5. Penny #3
Kit’s fists clenched. One moved slowly toward the knife sheathed at his belt, but I caught his elbow to stop it. He was outnumbered, and turning a weapon against the Sentinels—if that was even what they really were—would result in harsh punishment. Maybe even death.
“What’s this about?” Kit asked, his bicep flexing under my fingers.
“We’ve come to take you home,” Anders replied.
The word home had never felt so menacing.
Matina smiled next, flashing her sharpened teeth and making me shudder. “You’re being placed on house arrest for the foreseeable future.”
Leveraging my grip on Kit’s arm, I stepped up to stand beside him. “For what reason?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from cracking.
Otis shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Safekeeping. These are troubled times.”
Klaus was the last to pipe up. “Will you come quietly?”
“Please resist,” Anders chimed before Kit or I could answer.
“I could go for some fun tonight. I’ve been bored in that cell you two stuck me in for the last month and a half.
” Fanning open one side of his robe, he flashed the machete strapped to his hip.
A few of the tavern’s inhabitants recoiled at the sight.
Klaus waved him off. “Anders, enough.”
Anders chuckled and let the robe fall shut to conceal the weapon once more.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from where it was hidden, even as the crowd of Sentinels parted and beckoned us forward.
“Lead the way,” Klaus said.
The walk across town felt like a death march. The few citizens flitting about town stopped to watch the procession and whisper. I wondered if they’d heard the same news we had, and if they felt the same burden of dread. Of uncertainty. Or perhaps of too much of the wrong kind of certainty.
Levitt Yost is dead.
Turning down the lane toward our house took us out of earshot of anyone but the cluster of Sentinels. Kit waited till then to address our solemn escorts.
“Do we get to know what this is about, or is Merrick allowed to arrest people on a whim now?”
Otis faced forward, neither stopping nor slowing his pace to reply. “You’re being detained for conspiring against our new Right Hand. Your exact charges will be read to you when you go before the Tribunal.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. Of course, we would be accused and, of course, we would be convicted.
The whole thing had happened by design. I’d sent Merrick away from the farm, away from Eastcliff, to somewhere he could do a different kind of damage.
He’d had time to plot this in his cell in the Ossuary.
To ruminate on all the wrong I’d done him by being born, then for robbing him of a birthright I was glad to give away to anyone but him.
Merrick wanted me dead; Kit knew it, but I hesitated to believe it even now. Because it hurt. Because I didn’t understand no matter how many times he explained. Because I’d never hated him half as much as he hated me.
When we reached the house, the porch was cluttered with people I didn’t recognize.
My pulse was still pounding, and my eyes ached with tears I wouldn’t be able to hold in much longer.
I pressed closer to Kit, latching onto his arm so tightly it must have been painful.
He didn’t complain as he moved ahead past the people who cleared a path for our entry.
I followed at his heels, and when we crossed the threshold and Kit stopped in place, I buried my face in his shoulder.
I couldn’t see—didn’t want to—but I heard perfectly well when Klaus called after us.
“You’ll be watched. Don’t bother to try anything. We’ll fetch you when it comes time for your trial.”
Once the door was closed, Kit remained, staring at the wall and trembling. I scrubbed my eyes against his shirt, trying to staunch the flow of tears before I gazed around the cottage that suddenly felt like a cage.
I didn’t know what to say, and my thoughts were screaming so loud I barely heard myself squeak, “Kit?”
He turned to my summons, twisting free of my grasp to wrap his arms around me instead.
I broke down in sobs, then, winding my hands in Kit’s shirt and sucking shattered breaths.
The recent light of hope had waned to a flicker and, gods, the world was dark. The house was cold, and Kit felt limp against me. Feebler than I’d ever seen him, as though he’d already been extinguished.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
It didn’t matter what for.
Before our legs gave out entirely, we moved to the couch and dropped in a miserable pile.
I curled up, fitting into a space that felt as small as I did.
Kit kept one arm locked around me, but the other moved to free his knife from its sheath.
I didn’t stop him this time, just stared at the glinting blade as he rested it on his thigh with its tip aimed toward the door.
I prayed no one would come in. Not tonight. Not ever. I prayed to whatever god would listen, be it Eeus or Paneus or another I didn’t even know. I prayed with my eyes squeezed shut and leaking hot tears until my prayers became dreams that whisked me into a fitful sleep.