Page 134 of Revenant

“How,” he demands, spit flying from between his fangs, “the fuck does she have Veil’s mirror?”

“It’s a Calder mirror, Eryx. Veil’s sister’s lineage must have retrieved it. The wolves took Alicent’s mother from her coven and forced her to use it. That’s where their suppression rings came from.”

His forearm slackens, then drops completely.

He takes one step back, then another. The third is unsteady in a way I have never once seen from Eryx Deveraux in the entire wretched span of our life here. He turns and walks to the desk, bracing both palms flat against the leather—right where Sage’s hands were five minutes ago, and I have the grace not to mention it.

“I thought it was destroyed,” he says.

“We all did.”

“Calder blood—”

“Wakes it. Yes. Which is the only reason the wolves kept her mother breathing as long as they did. Apparently, they slaughtered everyone else.” I straighten my shirt where he wrinkled it. “Alicent is the only one alive now who can open it, which means if she pulls from the alumni, the mirror will reinforce her magic, the blood moon opens the door, and the curse will finally break.”

He’s silent for a long moment as his gaze travels the rows of sketches. I follow his line of sight without meaning to—and somewhere in the middle of all that paper there’s a younger version of the five of us. Arms slung over each other’s shoulders, drawn from a memory I’d half convinced myself I made up. Before Veil. Before our graves. Before he started letting the guilt of our deaths change our bond. I remember being his brother first and nothing else. The Eryx I knew when we were simply students at Veilcrest is still under all his pain. I’d stake the little soul I have left on it.

Eryx’s head bows over the desk, and when he speaks again, his voice turns sanguine. “So we have a real chance.”

“We have the best chance we’ve had since you let Veil blindside us into damnation.”

I shouldn’t have said it. I watch the accusation hit him—watch his spine go rigid—and for once he doesn’t fire back. That’s how I know it landed somewhere deep within him that still bleeds.

He turns away from me, and that’s when I see it. The closet.

When he pushed me into the door, the force must’ve been hard enough for the old wood to swing open. It hangs ajar now, just wide enough that the light catches something inside that has no business in a dingy room like this.

Emerald silk.

I cross the room before I’ve fully decided if it’s a good idea. He spits my name in warning, but I’ve already pulled the door open the rest of the way, and there it is, hung with a care that doesn’t match a single other thing in this graveyard of a man’s life.

“Tell me this isn’t what it looks like,” I say.

“Okay. Then I won’t tell you anything.”

I bought Alicent a dress for the gala weeks ago. Burgundy. Velvet, heavy at the bodice, stitched with pearls along where they’ll ride her hips. Red, because I told her that very first day, after her suitcase bled her whole life across the cobblestones, that it was my favorite color. I frequently imagine her finding it while she stays with me. I am, apparently, a sentimental fool after nine hundred years.

And here he is. Hiding one in the only room on this earth she’d never step foot in. I laugh and think of how long he’s spent telling all of us she’s nothing more than a key, and how I think the lie has worn on him.

“Interesting.”

“What’s interesting, Pryce? A gift for my blood bag?” He plucks a shard of glass from the desk and turns it between two fingers, studying it like it’s worth more of his attention than I am. “If it weren’t for her, I’d be dead. No need to read it as more than it is. I’m not proposing to the parasite.”

The denial would be more convincing if he could say it to my face. Eryx has never given anything without a reason, and a gift for his blood bag isn’t simply a gift.

“You don’t know the first thing about her.”

“I know she looks like a sin worth committing in green.” He sets the shard down, deliberately, and lifts his eyes to mine at last. The amber in them has gone translucent, lit from within like the bottom of a flame. “I don’t need to know much else. And this doesn’t concern you.”

“One day that stubbornness is going to cost you the only thing you’d never let yourself ask for.” I hold his stare, because he hates nothing more than being seen for who he truly is. “Alicent has dragged out every part of you that you’ve spent centuries burying. I’ve watched it happen. But I’ll tell you what you won’t admit—you don’t deserve the grave you keep digging for yourself.”

Pain flickers across his face. Then it’s gone, sealed over.

“I’m sick of looking at you. Get out.”

I go. There’s nothing left in this room for either of us, and we both know it.

“May the best man win, then.” I head for the corridor, and I don’t look back. “Though for the record—for all your centuries, and all the hours you’ve logged memorizing her freckles to put up on that bloody wall—you still don’t know her heart the way we do.”