Cyrus’s laugh is dry. “That’s the benefit of having me as your right hand. You don’t have to ask. I anticipate your needs, and I take care of them. It’s why you keep me around.”
Lysander follows his lieutenant’s gaze toward the rounded tea table before the hearth. It’s bare, save a single absinthe glass, a shallow pool of blood slowly coagulating within.
“You think I haven’t noticed?” asks Cyrus. “You think I haven’t seen how little you’re taking from her each time?”
“I take enough.”
“You’re rationing blood like a peasant, when you should be feasting like a king. Do you think Keeling lives like this? I’ll answer that for you—he doesn’t. He has his pick of veins, and you’re here surviving on the same old scraps.”
Lysander props a shoulder against the high wooden post of his bed. He feels unduly exhausted, like he’s gone twelve rounds in a boxing ring.
“This is starting to feel like a lecture.”
“Itisa lecture. You want to send a strong message to Keeling? You want to let him know you’re not his whipping boy? Start by getting rid of the watchdog. Make it public. Bloody. Show everyone what happens to trespassers when they—”
“He’s staying,” says Lysander. “The soldier.”
Cyrus blinks a slow, owlish blink. “Here? At Mercy Ridge?”
“For now.”
“Great.” Cyrus unfolds himself slowly from the chair, squaring off against Lysander across the cluttered dark. “Okay, no, that’s fine, it’s just—are youinsane?”
“Careful,” warns Lysander.
“He’s wood watch. His job—hissolejob, by the way—is to exterminate anything that comes out of the woods. And who lives in the woods? I do.Ilive in the woods.”
“He’s the sunshine sniper,” adds Lysander.
Cyrus drops back against the bedpost, bewildered. “That’s not a point in his favor. You do see that, right? Have you given any thought at all to what kind of message this sends to the rest of the crew? ToKeeling?”
Lysander doesn’t waste his time answering Cyrus’s questions. “Put Boyce on the watchdog,” he says instead. “I want Thorley monitored at all times. He doesn’t even take a piss alone.”
“Boyce is a baby.”
“Boyce is a Mercy Boy. He’ll do what he’s told. And so will you.”
He canfeelCyrus biting back his criticism. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Send Sully to the eastern outpost. Have Nkosi put eyes on the Parker house. Anyone goes in or out, I want to hear about it right away.”
Cyrus sucks air through his teeth. “I assume that means Shea’s staying, too.”
“She is. She’s up in the presidential wing. I put Choi outside her room. They were in the same year at Hornbeam, so they have history. I don’t want her going anywhere without an escort.”
Lit by a single bar of light from the hall, Cyrus looks as skeptical as Lysander has ever seen him. “So that’s it, then? You’re so wrapped around her finger that you’ll give her whatever she asks for? Free food and accommodation here at Mercy Ridge. A private suite for her boyfriend. I bet she didn’t even need to open a vein.”
There’s a tic in Lysander’s left eye. He stifles the urge to rub at it. “It’s temporary. They’re only staying until the revel.”
“The revel you’re not attending.”
“Did I say that? I’ve changed my mind.”
“You meanshechanged your mind.”
A loaded silence follows. “Actually, Asher Thorley did,” quips Lysander, because now he wants to get under Cyrus’s skin. To irritate him, the way he’s been irritated all evening.
He thinks of finding Cyrus dying in a shallow roadside ditch. He’d been bleeding out in a patch of dead nettle, his voice a scrape against the wind:Help. Please help me.
