Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 15

15

“WELCOME TO THE Rat,” a voice announces.

A human man—or at least a man who appears to be human—sits on a stool at the bottom of another set of stairs. He turns a toothpick over in his mouth as he stares down at a Rubik’s Cube in his palms, turning the sides this way and that. His pale skin is ruddy from too much sun, and the color stretches all the way up his temples and across his bald head.

Behind and above him, the din of early evening casual drinkers is broken by the occasional loud voice. A smattering of laughter from a group I can’t see. Steady bass thumps at us from the speakers within. The mixed scent of clove cigarettes and old leather hangs heavily in the air. Somewhere deeper in the room, a cue ball breaks a rack on a pool table.

After being cooped up for so long, I’m somehow disappointed. “ This is the Rat?”

I can feel Elijah rolling his eyes from four feet away. “Ignore her, Tyson.”

Tyson pockets the Rubik’s Cube he was fiddling with before he looks up and fixes me with a sharp gaze. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.” I know I look younger than the twins, who are also seventeen, but not that much younger.

“You can’t drink here.”

“I won’t.”

“What’s up with your hair?” Tyson asks, pointing at my temple, where my lock of Arthur-touched silver hair stretches down in one of the two long braids down my back.

“Rude. What’s up with your hair?” I ask in return.

Tyson blinks, then chuckles as he runs a hand over his extremely bald head. “Old age, kid. Lived a lot of lives.”

“Funny story,” I say with a smirk. “So have I.”

“She’s cool, Tyson,” Zoe interjects. “Mostly.”

Tyson regards the twins. “Y’all here for business?”

“Yes,” Elijah answers without looking up from his phone. “Party of three.”

Tyson points his toothpick at me. “Her too?”

Elijah looks up to Tyson, then to me. “Party of three, plus a guest ,” he corrects between clenched, unhappy teeth. “Meeting somebody, so we’d like to go ahead and get seated.”

“Y’all can go on in,” Tyson says, “but your guest here, Ms. I’m Seventeen, will need to pay for entrance if she’s on the premises for business.”

“I don’t have any money.” I jerk a chin at the twins. “My friends can pay it.”

“Folks who do business at the Rat don’t pay in money, kid,” Tyson says with an eye roll. “They pay in collateral. If your business here goes south, we keep your collateral. If all goes well, you get it back. So, hand over somethin’ of value. Somethin’ you’re gonna want back.”

I hesitate. “I don’t—”

“Nice bracelet you got there.”

The man raises a brow at the golden charm bracelet on my wrist. My mother’s. A gift from someone I know and love and remember . The warm brown skin of her face, her dark hair, and wide smile are all clear in my mind’s eye. Her big laugh, easy to hear. And this charm bracelet is the only thing I possess that once belonged to her. “You can’t have my bracelet.”

Tyson shrugs. “The necklace, then?”

I resist the urge to touch the Pendragon coin at the end of my necklace where it lies hidden beneath my T-shirt. I used to use this coin, and my mother’s bracelet, to perform blood walks, but that Medium ability is lost to me now, and there is no bringing it back. Like the bracelet, I know the necklace was a gift too—even if I don’t know the person who gave it to me.

Well, my mind doesn’t know them… but my body does.

When I touch this coin, electricity zips along my skin, as if my nerves recall the sensation that person’s fingers left behind when they closed the heavy silver clasp around my neck. My heart pounds and blood rushes in my ears. My veins brighten and come alive. “You can’t have that, either,” I say finally.

Tyson stands up from his chair. He’s broader across the shoulders and biceps than I realized. “Then you gotta leave—”

“Wait.” I peek into the venue beyond him, weighing my desire to go inside with the twins against holding on to a necklace given to me by someone I don’t even know . It’s not a hard decision. Still—“I get it back, right?”

Tyson holds out his hand. “If you act right.”

I hand it to him with a deep scowl. Without a word, he reaches into the stand by his stool, producing a metal lockbox. After placing the necklace inside, he hands me a key. Once Tyson tosses the box back onto the hidden shelf, he waves a hand for us to follow him into the bar.

The rock music in the background isn’t blaring, but it gets louder the second we cross the threshold, and the space opens up to a half-filled room of couches and coffee tables, booths, and bistro tables, all lit by a scattered collection of mismatched lamps and wall sconces.

It’s not until I find myself looking for aether shots and glowing eyes that I realize I’m comparing this first glance of the Rat to my experience at a very different kind of venue down in Georgia, the Crossroads Lounge. I was there with other people, and the owner there was… Blank gray mist. Again.

