Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I hesitate, but I know the longer I stay—the more I try to persuade Jol to come with us—the more likely she is to be caught helping us escape. I take Titus’s hand, climbing onto the Pegasus in front of him, and he reaches around me to grab the reins.
A raccoon and a tiny brown mouse cling to the horse’s mane. Somehow, even in their animal forms, Owen’s kind eyes still glint with mischief. Gabriel scowls.
“Go to the Leaping Lizard,” Jol says quickly. “You’ll find friends there—they can help with that,” she adds with a pointed look at the shield, fastened to the horse’s saddle.
“Thank you,” I say.
Jol opens the gate.
The Pegasus charges forward, racing toward the end of the row. Swiftwing knocks two soldiers off their feet before they can point their rifles at us and gives a great leap, massive, feathered wings beating as we launch into the sky.
The soldiers scramble to their feet. One raises his gun, his finger on the trigger, and I look over my shoulder at the moment he fires.
Titus crushes his body to mine, his chest flush against my back, barricading me as the second soldier’s bullet whizzes past us.
Shouting, followed by the pop of gunfire, fades the higher we climb.
Titus’s heart pounds, faster and faster, and we ascend.
Still, he whispers, his lips brushing the side of my head, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”
Gabriel’s furry jowls flap as Swiftwing soars through the night sky, the lights of Bale now twinkling like fireflies down below, but one of Owen’s tiny arms is stretched out at his side, his little rodent paw cutting through the night air, lost in the thrill of flight.
I shiver, clinging to the worn leather pommel as we break into the cool cover of clouds above, and a thin layer of mist kisses my face. “Do you know where we’re going?” I shout to be heard over the roar of the wind.
Titus’s warm breath caresses the shell of my ear, his voice ragged.
“Yes.” He shifts his weight, just slightly as he pulls on the reins.
His heart still pounds wildly in his chest, but I allow myself to relax in his arms wrapped around me, caging me in.
“There,” he says, signaling for Swiftwing to descend.
My stomach flips as we dive, the city below rushing up to meet us, and I close my eyes as Titus’s arms press against me, holding me firm in my seat.
“You can open your eyes,” Titus whispers, breathless.
I peek through my eyelashes. We’ve landed on a rooftop in the outer section of the city, far from the palace glowing in the distance.
Owen and Gabriel scramble down from Swiftwing, shifting back into their human forms a few feet away. Owen stretches, but Gabriel closes his eyes, taking deep, controlled breaths as he runs his hands over his face and through his mussed dark hair.
Titus dismounts, and this time, when he holds his hand out to me, I’m reminded of the first night Will took me to the conservatory at Bludgrave Manor. I ignored his hand then, and I fell into his arms instead. Would it kill you to ask for help? Will asked me.
I refused Will. But even though we both know I could dismount Swiftwing on my own, I no longer hesitate to take Titus’s hand.
Maybe it’s the danger that causes him to reach for me so recklessly—maybe it’s the looming threat of capture that causes me to reach back.
Perhaps tomorrow, aboard the Starchaser, he’ll go back to avoiding me.
But at some point this evening, it started to feel less like electricity when his fingers twined with mine and more like… grounding. Natural. Easy.
Real.
I land on my feet, but Titus’s hand lingers in mine, and he stares at the connection like he’s not sure how to break it.
“He burned her body,” he says finally. Quiet. Hollow.
“I know.” It’s all I can say. Because he’s right. Will threatened to feed her to the Deimos, but he didn’t.
And I hate that there’s a part of me that thinks it means something.
“I thought that if I could see him again…” He shakes his head. “I know it’s him, and I know what he’s done—what he’s doing—but it’s…” His voice cracks, and his blue eyes seize mine, glossy in the moonlight. “He’s the only brother I’ve ever had.”
My gut twists. Tears burn my cheeks.
And then he asks the question I haven’t allowed myself to consider.
“Do you think he’s still… in there? Somewhere?” His tender, reluctant hope is almost too much to bear.
“Titus, I—” My throat tightens. “I don’t know.”
It’s the truth, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Titus squeezes my hand before letting go. “Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Me either.”
He turns to whisper something to Swiftwing, too low for me to hear. She nuzzles her face to his one last time before spreading her wings.
I want to ask him what he said to her, but there’s something about the way he watches the Pegasus that feels like its own goodbye—not just to Swiftwing, I realize, but to Leo.
To their shared childhoods. Words meant only for her ears.
And as Swiftwing soars high, a shadow passing across the moon, I look up at the stars and wonder if somewhere in that glittering tapestry of stories, Leo has heard him.