disquiet thrummed in her temples. “Let’s hope he behaves, then.”
The look in Bastian’s eyes said part of him didn’t hope for that at all. Part of him wanted a bloodbath.
Up ahead, the catacombs branched again, a T of tunnels leaving no option other than left or right. The path she’d traced in her head said to go right, but as she turned, the light of her torch flickered over something on the wall. Words.
She stopped, frowned.
Bastian came up beside her, the light of his torch illuminating the words further. The lettering was shaky, deep in some places and barely there in others. “Looks like gibberish,” he said. “Maybe a revenant got loquacious right before they died.”
“I don’t think a revenant is going to go this deep.” It’d been half an hour at least since they’d passed remains. Lore held her torch closer to the wall.
She squinted, puzzling through the inscription aloud. At least it was in Auverrani. “Divinity is never destroyed,” she murmured. “Only echoed.”
“My vote is still on gibberish.” But there was a ribbon of disquiet in Bastian’s voice that said the words felt just as heavy to him as they did to her. “Revenant or not, how did someone manage to write on a stone wall?”
Something pale was half hidden in the dirt. Lore nudged it with her toe—a bone, the end sharp. The surface was pockmarked and pitted, as if it’d been here a long time. “Maybe you were right about the revenant.”
Bastian’s nose wrinkled. “Good for me.” He nodded down the branching tunnels. “Which way?”
She jerked her head to the right and continued on, a little quicker than before. She kicked the bone into the dark.
They kept up the faster pace, torches sputtering. Lore thought it’d been a little over two hours since they descended through the well—still plenty of time before sunrise, but Gabe would be worried. He’d be pacing, she was nearly sure of it. Pacing and pulling at his eye patch.
“Do you think he’s all right?” It pushed past her lips without her conscious thought to voice it.
“Remaut?” Beside her, Bastian stiffened, but his voice was even. “I’m sure he’s just fine. Maybe he’s taking the opportunity to get some sleep. He’s looking less than well rested these days.”
“He sleeps in front of our door,” Lore said. “To guard it.”
“Always one for dramatic shows of chivalry.”
“Maybe you could learn something from him.”
A stretch of silence. Then, “Would you like me to, Lore?”
It could’ve been flirtatious, easily said in his usual flippant tone. But it wasn’t. It was earnest, and Lore didn’t answer.
Her mental map guided them through a handful of turns, torches flickering against the damp stone. In her mind, the white lights of her and Bastian drew closer to the knot of Mortem, until the two were on top of each other. They’d reached their destination.
Which was, apparently, a solid wall.
“Dammit.” Lore slammed her hand against the rough stone. “Fuck!”
“There has to be a door somewhere.” Bastian waved his torch, casting shuddering light in either direction. “Maybe there’s a trick latch or something?”
“There’s not.” The hall was narrow; Lore could lean backward and hit the opposite wall. She slid down it, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead. “There’s nothing here.”
“There has to be. You led us—”
“I led us wrong, Bastian.” She dropped her hand, looked up at him with daggers in her eyes. “I was wrong. Maybe we’re wrong about this whole damn thing. Maybe we should just leave it.”
“Leave it,” he repeated, cold. He stared down at her, the firelight making him look as regal and distant as a statue of Apollius. “Just let my father and my uncle collect bodies for who-knows-what purpose and march us into war?”
Lore didn’t drop her gaze from his, but neither did she respond. She was tired. Tired of trying to fix something she didn’t fully understand. Tired of being yanked along in one direction or another, used from every angle. Maybe some of those angles were justified, but they still stung.
Bastian cursed, pushing his torch into a small pile of rocks to keep it upright, then slowly ran his hands over the wall. Still searching for that hidden latch.
She watched him for a moment, unable to make herself stand. Then, with a sigh, she pushed up and did the same.
He glanced at her sideways but stayed quiet. Smart man.
As predicted, there was no hidden latch. But as Lore’s hand passed over one section of rough stone wall, her palm… stopped.
She frowned. She could move her hand if she tried, but her skin seemed drawn back to that one spot—smoother than the rest of the rock, and colder, too. At first Lore thought that was the reason her hand strayed there, a simple matter of texture. But as she pressed her palm to the stone, she felt something thrum. A swirl of winter, slow-clotted blood.
Mortem. Mortem, calling to her. Gathered here and knotted.
“I think I figured it out,” she murmured.
Bastian stopped running his hands over the wall, his dark hair gilded with dust. He stepped back, palms open before him as if in surrender. “What do we have to do?”
“It’s a lock,” she said, hand still pressed to the stone. “But with no key. A mechanism that has to be tripped with magic, not something physical.”
“Magic is all you, unfortunately.” He swallowed, narrowing his eyes at the wall. “Is it safe?”