I glared at him, the knife pushing further into his throat, enough for little droplets of blood to begin running down the blade and dripping off the tip. But he stayed calm as he explained.
“I got this tattoo a year ago,” he said. “When Adrian was doing well in the Trials, when she and Dante looked like they were going to make it, these guys found me after I played a set in a bar and started talking about Third Ring pride. We got drunk and they showed me this symbol. They said it was just a mark of the lower rings, a mark of being proud of where you’re from. I was wasted when we stumbled down to the Lyons studio and they put this on my back. I was pissed when I found out what it really meant, what I’d been unknowingly inducted into. They tried to recruit me then, saying I already had the mark so I should come check out what they were about. I went to a few meetings, I won’t lie, but then I stopped. Because Adrian loved Dante and talked all the time about Milo and I started thinking there might be another way to make it work with the First Ringers, that maybe they weren’t so high above us after all if some of them were willing to slum it down here on the Third for her. I don’t know how Cosmo found out about it but I swear to you, Olympia, I’m not one of them.”
“You watched me hunt for that symbol,” I accused. “You let me warn you about how dangerous it was when you knew more about it than I did.”
“Don’t pretend you tell me everything you know that I don’t, Olympia. We’re both well aware that would be a lie. Besides, I never expected to come home to my apartment one night to find the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen climbing out of my window, and I definitely never expected that woman to be a First Ringer. Nothing I’ve said to you since that moment has been a lie, beautiful, I swear on the Geist. I want this to work between us. I thought I proved that by going to your cousin, by pretending he has some sort of say in who I decide to be with.”
“You went to the meetings,” I said, loosening my grip on the knife. “You heard them out.”
“It’s no secret the Viper Patriarch and I don’t see eye to eye and I won’t lie that I’ve had a real issue in the past with the superiority complex you all seem to have up there. But I give a shit about lives, Olympia. Innocent people were standing around that tunnel when they fucking blew it up. I would never risk that.”
His eyes were boring into me as his tone turned so severe I couldn’t help but believe him, again. Though I hesitated, I dropped the knife to my side and let my shoulders collapse as I stepped back, away from him, mind whirring with all the information I’d been faced with over the last few hours.
“They’ll never believe you,” I said. “Milo won’t be able to back us now. No matter what we say, he won’t be able to put his stamp of approval on this, on you. And now every First Ringer thinks you're the enemy. You have more targets on your back than I can count, not the least of which is placed there by the Patriarch of House Viper himself.”
“I can take care of myself.”
I barked a bitter laugh and shook my head as I turned away from him.
“The fact that you think that shows me how little you understand these people,” I told him. “Cosmo will come for you, Harrison, and he has the gathered might of the Guardians and the priesthood behind him. It’ll start with something small, an arrest on suspicion of rebellious activity. They’ll say they’re bringing you in for questioning and drag you up to the First to the Viper’s basement. Then they’ll make up some charge, maybe blame you for the bombing itself, and execute you down there in the dark where no one can see. They’ll send your body to your mother and your brother without an explanation or even a note of sympathy. Or maybe they’ll just poison you and be done with it. Do you know where your food comes from, Harrison? Or your water? Do you know who runs the power grid that lights your apartment?”
He just stared at me for a moment, blinking, as if he’d truly never thought of those things before now.
“Cosmo will do whatever he wants with you because Cosmoownsyou,” I growled, glaring as I approached him again. “The leaders of this city decide who lives and dies because they decide who eats, who sleeps, who drinks. Milo could have helped you. He offered you the chance to show where your allegiances lie. He offered you the chance to help him rid us all of the snake and you cost us the trial because you weren’t honest about the skeletons in your closet, because Cosmo knew more about you than you did about him. You said you could do it and we trusted you. You promised us a witness and you let yourself get put on trial instead. You failed, Harrison, and instead of putting away a murderer, we put him on display for the whole city to see all morning. He fancies himself a priest and we gave him a pulpit. Then your boneheaded friends blew it up and made him a martyr. He’s a survivor now, persecuted for his faith in theGeist by the heretics he’s always known were hiding amongst us. Sanctuary is breaking down, people are panicking, and public opinion isnottrending in our favor. They made an enemy of the gods by bombing a man who claims to speak for them. They’ve brought us religious war.”
He watched me for a moment, blood drying on his neck, frowning.
“To be clear, whatever we might have thought was between us, whatever we thought we’d have the time to explore, doesn’t matter now,” I barked at him.
“Olympia–” he started, reaching for me.
But I pulled back, stepped away, and shook my head.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Tell me how to make it right.”
I watched him for a moment, gauging his reaction, examining his expression. He was breathing hard, his eyes bright, forearms strained, neck stiff. My heart ached so badly to believe him, to give him another chance. His story had been believable. I’d known this group was likely trying to recruit those ignorant of their past and what they stood for. I, myself, had to look that symbol up in the House library to remember what it meant. Even Milo hadn’t known. So what hope did a random Third Ringer have of knowing what that symbol meant? Logically, I knew all of that. It made giving him a second chance a perfectly reasonable action to take.
But I’d never been reasonable, especially when it came to my heart, and I didn’t trust easily because I’d been taught enough times not to. Giving this thing between us a chance had already stretched me to my emotional limits but now, with this, I couldn’t bear the idea of jumping right back in, of taking the risk that he might make a fool of me, that he might hurt me. If he wanted me to believe him, he’d have to prove to me that I could.Truthfully, that had always been the case, only now it was even more of an uphill battle.
I crossed my arms and frowned back at him.
“The Bexleys had a dinner guest several nights ago,” I started and Harrison’s expression alighted with annoyance at the realization that I’d been spying on his friends again. I didn’t care. “Her name is Veronica. Her house was the one that burned down the very same night. I want you to find out how well they know her and what she wants with them.”
Harrison’s jaw clenched as he pushed off of the wall to look down at me.
“You want me to spy on my friends,” he deadpanned, clearly unamused. “You want me to spy on Adrian’s family.”
“Milo has extended an invitation to the Bexleys to visit him on the First. He invited them to his godsdamned wedding and they’ve never shown up, not once. Then I see them having dinner with a known member of the same rebel group which convinced you to get their symbol branded on your back. And all of this happens days before a bombing which takes out the entire twelfth tunnel and injures several of the members of the expanded Tribunal, not to mention killing a few of the bribed witnesses and Guardians standing nearby. So I have questions for the Bexleys regarding their involvement with the terrorists who killed our fellow citizens and targeted our leaders. Either you can ask them those questions, or I will.”
Harrison was frowning by the time I finished, clearly seeing the picture I was painting for him. There was about to be a massive manhunt in Sanctuary for anyone bearing the symbol of the rebellion and anyone associated with them. The Bexleys had been seen hosting one such rebel which meant they would be called in for questioning along with all the others if Harrison and I didn’t get to them first.
“What should I tell them to do?” he asked, tone grave.
“Tell them to go to Milo the way they should have done in the first place,” I replied, ignoring Harrison’s frustration while I turned and strode back toward the front door. “We aren’t going to hurt them, Harrison. Unless, of course, they had something to do with that bombing.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
