I clenched my jaw. She was right. But I’d never seen any reason to fight other than anger. And Iwasangry. At the world, at the Geist, at Dante. Especially at Dante who’d pulled me away from my best friend’s sister in her darkest hour, who went back and forth between witty banter when we were alone and stoic silence around his family, who saw me more as an obstacle to overcome rather than a partner in his success.
“Your anger gives you strength, but it makes you careless.” Myrine approached me. “And it’s not sustainable. It’s a serrated edge, sawing through the bond of your partnership.”
Her gaze narrowed and snapped back to Dante.
“Whatever is between you, fix it,” she spat. “You’ll never get through what is to come without one another.”
With that, she strode away, leaving us standing alone in the courtyard of her House which we always sparred in. I took a few steadying breaths and looked over at Dante. His jaw was set, his lips in a thin line.
“Lunch,” he said.
He didn’t speak to me again all day.
I skipped lunch, grabbing a snack from the kitchen instead, as well as my studies, and as I presumed that little exhibition in the courtyard had been our morning sparring, I skipped the rest of that as well. Instead, I made my way to the eastern gate and descended two levels, pushing through the crowded Third Ring toward my apartment.
Dante didn’t follow this time. And he was silent across our mental bond as well, as though he were just as angry with me as I was with him. Fine. I didn’t need him for this. I didn’t need anyone for this.
I pushed through the door marked 401B and made my way to the box that still sat on my kitchen counter. I stared down at the contents for a moment, resisting the urge to reach for the t-shirts, to breathe in his scent one last time. Even alone, that felt creepy, like something Darius definitely would have made fun of me for doing. I considered pocketing the watch, but Orson would notice its absence. Instead, I picked up the box and took a breath.
A whole life. Twenty-one years in this city, and this half-full box of trinkets was what I had left of him. And no one, not his sister or even his parents, had asked for it.
I closed my eyes and took another breath that rattled through my ribcage before stepping back outside. It was time. Far past time, if I were being honest. I had been holding onto these things, selfishly, as a way to keep some part of Darius alive for myself. But it was wrong. These things belonged to his parents, to his sister, to a family that had lost far more than I had. Even if they hadn’t made any attempt to claim them.
I carried the box all the way across the Third Ring to Darius’s old neighborhood. I knocked on the door and waited, shifting uncomfortably on my feet, hoping—pitifully—that they weren’t home, that I wouldn’t have to face them again.
No such luck.
“Adrian,” Orson said my name with surprise as he opened his front door, blinking at me. A question formed on his lips, but then he glanced down at the box in my arms. His shoulders slumped as he moved aside. “Come in.”
I forced my feet to carry me into the home, forced my eyes to remain on the hallway ahead of me, taking one step at a time as I trudged into their open living room.
“I thought you might want his things.” I internally cringed at how awkward I sounded. “It felt like you should have them.”
“Thank you.” Orson took the box from me. He gazed down at its contents for only a second before setting it aside.
“How’s Dahlia?” I asked before I could help myself.
Orson’s deep frown would have been answer enough, but he said even more.
“I’ve hardly seen her,” he confessed. “She spends all her time at his side. She won’t come home, and when I try to take her something to eat, she refuses. Your brother is there a lot, Warren. Sometimes he’s able to get her to eat something. He’s the only one who seems to be able to.”
I nodded slowly. Warren was still staying with her. That was good. “I wanted to stay but—”
“The Trials come first,” Orson finished, not knowing that wasn’t at all what I was going to say. He waved a hand dismissively as if that were a perfectly acceptable excuse, but I caught the frown on his lips.
“No. They don’t.”
“I heard you passed the second.”
“I—well, yes. But that’s not—”
“It’s over for Dahlia and Cyrus, Adrian.” Orson's eyes glazed over, his tone heavy with something like despair. “Sanctuary needs hope. Maybe you and Dante can give it to them.”
There was so much I wanted to say to that. That I never wanted to be the one who gave anyone hope. That I only ever wanted to do this with Darius at my side. That I only took the Oath in the first place because it was the only promise I’d ever made his son. That this whole godsforsaken city could burn to the ground for all I cared, because that was what it deserved for the way it took everything good, everything right in the world, and destroyed it. But I only nodded and clenched my jaw tight so that I wouldn’t say any of those things.
It seemed he had nothing left to say either. So I muttered my goodbyes and made my way to the door, letting myself out the way I had hundreds of times before.
Lunch was over. I should have headed back to the Mitte for afternoon weight training, but the very idea of spending another day working myself to the bone for these Trials, for the games that the Geist were playing with our lives, filled me with a disgust so poignant, I couldn’t stomach it.
