“This is it, Miss Hawkins.” He gestures behind me at the seal. “Now that we’ve passed this sacred seal, the blood oaths Cec andI took have lifted, and you’ll finally learn everything you want to know about us. Everything I couldn’t tell you.”
My mind empties except for two words: “Blood oaths?”
He hangs his head. “If I thought for a moment that you might believe me, I would’ve told you. But it’s no simple concept to grasp—it involves accepting a magic so hidden from the world that you’d have to be completely mad to put any stock into its existence. That’s why it was simpler to tell you that we were lying.”
He’s right: my mind can barely comprehend the idea. A slow ringing builds in my ears as I sift through everything Bes and Cec have told me over the past five days, unable to distinguish what was a lie and what was this supposed blood oath.
“So, you didn’t lie?” I ask finally.
“No, we did. Ansaldo told us that you possess an inquisitive mind, so he ordered us to keep things as simple as possible.”
Oh God, who’s this now?“Ansaldo?”
Bes grimaces. “You know him as Uncle Arturo.”
I scoff, searching the stone ceiling for answers and finding none. “Is he even your uncle?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He is.”
He takes my hand, and though I shouldn’t, I let him. I try to communicate through my gaze the deep betrayal I feel.
“There are not enough words in any language to apologize for deceiving you,” he murmurs. “But the one thing I never pretended otherwise was…” He swallows hard. “Was how I care about you.”
I stare down at our held hands, wanting desperately to believe him, while also barely tempering my rage.
Remember what you told yourself before, what Bes has been saying all along, I think.All you can do now is move forward.While Bes and Cec both lied and withheld information from me, they were honest about it from almost the beginning. Andit never did get me killed. It might have put me in danger, but they were entrenched in that same danger. More likely, they’re puppets for Arturo—Ansaldo—the same way I was. And likely still am.
That doesn’t mean I like the idea of staying here.
Yet these people have information about me—which Nonna must’ve chosen to trust them with—and I want to knowwhy. If my nonna has been talking to Bes’s uncle about me, then my being in this situation is partly her doing, if not wholly.
Perhaps the first and most important truth I seek from Ansaldo is whether or not Nonna herself is one of his manyfriends; I can’t imagine keeping a place like this secret if they were as close acquaintances as Bes and Cec claim. If she is—if she’s rooted deep in all these secrets and lies—then there’s a chance she’s been lying tome.
And I deserve to know that truth.
Anything more than that, I can deal with it when it comes. Like I always do.
Besides, I’m not ready to leave Bes or Cec yet. Call it sympathy for my captors or the like, but, for the first time in my life, I’ve met people my own age who I feel like I can truly connect with. Who appreciate my knowledge and curious mind, even if it might annoy them from time to time.Even if they lied to me to stay it.
And I’m not half-bad at this spy racket, either. Maybe… maybe this is what I’m meant to do? Maybe I’m meant to use my skills at artifact-finding to keep them out of the hands of the growing evil in the world.
However, no one—not Ansaldo, not even Bes or Cec—will make that choice for me.
I tip up my chin. “Take me to him.”
Bes clenches his jaw, and I realize I never acknowledged his admitting to caring about me.One crisis at a time.
Finally, he squeezes my hand. “Whatever happens, we’ll do it together.”
Everything in me wants to grip his hand tighter, to feel his arms around me like they were in the club, to be anchored to one of the only things I’m familiar with in this strange place. The Bes who was mildly jealous in the car is gone, replaced with the Bes I know—the Bes I met outside the Temple of Seti I, who saved me from going overboard near Messina, who I fought with outside the Port of Civitavecchia, who I danced with in the club, the Bes I…
Someone down the hall clears their throat before I can make a move toward him. My hand flinches out of his grasp and I tear my gaze from him, almost thankful to whoever interrupted us. After what I just learned and everything else I plan to learn, I can’t afford to be distracted right now.
Anders glances down at where our hands were clasped and back to meet our gazes. “They’re waiting for you.”
He heads back the way he came without waiting for a response.
Squaring my shoulders, I step through the second foyer. It’s very similar to the one we just came from, except there’s more of, well, everything. More torches and candles to cast flickering shadows on the walls, more elaborate tapestries, ornate rugs, and old dull weapons nailed into the stone.
