Chapter 45
When Deacon moves to stand, I poke my foot into him. “Where are you going?”
He looks at me with narrowed eyes. “The Windsor…?”
“And when is that?”
A fresh horror dawns on me when I realize. “Tomorrow…There will be at least seven hundred people at the gala. Way more than every Citadel hunter and security guard can keep an eye on.”
“We cannot let Reid get that ring on you or Ada.”
“I know. And even if he fails, if Caspar kills one of us, the Chasm will be opened. The only way to save everyone is to find the ring ourselves and use it on both me and my grandma.”
“And then give it to me and I’ll bury it at the bottom of the ocean. No sacrifices needed.” He looks at me pointedly as if I don’t know the consequence of using the ring once it’s been imbued with one syrabraxa—let alone two.
“If we succeed, none of us will have any reason to use it,” I say. “I mean, it would be nice to take out Caspar and Finn with a flick of the wrist—”
He takes my ankle in his broad hand. His fingers overlap with his thumb, encircling it completely. He holds me tightly.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“I’m not joking, Vivienne.” His eyes are steadfast. His jaw stern, sharp as a knife, and angled like it was carved with one.
“I know. I don’t—” It almost feels too earnest to say, but I can tell he needs to hear the words from me. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then it sounds dangerously like we have a game plan.”
“We’ll be right up against it, though. Tomorrow at midnight is the new moon. And I have no ideas on how to successfully break into the catacombs during the gala.”
“That’s okay,” Deacon says, sitting up. “Call the goonie squad. They’re good at problem-solving.”
I sit up too. “First, you tell me everything. No more secrets. No more omissions. If we’re going to work together on this, I don’t want to be blindsided ever again.”
Deacon’s face is open. Honest. “I’ve told you most of it.”
“What about the woman you killed? Thea.”
Deacon’s eyes crest with something that makes my pulse shudder. “Why do you need to know about her?”
“It’s the only part of the story that’s missing. I won’t be in the dark anymore.”
He leans back into the couch. Drums his fingers on the cushions. “Our father had a certain…disdain for Reid.”
I’d heard as much from him earlier today, but I still ask, “Why?”
“I don’t know, honestly. It was as if the more Reid wanted his affection, or to follow in his footsteps, the less our father wanted him around. Resentment grew on both sides.”
“And it was the opposite with you.”
Deacon nods. I can imagine it: obstinate, gorgeous, bravehearted Deacon.
A stag that can’t be tamed. Those were the qualities his father wanted in an heir.
“Reid was moody and sensitive…” And I can picture that too.
That brown hair curling over brooding, interior, perceptive blue eyes.
Nothing like his father or his older half brother.
“He met a nymph. They fell in love. Our father learned they planned to wed and run away.” His hand moves easily over the fabric of the couch as he talks.
“It was a humiliation to him. To have his son marry a lymantrian and disown his people. My father had them captured and brought before his Brood. He ordered Reid to take Thea’s soul, or be executed. ”
My throat all but closes. “But he wouldn’t.”
“He was willing to die instead. I think my father would have felt that was a win as well. A show of power among the deviants who followed him. A king who killed his own son for disrespecting him.”
“You stepped in. Killed her to save your brother’s life.”
Deacon nods, eyes on his hands. “He’s never seen it that way.”
“Deacon…”
When his eyes meet mine, it’s as if he’s disgusted by whatever he sees on my face. “It wasn’t that noble. Her soul was like the nectar of the gods.”
But I know what he’s doing. Trying to get me to berate him because that’s what he feels he deserves. I won’t do it. “You acted on instinct. You knew if Reid didn’t kill her himself he’d die. They both probably would. You loved him, Deacon. You still do. You did the right thing—”
“Enough.” His jaw is wound as tight as a bowstring. “I told you once not to look for morality in me. I have no intention of disappointing you the way my brother has.”
There’s something loaded about his phrasing. But I make the choice not to prod at it. Everything in my life is too fragile right now. So I say nothing.
After a minute he sighs. “Want to hear the kicker?”
“This story gets worse?”
“My father was furious. Saw it as an act of defiance. Felt like I’d made him impotent before his Brood. He said I’d be punished to the highest degree unless Reid felt differently, since it was his honor I stole. I got on my knees and begged Reid for my life.”
