Chapter 21
Idon’t realize I’ve stopped walking until Bes’s hand slips from my arm and he pivots to regard me. He reaches for my hand, but I pull away. Hurt flashes across his face for an instant before it disappears. Good, now he knows how I feel.
“He wanted to tell you—he wanted to tell you everything,” he claims, having the decency to appear marginally ashamed. “But he couldn’t. We couldn’t.”
Recalling the conversation I overheard when I was asleep in the cabin of the yacht, I ask, “But why lie to me about something like that? How was keeping that a secret protecting me?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Remember when I told you we took blood oaths to never tell a soul about what we do and who we are?”
I nod, fighting against rolling my eyes at the absurdity.
“If the wrong people knew about where to find us or who was giving us orders, it would be disastrous. Even admitting that Arturo—whose name now carries a reputation among the fascists—is Cec’s father was too great a risk.
Not when they could use it as leverage. Which is why the Order is monumentally strict about these things.
Keeping all this a secret is no easy task, and there are too many ways it can be circumvented.
The blood oath doesn’t allow for errors, especially when it comes to its leader. ”
“I don’t understand how the order would find out? I wouldn’t have told anyone.” I shake my head. “After all we’ve been through, how can you have such little faith in me?”
Fire ignites his gaze. “The only other person I have more faith in than you, is Cec.”
His admittance warms me as much as it confounds me. Does Bes really not trust anyone else beyond his own cousin and me, practically a stranger? Though I suppose that’s what happens when your acquaintance is forged in the crucible of war.
“However, I couldn’t have told you, even if I wanted to,” he continues.
“Fine, let’s say I believe in this blood oath.” Whatever gets you to tell me the truth. “What does it entail? What are you explicitly not allowed to tell me?”
“Once someone who has taken the oath passes that seal inside the door and leaves this place, it prevents us from letting slip in any form what the name of our organization is, nor give away its location. We also can’t utter the true name of the men and women at that head table alongside Ansaldo, though no one else in the order is afforded the same luxury. ”
That’s a shitty deal.
Even knowing Ansaldo uses a nom de plume outside this stronghold, that doesn’t mean the blood oath is real.
“Then explain to me how—”
“Ansaldo will clarify later tonight after you’ve rested,” Bes cuts me off. “I promise. It’s not my place.”
I grit my teeth, working to tamper down my frustration. “It seems like Ansaldo would let you, the prodigal son, do whatever your heart desires.”
“He has no control over the effects of the blood oaths,” he argues. “They’re as old as the world itself. And even if it were up to Ansaldo to dole out the punishment, if there’s even an inkling that you’re considering betraying the order, it would be considered treason, and punishable by death.”
A bit dramatic.
“Surely Ansaldo wouldn’t condemn his own son to die.”
Bes grimaces. “You don’t know him like I do.”
My eyes fall to the crimson runner along the floor.
I’m not sure what to do with all this information yet, except to follow Bes when he starts walking again.
Reining in my anger, I watch him closely.
Shoulders rigid, footsteps stilted, his body appears tense for the first time since we met.
As if he wants to be anywhere but here. He must hate this place.
I recall what he said after we passed over the seal: why do you think I’ve done all I can to stay away? How long did Bes suffer living here before he finally left?
“Did you grow up in these halls?” I ask, hoping he can answer my questions now he’s no longer tied by the blood oath.
He runs a hand through his dark hair. “I did, though by no choice of my own.”
I can relate. “At least you weren’t alone.”
His smile is small and sad. “If not for Cec, I would’ve been.
Despite claiming to be a safehouse for gifted orphans, among other things, it’s no place for children.
They give you tasks to keep your mind busy, claiming it builds character.
Which wouldn’t be so terrible if there was any time for play in between, or if we gained anything from it.
Instead, you’re treated like an indentured servant until you take your oath.
Some of the children didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t raised that way.
It’s why I took it as soon as I turned sixteen and vowed never to come back. ”
My God, sixteen? So young…
“Why take the oath at all?” I ask sincerely.
He grimaces. “Once you reach a certain age, they don’t exactly give you a choice. Especially if your family is already part of the order.”
