Page 79 of A Cruel Kindness

Ford took a healthy swallow, enough that I thought he might need it to steady himself. When he was done, he set the bottle down next to him, returning his gaze to the fire.

“Alright,” Freya said, clapping her hands together happily. “Let’s go, I want to catch them before they go to sleep.”

I had a feeling Freya didn’t enjoy being on Vir all that much.

Ford rose. Esme’s eyes stayed on the fire.

“Just watch,” Soren whispered in my ear, still settled back on the bench.

I did just that, sitting back and observing as a carefully orchestrated system fell into place.

Esme watched the surrounding areas, leaning back lazily while she sipped straight from the bottle. Finding no one, Freya started to approach the Bridge, pushing aside the fall of vines that covered the portal back to our home world.

Arthur came up to, stepping just to the edge.

Ford used his height to block him, making it seem like he was just observing what they were doing.

With one final salute and a wink, Freya skipped into the Bridge, disappearing into the dark.

Meanwhile, Ford stood guard as Arthur pulled back a patch of grass that I’d assumed was real, exposing a small tunnel nestled into the side of the hill. Without another glance back, he ducked under, disappearing.

If he’d come out of the tunnel instead of going into it, you’d be hard pressed to tell that he wasn’t walking out of the Bridge.

“Twin,” Soren supplied, just as my mind caught up. Arthur had a twin back on Vir. This same system was duplicated on that side, letting Freya cling to her secrets.

“He’s not sick?” I asked under my breath. If you Crossed without a Match…

“He’d only Crossed once,” Soren responded. “No symptoms yet, but…”

“He’s stuck here.” Without his brother. Determination hardened, resolve to convince my father to listen to whatever offer was in Elijah’s envelope.

After a moment, Ford reset the false covering to that tunnel and returned to the fire, sitting again on the floor and giving Esme the bench.

“Okay,” Esme said, jiggling her gold watch down her wrist. “We now have twenty minutes of our nine hour shift completed. Who wants to play a drinking game? Winner gets first nap.”

“You ask this every time,” Soren said, amusement clear in his voice.

“Doesn’t make it any less fun,” Esme responded, drawing out her words in a lyrical lilt.

In the end, the drinking game just turned out to be sitting around the fire, talking while passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth. Esme had the foresight to bring desserts smuggled from dinner and some tea for later in the evening.

As the moon slipped overhead and the hours dwindled, Esme and Ford where the first to sleep.

Soren and I stayed up talking about nothing at all until the early hours of the morning, before I fell asleep curled against his side, covered in a thick wool blanket.

Despite my comfort, as the sun rose over the mountains of Muli, dread pulsed through my chest, making me think this was the last moment of peace I’d have for a while.

Chapter 19

Soren

Freya popped back out minutes after the sun rose.

She always did, ever eager to be back on Muli.

I’d asked her once why she preferred it here, and she’d simply responded, “I can breathe better.”

She’d likely only gotten a few hours of sleep, if at all, and yet she was as sprightly as ever as she jumped back through and said, “Gooood morning! Guess who’s going home today?”