37. FRANCOIS
Leaning against the rough concrete of the doorway, I watch the canine and Aurora engage in a light, fluid banter as they gather their meager belongings.
Their deep, instinctual attachment is growing right before my eyes, and it irritates me to the point of distraction.
Yet, I am no longer calculating how to sever that thread through force or leverage.
I am merely watching it, enduring the sharp, quiet ache of it, knowing I cannot rip them apart without earning more of my girl’s exquisite hatred.
Taliesin moves with a newfound energy, thanks to the retraction of my poison. He doesn’t realize it yet, but in drawing back the toxins, I’ve brought his wolf even closer to the surface.
“You realize that’s my washrag?” he grins, all stubble, dirt and laughter.
She snorts, snatching it from his grip. “Mine now. Anyhow, I don’t think you’ve used a washrag in your life, not by the smell of you.”
“Fucking cheeky minx.”
They tease each other with an effortless intimacy. I’ve never experienced a relationship that operates in that way.
She playfully tosses a sharpened toothbrush at him. “Don’t forget your favorite shiv!”
I look away as they pack their trinkets; I will take absolutely nothing. To carry a memento of this place would be to acknowledge that it held me, even for a second. When I step over the threshold of Quo Reformare, I shall leave every single atom of this indignity behind.
“Are you ever going to tell us what the plan is?” Taliesin grunts, shoving a dense hunk of bread into his pocket. “You’re remarkably quiet about the details, de Vaux. Almost like you haven’t got it entirely figured out yet.”
“Does a general inform his foot soldiers of the battle tactics?” I retort, keeping my mask perfectly in place. “Of course not. So be a good, well-behaved grunt, and simply wait for my commands.”
Aurora rolls her eyes in my direction. “It’s no wonder you’re entirely friendless.”
That.
That comment strikes home with a terrifying accuracy. I’ve spent my entire life without…connection. Maybe compatriots are an impossibility if you never allow your true self to be seen.
I turn my gaze back to them. Aurora is reaching out, her fingers brushing the back of Taliesin’s hand as they reach for the same scrap of toweling cloth. It is a fleeting touch, yet the air in the cramped room hums with a sickeningly sweet resonance.
Tenderness.
Another language I have never spoken—a dialect of the soul that feels as foreign to me as the gutter-slang of the Ashgrave slums. A cold, familiar hollow opens in my chest. When her eyes soften for the man beside her, she sees a protector and a friend. She sees a partner.
She sees a man.
When she looks at me, she sees a necessary evil. A poison she must swallow, praying she’ll survive the dosage.
Aurora thinks she is merely enduring me, but she doesn’t realize she is practicing Mithridatism—the ancient, desperate art of the king who ingested tiny drops of venom every single day until his blood accepted the toxin willingly.
The snake shifts beneath my skin, heavy and impatient.
It is the very thing that makes me a god in this gutter, capable of tearing the iron from the stone and walking us to freedom. And yet, watching her lean into the wolf’s space, a doubt pricks at me.
Is this power—the very thing I am using to save her—the exact thing that will keep me forever exiled from her heart?
I almost wish I could reach inside and rip the monster out, to stand before her as nothing more than a man. Would she see me then?
Or would she simply find me as unremarkable as the rest of the cattle in this place? I stifle the thought as soon as it forms.
There is no time for such pathetic existential nonsense.
“Where is the boy who is sentir le sapin?” I ask, turning my attention toward the corridor.
Aurora frowns, entirely confused by the phrasing, but strangely, the dog understands.
“It means ‘smelling the fir’—the wood of a coffin,” Tally tells her, his voice low.
She grimaces, casting a sharp look at me. “Keep that kind of dark sentiment to yourself, de Vaux.”
I do not answer. I merely study the wolf for a fraction of a second. Bevan understands my first language far better than I gave him credit for.
His friend finally appears out of the gloom, carefully cradling the dying boy in his arms.
“Ah, at last.”
Clay narrows his eyes at me but doesn’t retort.
Imran’s face is almost serene, despite the blue tinge to his lips and his ashen, translucent skin. “I’m really going outside?” he croaks, his voice a whisper. “Truly, Clay?”
I have no time for more tedious, emotional Digger farewells. For my plan to work, we need to be through to solitary before the evening lockdown sequence initiates.
“Yes, you’ll get beyond these walls, but only if we leave right now. Allons-y!”
I turn on my heel, leading our singulier group out of the Digger block. As we move deeper into the structural anatomy of this place, the air begins to vibrate.
The Wards are humming at a sharp, aggressive frequency that suggests Quo is not entirely ignorant of our movement.
It is of no real concern to me.
When the time comes to face the perimeter, the wards will simply not see us at all.