Tyson jerks a thumb behind him before he leaves. “Your usual table is reserved.”

Elijah dips his chin. “Thanks.”

Zoe grips my elbow tightly. “Hey, that hurts,” I whisper, irritated, and glance down at her hand. “I could probably break your bones too, remember? That what you want?”

“No one’s breaking anyone’s bones,” Elijah hisses.

“Stay close,” Zoe murmurs, but she’s not even looking at me as she speaks. She and Elijah are both moving through the room, weaving in between patrons with me in tow, but their eyes are everywhere. She scans the left side of the room while Elijah searches the right, both their noses raised to the air.

They’re looking for a cambion—or a goruchel demon. Someone who could appear human but who is not human at all.

My own nose is assaulted by the sharp, pungent smell of hoppy beer and freshly ground coffee beans. There are two women in black leather playing chess at a corner table, a group of four college-aged kids laughing at the pool table, high schoolers studying on the couches, and a few older guys sitting at the bar proper watching the local news on a small, mounted flat-screen.

Everyone here looks human, at least to my eyes.

I can’t help but wonder if I’ll see anyone I know. Or rather, I wonder if anyone I know will see me . Erebus and I discovered pretty early on that no matter how many facts he shares from my past life to prompt me, I can’t fill in the blanks of my missing people. Older memories don’t help me fill in the blanks either. Even if I had multiple encounters with the people in my past, I can’t use those memories to connect the dots today. If I saw someone I once knew here in the Rat, it would be like meeting them for the first time all over again, no matter how well they know me .

From my perspective, we’ll be starting fresh.

From theirs… I’ll have forgotten them.

The twins seem to decide there are no goruchel present—or at least no threats. Zoe leads me to a deeply shadowed, round booth at the back of the room that sits two steps higher than the rest of the floor. A plastic RESERVED FOR VIPS sign rests atop the table.

Elijah moves up the two steps and slides into the booth until he sits with a clear view of the entrance. Zoe nudges my lower back with her fingers. “Get in.”

I don’t miss that she’s pushing me into the booth in such a way that traps me between her and her brother. Not a fan of that. I slide into the booth, stopping a foot from Elijah, and Zoe slides in behind me so that I have a twin on either side.

“Can’t believe you gave up your little trophy,” Zoe says.

“Tyson doesn’t know it’s a trophy,” I reply.

Elijah studies me with hard eyes. “You ever going to explain how exactly you got the Scion of Arthur’s necklace?”

“I took it from him,” I lie smoothly. “In a fight. It’s mine, fair and square.”

Zoe grins. “And I bet he just hates that. I heard the Scion of Arthur is a white boy raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. Bet he never expected a Black girl like you to show up and hand him his ass.”

I keep my breathing even. Keep my heart rate steady. The twins know the King works among the Regents of the Order as Erebus. They know about the Legendborn and the Spell of Eternity. What they can’t ever know is that the Scion of Arthur whose life holds that spell together sleeps down the hall from them each night.

My thoughts turn to the nameless, faceless boy who the twins think is their greatest enemy. “That Scion of Arthur kid never saw me coming.”

Zoe sits back in the booth. “Gotta say, every time I hear this story, I get a little less mad about the old man bringing you into the fold.”

“While I only get a little more curious,” Elijah says sharply. “The Order’s not known for being kind to rogues.”

“They weren’t kind to me,” I say with finality.

Elijah studies me a beat longer, then turns to his sister. “Speaking of rogues, I’m doing a little extra recon myself these days. Keeping an eye on the rogue network. Tracking rumors about the Order, other Shadowborn, that kinda thing. You think the King’ll appreciate it?”

“He should,” Zoe says with a proud smile. “You work hard.”

I perk up. “What’re you hearing?”

Elijah eyes me. “That’s need-to-know information between me and the old man. Got it?”

“Got it,” I say, raising my hands.

Just as Elijah settles back in his seat, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged white man approaches with three glasses of ice water. Even though the Rat feels run-down, this man does not. His jacket and watch look expensive. “Elijah, Zoelle. Haven’t seen either of you in a while.”

“Haven’t had cause,” Elijah murmurs, sliding one glass to his sister, another to me, and the last toward himself. “How are things, Syd?”

Syd rests his fingertips on the table. “Slower in the winter. You know how it goes.”

“Winter gets like that,” Elijah answers, and extends his hand to Syd.

