I didn’t.
Because I didn’t know what else to say.
He moved toward the door.
“Aleks, please wait?—”
“When you’re ready to talk about this openly and honestly, come find me.” He paused in the doorway, lifting his face toward the ceiling, one hand bracing against the frame. He looked like he didn’t want to leave.
He still did.
Slowly, I sank onto the bed, pressing my palms against my eyes, trying to stave off both tears and an impending headache.
Phantom slipped in from the balcony, trotting to my side and nudging his cold nose against my arm until I lifted my head and scratched behind his ears.
He licked my hand—a rare display of open affection from him. Then he circled the space where my shadows had been obliterated, vigorously sniffing the air and whining as he did.
(His magic smells different.)
More evidence I couldn’t ignore.
“What…what does it smell like?”
Phantom tilted his head, considering.(Cold. Metallic. Like blood.)
I drew in a shuddering, uneven breath.
I had to go talk to Aleks. I had to fix this before it had time to fester into a wound we couldn’t heal.
But as soon as I stood, my plans were derailed by a knock at the door. I opened it to find Eamon standing there, practically vibrating with nervous energy. I knew that look in his eyes—he’d discovered something.
Breathlessly, he said, “We know where the second shard is.”
Less than an hour later,I was clean, dressed, and standing in one of the palace’s smaller sitting rooms.
My argument with Aleks had been shoved to the background out of necessity, though it still hovered at the edges of my mind like a bruise I kept painfully bumping against.
We were waiting on my brother to finish with another meeting before we could begin. Only Thalia, Phantom, and I were in the small room where Eamon had already piled his stacks upon stacks of research materials across every available surface. I tried my best to browse through the nearest pile, to prepare for what was coming, but the words and images only blurred together.
“Your focus seems to be elsewhere,” Thalia commented from her seat by the door.
I picked up a tattered scroll, eyes scanning it without really seeing it. “It’s been a difficult morning.”
“Aleks?” she guessed.
I tilted my head toward her.
She shrugged. “Aveline saw him leaving your room in a rush this morning. She asked me if I knew anything—if everything was all right. She’s concerned about you.” A pause. “We’reallconcerned about you.”
Before I could find the words to try and alleviate any of that concern, Bastian and Eamon entered the room and locked the door behind them.
Again, I tried to focus on the task at hand.
But all I could think about was the last time we’d gathered to make plans like this, before our last expedition to the Above. Aleks had been with me, then. He should have been with me now.
I hadn’t been able to find him on my way to this meeting, though.
And part of me—a part that felt traitorous and wrong—wondered if that was for the best.