I can’t even picture it. I can’t imagine Deacon begging for anything.
“When Reid told our father to do his worst, he thought he was sentencing me to death. We both did.” He says it like it would have been preferable to what he suffered through in the underworld.
I think again of his tattoos. The place I’ll never return to.
The place I never left. The nightmares that forced him to give up sleep for centuries.
The fear that crests in his eyes even now when he speaks of it. Far worse than death, indeed.
A shiver zips through me, and I wish the apartment wasn’t so cold. I wish I didn’t have to bite down on the urge to reach for his hand.
“I was exiled to the underworld the next day. To my father, that was a kindness—he loved me too much to see me crucified with silver.”
“Your father never tried to have Reid killed again?”
Deacon shrugs, standing from the couch, as if he needs to shake off the conversation.
“I wasn’t really around to find out. My guess is he saw something in Reid in that moment, when he chose not to show me mercy.
Something perhaps he thought he could mold.
He was always playing games with us like that.
” He wanders over to my fridge and tugs it open. “No booze?”
“So that’s it? No more secrets?”
His head is still in the fridge when he says, “None that I can think of.”
“Odette?”
When Deacon straightens, I know I’m not imagining the flash of worry that sparks in his eyes. But he schools his face just as quickly. “What about her?”
I glare at him. “I’m not playing this game any longer, Deacon. Who is she?”
He squares his weighty shoulders. “I told you. Someone I care about.”
“You agreed to no more secrets.” I can hear my voice rising in pitch. My back begins to ache, and I try to breathe. To not set off another syrabraxa episode. I can’t take any more lies.
Deacon’s brow furrows, and I realize he understands what’s happening. Or at risk of happening. He lowers his voice as he takes a step toward me. “Hey. Calm down.”
“I’m plenty calm—”
But he’s already crossed the room to take my wrist in his hand. For a moment I think he’s trying to pull me toward him, but then I realize his thumb is pressed against my pulse. He’s measuring my heart rate.
“I’ll tell you everything. But you have to take a slow breath for me first.”
And I do. Because it feels good. To be cared for, to be looked after, to know my dwindling sanity is in the hands of someone I trust.
“Good girl,” he breathes. “Odette is my mother.”
My eyelids, which were just becoming heavy, snap wide open. “Your mother?”
He releases my wrist to shove his hands in his pockets.
“I told you she was banished by my father when I was young. Because of their affair. His wife—Reid’s mother—demanded it, and he was happy to acquiesce.
” A sneer spreads across his face at the memory.
“I found her decades later. She thought she’d never see her son again. ”
My heart aches so vividly I have to dig my nails into my palms.
“But then I was exiled to hell.” Deacon can’t keep the tremble from his voice.
“Once I escaped, I had to keep a low profile. My father couldn’t know I’d gotten out.
He would have sent me back. So I never tracked her down…
” He shakes his head. “And then Caspar killed my father and took the throne for himself. I was relived, honestly. Thought I’d finally be free.
” Deacon runs a hand across his jaw. “But I was foolish. Didn’t realize what a target that put on my back. ”
“You were the rightful heir.”
He nods at me. “So Caspar found my mother and imprisoned her. Keeps her alive, as long as I never make a play for the throne. Like I told you.”
“Have you—”
“Everywhere,” he sighs. “For years. I’ve searched every country. Every remote mountain town and dilapidated slum. That’s why I need you.”
“You know if we get this thing out of me, I can’t help you anymore.”
Deacon’s lips press into a line. “We’ve still got time.”
It’s not exactly the answer I was hoping for. But he isn’t wrong—we have one more night before the gala.
As the sun winks out over the Half City, I take Deacon’s hand in mine. Not to feel his pulse, but to feel him.
His palm is calloused. Rough but warm. The top of his hand veined, fingers so long my hand is engulfed by them. I hear his breath hitch.
“With or without the syrabraxa, we’ll find her.”
His eyes are like pale starlight on rippling water. “We?”
I nod once and then grab my blades and dial Sophia.
When she answers, I’m already halfway out the door. “Meet us at Fever Dream.”