You don’t have to be the one holding the gun to pull its trigger.
“Mother says you’re sick,” I reply, slipping my free hand into my coat pocket. The other grips my briefcase tight. “How interesting you felt well enough to make an appearance tonight.”
“Well, someone has to attend the meetings you and your mother refuse to. This place would fall apart without me.” He brushes some lint off the collar of his coat. “I have good days and bad days. Today was the former.”
“Very convenient of your illness to let up on the eve of an instauratio.”
He lifts his head, running a hand over his thick black hair. The blues of his eyes are too dark to see from where I stand, but I feel his disdain regardless.
Always have. It wasn’t something that needed to be spoken. When it came to Bellamy and I, he never shied away from the loathing.
When you’re introduced to that young, you develop one of two ways: indifference or the need to prove the person wrong.
Bellamy’s ambivalence was a shield. She only cared about what made her feel good. I thought I needed to make up for that.
“I suppose I am favored by my ancestors,” he replies, his voice thin and devoid of emotion. “Am I wrong to assume you’re headed for the celebration?”
Snorting, I glance at the forest. The glow of the Curator party reflects in the night sky, obscuring some of the stars. They have no idea what lurks out there this evening.
The darkness that will ripple through Avernia tonight and remain through the spring.
“If I don’t attend, they’ll assume I’ve forfeited my title,” I say.
He nods. “They want you as Incarnate, but it’s beenyears, Sutton. You’ve been in limbo this entire time. Your sister is probably rolling in her grave over how fickle you’ve grown.”
My hands curl into fists as a sharp pain pierces my skull. He doesn’t deserve to speak of her.
“How long do you think it will take them to shift to someone else? We need a leader. We need Incarnate to maintain the balance of power and order on campus and in Fury Hill. Theywillmove on from you and find another. I’ve seen them do it before.”
Beckett. Though they’re leery of him because of his past unpredictability, they’d take him if only to keep leadership in the Dupont name.
Incarnate is their designated leader. The chosen one whom they believe is sent by Death itself to rule over their organization. Incarnate chooses the targets, the ceremonies, the messages scrawled on bathroom doors, and the narrative of the gossip whispered throughout campus.
I have no idea how they make that decision, but I know they’ve been waiting for me to officially accept so they could fill the Maiden position as well, since they don’t want Incarnate to rule alone.
The Maiden is Incarnate’s partner in darkness. It can technically be any gender but traditionally is a founding family daughter.
If they choose the sacrifice tonight, the three rings of their sacred cycle—Incarnate, Maiden, and Sacrifice, satisfying their rule of three—would be ready if they went with Beckett.
And I would have ruined my brother alongside my sister.
“Leave Beckett out of this,” I snap. “They don’t touch him.”
Jean-Louis’s mouth twitches. “I never suggested they should. But we both know it’s a likely alternative.”
My limbs grow heavy. Unmanageable.
I’m thrust back in time, bound and helpless while my body is used for the gratification of my captors. Nausea rolls through my stomach as the memories, mere flashes of that night between labored breathing and moans of pleasure, assault me from all angles.
But none worse than what came after. The way my vision blanked and my lungs felt like they were being incinerated from the inside out.
The feeling of drowning. Panic, fear, and desperation colluding in my chest and then utter silence. Waking in a clearing and realizing Bellamy was gone.
The immediate devastation that I hadn’t protected her and would never get to apologize for it.
That guilt lingers to this day.
Jean-Louis juts his chin toward the moon, round and luminescent as it hangs in the cloudy sky. “Better hurry now. This isn’t a ceremony you want to miss.”