Syd returns the handshake, but it takes a beat too long—something I can’t see is passed between Elijah and the older man. Cash, maybe? “Appreciate your business,” Syd replies with a smile. So he’s the owner, I think. The human who lets the twins do business on the premises.

“Thanks, Syd,” Zoe says, then snaps her teeth at him—a sharp clacking sound with her fangs meeting in the middle. Syd’s eyes grow wide before he turns around to leave.

“Zoe…,” Elijah warns.

“Let me have my fun.” She sips her ice water demurely.

“Why are y’all VIPs here?” I ask, eyeing the sign. “Does Syd work for the King like you do?”

Suddenly Elijah bares his teeth. “We don’t just ‘work for the King,’ pet project.”

Zoe lays a hand on Elijah’s arm. “What my brother means to say is that we don’t have to prove our loyalty to the old man.”

“Why not?” The twins share a doubtful glance. “Come on , y’all. Who am I gonna tell? I literally don’t know anyone.”

Elijah sighs and waves a hand. “Just tell her.”

Zoe leans in close, eyes sparkling. “Our father’s a Nightshade.”

She clearly expects me to have a big reaction. “Is that… important?”

They both groan. Elijah drags his drink over and chugs it, laughing. “She really doesn’t know enough to be dangerous.”

Zoe recovers with a shake of her head. “Okay, so you know the Shadow Court, right?”

I nod. “Yep, got that part.”

“Well, the Court was made of the King’s Nightshades, the original demon leaders of the Shadowborn army. When the Order took the King’s crown, they thought it would kill them—and it nearly did. The Shades scattered and the Round Table chased them to the other side, where they were eventually trapped. For a while, anyway,” she concludes.

“So the Shades aren’t trapped anymore?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes. “Obviously not, since our father’s a Nightshade and we’re half human.”

My confusion must show on my face.

Zoe laughs into her hand. “You don’t actually understand how cambions are made, do you?”

“I know how babies are made!” I say hotly.

Elijah leans forward. “It’s like this: demons can reproduce with other demons on the demon plane, but they can’t reproduce with one another once they cross over here.”

“Why not?” I ask.

He taps the table with a fingertip. “Because this is the plane of the living. When demonkind cross over, every demon, greater or lesser, becomes too undead to create life here, except for one exception—concubi.”

“Like the original Merlin’s father?” That was one of the first understandings I gained about the nature of the Order’s cambion soldiers—that the original Merlin was the child of an incubus and a human woman.

“Exactly.” Elijah nods. “Concubi and those descended from concubi are the only demon class that can procreate on the plane of the living, and even then, they can only do so with human beings. Every cambion you know can trace their bloodline to a concubi, including me and Zoe.”

“Because your father is…?” I prompt.

“An incubus,” Zoe says, then scowls at me. “Don’t make it weird.”

I raise my hands. “Not making it weird.”

“Anyway,” Zoe speaks around the water straw in her mouth, slurping between words, “our dad is one of the original Shades, which is why the King took us in. Our parents are off on other official missions for the Court. That’s why we aren’t in the same league as other supplicants like Syd, not even close.”

“Do you miss them?” The question falls from my mouth before I can stop it. “Your parents, I mean.”

“Um, yeah?” Zoe says, as if it should be obvious. Then she pauses. Considers. “Don’t you miss the people you left behind?”

I shift in my seat. Erebus’s taunts have dug deep under my skin over the past three months. I don’t know the people I’m missing, and if I return, they’ll figure that out right away. But it’s the lingering emotions that have made themselves at home in my heart—the guilt, the worry, the regret—that make me question whether they’d even want me back. Whatever our relationships were, they’ve all lost so much already. Wouldn’t I just make it worse if I appeared out of nowhere one day, showing them that they’ve lost me, too?

That we’ve lost each other?

Finally, I say, “How can you miss something that feels like it was never really there?”

Zoe whistles. “If that ain’t a word. Some folks are dead to me, too, even though they’re still alive.”

“I knew you could grieve dead people,” I whisper. “Guess I didn’t realize you could grieve living people too.”

“Sure can,” Zoe says.

I recognize something familiar in her dark eyes. A haunting. “What happened… with your people?”

Zoe’s face sours. “Our parents are cool, but let’s just say all demons are easier than most humans. With demons, it’s about strength and presence—or if you’re entertaining enough to not need either. Hierarchies aren’t set in stone, but you always know where you stand. Rules can change. It’s not like that with humans.”

