Chapter 47. Grayson
Grayson
It’s a strange feeling trusting someone, a bit like hanging off a cliff by my fingertips. My pulse races and my hands feel unsteady as I turn on the phone I swore I’d never reveal to anyone.
“Outside the wards, my uncle won’t be able to trace your call,” I explain.
Eloise holds the phone like it’s fragile, her large eyes tearing. “Thank you. Seriously. You don’t know what this—”
“It’s fine,” I say, and she swallows.
Then she types in a number and presses the speaker button, which throws me. I wouldn’t think she’d want to share this moment with anyone. But maybe that’s what trust is—sharing the impossible.
The phone rings twice and a woman says, “Hello?” with a half laugh, which is immediately explained by a young girl’s voice in the background singing: “Marshmallows feel like jelly. Marshmallows get in my belly!”
Eloise clasps her hand over her mouth.
“Hello? Hello?” Eloise’s mom says again in a cheerful tone.
But instead of responding Eloise presses the end button. And the moment she does, she starts bawling. Big heavy tears pour down her cheeks and her shoulders shake.
Before I can think not to, I pull her into a hug, and she sobs against my chest. I brush her hair from her face and rub her back.
“She’s okay. My mom is alive,” she says into my shirt, and I smile. I’d told her it was a trick, and while I’d hoped that it was, I honestly wasn’t sure. My uncle has certainly done worse.
She sniffles and pulls away, wiping her eyes.
“You could have talked to her if you wanted,” I say.
She shakes her head. “If your uncle is monitoring their phones, it could have put them and you at risk. I don’t know what you use this phone for, but I’m assuming you don’t want him to know about it.”
Her words hit hard. No one has really considered me or cared what happened to me that way since Liam.
“I don’t know what it took for you to do this for me, but I know it was a lot,” she says, her voice calmer than it’s been all day, but what I scent on her nearly knocks me right out of the tree—affection.
“You had to tell me things that were hard to say and you’re trusting me with a very, very big secret.
I just need you to know it means everything to me that I got to check on my family. ”
I look at my boots, not sure what to say. The only thing I know for certain is that she deserves a hell of a lot more than my half truths. “Why didn’t you tell my uncle about last night? About the spells and the shimmers.”
“Honestly?” she says, turning around to climb down. I follow her. “I just didn’t love him knowing it happens when we touch. It felt…” She hesitates as her boots drop to the forest floor. “Too personal.”
I land beside her and lean my shoulder against the tree.
“What are you doing?” she asks when I make no attempt to walk back.
“Talking,” I say.
“About?”
“About truth,” I say, and her eyes widen slightly. “Ask me a question, anything you want.”
“Anything?” she confirms like she can’t quite believe it. “Okay, who’s Mrs. Kelly and why are you so close with her?”
I smile. She’s going easy on me. “She used to be my family’s chef when I was a kid.”
“That’s it?”
“My mom fired her and Liam gave her the money to start that café,” I continue.
She smiles. “Liam sounds like he was an amazing person. How did he discover the ward tear in the first place?”
“He never told me,” I say, but my pulse kicks up as she inches closer to my secrets.
“Did you ever think about telling someone?” she asks, and I know what she’s going to say next. “What if the Lawless find it?”
Here we go. “I can’t tell anyone, Eloise,” I say plainly, leaning into her question instead of running from it.
“Because not every magic user lives inside the wards. And they suffer from shortages. Like your gran, they need medicines and supplies. Access to magical plants that won’t grow outside the wards. Food.”
“And you use the tear to what? Give them these things?” she asks, half horrified and half in awe.
“As much as I can without my uncle noticing,” I say.
“Why don’t they just come back? Why don’t they return to the safety of the wards?” she asks.
“Because my uncle won’t let them,” I say.
She gasps. “Are they Laborers? I mean, people who refused to go into the Labor Guild?”
“Some of them,” I tell her. “Some were born outside the wards.”
“Oh, Gray, that’s horrible. How do you even know them? I mean, how did you discover that they existed?”
“I know them because my brother used to date a girl on the other side,” I say, my pulse now in a full sprint. But I’m not backing down from this.
“And he sent you to that tree to what? Meet her after he died?” she guesses.
“Actually, that’s exactly what happened.”
She sighs. “That must have been so hard on you both. Those poor people. They must live every second terrified the Lawless will find them.”
Discovering my brother had been dating Sage, the daughter of the Lawless leader, was more than I could handle at the time.
“Actually … those poor people are the Lawless,” I say, and Eloise goes very still.
Her lioness eyes zero in on me. “What did you just say? Because it sounded like you just said the Lawless.” Her voice holds a warning, one I instinctually want to smooth away with a lie. But I don’t.
Disbelief rolls off her in waves. “You’re supposed to tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong, Grayson.”
“I can’t.”
“Please,” she says quietly, and that single word takes me out.
The scent of her hurt quickly morphs to betrayal. “Your brother was dating a Lawless girl,” she says, like she’s trying to make sense of the impossible. “The Lawless know about the tear in the wards. You.” She meets my eyes and the accusation is plain. “You’ve been helping them.”
“I have,” I say.
Her jaw sets.
“The Lawless aren’t the villains we’re taught they are,” I say.
“They killed my grandad, Grayson! Forced him off the road on his way home from work,” she says, her voice rising.
“And how they killed him was so ugly that the Guardians wouldn’t even release his body to us!
All we got was a bag of ash left on our doorstep a week later.
Gran cried for a year. She—” Eloise’s voice cracks.
“They didn’t kill him,” I say, and the look in her eyes turns dangerous.
She takes a step toward me. “Like hell they didn’t.”
“Let me ex—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know what I know,” she says, her hands by her sides. She hasn’t Alchemied a dagger yet, but I think we’re only seconds away.
“I just admitted to you that I’m helping the Lawless—an offense that could get me killed.
Why tell you the truth about that and lie about the rest of it?
I’m trusting you. And while that comes naturally to you, it’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
But I want to do it. I know you’re angry and you feel betrayed, but you also don’t have all the information.
Think about it. Everything you know about the Lawless was told to you by my uncle.
A man who will do and say anything he needs to in order to get what he wants. ”
“And you’re so different?” she says, and it stings because it’s true.
“Maybe not,” I admit. “But my reasons are good even if my actions are questionable. Just give me the opportunity to explain.”
Eloise crosses her arms and glares. The scent of her indecision is so strong that for a second, I’m not sure which way it’ll go. “You have one minute. Sixty seconds to convince me that I shouldn’t skewer you.”
In any other moment I’d smile at that. Maybe even invite her to try, this petite fierce girl who is braver than anyone I’ve ever met.
“The reason I know the Lawless didn’t kill your grandfather is because they don’t kill Laborers.
They are Laborers or were once, people who refused their post and were forced outside the wards.
The only people they kill are Guardians.
But that’s because Guardians kill them—all the time.
And the thing is, Guardians don’t just kill the Lawless.
They kill our people, too. Those raids near the wards? Those are ordered by my uncle.”