“Go on,” Ronan says.
“We were right that just having the five relics and drawing the array isn’t enough. That place-bound rune you pointed out is unfortunately crucial. We need to cast the spell in the same location as the original binding.”
Frustrated silence falls over the gathered conspiracy. Ronan guesses they’re all feeling the same thing: the exhaustion of being so, so close, but not quite there, forever. He can’t allow them to wallow in that, though. He needs to maintain his mask of composure, spur everyone to the next step. But he doesn’t have the words to break out of this feeling anymore. All he wants to do is crawl under the bed and hide with Alice.
Or leave all this behind, ride north, find—
“Sephine’s tits,” Evain sighs. “That’s annoying.”
Coira laughs sharply, then Dansa. Leth rolls his eyes, which isn’t exactly positive, but at least it’s an expression.
“Thanks, Evain.” Ronan can’t quite laugh with them, but he manages to speak again. “We still have the advantage, despite everything that’s happened. We have all five relics, and the orders think we only have four. Their focus is split between hunting usandguarding the fake flute.” He points to the telliron boxes. “Our first priority is to get these somewhere safer. No offense, Evain, but this fine establishment won’t work for long.”
“None taken,” Evain says easily. “I hate mixing business and pleasure to begin with.”
“Our second priority is to determine the binding location.” The smoke and rose scent is still cloying, and the silk bedspread is annoyingly soft against his neck. But he’s starting to feel balanced again, spinning a plan out of problems. “Just information, nothing hasty. Dansa and Evain, you’re the most anonymous left of the group. Do you—”
“Wait.” Leth’s hands clasp over his knee, his knuckles white. “I meant to say, I think I’ve already figured out the location.”
“What?” Dansa turns to him. “When did you do that?”
“The last time we tested it,” Leth says, more quietly. “I wanted to tell everyone all at once. It isn’t good news.”
Ronan’s heart sinks, even before he says it.
“The binding took place at the Bright Cathedral.”
***
They sleep and pretend to sleep in shifts. In the gray hours before dawn, Coira and Evain are in the large bed, with a cat sprawled between them like a silk-tailed chaperone. Leth pores over his ancestor’s stolen journal by the dim light of a glowing quartz.
Ronan sits at the table, a book unread before him. His gaze rests unwaveringly on the drawn curtains, as if he can see the shining domes and spires of the Bright Cathedral through the overwrought floral fabric. He was supposed to have slept for the past few hours, but he doesn’t think he did. Hard to tell, when his waking and sleeping minds preoccupy themselves with the same fears and broken wishes.
Dansa approaches him quietly, but not too quietly. They’ve all learned not to sneak up on each other. “May I?”
He closes his eyes, and her cool fingers rest against his temple. A tendril of magic soothes the worst of his headache away, and lingers at the base of his neck as her hand falls away. His shoulders ease.
Only then does she ask, “What really happened with Karis?”
Ronan’s hand clenches, then loosens. He fishes out a six-sided die. When he rolls it, cyan sparks around his fingertips, and a dome shimmers around them before disappearing. For six minutes, no one outside the barrier can hear them.
Six minutes, and he wastes the first thirty seconds of it contemplating the texture of the tablecloth. Finally he says, “I fell in love with him.”
“Fuck,” Dansa says, with feeling.
The tablecloth looks fancy at first. Sections of lace, sections of embroidery, flowers upon flowers. But when Ronan looks closer, he sees the frayed patches. The oil stains. “He got hurt at the Bower, and I realized I couldn’t do this properly if I was worried about him the whole time.” His voice is steady. Detached. “He’s stubborn, and there’s no chance he’d stay back and stay safe if I just asked. So, I returned him to the Radiant Order.”
“Fuck.” Dansa slumps into the chair next to him. “Have you lost your mind, Vizia? What if he tells them everything? What if he finds us for them? That’s the whole reason you kidnapped him in the first—”
“He won’t.” Ronan picks up the six-sided die and rolls it between his fingers. “He’s stubborn and loyal. He’s trustworthy, and I don’t know why, but I think he believes in what we’re doing more than I do.”
Covering her face, Dansa swears again. “They havetruth spells, you fucking idiot.”
“I thought through the risks.” Ronan doesn’t mention that he didn’t think through some of those risks until after he’d done it. He was hasty. He was exhausted and panicked.But I was right,he still tells himself. “They have policies for using the truth spell—and when it comes to their own, they actually follow those policies.” He doesn’t mention that he thinks Karis is powerful enough to resist a truth spell anyway. That’s Karis’s business. “And he can’t scry us out when we’re with the relics.”
Dansa is a kind person. One of the kindest people Ronan has ever met. But this mission has done the same thing to her that it’s done to Ronan: she asks about all the logistical risks, and never once asks how Karis is. Like Ronan, she can’t afford to be concerned about anyone else right now.
Or maybe Ronan’s just projecting, because she swears one last time under her breath and tells him, “You’re ruthless sometimes.”
