“I’m sorry,” he said, sobbing again. “I’ve disappointed you. I should have done better, but I couldn’t even find you.”
“You found me today,” she said. “In the middle of a crowd. That’s all that matters. You did so good. Come on. It’s freezing out here, but it’s warm inside, and we’ll eat and talk.”
Finally, he stood and followed her to the chandler’s shop. Seraphina could tell from the way he moved that his head was down and his shoulders hunched. She ached for him. And she ached for how grateful she felt that he’d returned to her, that she’d found him before the frost took him, like it had taken the old man in the cell next to theirs.
Another one bites the frost.
As their footsteps echoed in the night in unison, she swore to herself that she would never let him go anywhere without her. She’d been dumb, had taken a pointless risk, and she could’ve lost him tonight. The fact that he was out of prison and they weren’t going to separate his head from his body was a miracle, and she’d squandered it by letting him deal with the city alone.
If Seraphina had lost Rune, it would’ve been her fault entirely. And she would’ve deserved it.
They reached the hideout, and he pulled the food out of a deep pocket. She took it and divided it in two. The bread was stale, the cheese old and pungent, but it was edible, so they sat by the fire and ate in silence. With her stomach no longer empty, she felt how exhausted she was. Running from Hartmann, fighting him, then witnessing his dismemberment...
She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she’d witnessed so many horrors. War had raged in Europe for twelve years, and when Napoleon fell, another tyrant had risen. Who knew when the bloodshed and gore would end? She’d felt it onher own skin, inside her body... She still felt it in her empty eye sockets. The extent of human savagery.
What Rune had done, he’d done it for her. She was going to own it.
Seraphina lay down on the floor, wrapping the too big cloak tightly around her. When she didn’t hear him move, she reached behind her and patted the empty spot.
“Back-to-back?” he asked.
“Always.”
Neither of them could sleep, though. Seraphina listened to his breathing, and she knew his thoughts were churning. Like hers. Her spine was pressed to his. Even through the thick cloaks, she could feel the heat of his body and the hard muscles in his back.
“We must leave the city,” she said, unable to keep her thoughts to herself anymore. “As soon as we can. There’s no point in staying.”
He shifted, and she thought he’d turned his head to stare at the ceiling.
“What about the academy? Your initial plan.”
“My plan was stupid. I shouldn’t have come to Ingolstadt. I should’ve gone to where they are.”
“They?”
“The men who...” She bit down on her tongue.
He nodded. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I heard...”
She reached up to rub at her temple, trying to put her thoughts in order. She’d done everything backwards. She’d thought that if she went back to Krähenstein Academy and told the resistance about what had happened to her and Matteo, and how she wanted to take revenge, Headmaster Wolff would’ve sent someone with her. But that had been childish. He would’ve never done that. He would’ve shoved her in a workshop – maybe hers and Matteo’s old workshop – and made her work as ashard technician to assist another weaver. He wouldn’t have let her leave again, go on her little warpath, he would’ve asked for names instead. And she could’ve only given him one.
“Eisengrau,” she said. “Viktor Eisengrau. He used to be no one, but last I heard, he became Major Eisengrau.”
The one name she’d heard that day when they lifted her skirts and pushed themselves against her. There had been four of them, common foot soldiers, the lowest of the low, ambushing travelers, robbing and raping, looking for relics or people of interest to bring back to their Harvester in hopes of climbing the ladder.
They’d managed, because if two years ago, the name had been Eisengrau or Viktor hissed by the other three rats to draw his attention as he was busy holding Seraphina down with her face in the mud, a month ago, when she was on a mission with the sisters of Saint Vivia’s and stopped at an inn to rest, she’d heard the name Major Eisengrau spoken with both fear and regard.
He’d last been seen at the front lines near Neuburg, commanding troops in the assault on the city. The resistance held. Rumor had it that before a new attack, he was sent away to Freising, deep into the Harvester’s territory, to take care of something of greater importance.
What could’ve been more important than breaching the walls of Neuburg, which would’ve led them to the gates of Ingolstadt and within arm’s reach of the relics held at the academy?
Hearing that name after two years of healing and fighting, and building a new life at the convent, encouraged by the sisters and Briar to leave the past behind, had... untethered her. It had pulled at the invisible threads she’d used to sew her soul back together, and once she shattered into pieces again – a slab of meat discarded in a ditch with blood gushing out of her face – she hadn’t been able to recover.
She didn’t even try.
Because hearing his name had revealed the truth to her. Healing was pointless. It was an illusion. There was no such thing as healing, only mending to a certain degree. Like when you broke a bone and it mended, but you felt the place tender for the rest of your life. Seraphina had broken her clavicle when she was little, playing and rolling in bed, until she rolled too far, too fast, fell on the floor and heard a snap. Years later, when Matteo’s beautiful, strong hands with long, skilled fingers pressed into her shoulders to release the tension after a night of shard work, Seraphina would flinch when he inched too close to her left clavicle.
