“I realized I wasn’t welcome here. I thought, even, that the Blackthorns might be involved in the necromancy somehow.”
“They would never—!”
“Well, you can say that. You know them. I didn’t know them. All I knew was that the head of the Institute had told me to go away, but I couldn’t because you were here. Maybe in danger, maybe even in danger from the Blackthorns. I had to get weapons at the Market because I was afraid that if I went to any of the usual weapons caches it would be found out that I was still here. Look, Cristina, I am not a liar—”
“You don’t lie?” Cristina demanded. “You want to know why I left home, Diego? In May we were in San Miguel de Allende. I’d gone to the Jardín, and when I came back, you and Jaime were sitting up on the terrace. I was coming through the courtyard; I could hear your voices very clearly. You didn’t know I was there.”
Diego looked puzzled. “I don’t . . .”
“I heard him talking to you about how the wrong branch of the Rosales family was in power. It should have been you. He was talking about the plan he had. Surely you remember. The one where you would marry me, and he would become my parabatai, and together you would use your influence over me and my mother to eject her from her position as head of the D.F. Institute, and then you would take over. He said you had the easy job, marrying me, because you could leave me someday. Becoming parabatai means you’re stuck with them forever. I remember him saying that.”
“Cristina . . .” Diego had gone pale. “That’s why you left that night. It wasn’t because your mother was sick and needed you at the Institute in the city.”
“I was the one who was sick,” Cristina spat. “You broke my heart, Diego, you and your brother. I don’t know what’s worse, losing your best friend or losing the boy you’re in love with, but I can tell you that it was like you both died for me that day. That’s why I don’t pick up your calls or messages. You don’t take calls from a dead boy.”
“And what about Jaime?” Something flared in his eyes. “What about his calls?”
“He never has called,” said Cristina, and almost took pleasure in the look of shock on his face. “Maybe he has better sense than you.”
“Jaime? Jaime?” Diego was on his feet now. A vein in his temple throbbed. “I remember that day, Cristina. Jaime was drunk and he was babbling. Did you hear me say anything or did you only hear him?”
Cristina forced herself to think back. In memory it seemed like a cacophony of voices. But . . . “I only heard Jaime,” she said. “I didn’t hear you say a word. Not to defend me. Not to say anything.”
“There was no point talking to Jaime when he was like that,” Diego said bitterly. “I let him talk. I shouldn’t have. I had no interest in his plan. I loved you. I wanted to go far away with you. He is my brother, but he is— He was born with something missing, I think, some piece of his heart where compassion lives.”
“He was going to be my parabatai,” said Cristina. “I was going to be tied to him forever. And you weren’t going to say anything to me? Do anything to stop it?”
“I was,” Diego protested. “Jaime had planned to go to Idris. I was waiting for him to leave. I needed to speak to you when he wasn’t there.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have waited.”
“Cristina.” He came toward her, his hands outstretched. “Please, if you don’t believe anything else, believe me that I have always loved you. Do you really think I have lied to you since we were children? Since the first time I ever kissed you and you ran away laughing? I was ten years old—do you really think that was some kind of plan?”
She didn’t reach for his hands. “But Jaime,” she said. “I’ve known him just as long. He was always my friend. But he wasn’t, was he? He said things no friend would say, and you knew he was using me, and you said not a word.”
“I was going to tell you—”
“Intentions are nothing,” Cristina said. She had thought she would feel some relief, finally telling Diego why she hated him, finally unburdening the knowledge of what she had heard. Finally severing the thread. But it didn’t feel severed. She could feel the bond connecting them, as she had when she’d blacked out in the crashing car outside the Institute and woken up with Diego holding her. He’d been whispering in her ear that she would be all right, that she was his Cristina, she was strong. And it had felt for a moment as if the past months had been a dream, and she was home.
“I must stay here,” Diego said. “These killings, the Followers, they are too important. I am a Centurion; I cannot abandon a mission. But I do not need to remain at the Institute. If you want me to go away, I will.”
Cristina opened her mouth. But before she could speak, her phone buzzed. It was a message from Emma. STOP MAKING OUT WITH PERFECT DIEGO AND GET TO THE COMPUTER ROOM, WE NEED YOU.