I furrow my brow. Beyond his uncle, how involved is the rest of his family? I now recall him mentioning his dead parents—did they die because of the order, like we almost did multiple times? Those questions are too personal to ask at the moment, though, if ever.
My shoulders sink. “I’m sorry the amulet and my entanglement with it is the reason you’re back in a place you despise.”
He smiles sadly. “My umi always told me not to waste my energy holding onto hate for things. Which is why I left, I suppose. If I wasn’t allowed to hate this place, at least I could get as far away from it as possible.
But I’m back here because I choose to be.
Because it was the only option and the right thing to do so you could be safe. ”
I smile gently at the admission, a smattering of butterflies flitting about in my stomach.
Not wanting to push him, I say, “One day, I hope you’ll trust me enough to talk about them. About your parents.”
He peers over at me, expression unguarded. It allows the pain to seep past the small frames of his glasses, revealing a piece of his soul that’s dark and cold and alone. “I hope so too.”
And I don’t take offense to that. People should be allowed to keep their most precious secrets, and, as much as I’ve decided to trust Bes and Cec, certain things are still off limits—including my father.
I’m not sure how much time Bes had with his parents, whether they died together or some years apart, but it never would’ve been enough. His only other family besides Cec is his uncle Ansaldo, and I can’t imagine he’s ever been the nurturing sort.
Nonna, though, is the nurturing sort. She might not have given me life, but she was as good a mom as any of the other kids’.
Not because she was my blood—because she cared for me.
She was someone who I knew would drop everything to be there if I needed her.
Did Bes have anyone like that? He had Cec, of course, but they’re both young.
It’s not the same as being raised by an adult who cares about your well-being before anyone else’s.
I again wonder if Nonna is involved in this place and its secrets—something I’ll have to demand from Ansaldo later.
I take in Bes’s shadowy profile. Though we both lacked parents, my childhood was nothing like Bes’s—not when he had to live in this place for however many years.
The only semblance of a parent offered to him was the order—an unfeeling religious patriarchy, worried more about the rest of the world than what might be poisoning their own house.
A few silent paces more and we come upon a row of thick wooden doors, pinned to the walls with solid iron brackets.
I wonder if these doors are as old as the castle above our heads, when Bes grabs a key from a hook beside the handle of the second door and opens it.
It creaks minimally, revealing by lamplight a simple room with a small bed, a wooden armoire, and beyond us, another closed door.
I step inside and set my luggage down, marking where Bes places the key on a hook inside.
“You’ll find a bathroom with running water straight through there, and a few changes of clothes in the armoire. Dinner is at eight o’clock sharp.”
I turn to look at him with new eyes. He stands uncomfortably just inside the threshold.
He’s dead on his feet: the skin beneath his bloodshot eyes is darker and slightly puffed, and the black eye he earned the night before has yellowed even more around the edges.
Dark stubble peppers the lower half of his face.
His dark, untamed hair nearly covers the edges of his spectacles.
I swallow hard. Even in exhaustion and injury, Bes is sort of beautiful.
He’s tired of running too. Although, from what I’ve gleaned, being back here isn’t much of a reprieve for him.
“Eight? But that’s so late.”
He smirks. “No, it’s not; Americans eat early. A good number of Europeans don’t eat until nine or ten, sometimes eleven.”
I shrug. “If you say so.”
I expect Bes to leave, but he lingers.
“Your room is larger than mine,” he says finally, stepping inside. As if he’s not ready to leave my side just yet.
“Not like you ever use yours,” I counter, sitting down on the bed.
I hate that I don’t know what to do with my hands.
If I fold them in my lap, I’ll look like I’m nervous.
But if I leave them untethered, who knows what they’ll do.
In a last-ditch effort, I decide the best course of action is to sit on them.
Smiling absentmindedly, Bes concedes. “Fair enough.”
He peers around the space, his head on a swivel.
The sharp angles of his profile, coupled with us being alone, warms and empties my belly all at once.
When he’s not pissing me off or lying to my face, Bes brings a calm with him that I can’t help clinging to.
His presence at this moment soothes my anger instead of igniting it.
He stops beside the opposite wall, next to the armoire, and beckons me with a wave. “Look at this.”