“They killed my family,” Percival whispered. “The Droves rounded them up in Atherton Manor—Edgar, Louise, my parents, and all the butlers and maids—and pointed muskets at their heads while the windows were boarded up. All escape routes blocked. Then the Droves went out through the front doors and boarded those up, too. Everyone inside was banging and pounding on the doors, begging to be spared. ‘We didn’t do anything,’ they said. ‘Our hands are clean. We didn’t do anything.’ But the Droves weren’t punishingthem. This was my penalty... but it wasn’t over then.”
Roy clutched Percival’s hand tighter. “How do you know about this? Didn’t the fire start before you arrived?”
Somehow, through a great summoning of willpower, Percival wiped away his tears, stopped crying, and said, “The Governor came by a while later. I was hauled into his carriage, and he explained to me, in no uncertain terms, that, if I wanted to continue my studies, if I wanted to insinuate myself deeper into the underground network, that was all well and good. But he knew my name, and I knew what he was capable of. I would only be digging myself and others deeper graves if I didn’t hang my head and admit defeat. So I did, and guess where I ended up?”
A cold sliver of understanding went through Roy. Earlier on in their investigation, Percival had indicated some sort of warning he’d been given.I didn’t say that. I’m just saying the deal—or threat, I should say—the Governor and I made is not the same as yours. Moreover, I don’t entirely buy the premise.
“I’m sorry,” Percival said. “I’m sorry it took me so damn long to tell you, to gather the strength.”
“What have you to apologize for?” Roy said, wrapping his arm around Percival’s waist. “There was no rush.”
“But there was,” Percival said. “I was holding us back, impeding our progress. If I had only just spoken up...” He sniffed. “I’ve seen them around the library, darling. Owen and his compatriots. For a long time, I thought they were hallucinations, that my grief was so fresh and unprocessed that I had conjured them as these shadows. I don’t think it was until we saw Walestone in the catacombs that I reckoned with the truth. I’ve tried my hardest to speak with them, but nothing has ever gotten through. I assumed this was the barrier’s doing, but after you told me what Gabriel had done to you, I saw that maybe I ought to do the same.”
Roy muttered, “I feel horrible. I’ve stolen the feelings you had for Owen. I’m using them as my own—”
“By the Scribes, I knew it would come to this,” Percival said underneath his breath, as though to himself, and then clasped Roy’s cheek in his hand. “Darling, I assure you, I’m still coming to grips with what happened and what it means for you and me, but Iforbidyou from assuming that my feelings for you are untrue. I used to believe those feelings would discount the strength of what I felt for Owen, but I’m not so convinced anymore.”
“If you still need time to sort this out in your head, then you don’t need my permission for that,” Roy said, then kissed Percival’s cheek. “But I’m honored you told me this, and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t.”
Percival smiled, tears glistening anew in his eyes. “Thank you. That means more than you know.”
Roy brushed back an errant curl of Percival’s hair. “I know we’ve been a little distant lately, but let me amend that, Percival. Let me hold you tonight.”
Percival drew back, his eyes widening in concern. “Darling, you know I would, but you need your space—”
“Tonight,” Roy said, his voice firm with certainty, “I need you.”
Percival gently held Roy’s chin, then kissed him. And for one blessed moment, Roy sensed something within him deeper than admiration, a mystifying blend of confusion and pride and...
Love?Roy thought.Is that what this is? Is that what Ridell Entuon meant by “our befuddling alchemy of sympathy and empathy, of sounds unheard and surfaces unfelt”? Is that what Lucia Maydew, seconds before dying, foresaw “in the crimson clouds of my reverie”?
Percival rose to his feet, taking Roy by the hand, and up they went to Roy’s bedchamber. No ghosts followed them.
25
Roy woke up a few hours later, groggy butcontent.
Percival was sleeping beside him, rolled over on his side with one leg draped protectively over Roy’s. He snored quietly, his face soft in repose.
A solemn breeze curled around Roy’s head, ruffling his sweat-matted hair. It had followed him since Briar’s death, that breeze. A silent pursuer. It had caressed the line of his jaw and the breadth of his shoulders. It had danced and frolicked around him as he hunched over ancient texts, Briar’s carving standing vigil by his side. He had fumbled, at first, to place his finger on the entity, but now that his fog of grief had cleared—or at least somewhat, Percival’s story a somber reminder that he wasn’t alone; the young man’s body next to his a more hopeful one—Roy remembered that this wind had accompanied him when the Governor had admitted to Briar’s and Irene’s imminent execution.
Now it wove through Roy’s tunic, which clung to his sweaty skin. It wound through his hair, playful and maternal but somehow reluctant, as though afraid to cross some line, to betray his trust.
Roy stiffened at that thought, then glanced fleetingly at Percival, nervous that he might have woken him. There was a suspicion swirling through his head, traipsing at the borders of his mind, but he could do nothing beyond giving it due thought, at least not while he was in Percival’s company, asleep or no.
Although I have come to your world from my own,Atticus Walestone had told them when they’d journeyed to the Elder Scribes’ burial vault,others may be hesitant to do so.
Roy had cleaved to this ominous intelligence, though he’d been uncertain as to why. But if the suspicion that had roused him from his slumber held even a grain of truth, then he had to take this leap in the dark.
Roy rose from his bed, passing a fleeting glance to the two-faced carving on his bedside table, then donned his trousers and boots, watching Percival as he did so. He trod silently out of his room, leaving the door slightly ajar to prevent it from snicking shut or the hinges from creaking. He came to the end of the hallway, steering clear of groaning ghosts, then took a torch from the nearest wall.
He scouted the floorboards to the left of the carpet runner, found what he was looking for, and pressed his foot into the wooden entryway to the underground crypts. Once he had rallied his nerves, he descended into the darkness.
It encased him, consumed him. He went farther and farther down, each step tightening the clamp around his skull.
Fifty steps, seventy steps, a hundred . . .
He saw faces in the blackness, imprinted on the slick cobblestone walls. They stared at him as he made his way down, bloodshot eyes bulging out of inhumanly wide sockets. They cursed him. They reprimanded him. They spat at him, though when he swiped the back of his hand across the places where he thought the spit had landed, his skin was faintly moist from the damp, but mostly dry.
