Chapter 27
Saint
Ilet her go.
I listen to her footsteps fade, and I know with complete certainty that following her would be the wrong thing. What she needs right now is not my proximity on her own terms, without having to manage my presence while she does.
Knowing this does not make it easier.
I look at the wall. I hate my stepfather for what he has done. Telling her the truth about me was something I didn’t anticipate as being a problem until now.
Until she walked away.
The anger that moves through me is not aimed at her. I’m not even angry with Azriel. I’ll have words with him later about the photograph, who sent it, and what they were hoping to accomplish.
I’m angry with myself about the inexcusable fact that I watched her arrive on this campus knowing what I knew, and I made a series of choices that prioritized my own approach over the straightforward matter of telling her the truth.
I had my reasons, but they were not good enough.
I didn’t know how she would affect me. It’s one thing to create a version of someone in your mind and another to actually meet them. I also got carried away with my freedom.
She earned her place here. Every grade, every early morning, every hour in the library, and every careful note on every page is hers. Untouched by what the Order did.
But the invitation. The family connection index of 0.2, which I saw in Zero’s files three weeks before she set foot on this campus, and which I kept because keeping it felt like the less damaging option at the time.
I was wrong.
I am going to sit with being wrong for as long as she needs me to. And that is something I’m not sure I can do.
Azriel calls at noon.
“Who sent it?” I grit out before he can speak.
“Victor.”
“Victor has the selection committee files?”
“He accessed the archive two days ago. Zero flagged it this morning, which is approximately twenty hours too late to do anything useful with the information.”
I run a hand over my face. “He sent it to her directly.”
“Yes. He is trying to fracture the protection from the inside. If she stops trusting the people around her…”
“She becomes easier to isolate.”
“Yes,” Azriel says.
The silence between us contains several things. I let them sit there.
“You should have told her,” I say.
“I know that now,” he says quietly.
“You knew it before. You made the choice that not telling her was best for her, and you were wrong. She is going to forgive you eventually, but you’ll have to let her be unforgiving first, and you are not going to have to manage that, Azriel. You are going to have to let it land.”
Another silence.
“You’re giving me relationship advice,” Azriel says.
I’m giving you the only advice that works for people who have survived what she has. They know when you are managing them. They have been managed by people with bad intentions their whole lives, and they are very good at feeling the structure of it. The only thing that works is the truth.”
He’s quiet for a long time.
“I know,” he says finally. I know that. I just. I wanted to protect her from it.
“I know. So did I.”
We sit with that.
“What is Victor’s next move?” I ask because the conversation has been personal long enough, and there is work to be done.
“He has made contact with three more names from the list. He is building something. Valen thinks he is planning something we will have no control over.”
“Timeline?”
“Days. Less, possibly.”
“I need to see the full file,” I say. “Everything Zero has. And I need Valen to stop managing the Order’s surveillance feed. Let them see what I’m doing. All of it.”
Azriel goes very still on the other end of the line. “Saint. If Silas sees—”
“Fuck Silas,” I say. “I need you to let him do it.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor is not going to stop moving until he has something to move against. The best target I can give him is me.”
The silence that follows is a long one. “You are going to let him come for you,” Azriel says.
“I’m going to make it very easy for him to come for me. And then I’m going to finish this.”
“And the Order?”
Let me worry about the Order. I only answer to the Consortium.”
“Saint.”
“Azriel. She walked away from me today because I did not tell her the truth. I’m not going to let anything else touch her. Not Victor. Not the Order. Not the list. Not any of it. Not even you.”
Azriel breathes out slowly on the other end of the line. “Okay,” he says.
After hanging up, I wait for another minute.
Then I go find Zero.
It is time to stop being careful.