I watched him study my face as if weighing something, or maybe trying to make up his mind. I saw one side winning even before he spoke.
“I kind of wanted to ask you that, Shadow,” he said, his voice close to blunt. “What the fuck were you and Alaric up to this summer? What was the big ‘project’ the two of you were working on? Because I’m pretty sure that’s the reason his father came for him.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending at first.
Then, all at once, a sob tore out of my chest.
18
Communication
Itold him. Unlike with every other person in my life, including all my closest friends, I told Caelum Bones exactly what Alaric and I had been doing.
WhyI told him, given the thoughts I’d had, pretty much throughout the summer, from the very first broadcast Alaric and I managed to overhear, wasn’t entirely clear, even to me. I’d only ever voiced those suspicions aloud to Alaric the one time, up on The Eyrie. I suppose I’d been afraid he would agree with me, and I hadn’t wanted Alaric to tell me I was right.
He hadn’t agreed with me, though. Not only did Alaric think the idea improbable, he seemed to think it was completely impossible.
Regardless, I didn’t tell Bones about that particular conversation.
I told him everything else, though.
Even as I did, I marveled at that bizarre trust I still had in him, that I’d always had in him, even when I’d wondered if he might be the Priest himself. Even then, I’d still mostly framed it as something he felt hehadto do, to keep himself safe or to appease his father or both.
As I laid everything out for him now, starting with the end of my first school year and my conversations with Alaric over those months, I wondered if Bones would deign to tell me anything real in return. Would I have told him anyway, if I knew for sure he wouldn’t? I knew myself well enough to know the answer was probably yes.
Anyway, delusional or not, I likely wasn’t making anythingworse.If he did turn out to be on the wrong side of this, I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
Somewhere in the middle of me talking, he’d gotten up from where he’d been half-lying on me, and sat cross-legged on the mattress, staring down at me incredulously.
He released my hand. He stopped touching me altogether once I was at the point of describing Alaric and his magical radio, our regular meetings to work on seeing arts, and our endless attempts at tracking and identification spells. By then, I’d stopped crying, and was speaking more or less coherently, not through a fog of sobs like I had in the beginning.
He didn’t interrupt me, though.
He listened, absorbing every word, even after my voice grew borderline defensive. The expression on his face didn’t really change, even after I’d finished talking.
I don’t know what I’d expected him to say at the end of my however-many minutes of explaining, but the first words out of his mouth shouldn’t have surprised me.
Theydidn’tsurprise me, really, but they managed to irritate me, even with how emotionally wrung-out I felt from the last twenty-four hours.
“What in the fuck is the matter with you, Shadow.”
He didn’t voice it like a question.
His voice was flat, harsh.
His gold eyes continued to stare at me, the disbelief and anger in them growing more prominent at my silence. His irisesno longer held that unstable, flickering fire, like they had before he’d used me to offload his magic, but they shimmered in a way that made me think he was having some kind of emotional reaction, despite the stillness of his features.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he continued coldly. “Did Alec put you up to it? Or was this summer suicide projectyourbrilliant idea?”
My jaw hardened.
I’d just explained all of that. In detail.
For the same reason, I didn’t bother to speak.
Seeing something in my face, he averted his gaze. His own jaw clenched briefly as he seemed to be making an effort to dial his emotions back.
“Well, that explains why they decided to tag him now,” he said a beat later. He spoke under his breath, practically through gritted teeth. “You realize there’s no possible way this is a coincidence? Old Borogh must’ve been ordered to bring him in. They likely told him to control his son, or they’d do it for him.”
