Page 137

“I am only coming along because he promised me more books,” Daedra sniffed, the joke landing flat, but Fenrir caught it anyway. He would have smothered his laugh if what Daedra said next didn’t do it for him. “And also…the chance to return home.”

“Home,” Vera murmured, oddly gentle. “To your family?”

“Perhaps,” Daedra said after a too long beat, and something quiet passed between Daedra and Vera that Fenrir felt entirely removed from. But before she could ask, Vera’s attention was already elsewhere, locked fully onto his arm.

“It suits you.”

Fenrir stored the compliment away to remember later, then slid from the saddle, keeping one hand on Nightmare’s flank to steady himself. “Mum,” he breathed, “what are you doing here?”

She’s coming. She’s helping. She’s—

“Rawkners don’t leave family behind, someone important to me once said. I think you’ll find you take after your mother more than you realize.”

Fenrir laughed, a broken, desperate thing nothing like his usual guffaws, then he reached out and dragged Vera into his chest. He held her close, pushed his face into her bun at the same time she laid her cheek on his cuirass and then they were hugging for all to see. All the soldiers and the singular Myrkur who made up their unlikely audience.

She was coming. She was here. His mother had chosen him, for him, and maybe it wouldn’t ever be enough to make up for their past, but it was more than Fenrir ever expected, more than he’d hoped for, because for all the capacity for hope he possessed, in this, he’d built his walls too thick.

“Thanks, Mum,” Fenrir whispered, not pulling away yet, despite the growing crowd. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Vera nodded her head once, blinking back tears.

Fenrir turned to the nearest soldier and asked, “Can we get one more horse, please? I promise this is everyone.”

With the fresh start of a new dawn, they rode out together. The scent of pine drifted on the wind, the sky brightening now, while the world beyond the palace beckoned in a way it hadn’t since that morning so many months ago when he’d led Orpheus out into what should have become his freedom.

I’ll get it back for you, I promise.

...I’m coming, Fifi.

Finally.

Chapter XXXIX

Amongst the Rubble

Orpheus returned not to the freedom of the study room, but his prison cell.

You have to get out of here. Not to save himself, but to get the revenge he was so sorely due. For himself, yes. Mostly, for Fenrir.

You could save them too, even if Red’s stiff shoulders and turned cheek sank a stone deep into his gut, the behavior of a person who hadn’t simply suffered a personal failure but been betrayed by a person she trusted along the way.

You need to tear this place apart, because Orpheus knew, now, that if left unchecked, Sanctuary would get its way, either through his death or Gwen’s.

You have to steal her magic, because if he didn’t, the Architects would, so what difference did it really make?

She doesn’t deserve your mercy, because like everyone always did, Gwen had betrayed him, in the end.

“The chain, Serval.”

A boot hit the back of his leg, and Orpheus fell to his knees, cane clattering to the floor. The iron squeaked in protest when Serval closed the collar around his throat, chain dragging with a weight he’d almost forgotten, the past weeks disappearing from his memory as if they’d never happened at all.

What freedoms he’d earned were stripped as easily as they’d been granted. The collar, the chain—they were both familiar tortures, things he’d endured for far longer than what Sanctuary had put him through. They weren’t the first to claim ownership of him. The hermits had done far more damage. Lore most of all. And while the taste of his freedom had spanned a mere six months of his life, it put into perspective the loss he had suffered by hands such as Atticus’. A suffering he had once abided because in it, he’d had a purpose, a place. A life.

That was no longer the case. Not because of what the Architects planned for him, but what they’d dare to take.

Well, good thing he had a plan.

He bared his teeth in a vicious grin, then smothered it, rolling over. “Wait!”