I shake my head. “What do you—”

“Demons,” Zoe says lowly, “don’t care whether Elijah and I were born fraternal or identical. Demons don’t ask about this.” She gestures to the rounded shape of her throat. “Humans, on the other hand, are nosy about all the wrong shit and ask all the wrong questions. Human beings deny other human beings’ humanity and call that power.”

I find my own face twisting, mirroring her expression. I’ve never seen the twins interact with anyone other than Erebus, but of course that doesn’t mean they don’t run into people when they leave the house for their usual errands—for grocery shopping, for putting gas in the old truck the King lets them drive. I’m not there to see people treat Zoe any differently than they might treat me, but I don’t have to see it to believe her. To believe that when she’s just being herself, people try to punish her into their too-small boxes of gender.

Elijah nudges his sister in the shoulder, a comfort. I don’t know her well enough to let my support be silent, so I speak it instead.

“That’s really shitty, Zoe,” I say. “You don’t deserve that.”

“Yeah, it’s shitty.” She tips her water back, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass. “Waste of everyone’s time and energy, especially mine. Waste of humanity’s time on this planet too, since they get such a short run of it.”

A memory comes to me, then. Two angry people at a gas station. I remember wondering why I’d ever fight to save them. Then, a second memory—someone who accused me of being undeserving across a dinner table at the Legendborn Lodge. A person who later attacked me when I was vulnerable.

Cowardice and bigotry don’t have to have faces. Their actions speak loudly enough.

“Maybe humans like that deserve to be fed on by lesser demons,” I murmur.

“Damn.” Zoe drops her glass and raises a brow. “Bree, are you secretly… ruthless?”

Am I? I wonder. “I know the parts of humanity that bother me.”

Zoe regards me appreciatively. “I eff with that.”

Across the table, Elijah nods in agreement. The three of us let our new allegiance—and old anger—work its way through us. The anger goes from hot, to warm, to cool and steady.

“You said humans ask the wrong questions,” I say. “What kinda questions do demons ask?”

“Saucy ones.” Zoe laughs again, and I am relieved that the sound is only slightly dimmed from our discussion. Not as light and loud as before, but a laugh all the same.

“She means they’re nosy in different ways,” Elijah clarifies, although the brown skin of his cheeks flushes a deeper color.

“Nosy how…?” I ask, then nearly regret it. Something about the glint in Zoe’s eye tells me I’m wading into territory that she had hoped to get into and just hadn’t yet found the opportunity.

Her eyes sparkle. “The first day you got here, you and the old man argued about some Merlin boy who sacrificed himself for you, so what’s the drama there? Was it romantic? And is there more where that came from?”

I gape at her. “Those are three very nosy questions.”

“I can count,” Zoe replies. “Answer.”

“I can’t. He won’t say anything else about that boy. I’ve asked.”

“Boring,” Zoe complains. She gestures at the younger kids nearby. “Same topic, different question. Who are you into?”

It’s my turn to flush. “Who am I into, like… romantically?”

“Sure,” she says with a shrug. “If you’re into that.”

“I know I’m into that,” I confirm, then search my mind for more clues.

At first, all that comes to me is the longing. The deep want of the boy I left behind.

Then, I remember the sizzling sensation when I touch the Pendragon coin, and I wonder if he’s the one who stamped that memory onto my skin.

“Boys,” I say quietly. “I know that much.”

“So”—Zoe looks out into the now busier main room of the Rat—“you’re into boy people?”

I follow her gaze to the high schoolers on the couch, deep in conversation, then look out beyond them. There are more people here now, some my age and some a bit older. It looks like a dance at the local high school must have gotten out—there’s a small group in formal wear. I watch the shifting colors of long gowns under lamplight and study the clean lines of rented tuxedos and shiny lapels. “I think…,” I say, watching the crowd with new eyes, “I’m into… people people.”

I feel both twins’ eyes on my skin in a bright, quick scald. When I turn, they’re both staring.

“Interesting,” Zoe murmurs.

“Can I ask… who you’re into?” I try to shift the focus off me. “Either of you?”

They answer at the same time.

Zoe says, “Depends,” as Elijah mutters, “Girls,” and looks away.

Zoe fixes her brother with a glare. “ Mostly girls.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “Mostly girls.”

“Oh.” Their expressions are challenging and expectant and curious. My cheeks grow heated for reasons I can’t name. A tiny fissure of uncertainty opens inside me. It must show on my face.

