Chapter 8 #3
Instead, as we cut through the white-dusted pathway that joins the Classics building to the main hall, I focus back on everything that Emrys told me, the list of texts he scribbled down for me.
Legends, myths, documents. There won't be much in the written record.
It's going to be a lot of patching together, guesswork, approximations and scholarship, Roman Britain, Boudica.
Not my specialty. The Annals of Ulster. I don't read or speak Irish, but I suppose I can. ..learn it.
And Kingston—
I clench my fist inside my glove. Who knows what Kingston will do?
Who cares? It doesn't matter. I can figure this out without him.
Just because he has to be there doesn't mean he's going to contribute anything.
And something about the idea of solving it all without him, of being both the answer and the riddle itself, makes me feel just the tiniest bit smug.
Probably not the healthiest emotion, but it beats despair or numbness.
I'm not usually the vindictive type to gloat over beating someone to the punch on what I suppose is their life's work. But then again…I’m doing a lot of things that weren’t usual for me six months ago. Hell, three months ago.
"Can I ask you something?" I find myself saying to Lanz.
"Hmm?" he says, perking up. There is a certain hapless quality about him that would be charming under other circumstances.
He's so attentive—maybe too attentive. And of the four of them, the most…
I don't know what the word is. Laissez-faire.
Relaxed. Continental. Like his blood doesn't run quite as hot as the rest. And that's why I need to know.
"Absolutely," he says. "Fire away."
"What's in it for you?” I say, the words puffing out in my steamed-up breath. "I mean, the whole brotherhood, or whatever it is. Swearing allegiance to the Consortium—"
"The Consistory," he corrects automatically.
"Right," I say. "And this quest. Like, why do it?"
Lanz is silent a moment. He tips his head back and forth as we walk, like he's really considering.
"I—it's hard to explain," he says.
"I'm very intelligent, Lanz," I deadpan. "Try me."
He blinks those big blue eyes at me, as if not surprising me to be so snippy. Well, it's a new world, Lanz Dell’Acqua, I think.
“I have a—" He pauses. "Just this sort of family history, I guess. Not an obligation, exactly, like King does. And Kai," he hurries to add. “But. Um. It's more—"
He's really stumbling over his words. I wonder if I've touched a nerve, if there actually is something more personal to this.
"Just…solving this, being successful, it would fix a lot of things that have been really hard on my family for a long time,” he says.
“I really wouldn't expect you to understand.” He scrubs the back of his head with his hand, making his black hair stick up in all directions even more than it was before. “Sorry. I’m not making sense."
"No, it's okay," I say, suddenly walking back my aggressive needling. "I wasn't trying to pry. I just—it's such a big commitment, you know, the discipline, the vow. Although I guess the chastity part is—"
"Hey," Lanz says softly. "Easy." He glances around as we get closer to the main hall, like he's looking for eavesdroppers. "That’s…we’re…I mean, technically, it’s…” He shuffles his weight. “It was just this spontaneous thing at first, and then…I don’t know, it’s not like I just decided to fall in love with him, you know?”
I stop in my tracks.
“You’re in love?”
“I—we—oh shit." Now Lanz stops too. He swears and looks gently skyward. “No—well, I mean…I didn’t mean it like—”
He’s practically stammering. His cheeks are bright pink. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.
“It’s okay.” I cut him off, putting him out of his misery. “You don’t have to explain.”
Lanz shuts his mouth, nods. “Okay.”
We start walking again.
This doesn’t matter to me. I know it doesn’t. Nor does it especially change anything—I might not be able to physically get away from any of them, given this guard-duty situation, but I can still keep mental boundaries. Emotional ones.
Except it does change something. Just a tiny bit. Because there is one lingering question I have, one moment that passed between us that we have literally never spoken of since, and one that now makes even less sense to me than it did before.
If you love Callahan, why did you kiss me?
That night, after the fencing match. Where Kingston got hurt, and Lanz took over. When I’d been a sobbing, unstable disaster in the field house locker room, just bubbling over with how much I hated myself, and I came out and Lanz was just…there, to sweep me into his arms.
He kissed me. He did kiss me. And…
Not that it matters. Not that he’d even care. Not that I’ve even let myself think about the truth of that moment since, because it’s embarrassing, shameful, that I am the kind of unfriendly, unpretty, unpopular girl who gets to age eighteen, gets to college, without ever…
I grit my teeth.
That was my first real kiss, Lanz.
We’ve arrived. Lanz stops at the door, and grabs the massive brass handle to pull and hold it open for me.
“Registrar,” he says.
I can only nod. “Yes. Thank…you,” I add, awkwardly.
Have you told me the truth about anything?
Have any of you?