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When Gabriel made no effort to respond, Clement flung the knife, blade out, silver gleaming. Gabriel leapt out of the way; the knife spun in the air for a moment before clashing to the floor at his feet.

Clement’s face twisted into something that almost resembled a smile. “You can’t avoid facing this forever, Gabriel.” His eyes held a warning, sharp as the knife now lying abandoned on the floor. He brushed Gabriel’s shoulder as he stalked past.

Gabriel stared at the knife, unmoving, as Clement slung on his coat and strode out the front door.

Snapping out of it, Gabriel reached for the stone handle and tossed it into the empty sink. Acid rose up his throat, burning the back of his tongue. He hated himself for letting Clement get to him. Still, he knew his oldest friend was right; it was his responsibility to put an end to this. Iris had no idea what she had gotten them into, but it was up to him to get them out.

“You’re back.”

Gabriel flinched at the sound of Blair’s voice. He was hovering in the kitchen doorway, hands clasped around his elbows. His face looked almost as raw and painful as it had the night before, though marginally less angry.

The hinges creaked as Iris stepped through the front door. For a moment, she stood haloed in a patch of sunlight, observing the scene before her: Gabriel and Blair standing several feet apart, stiff as statues. She tossed her coat and gloves onto the couch.

“How are you feeling?” Her eyes held nothing but concern as they swept over Blair’s battered face.

“I’m fine, thank you.” He turned to Gabriel. “Your friend, Clement. What did you tell him about me?”

“Nothing of note. Why?”

Blair’s eyebrows lowered in suspicion. “He knew things about me. Things I’ve never shared with anyone.”

It didn’t come as any great surprise that Clement had unearthed secrets about Blair’s mysterious life; after all, it was his job to monitor Similars within their region, and a fair bit of sleuthing came with the territory. But it suddenly occurred to Gabriel that his friend would likely know for certain if Blair was the Similar who Obedience had held captive, since Clement had been the one to track down that young man’s family all those years ago.

What if Blair had discovered Gabriel’s connection to what had happened to him back then, and he had wormed his way into Gabriel’s life to seek revenge?

“Perhaps you should confide in us,” Gabriel suggested, his unblinking dark eyes fixated on Blair. “If Clement knows, it will be only a matter of time before he passes on the information.”

Blair shifted his weight from foot to foot, his restless gaze darting between Gabriel, Iris, and the back door. “Maybe.” He winced as he plucked a piece of hair off of his bloodied face. “Then again, maybe you’re not as good of friends as you think you are. Otherwise,” he said, his voice rising in confidence as if realizing he’d touched a nerve, “you would already know, wouldn’t you?”

Iris hurried to start the kettle, before walking cautiously over to Blair. Her careful behavior—the way she made an effort not to move too quickly or loudly in Blair’s presence—reminded Gabriel strongly of the previous spring when she’d approached an abandoned rabbit on their driveway, every moment slowed so as not to frighten it away.

“We all need to be more honest with one another,” she said gently. “But right now, I think we should take some time to rest.”

Gabriel was about to say that this couldn’t wait, that they deserved to hear the truth from the source, but his words dissolved into the stagnant air when he saw the determined set to her jaw.

Although he hated to admit it to himself, Gabriel had essentially equipped Iris with a weapon of her own: knowledge of his long-buried secrets. If ever she grew closer to Blair and farther from him, she could make use of that weapon by sharing details of his turbulent past with a man he categorically mistrusted.

And as much as he resented Clement for not telling him anything more about Blair than the location of his family, Gabriel had to believe that if his friend’s discoveries had been truly disquieting, Clement would have disclosed them.

No, all in all, it was better to go along with Iris’ suggestion to delay Blair’s story.

For now.

14

The next two weeks rushed by faster than the winds during a midwinter blizzard.

Iris, Gabriel, and Blair had temporarily set aside their differences, and no more was said about Blair’s condition or anything else of much importance. Still, everything that remained unspoken loomed over the house like an ominous dark cloud a moment away from bursting into a storm.

Despite the tension in the air, the three of them were beginning to develop their own kind of rhythm. Whereas at first Blair felt a bit like a houseguest, unaware of her and Gabriel’s routines and merely play acting them, Iris was starting to feel like he belonged, and whenever he was out—collecting winter plants for his medicinal concoctions or scouring their local market for herbs and other ingredients—the house seemed quiet, its breath held, as though it were always waiting for his return.

Or maybe Iris was just projecting.

She couldn’t help but feel a burgeoning sense of connection with Blair, one that had grown out of the quiet moments they had shared. The way he’d listened so intently on Thanksgiving when she’d told him about her father, how he had let her see him at his worst when he broke down later that night, even the silent moonlit hours spent sipping tea long after Gabriel had gone to bed, the only sound the quiet rustle of pages as they read deep into the night; those moments meant more to her than perhaps even she was willing to admit.

She was pretty sure that Blair felt their bond too, though she could never be certain. He was so quiet, so guarded, and sometimes when she caught his attention darting to the door or a window, she worried he was a bird about to take flight. Like she’d better not get too attached, because one morning she might wake up and he’d be gone.

It didn’t escape her notice that her metaphor of him as a restless bird might not even be that far off, though she found Gabriel’s hypothesis about Blair’s identity difficult to believe. The truth was, it was easier to doubt Gabriel than to entertain an idea that tore deeper into her sense of understanding of the world, ripping at the very edges of her reality. She didn’t know if she could face the possibility of something so otherworldly being true.