Dani laughs breathily. “I dunno. Yourself maybe?”
“Tread carefully,” I growl.
“That’s not really my strong suit.”
She jams her elbow backward, into my stomach, and my stitched-up stab wound flares with pain. My grip loosens, and Dani twists free, scrambling out of my reach.
For a moment, the two of us just lie there on the floor, panting, in pain, staring at each other across the few feet of space between us.
It might as well be as far as the Depths.
“You lied to me,” I finally say, my voice rough and low. “From the moment I met you, it was all a lie.”
“Not all of it. I meant what I said. About liking you. Caring about you.” I roll my eyes pretty hard at that, and she flinches, hurt. Her eyes flick down to the floor as she tucks her deep purple hair behind her ear. “Take it or leave it, ghoulie, but it’s true. I contain multitudes.”
She’s right. She does contain multitudes. Even the way she’s been talking and moving since I found her in the Old Clock Tower has been a little different. There’s an edge to her voice and a coiled readiness to her body, even when she’s lounging like she is right now. It’s not that she’s fundamentally a different person or anything—it’s more like the Dani I knew was a paler version and now the veil is lifted.
I shake my head, rubbing a hand over my close-shorn hair as I shift over so I can lean on the couch, relaxing against its frame. “I never really knew you at all, did I?”
Another flicker of hurt crosses her face, so quickly I almost miss it. And then she smooths it away, replaces it with that devil-may-care energy she’s wearing. “You knew me a little. Parts of me, anyway. Just like your sisters only knew parts of you.”
“Don’t bring them into this.”
“I didn’t. You did.” She waves a disdainful hand at my Butcher kit. “The moment you put on that suit for the first time, you plopped them into the center of this mess. And the worst part is they didn’t even know about it. At least if you’d clued them in, they could’ve been prepared.”
I stiffen, her words biting into me. I don’t know if the rage licking up my spine is because what she said is so absurd—or because it’s true. “They wouldn’t have needed to be prepared if you hadn’t set me up to kill Kilpatrick,” I snap. “You pushed me around like a pawn.”
Her jaw tightens, and she looks away out the window, her golden eyes shining too bright, like they’re filling with unshed tears. She quickly scrubs them dry, swallowing hard, but she still can’t bring herself to look at me.
“Everybody’s a pawn, ghoulie,” she says, soft, almost apologetic. “At any given time, we’re all either using someone or getting used. You used Big Haul to create the Butcher. I used you to get revenge on Kilpatrick. And now you get to use me, to help get your sisters back. It’s the beautiful cycle of Trinity.”
There’s something jarring about hearing it laid out like that. Play or be played, screw or get screwed. Not that I’ve ever had a very optimistic perspective on how life here works. I wouldn’t have become the Butcher if I did. But right now, in this moment, I’m so tired of it. I feel like I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes playing this game.
Silence stretches around us, pulled across one minute, then two. I stare up through the window at the evening sky, peppered with the glow of airships and homesteads drifting along. Dani fidgets, tapping her feet, rubbing her hands back and forth across the tops of her thighs. Once or twice, her whole body twitches like she might be about to get to her feet, but she never does.
“Okay,” I say finally, my gaze still fixed on the sky. “Fine. Help me get Halle and Kelda back, and we’re square after that. We’re totally done.”
She smirks. “We’ll see, ghoulie. It’s not the first time you’ve needed me to watch your back, and I doubt it’ll be the last.”
I shrug. “Orion’s the one who’s got my back now. He’ll watch out for me.”
“Oh yeah?” There’s no smile now, every word as fragile as blown glass. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him? Two years? More? How do you know he’s even worth all the trust you’re giving him? He could give you up or screw you over in a million different ways for his own benefit.”
“He won’t.”
Dani scoots over beside me, close enough that our arms and legs could touch if either of us shifted just a little bit, but neither of us do. “You can’t be sure of that.”
I think of Orion’s hard, determined expression in the glare of the Copper Plains. Of how soft and close he was sitting with me in that room above the dram shop.
“Yes, I can. He’s good people,” I say quietly. “That’s not how he thinks. It’s how you and I think.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“YOU CANNOT MISS OUT THE NEXT TIME WE VENTURE DOWN TO THE RACK! IT IS FAR MORE THRILLING THAN I IMAGINED. EVERYTHING IS SO SCUFFED AND RUSTED, AND THE PEOPLE SO ROUGH-LOOKING! I FELT QUITE ALIVE WITH THE DANGER ALL AROUND ME. I COULD NOT SLEEP FOR HOURS AFTER WE RETURNED HOME!”
—EXCERPT FROM A SKYLINER MISSIVE
A few minutes later, Orion comes back down from his rooftop survey to find me and Dani still sitting side by side on the couch, silently watching the slow shift of the lights above the skyline. He sweeps his gaze over the two of us and the more-or-less intact lodgings and nods approvingly.
