Atlas eyes me, weighing my response, and then shifts backward on his heels, turning for the door. “Get some rest, Val,” he calls over his shoulder. “It sounds like you’ll need it.”
A moment later, he’s gone, and I’m alone in the room, pressed against the smudged panes of the window, staring out into the bright sun.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“FROM THE PROVIDENCE OF THE HERALDS WILL COME ALL THAT WE NEED. IN RETURN, THE PEOPLE OF TRINITY WILL GIVE BACK A PORTION OF THEIR EARNINGS AND POSSESSIONS TO SUPPORT THE WORK OF THE CHAPELS AND THE PREACHERS. AND THOSE WHO GIVE THE MOST WILL SEE AN ABUNDANCE OF BLESSINGS.”
—THE SACRED LAW OF THE HERALDS
I try to rest like Liren told me to. I even lie on the bed for a while with my eyes shut, counting my breaths in and out slowly. But I can’t sleep. Orion comes in at one point, cleaned up and steam showered, and flops down on one side of the bed, slipping almost immediately into sleep. I wait until his breath deepens and evens out before I stretch out beside him, careful not to let our bodies touch.
Not that we’ve never slept next to each other before. We did as kids, all the time, when he would crash at our lodgings, and for a little while again after Mama was taken, too. I used to prefer those nights because they were the only times I felt lookedafter. Comforted instead of constantly trying to be comforting. Not completely safe, exactly, but safer, less exhausted, because for a little while, I wasn’t the only one in charge.
I want to be comforted like that again. To curl into his side and hear someone else’s heartbeat, feel it thumping against the shell of my ear, keeping time with Trinity’s song in perfect lullaby.
No. I don’t deserve an indulgence like that. Not until Halle and Kelda are safe.
Every minute that passes ticks against my skin, anxiety twisting my insides as my brain, restless as a storm, turns the same questions over and over and over again.
Where do the Gold Towners have Halle and Kelda? Are they okay? Are they hurt? Are they wondering if I’m coming? How soon until I can get to them?
And what will they think when they see what I can do…
I’m not naive. There’s no way I can pull off this rescue without them seeing the Butcher—the saint—in action. And honestly, it should be the least of my worries.
But it sits there all the same. To get back to them, I’m going to have to tear apart a barrier that’s kept them protected from the worst parts of me. I’m going to have to unveil a secret I’ve kept so tight that I don’t really know how to peel it off my skin. I hadn’t thought about this stuff before I ran into the Old Clock Tower, but now that I have to just lie here, waiting, it’s all I can think about. I can already imagine the shock and horror and betrayal on both of their faces. I picture it so vividly that I squeeze my eyes shut, like that will somehow dismiss it from my brain.
They’ll never look at you the same way again.
They won’t understand.
Kelda will be afraid of you.
Halle will hate you.
You’ll be more alone than ever before.
I scramble to sit up, one hand pressed flat against my chest. Everything between my ribs tightens like a fist. Air, muscle, bone. All of it squeezing together, too small, too choked. I can’t get a full breath with these thoughts stepping on my throat. Bending over my knees, I bury my face in my hands, trying to go somewhere small and dark and quiet in my brain where I can catch my breath.
“What happened?” The bed shifts underneath me as Orion wakes, and I feel him slide off the edge of the mattress to kneel next to me. “Val? What’s going on?”
I’m terrified. I’ve been on the edge of losing absolutely everything for days now, and I’m slipping.
Those aren’t words I know how to say out loud, though. They’re the kinds of words that crack your ribs open and expose your insides. Words that show someone right where to stab you to make it hurt the most, twist the most, and I can’t afford that kind of softness,I can’t. I wear armor for a reason.
“Nothing.” I wipe my hands down my face, pulling my shoulders upright. My breathing stays calm and steady. It’s a miracle. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He cups his hands around mine, still kneeling in front of me. “But you’re not alone in this, Val. We’re going to find Halle and Kelda, I promise.”
He can’t promise that; I know he can’t promise that. But his touch is very warm and light on my skin, and his face is tilted so close to mine. It’s so similar to the face I used to know and stillso very different. Familiar and foreign in equal measure. I’d forgotten about the faint flecks of dark green in his eyes and the tiny little dimple there at the corner of his mouth that I always fought the urge to brush my thumb across.
The last time I looked at him this long and this closely, I was fourteen and we’d gone up to the roof of his boardinghouse during an extremely hot day during high season, hoping to catch a breeze. The energy between us had shifted recently, every interaction sparking with something extra just beneath the surface. Something like anticipation, although I couldn’t even say what I was anticipating. He’d fallen asleep up there, with the air like a heavy blanket over us, and I had studied his face, itching to trace the lines of his full lips, his broad nose, his softly arched brows, as I tried to figure out what had changed about him—what had changed about us.
It hadn’t mattered in the end. A few months later, he’d found out what I had started doing as the Butcher. We’d come apart so slowly after that, vicious rifts followed by crests of reconciliation, ripping apart only to drift back together over and over. Right up until the night when I’d cut him out, walked away, and never spoken to him again. Not until that day on the prison train.
“That’s a lot of thinking you’re doing there, Valene Bruinn.”
I shake my head. “I was just thinking about how we were. Before the Butcher. Before the fights.”
