My brow furrowed in confusion but before I got the chance to ask what he meant, he rushed on.
“She’s no saint, you know,” he told me. “If she were here, she’d be the first one to tell you that. She’d be uncomfortable with the way you guys worship her. Look, I won’t say anything, alright? I saw what happened to the ones from your order after Cosmo caught them outside the Ninth. I don’t want anyone getting hurt. But you can’t just come in here and–”
“No,” I interrupted him, shaking my head. “I’m not a member of that cult that worships her and Dante as Saints returned. I’m no fool.”
“Oh. Then why did you bring up the Bexleys?”
I frowned as I looked him up and down once more. I had no way of knowing whether or not this was a good idea. It probably wasn’t. It rarely ever worked out my way when I decided to trust someone. But Luca’s pleading was still echoing in my mind and Milo’s words from the library and I thought, maybe, sometimes certain people were worth the risk. Maybe not me or even Luca or Milo but maybe Adrian was. She’d proven that already.
“Because,” I said, settling on my decision, “I think they’re in danger.”
Chapter Seven
Milo
Simi was horrible company.
Granted, he was a raging lunatic who’d lived and died over five hundred years ago so it could hardly be considered his fault. The same way I imagined Simi had once prayed for silence to quiet the voices in his mind, I prayed for the same, knowing it never happened for him and probably wouldn’t for me as long as this journal plagued my every waking moment.
I sighed as I took a sip of wine and nearly danced for joy at the soft knock upon the door to the study. My grandmother entered before she was invited and made her way across the room, pale blue skirts sliding against the wooden floor. I watched her expression carefully as she sat, dress pooling on the floor below. It only took a few seconds for her mask to fall away as she settled into my company the way it always did when we were alone. Now, that firm frown faded to reveal a true state of utter exhaustion more complete than I could remember seeing in the old matriarch. My gut twisted in an instant.
“Your meeting with Raghnall went that poorly?” I asked, voice flat.
She took a breath, gaze sweeping to the window and the night sky beyond.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” she replied.
My brow furrowed at the unexpected response. I placed my elbows on the table and clasped my hands at my chin as I examined her more closely. The exhaustion was there. It was immediately evident in her drooping eyes and fallen shoulders, but there was something underlying it as well; a sorrow so deep it reached her eyes.
“Of course I do,” I answered her.
“We’re a family first,” she said, still staring at the stars twinkling high above the city. “Sometimes I think we forget that. Sometimes I fear that even I forget that. But the rest of you do all the time. You’re so lost in politics, in luxury, in your own ambition. I blame myself for that. I, along with those wretched Trials, have done nothing but nurture your competitive spirits, your greed.”
I fought the urge to flinch. It was no secret my grandmother held no love for the Geist but this outright contempt was on another level. For the first time, I noticed how hard she was breathing, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than was normal. I observed her flattened lips and a tightness in her expression that could only mean one thing. Something had pissed Nascha off.
“He denied you outright then?” I asked, assuming our proposal had been rejected in a way that matched the brutal candor of House Lynx.
“No,” my grandmother replied. “Raghnall will consider our proposition.”
I raised a brow in surprise. I hadn’t expected that. Neither of us had. In truth, we’d both assumed Raghnall was already too far into Cosmo’s pocket to consider working against him, but we’d had to try. Cosmo had gotten the Guardians and the priestson his side. Even a fool could see the power imbalance he was working to create, and now he was engaging in diatribes every time he had an audience, using dangerous language while he accused the lower ringers of “blasphemy” and offered plans for religious “correction”. One did not have to read the histories to see where that path led.
“What does he want?” I asked.
If Raghnall truly was open to negotiation, my grandmother should have been jumping for joy. The only explanation for why she was not was that he’d asked for something in return, perhaps something she wasn’t willing to give.
“You,” she answered. “He wants you, Milo.”
I blinked at her, stunned.
“What do you mean?”
“He wants you to marry his granddaughter and tie our families together in an alliance. He offered Isla as she was your partner but I mentioned your previously held…affection for Cora. He said, and I quote, ‘He can have both of them for all I care’.”
My fist clenched and I placed it in front of my mouth as I leaned back in my chair and swiveled to face the bookshelf. I stared at the tomes arranged there without really seeing them, anything to look away from my grandmother at that moment. My jaw clenched so hard it ached as I fought against the urge to storm right out of this house and strangle the patriarch of House Lynx.
I started nodding then and didn’t stop as my mind whirred through the possibilities.
“It would be my duty,” I said as the realization took me.
