Chapter 2 Kit #2
I set aside the journal and shook out my trembling hands. I didn’t need to read any more. I’d found the first bit of proof I’d been looking for, and I had no desire to see how my father gloated over his attempt to toughen me up.
That hadn’t been the last time he took away something I loved.
If he was still around to see the way I looked at Penny, he would have found a way to take him away, too.
But my father was dead, his ashes scattered far from Ashpoint.
The only part of him remaining here was the right hand he sacrificed to the Vessel.
If my mental math was correct, he’d set his plans for that in motion when he took his place as Hugo Morin’s Shroud Warden in the year he wrote the journal Penny was currently drooling on.
I brushed a hand through Penny’s hair and couldn’t help a small smile. I wasn’t a helpless little boy anymore, no longer a victim of my father's violent whims, and no one would take anything from me now. No matter how selfish it was, Penny was the one thing I planned to keep for myself.
He looked so peaceful that I hated to wake him, but as soon I got what I needed from that book, I could take it to Levitt and we could put the rest of them away for a while. We’d both be glad for the reprieve.
I gave Penny a shake, and his head jerked up. His bleary green eyes blinked against the light of the fire.
“Oh,” he mumbled, looking sheepish. “I fell asleep again, didn’t I?”
“Not sure how. That didn’t look very comfortable.” I grinned as he swiped his sleeve over his damp cheek.
“It wasn’t.” He pushed himself to sitting, then hid a yawn behind his hand.
“You’ll be glad to know that we’re about done with these.
” I tugged over the journal he’d been using as a pillow and skimmed the page.
“I found where my father mentioned becoming a Sentinel. Now I just need to find where he mentions becoming the Shroud Warden. I think that happened the year he wrote this one.”
“Thank the gods,” Penny groaned, sagging over so he was leaning against my shoulder. “Mother’s grammar primers were more interesting than these. Less disturbing too.”
I freed my arm from between us and slid it around his back. He nestled in, and his eyes were closing again before I started reading in earnest.
“I don’t like how sad reading these makes you,” he mumbled, more asleep than awake. “Should burn them like you burned the rest.”
A few days before when Merrick raided the forge looking for the weapons I was supposedly stockpiling, Reimond had remarked about how protective Penny was of me.
As much as I wanted to shield him from everything we faced in Ashpoint, he wanted to shield me, too: from his brother’s scorn, my father’s judgment, and my own self-loathing.
I could count on one hand the number of people in my life who had cared enough to think I was worth protecting.
It felt foreign and new, and I was done trying to pretend I didn’t enjoy it.
It was difficult to focus on reading when all I wanted to do was bury my face in his hair and fall asleep too. But getting this out of the way would mean having the rest of the day to curl up together on the couch and enjoy the closeness without echoes of the past haunting us both.
Penny hadn’t gotten far in his reading before dozing off, but it didn’t take me long to track down what I was looking for.
About midway through, several pages were taken up with sketches of the ceremonial garb of the Shroud Warden, carefully rendered but not half as skillfully as any of Penny’s art.
My father only drew things he found powerful, putting them down in clinical detail for the sake of posterity, but Penny saw the beauty in things.
His work was full of light and life, and he had a fondness for the small, transient things.
His sketches of the little brown moths that had flocked to our lantern each night on our way from Forstford to Eastcliff were my favorites.
Tucked between various drawings of the finger bone necklace Merrick now wore were the first musings of my father’s plan to take over as Right Hand. Two years after he put that nefarious plot in writing, he successfully took his place as the head of the Bone Men.
I folded down the corner of the page and closed the book, then did the same with the journal I’d set aside before.
Giving Penny’s side a squeeze, I pressed a kiss in his hair. “Time to wake up, Pen.”
He grumbled, turning his face to hide it in my neck. His breath tickled.
“Thought you wanted to be done with these,” I said with a chuckle.
He leaned back enough to peek up at me. “You found it?”
“Found everything I need. All that’s left is to take it to Levitt and see what he thinks.”
He cast a glance at the window beside the door. “You’re going out in that?”
I followed his gaze. The snow hadn’t stopped, the howling wind swirling it into a near-blinding cyclone. I didn’t want to go out in it, but it would be worth it to hand over proof that we didn’t need to wait eight more months to replace Merrick.
“It’s not a long walk,” I said. Penny looked unconvinced, so I tugged his face around to steal a kiss. “Then when I get back, you can warm me up.”
His mouth hung open and his eyes stayed wide as I pulled away to stand.
I tucked the two relevant journals under my arm and stepped into my boots.
Penny had recovered by the time I swung my cloak around my shoulders, and he joined me by the front door, fussing my hands away so he could tie the lace at my throat.
“I’ll make lunch,” he said with his fingers lingering on the edges of my hood. “So hurry back.”
“You’ll hardly have time to miss me.” I leaned down for a parting kiss before pushing out into the cold.
The snow skittered and swirled through the cobbled streets, gathering in the corners and against walls in tiny drifts. It stung my eyes even with my hood tugged down low over my face the whole way to the Ossuary.
When I stepped into the building, the chill trailed me through the atrium to where the usual pair sat at either end of the long table, bundled in cloaks and hats.
They waved me up the stairs, and I watched my breath cloud the air as I climbed to the closed door of Levitt’s chambers on the top floor.
I knocked, and after a few moments the door swung inward, letting out a rush of heat that set my nose running. Levitt grinned at the sight of me and beckoned me in with the stump of his right arm.
“Hurry up before all the heat escapes,” he said, and I was happy to do as I was told.
I made my way to the fireplace where I warmed my hands while he closed the door.
“What brings you out in this weather?” he asked, settling into the chair behind his desk.
“I found some things that might interest you.” Reluctantly, I dragged myself away from the fire and pulled the journals from beneath my cloak. “We may be able to shorten the timeline and move forward with your plan.”
