I shrug. “I dealt with it. Always bothered me more than my brother growing up.” My voice strains at the mention of Galen, eyes sliding to the window again, wondering if he’s out here somewhere, after Dorian turned him down.
“Your brother,” Jude repeats, resting his head back on the pillow. “What would he do to get you back?”
I think of Galen urging my mother out of my bedroom and shouting at her to stay downstairs when I first fell violently ill. For days, weeks maybe, the illness filled my head with delusions. I screamed at the shadows that floated over my room, thinking I was probably going to die. And I remember my brother’s voice:You’re strong enough, Riv.
Maybe Galendidthink me capable, to some extent, trusting I would pull through when the poison took hold and turned my skin sickly gray, when ice began to crust in my veins.
I raise my hand and turn it over in the moonlight. The veins glitter now, a golden hue hanging softly over my skin. “Anything,” I say, even though it’s a suspicious thing of Jude to ask. “My brother would do anything.”
It’s quiet again.
“Alistaire?” says Jude’s voice one more time from the darkness of the room.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
A laugh jumps from my throat. “What, for ruining my life and throwing me into the casting call? It’s a bit late for that.” My breath stills. “Or if you mean what happened a moment ago, I think that was just as much my fault.”
“No, I’m not sorry for either of those things, actually,” he says. “For something else.”
I look at him—half asleep, bathed in moonlight, gold flickering under his skin—and realize I might not want to know what he means.
For once, I don’t ask.
Intermission: Scene X
Jude doesn’t take his watch later. Which is probably my fault for forgetting to wake him. So imagine my surprise whenhewakesmeup.
“Alistaire,” Jude’s voice whispers. He darts back before I can run him through with my knife on impulse. He points at the dagger, annoyed. “See,that. Where wasthatinstinct when Dorian’s damned hunterstried to—”
The door rattles, and by the way his attention shoots toward it, I think it isn’t the first time.
Jude leans across me, unlatches the seal on the window, and pushes it open. I don’t know who could be trying to get in, but I know that there’s no such thing as an ally out here.
“How could they have found us?” I dive headfirst through the window onto the flat roof, gasping when the wind meets my neck, like ice pouring down my back.
“Well, Alistaire, the thing about being a creature that isparticularlyknown for attracting attention is it makes it difficult to sneak around.” He throws one long leg out the window after me as I crawl across the roof. “Simply feeling drawn to this room could be suspicious enough for some.”
He maneuvers cleanly down a pipe onto the icy grass, and I attempt to follow suit. Except when I do it, I land clumsily on my hip while Jude mutters a snide remark about neglecting my combat training before hauling me to the closest desolate road, slippery with frost.
The light emitted by his skin is particularly conspicuous in the dark. Suddenly, he turns, as if a thought has just occurred to him, and yanks my hood over my head. “The rule applies to you, too, now.”
I groan and try to ignore the gold glow hovering over my hands.
Fear of an escaped Player has apparently encouraged everyone to stay inside after dark. The streets are quiet as death as we go, ice crunching under our boots. Bounty posters with Jude’s face paper the walls of fur shops and firewood stands. I nearly shout at him when he pauses to autograph one.
We pass more than one news rack closed for the night but full of frantic headlines. My eyes sweep over them as cold seeps into my bones.
escaped player: jude stepharros to stand trial under law
“They give menocredit,” he mutters, skimming an article surmising Jude will begin slaughtering a city any day now. “I’ve been wandering out here two days and I’ve only killed—” He pauses and starts counting on his fingers, then gives up. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
It takes several tries to find a shop with a lock thatisn’tmade with Eleutheraen gold. Soon enough, I point out a bakery and amble around the back. Jude stands watch while I pick at the iron lock with one of his earrings, then motion him inside.
Thank the godsit’s warm in here. My bones might splinter if they get any colder. I sink onto the floor of the pantry, deciding the bag of flour in the corner will make a fine pillow.
Jude follows a moment later and tosses a bag of rolls at me. I greedily tear it open and scarf down four. He chews on a piece and gives up, wincing and pressing a hand to his jaw like he’s in pain. Then he tosses the bread across the room and sinks against the wall beside me. His breaths are more labored than before, and he’s shivering violently. Lines of gold bleed down his forearm now, that mysterious wound of his spreading farther like a disease, deteriorating everything it touches.
