Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 40

40

brEAKFAST IS HELD in a smaller dining room. It’s a less formal affair, and people seem to be drifting in and out in small groups, eating at tables that are served and quickly cleared by waitstaff for the next wave of guests.

When I enter the room, I spot Mariah and Zoe at a table by a window in the back of the room. Like me, they’re both wearing their masquerade masks again. Mariah beckons me to join them, and I make my way over. Zoe glances up at me sullenly, then turns back to her plate of eggs and toast.

I slide into a seat across from them and set my elbows on the table. “Sleep okay?”

“As okay as you can in a place like this,” Mariah says. She’s opted for a long-sleeved sweater and a pair of fitted checkered slacks and put her braids up. Zoe’s in a pair of loose-fitting trousers and a green blouse, with her hair now loose down her back. As Mariah asks me how Nick and I slept, Zoe glances up but doesn’t contribute to the conversation. I let them know that he went off to meet Ava and that he’ll be back later, maybe with more information about what we need to do to survive the next three days.

After a lull in the conversation, I think about what Nick said to me earlier, about not being fully honest with Zoe.

A server comes by to take my order. Her name tag says “Suzannah.” Just in case Suzannah is a spy for Mikael too, we wait until she leaves before I lean forward to catch Zoe’s eye. “I owe you an apology.”

Her eyes snap up to mine. “You do. But tell me more.”

I pause to organize my words, try to keep them true, like Nick said, but nonspecific. Nothing the waitstaff or anyone at the nearby tables could decipher as being about the Legendborn, the Order, or Rootcrafters.

“Even before the old man brought me to his house, I’d made the decision to leave a lot of stuff behind. A lot of people. Because I needed to get stronger and become what I couldn’t be when I was with… the organization you now know I was a member of.” I grimace. When I look at Mariah, she smiles encouragingly—and I’m grateful for her kindness.

Zoe frowns. “The organization I was raised to despise , you mean?”

“That one, yes,” I say. “But that’s the thing: I wasn’t raised in it. I wasn’t born into it, not like the other members. Not like Nick. It was a surprise that I was a member at all, and… I never had time to recover from that surprise. I was grieving my mom, and I wanted answers, and searching for those answers led me down a path that I never imagined was possible. I was normal before this, or, at least, I thought I was. And what I said was right; they don’t want me there, not the people in charge.”

Zoe snorts. “Wonder why that is.”

“So, I left. As for the old man…” I shrug. “He knew who I was before I did. He knew my ancestor was… like Mariah.” Mariah nods, and Zoe’s eyes widen. “And he knew that my ancestor did what she could to keep her descendants safe, something that meant that I’d be born different, even from my and Mariah’s folks.”

Zoe sits back in her chair. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? About that furnace of yours?”

I squint. “I think I’m saying what you think I’m saying?”

“Well, damn.”

“Mm-hmm,” Mariah adds, sipping her coffee. “And what I think y’all are saying is that you really did go with the Hunter by choice, just like I told Valec you might’ve. So he owes me an apology.”

“There’s a lot of that to go around,” I say, spreading my hands on the table. “I’m sorry for lying, Zoe. I’ve had a really hard… year.”

“A year?”

“Lower your voice,” I whisper, glancing around us. “And it’s not even been a year.”

“A year is not enough time for all this shit. Hell, five years isn’t enough.” Zoe’s brows draw together. “Yeah, I forgive you.”

My breath catches. “You do?”

“I’m just saying…,” Zoe says. “You need all the slack you can get, so I’m givin’ it to you.” My eyes widen, and she waves a hand. “Besides, I’m easy compared to Elijah. You know how he gets, wanting to know everything and uncover every secret. When he finds out all the stuff you and the old man have been hiding from him, he might skin you alive. Metaphorically, of course.”

I wrinkle my nose but let the relief show on my face. “Delightful.”

“Yeah, well.” Zoe lifts a shoulder. “It’s how he’s always been. Jah just wants so badly to please the old man. I keep him grounded, you know? Without me, he just doesn’t know how to think outside of what he wants to become.”

“That… feels familiar,” I say.

“Let’s just focus on getting out of here unscathed.” She leans closer. “Speaking of… did I see a bruise last night?”

