“That’s enough questions, Dante,” Kleio said then.
I noticed, for the first time, he sounded weary. I watched closely, brow knitted together in concern, as the god before me lowered himself into a chair and sighed, rubbing his temples as if to prevent a building headache.
“Where have you been,Kleio?” I asked then, tone falling out of habit. “I haven’t seen you for days and you haven’t called for me either.”
“Deimos has decided an issue has arisen within Sanctuary and when an issue arises in Sanctuary, the council calls me,” he told me with a sigh. “Despite having kept me out of the loop for half a millennia, apparently I remain the leading expert ontheVerdunn. Don’t get me started on how irresponsible it is not to have trained another soul in my absence. How they’ve been managing this long without me, I’ll never—”
“What issue has arisen in Sanctuary?”
He looked up at me and his expression softened in a way that had my heart racing at the possibilities of what might be occurring at home.
“Some days, Dante, your human nature overrides yourGeistblood,”Kleiotold me, his tone full of sorrow.
“What happened,Kleio?” I asked, my voice firm.
“Nothing that concerns you, boy.”
He stood, patting my shoulder in a way I was sure was meant to be comforting but felt condescending.
“Sanctuary is my home,” I reminded him. “My family—”
“You'll never see them again. You'll never return to that place. Whatever is occurring there will only serve as a distraction for you now. It’s best to leave that part of you in the past, to move on as if it never was.”
“I can’t just forget them.”
“Did you know you wouldn't return from the tenth?”
Kleiowatched me with that same academic curiosity that was supremely his but was starting to grate on my nerves.
“I did,” I confessed.
“Then you've made that choice already,” he reminded me, not unkindly. “Trust that I will do what I can for them. That is, after all, my duty. You should focus on yours.”
I frowned but nodded, knowing enough about theGeistbefore me by now to knowKleiowouldn't budge on the subject. To him, the matter had been discussed and was finished. He wouldn't change his opinion and he would tell me no more about what occurred in my home. So I did my best to set it aside, as he suggested, and focus on the floating instruction he was now endeavoring to impose upon me. But I couldn't deny the waymy mind drifted back to Sanctuary all throughout my lessons andKleionoticed. He dismissed me early, claiming he had pressing matters to attend to but, as he turned back to those scattered papers on his desk when I made my way to the door, I knew he was giving me the time I needed to come to terms with all that I'd learned as well.
In truth, I hadn’t thought ofCosmomuch since I'd arrived inPavosother than to make comparisons between his leadership and that of theGeistor to acknowledge how pleased or displeased he would've been by my behavior. And I didn’t think of him now. Instead, I thought of my mother. I thought of Olympia and that cousin of hers whom Adrian had befriended. I thought of Adrian’s family and her friends from the Third Ring that I'd met due to our partnership. I thought ofBriaand my younger cousins and the priests I'd grown up learning a false faith from. And I couldn't help but wonder what might befall them. Whether today or tomorrow or the next day, things were happening in Sanctuary, in my home, and I wasn't privy to information regarding it. I might never know. I could live a thousand years and never know what happened to them.
I stopped suddenly on the street as a a thought occurred to me that I might not be entirely able to live with that fact.
Then again, what choice did I have?
Chapter Sixteen
Adrian
“They will grind our bones to dust and then pile our children’s upon them.”
– Rebel Leader Marsh Ackley in his Speech of Unity during the Uprising of 1897
They'd handcuffed me.
I stared at the little metal bracelets dangling loosely from my wrists, at the chain clanking against the metal table leg it was wrapped around, and wondered what the point was. They knew what I was capable of. One split second of phasing and these cuffs would fall to the floor and I would be free. In fact, I could leave here at any moment. The door, the only other thing in this pristine white room other than the table and half a dozen chairs around it, might be locked but, again, I could phase right through it. They knew that and yet they'd chained me here like a prisoner, a more symbolic gesture of their displeasure than anything else.
Still, I remained. I wouldn’t admit it was because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
The lock in the door clicked, so itwaslocked, and two officers in black uniforms stepped through the opening. I narrowed my gaze at them, eyes flicking from one to the other. They weren’t Fallen. They didn’t have the telltalegrayuniforms or the bands on their arms. But they had weapons. Strapped all over their bodies and visible in the buzzing overhead lights, long curved knives hung at their waists, glinting steel and shining hilt. I hadn’t known the Underground employed a police force. I'd assumed the Fallen were enough leadership and law enforcement for the population but apparently, even here, theso-called un-Blessedwanted their representation. I couldn’t blame them for that.
“Have you lost your mind?” a deep grumble ensued from the hallway beyond the guards.
