“Thiscan’t—” The words tore from his throat unevenly.
Leena stared at him, her own breaths harsher than normal.
She brought a quick hand to her lips as if they were bruised. In spite of himself, he followed the gesture, his eyes darkening—swallowing her whole.
Leena turned away from him, toward the opening of the cave, looking at the sea that had begun to soothe itself after its show of righteous fury. She struggled to keep her tone brusque; it was an insult to them both to pretend after what had occurred between them. “I won’t tell a soul of what I’ve learned today.”
She could feel his stare burning into her profile. “Not even the Wake?” he asked quietly, knowing that a promise from her would mean a betrayal of her father. Leena felt her gut twist at his words. The Saint of Silence was a powerful man and notoriously reclusive. Any secret about him could surely be used as a bargaining chip with any group that wanted power over him.
Leena also knew, with a certainty that dug deep into the marrow of her bones, that she would never do this, and that waspreciselywhere the pain was seeping from. “What did the Wake do to you?”
He didn’t answer. Even now, he kept his secrets close to his chest.
“It was Lord Hargreaves and your father. They were the Wake.”All of Leena’s questions and the unsolved riddles written in her notes started to fall into place. She looked at St. Silas with both dawning understanding and wretched sympathy. “The Wake traded in prisoners.” Her hand stung with the urge to reach out to him. “Did they also trade you? Did Lord Avon trade you—his only son,his only heir—to a demon?”
“Promise me, Leena, that you will not seek him. Hargreaves.” His voice was at war with his body. Leena could see he was trying to sound calm, but the clench of his fist and the hardness of his shoulders gave him away.
She continued, unable to comprehend the cruelty of his past. “Is that why you have those ledgers? Is that why you collect confessions? Forthem? For the demons?”
He took her by the shoulders, his thumbs brushing her collarbones. “Promise me.Do not seek the Wake.”
The horror deepened in her throat, scorching her. She could not tear her wild gaze from the ferocious set of his face.
Leena could not find a homeland on any map, but she’d found it in her father’s booming laugh, in his kind hands, in the brown eyes she’d known from the moment she was born. And what St. Silas was asking of her would inevitably turn her into an exile again.
He shook her lightly. “Notjustfor my sake.”
“I promise never to reveal a word about you.” Leena repeated the oath in a whisper, much like kneeling at the altar before a holy Saint.
His words were vehement, a low command. “Promise for yourself.”
She stepped away from him, already feeling the loss of the warmth of his hand on her skin. She walked toward the light snow, the dropping temperature sending goosebumps over her spine.
She was silent as she bent forward, slowly unlacing the shoes that St. Silas had brought with him from the beach. It was only when she wore them that she turned back to face him once more. “You seek to reclaim a home, my lord. Well, so do I. But I won’t seekthe Wake until we’ve concluded our business.” She nodded at him. “We should head back now before it turns fully dark.”
He didn’t immediately follow her into the open air. Leena took her first steps into the freshly fallen snow, the twilight obscuring her footsteps as she started to climb her way back, her heart immeasurably heavy.
What she left behind in that cave was yet another promise—to herself this time—that she wouldsurvivethis, no matter how painful, no matter how never-healing the wound would be. Unlike ill-fated Moira, she would eventually walk away from Bramwell Avon without turning back.
Avons can cross.
St. Silas understood.
The message had been left for him by his father. Whether it was meant as a warning or a guide, it did not matter. What mattered was the diary. What mattered was finding Percival Avon’s ghost. What mattered was Weavingshaw.
At dawn on their final day, St. Silas went to the crypts alone.
He had learned the trick of the passages as a boy, and it was deceptively simple—one right turn for every three left ones. To survive, do not light the sconces. Do not open the barred metal doors. Do not cross the lake.
He’d made a mistake a few nights ago, and Rami had nearly been maimed. Leena had nearly been possessed. The rational side of his mind—the one that schemed and plotted—could not help but be fascinated by how attuned she was to the remnant powers left by demons. The other side could not forget how pale she had looked as she fought the possession. How the fear had burned his own throat. It was that part he tried to deny, to starve out, to extinguish. It was that part that would kill him if he allowedit.
He would not allowit.
The Hall of the Lake was undisturbed since they had left it last: the black waters, the penetrating darkness, the disfigured statues, the single raft. It was demon-made. He’d spent enough time in the underworld to recognize the distant hum oftheirpower, that sharp current in the air, so foreign, sowrong.
He’d felt it the moment he’d set foot here once again, for the first time since the age of twelve: the land humming beneath his feet, the hush in the trees, as if the very house had been plunged into worship by his arrival. Of course it was. He was an Avon; this was Weavingshaw. They were one and the same.
This land could have only one master.