My hand flies to my jaw, still tender from yesterday’s fight. It was, blessedly, only mildly red this morning. I had to run a washcloth under freezing water half a dozen times to create a compress cold enough to bring the swelling down. Nick, however, said he has a purple bruise the shape of my fist on his upper thigh; Arthur’s strength in a Bree-shaped package packs a punch. I grimace into my coffee. “Benedict and I had an… eventful reunion.”

She grins. “Did you kick his ass?”

“He’d claim it was mutual”—I smile—“but of course I did.”

“Hell of a reunion,” she says.

“He asked if I wanted to go again.”

“Did he now?” Mariah says, leaning in.

I wave my hand. “Not like that.”

“Oh, it’s definitely like that.” Zoe plants both elbows on the table. “Y’all are way into each other.”

Suzannah returns with my omelet and cheesy grits. “Thank you,” I say politely.

She nods. “Anything else?”

“Not right now, thanks,” Zoe says.

When Suzannah leaves, I lean over to reply to Zoe. “No, we’re not!”

“I mean, I can’t speak for you, but that boy is down bad ,” Zoe says. “ Bad bad.”

“Not true,” I correct, tugging at my mask. “He won’t even touch me.”

Mariah deeply mm-hmms into her mug again, and I glare at her. “Your contributions aren’t helping.”

“I’m just offering affirmations, that’s all,” Mariah says, pushing her glasses up against her mask. “Besides, your love life remains unmatchedly messy. First it’s the Golden Boy, then it’s Grumpy Wizard, and now it’s back to the Golden Boy, but instead of a normal, happy reunion, you’re accidentally brawling in the basement? Girl .” She tuts as she puts her mug down. “Messy.”

“You know what? Forget the other stuff,” Zoe declares. “Now I’m mad you had all this drama and kept it from me.”

“I didn’t know I had all this drama!” I hiss across the table. “Can we stick to the most pressing issue, like how we’re going to handle being”—I look around, lowering my voice—“trapped in this house? And these security ‘communions’ Mikael talked about? And maybe skip over my situation?”

“Her whole situation is confusing,” Zoe says, shaking her head at Mariah. “I’m gonna need, like, a flowchart or something.”

I drop my head in my hands. “Zoe. Please.”

“Fine, fine,” Zoe says with a laugh. When I look up, she winks, and the rest of the knot in my chest loosens as I realize she was trying to cheer me up—and show her forgiveness with more than words.

“Is Ni—Benedict coming back soon?” Mariah asks, adjusting the straps of her mask as she looks at a few of the other tables with older guests seated closer to the door.

“Don’t know,” I say, but I’m distracted by the groups of people at the other tables. “Don’t suppose you can hear what they’re saying?” I ask Zoe. Like me, she’s staring at the table nearest to us—a group of white men and women in colorful masquerade masks, all wearing suits and long dresses. The most formal options available within Mikael’s garment bags. Elijah said new people, particularly “new money,” show up every year as the galas get bigger and bigger in size. I wonder if they’re new Collectors or old ones.

Zoe squints. “Something about hedge funds. Finance stuff I don’t really understand.”

As we talk, Nick strides through the open doorway, brow furrowed and eyes deep in thought as he navigates the room with both hands in his pockets. He is striking even from a distance and even while wearing a dark blue mask that conceals half his features. A chiseled jaw. Thick, slightly disheveled hair. A Golden Boy, indeed. He glances up, finding us in the corner, and adjusts his path to head in our direction.

“Young man!” One of the older men from the table nearby waves a hand, beckoning Nick over.

Mild confusion ripples across Nick’s face before he pauses in the middle of the room, glancing at me. I shrug, and he looks at the man, then back at me, debating. I dip my chin. A silent encouragement to go along. Play the game as Benedict would. Nick nods and turns, spilling a smile over his features as he changes course to walk over to their table.

“What’s he doing?” Zoe asks.

“Pretending,” I murmur.

At the other table Nick leans his elbows on the back of an empty chair as he greets the older man. I only hear snippets of the conversation, but Zoe hears it all.