Levitt leaned back in his chair with a wan smile. “It’s never just a social call with you.”
Guilt twinged as I set the journals on the desk in front of him. Levitt considered me one of his oldest friends, and though we’d been close growing up, it was hard to see him now as anything more than a connection to be exploited.
Neither of us had fit in well here as children.
I was too soft, and he was too docile, mild to a fault.
We found solace in each other’s company and—when we managed to spend time together without his sadistic twin sister—frequently talked about what we’d do if we found our way outside Ashpoint’s walls.
When I was fourteen and he was seventeen, I convinced him to make a plan with me to escape together.
That ended in disaster when my father discovered us, and it was all I could do to make sure that when he caught me, he didn’t spot Levitt huddled in the shadows behind me.
I took sole responsibility for the plot and its shameful execution because I couldn’t bear to see Levitt punished for my idea.
Three years later, I abandoned Ashpoint.
At first, I thought about Levitt following my lead, showing up one day to tell me about his own escape.
We’d talked about it after that first attempt, and agreed that if one of us got the chance to leave, we’d take it.
Whoever was left behind would follow when they could.
We designated a mission outside Emberstead as our waypoint.
A place we could leave word to let the other know where to find us.
But the hope that he’d join me like we agreed didn’t last. He may have dreamed of a life on the other side of these walls, but not the same way I did.
For him, it was idle wonder, the same way someone might dream of leaving their small town to see the world before coming back to settle for good.
For me, it was the only thing that kept me going.
Levitt was content to stay, but I knew that staying would eventually mean my death.
I wanted to trust him now like I had then, but our visions for the Bone Men weren’t the same. He was shepherding us into an age of strife, and I planned to burn it all down before we reached that end.
“I’m sorry,” I said once the quiet between us had stretched on too long. And I was sorry, not just for visiting him strictly on business, but for everything else too.
He waved his hand. “It’s fine. I’m teasing.” His eyes dropped to the journals, and he opened the first cover. “What am I looking at here?”
Leaning across the desk, I turned to the marked page and pointed at the journal entry. “This first.”
As he read, his brows pinched together until a deep wrinkle formed between them. When he reached the bottom of the page, he cast a sympathetic glance at me. Clearly, he remembered Clover’s death as well as I did.
“You read this?” he asked. Concern edged his voice.
I turned away to pace toward the windows and avoid having to see his pity as I answered. “I read enough.”
“Kit…”
I leaned against the windowsill and folded my arms over my chest, letting the pain from my healing brand distract me from the memories.
His face reflected in the glass, wearing the same sort of expression Penny turned on me whenever he stumbled across one of the many awful things my father wrote in those pages.
“It was a long time ago, Levitt.”
He made a soft sound that was all the proof I needed that he didn’t buy for a moment that I was unbothered by the reminder of the traumatic loss.
I pressed on. “The important thing is why my father did what he did when he did. They made him a Sentinel years before he completed his Oaths. And that’s not all.” I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “The marked page in the other one has the rest.”
“Where did you get these?” he asked as he flipped open the second book.
“My father was self-important enough to personally document everything. He kept meticulous records of his time here.” I couldn’t help a chuckle as I sank down into one of the armchairs in front of the windows.
“I stole all twelve of his journals when I ran. I have a feeling he was angrier about losing those than he was about losing me.”
Levitt glanced up again. “There are more?”
I nodded. “Six of the originals—I burned the others—and eight more I found here at the house that he wrote after I left.”
“Gods.” He returned his eyes to the journal. “I’m sure I’ll regret it, but might I see the rest of them someday?”
“You’re welcome to them whenever you’d like.”
We fell silent while he read through the second entry, turning pages and going further than even I had.
“I knew it wasn’t technically against the rules to appoint someone to a position of authority before their Oaths were complete,” he said after several minutes.
“But it’s uncommon and rarely anything above a Sentinel.
But this gives us precedence to use to support putting you forth as Shroud Warden. I can use this.”
Sitting back in his chair, he met my eyes again.
“But unfortunately, the Sentinels are currently at least equally divided. If I put it to a vote now, I wouldn’t have the majority.
After Merrick's false accusations against you, he’s lost some favor, but things might change more rapidly if you can impress them while I do what I can from my side. ”
“I’ll be the first back from the second Oath. Think that’ll be enough to start turning the tide?”
Levitt grinned. “Cocky, aren’t you?”
I shrugged and fought against my own smile. “Suitably confident. I know a place.”
He shook his head and snickered. “I think that’ll put you well on your way if you can manage it.” After a moment, his expression melted into one more thoughtful than amused. “What does Penny think of all of this? Of you trying to take his brother’s position?”
Frankly, Penny hated the idea. Not because I was ousting Merrick, but because he didn’t want either of us to be any more entrenched here than we needed to be. He grudgingly accepted my decision, much like I’d accepted his when he opted to undertake the Oaths, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“He’ll be glad when Merrick no longer has any authority over us,” I said instead, just enough truth to satisfy the Right Hand without giving too much away. “He had enough of that to last a lifetime before we got here.”
“Not sure I can blame him,” Levitt said.
“Speaking of Penny…” I pushed up out of my chair. “He was starting lunch when I left, so I should be getting back.”
“Of course.” Levitt rose as well, resting his hand on the open journal in front of him. “Do you mind if I hang onto these for a bit?”
“Not at all.”
He came around the desk and followed me to the door, stopping me with a touch to my arm as I crossed the threshold.
“Come see me for a social call next time,” he said with a soft smile.
I returned the expression as I tugged my hood up. “Of course.”
“I really am glad you’re back, you know. This place wasn’t the same without you.”
If I had any say in the matter, it wouldn’t be the same with me, either.