“You know yourself, right?” Zoe asks quickly, voice firm. “You know your own shit?”

“Yeah,” I answer, “I do.”

She gives me a sharp nod. “Then that’s all there is to it.”

With her answer, that new fissure of uncertainty begins to close.

I sit with that for a moment. In the past three months, I haven’t deeply wanted anything other than to become stronger under Erebus’s tutelage. Untouchable, unstoppable, impervious. But now, with the twins looking at me, making me feel both bare and bold, I’m reminded that this is okay too.

The world is here, around and between us, and we’re allowed to live in it. We’re allowed to figure out what we want from our time on the planet—and who. Or at least, we should be.

“Depends” and “mostly girls.”

There’s so much space there. Those answers give the twins possibilities, even within certainty. They allow other people to surprise them. Hell, those answers allow the twins to surprise themselves . A type of freedom, I think, toward a full life. My answer—“ people people”—grants me a free and full life too, in all its certainty and possibilities.

When I look up at the twins, they smile—and I smile back. Two hours ago, they annoyed the crap out of me, but now, I feel like we’re a unit. Banded together by honest answers and real shit and this little circle of freedom we’ve given each other.

Zoe waggles her fingers at my forehead. “You love making things complicated in your head. I see the wheels spinning. You ever have any fun in there?”

A laugh bubbles up before I can tamp it down.

“See, there you go!” Zoe grins.

“That laugh was accidental. It wasn’t for you,” I say, fighting a smile. I move to stand up as best I can. “Shoo. I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Elijah grasps my forearm. “You can’t go alone,” he repeats. “It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be fine,” I answer, and shoo Zoe again. “I just need a minute for… things.”

“What things?” Zoe stands next to the booth while I step down to the floor level.

“Menstrual things,” I state.

“Ah. Legit,” Zoe agrees, and points the way. “Make it quick, Ruthless Bree.”

I weave through the crowd toward the metal sign that says BATHROOMS to the right of the bar. There are two doors, and each has a block figure with a left leg and body in a dress and a right leg and body without, and a GENDER NEUTRAL sign beneath the figures. I pick the door on the right and find the small, three-stalled bathroom slightly dingy but empty.

I didn’t lie. I do need to fish out a tampon from the back pocket of my jeans before walking into a stall, but I take a moment to stare in the mirror over the sinks first. Something I find myself doing more and more of lately.

My hair has gotten longer. The ends need trimming. For the first time, maybe because of our conversation at the table and the something-like-friendship this outing seems to have sparked, I consider asking Zoe if she might help me. Her twists are shiny and healthy, and we use mostly similar products, but I don’t trust myself to cut all the curls. The one errant curl at my right temple has gotten longer too—its roots growing out shiny and silver over time instead of dark brown like the rest. The mark of Arthur, unavoidable and permanent. I try to work it more deeply into the long braid over my shoulder. Hide it.

My face has gotten leaner, even though I’m eating more than I did while on the run from the Order. My cheekbones are sharper somehow, while my hips have filled out, gotten firmer. Curves and muscle, rearranging themselves around my body in response to the demands of Erebus’s training. I turn this way and that in the water-spotted mirror and decide that I like this version of me. I look… strong. Powerful. Competent. I wonder what the people I don’t know would think of me now if they saw me, and feel a pang of remorse.

I don’t need anyone else to validate how I feel about myself, how I’ve grown, and who I’m becoming… but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. Don’t secretly wish for it. For them.

A few minutes later, I’m drying my hands off at the sink inside one of the tiny single stalls when I hear the door slam open. For a second, I’m certain it’s Zoe coming to yell at me for taking too long, and I even open my mouth to call for her before another voice interrupts me.

“Get in, get out, that’s it !” the voice orders, pitched low so as not to carry but filled with sharp annoyance. Bright irritation twisted with desperation.

My inner alarms go off.

I leap up on the toilet seat, landing silently with one foot on each side of the lid. I rest my palms on the metal walls for balance. Take a deep breath. Become still as a statue.

“No funny business, or I’ll make you regret it—”

“I’m going!” a younger voice says, voice breaking. “Please, I just—” Then, a smack—fist against skin—and a body hits the floor. Slides halfway under my stall.

A Black girl, with dark curls like mine and a brown face twisted in fear.

A bruise is already forming on her cheek.

She looks up at me from the floor with wide, frightened, light-filled, golden eyes—and the rich, warm scent of root magic fills my senses.