“That guy who called him over doesn’t even know him—he just said he saw Benedict at one of the high-roller tables during Mikael’s speech and again afterward in Bianca’s line. He said he asked if anyone knew who he was, then realized Benedict was new to the community,” she murmurs, eyes narrowing as she listens. “The man says this is his eleventh year attending Mikael’s events, and he can show Benedict around, introduce him to some of the regulars. He’s introducing a few of the other people at the table.”

She pauses, listening as Nick begins to speak.

“Your boy is polite as hell, I’ll give him that. Thanking everyone for their kindness. No one’s saying a damn thing about Benedict’s whole entire fiancée sitting in the same room, who was the only other person seated with him at the same high-roller table last night. This isn’t about being new to the galas, or else they’d have invited us over to talk too.” She crosses her arms. “This is gross.”

Nick stands up, chuckling at a joke Zoe doesn’t bother to translate, and excuses himself to walk back over to our table. He slips into the seat beside me and very purposefully drapes his arm over the back of my chair, trailing his fingers across my shoulder.

“Hey, honey,” he says loudly. When I don’t jump or even shift with discomfort, he smiles.

Practice and pretend. I smile back and make sure my voice carries. “Hi. I missed you.”

“Missed you too.” Nick looks over my head, back at the other table, and waves, then leans in, as if kissing me on the cheek, though our skin never meets. “At least two of those old guys are turning beet red.”

I grin. “Perfect.” After a moment, I whisper back, “How were they?”

He lowers his voice before he answers. “Oh, they’re terrible people.” He reaches for the muffin basket in the middle of the table. “Snakes in suits.”

“Then why’d you go over?” Zoe whispers.

Nick sits back in his seat as he chews on the muffin and swallows. “Intel.”

Mariah blinks. “Intel?”

He nods. “Now I know who the insiders are. The loyal Collectors who’ve been to the overnight events before, who think they know how things are gonna go. Now I know their schedule for the weekend, where they’ll be and when, so I can pay them a visit after breakfast to find out more about Mikael and his little”—Nick waves his muffin, smirking—“wannabe secret society he’s got going on here.”

Zoe looks at Nick, then me, then back at Nick. “But they’re assholes. They didn’t even acknowledge your fiancée. If they saw you like they said last night, they must have seen you and Bree—Iris—together, but then they didn’t even ask about her? Bree walked by their table when she entered the room too. She didn’t get invited to chitchat. They made assumptions about her.”

“Yeah, they’re disgusting.” Nick grins. “But we can take advantage of that.”

“How, exactly?” Zoe asks.

“Easy. You know this already, so I’m not saying anything new, but guys like that love a power structure.” He gestures to the estate around us as he picks at his muffin. “And the power structures they wield the most—racism, misogyny, patriarchy—thrive in places like this, especially when money’s involved. Let me wield their expectations of me against them. I don’t need to know their names to exploit their assumptions. I can play snake-in-a-suit for a few days. Find out more about these so-called communions. Uncover what everyone else already knows so that we get the information we need to get out of this thing alive.”

Zoe sits back in her chair, blinking. “That’s… legit.”

“It’s a strategy,” Nick says. “We should pool our collective resources.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Zoe says. “I’m in.”

Beside her, Mariah nods. “Sounds good.”

Nick turns to me. “What do you think?”

“Like Mariah said, sounds good.”

“But it’s only a good plan if you agree it’s a good plan,” he says, his eyes intent. “I won’t leave you alone again.”

I laugh. “You couldn’t have been gone longer than half an hour.”

“Not what I meant.” He holds my gaze for a beat longer than what feels necessary. Zoe clears her throat.

I shift in my seat, certain I’m missing something. “It’s a solid idea. Use the Collectors’ ignorance against them so we get what we need. Plus, you made a big show of coming over here. If you get in their good graces, maybe they’ll look elsewhere to find ‘violations’ and leave us all alone. You should wield the power you have, like you said.”

“On it,” Nick says with a nod. “I’ll get started after breakfast.”

“Speaking of intel,” I say, “what did Ava want?”

Nick’s eyes darken. “She said that Mikael won’t be interviewing all hundred attendees. Just those invitees who he finds personally suspicious, both in their business dealings and outside interests and… anyone who wasn’t in the ballroom when the alarms were triggered.”