Chapter 40
The wave of nostalgia that slams into me when I enter Kaelis’s apartments is overwhelming.
The pain I endured here has already dulled in my memory.
There were many times I resented being here.
But now there’s a familiarity to this place that makes me realize his chambers are the only space that’s remained of my old self.
The club is long gone, the townhome burned, even Halazar is gone.
But these apartments remain. As warm and welcoming as I’d come to find them. As ostentatious and curio-filled as I remember.
As if summoned by my thoughts, Kaelis emerges from his office.
Our eyes lock. His lips part slightly and his shoulders sag, as if the weight of every trouble has been reduced to little more than a feather. At last, as a breath, he utters, “You finally came. The hour is late. You missed dinner.” He takes a step closer.
“You were waiting for me for dinner?”
“As I do every night I’m not in the main hall.” Kaelis gives a little smile. “It’s only polite.”
“Polite? Said by the man who fucked me senseless on a desk but couldn’t bring me to climax.” I fold my arms.
He takes another step, encroaching upon my space. “It’s not that I couldn’t…But if I had, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”
“Kaelis.” The way I say his name has him freezing. “That was long enough ago that it wasn’t even in my mind coming here tonight. And, I would’ve come to you eventually, regardless.”
“I know,” he says.
Does he? I look up into the voids of his eyes. “Kaelis, the sex is good with you. Immaculate. Brag-worthy, if I was going to tell anyone else about it—which I’m not.”
“You can go on telling me all about how amazing I am.” He tilts his head back slightly, his eyes alight with amusement. But there’s more than that. Insecurity still lingers.
I laugh softly and take his hand. “If all I wanted was good sex, I could find it whenever I wanted it. You can’t keep me coming back with glorious cock alone.”
He swallows hard and nods.
I can sense his discomfort and offer him relief, rather than hammering the matter. “Where is she?” I scan the sofas; nothing. His office, then.
The moment I open the door, a little black ball of fuzz lifts her head, golden eyes shining in the lamplight. Priss rises, arching her back and stretching, claws sinking into the chaise that had been my own all last year.
I cross, immediately burying my fingers in her fur.
“Ah, now I know the real reason why you came. And here I thought it was for me.” Kaelis leans against the doorframe.
“It has been an age since I last gave Priss her chin scratches.”
“There is interest on scratches owed, she tells me.”
“Then I must begin repayment now. Or else how will I manage?” I look over my shoulder with a grin.
The low, warm light casts him in a hazy glow. The edges of his face seem less harsh, his expression softened as he wears a fond smile. It’s a Kaelis I doubt many have ever seen.
It’s like we’re pretending things are normal.
And I don’t want to stop. Maybe this was why I avoided coming here for so long.
I knew how dangerously easy it is to forget about my worries around him.
To feel safe in these lavish apartments and allow the stress of the world beyond to ease a little from the knots of my shoulders.
“I have an idea,” he begins. “Why don’t you take up your usual spot? She’d love it. And I have some work to do. I can have food brought in.”
Apparently Kaelis would like to pretend, too.
“Unless you came here with other ideas?” He arches a brow. “Because I will gladly finally finish what I started weeks ago.”
“A quiet evening sounds nice,” I say softly. Then I add with a bit of a coy note, “We’ll see how the rest of the night goes.”
I assume my normal seat, and the evening takes on a dreamy quality.
Kaelis opens his office to my browsing as he goes off to collect some refreshments for us.
I search for anything that might present a lead on the inking material.
As Priss curls up next to me, Kaelis takes his usual position at his desk, studious, so consumed in his work that he misses how shamelessly I’m admiring the hair that falls into his eyes.
The pages of the book blur, and I rub my eyes before glancing over the notes and sketches I’ve scribbled.
It’s a mix of half-remembered curves Mother showed me and notes that make no sense, and I try to read between the lines to find something that might not be there.
I shift, careful not to disturb Priss, and glance toward Kaelis.
He catches my gaze this time.
“What is it?” he asks, brow furrowing slightly when he senses my unease.
I hesitate, then close my current book. “There’s nothing more here in the academy on the World or the vessel card?” I’m still hoping for something that will be a breakthrough.
“If there is, I haven’t found it.” He shakes his head.
“Can the World eradicate knowledge?”
“You’re afraid my father removed traces of the World to prevent someone else from summoning it.”
“Is it a rational fear?” I ask.
“Rational, yes. But so far as I can tell, in what limited knowledge I have, the World seems to repurpose rather than remove things. It’s a reshuffling of the deck, not an inking of new cards or removal of others.
Some things are also immutable—like the Majors.
There will always be twenty, though who they are might change when the World is cast.”
I think about this and remember what Elorin warned me about my Major.
“Kind of like how the Wheel contorts fate. When Bristara—” I choke on the words and swallow the emotion.
Kaelis patiently waits. “When she died, it was from a card that was intended to kill me. The Wheel did not stop Ravin from casting the card, it simply changed the target and efficacy.”
Kaelis thinks about this a moment and then gives a nod of approval. “Something like that. Which is a sensible way to think about it, given that the Wheel and the World tug on similar strings of fate—one is simply far more powerful.”
“Or like the fortress,” I continue, to make sure I understand. “It was previously here, so it still existed even when the World was remade. But the history was altered—we no longer knew it as a recent kingdom, but thought it an ancient one.”
“Yes.” He looks back down at the papers on his desk, suddenly deeply engrossed. It’s clear he’d rather not discuss this, and I can suspect why.
So I feel bad when I continue to press the matter. “Perhaps, since evidence of Revisan persisted after the world was remade, there might be something in the records that surround it?”
“There is nothing to be gained from the Revisan Kingdom,” he murmurs, still not looking up.
I don’t relent. “You know about my family, Kaelis. I want to know about yours.”
“I think you know well enough about my family.” He scoffs, but it sounds forced.
“Your mother was the Queen of Revisan, wasn’t she?” The bold statement has him frozen. There’s a flash of panic, and then an anger I don’t understand. “Your father used her to get to the World, then he killed her and took her throne for himself.”
“Those words are insane at best and treasonous at worst,” he whispers.
“But are they wrong?” I challenge. It was one of the last things Bristara ever told me: He is the last of the Revisan bloodline.
“What makes you say this?” The fact that Kaelis isn’t denying it has already told me all I need to know. Now I’m even more curious.
“I saw her portrait.” Fortunately, I have an excuse that doesn’t involve Bristara or the Worldkeepers; I wouldn’t want to risk his ire toward them, and I know Kaelis would be upset about others sharing his secrets.
“It was your father—younger, but undeniably him—standing next to a queen I didn’t recognize.
But she sat on the throne and wore the crown.
” I pause, waiting for him to say or do something more, but he doesn’t. So I add, softer, “You have her hair.”
He freezes, and there’s a fleeting second of panic in his eyes. Then, without a word, he’s on his feet. He’s striding out the door of the office.
Priss lets out an undignified meow as she’s left scrambling when I jolt upright.
I race to keep up. Every door is shutting behind him right as I push through—not that he’s trying to keep me out, but he’s moving with speed and purpose.
I find the door to the closet that Rewina locked months ago open.
Kaelis is inside, lifting the very portrait I mentioned from the back and settling it upon a lone hook on the wall.
I can’t help but wonder if that hook is waiting for that portrait…
for the nights that Kaelis comes to admire it.
He lets out a soft sigh, as if a knot of tension has unraveled between his shoulders at being able to finally gaze upon her memory with someone else.
When he turns to face me, I see the undeniable resemblance between them.
Resemblance I realize Ravin does not share.
Perhaps his father took the current queen as a lover in secret, knowing he’d slay his bride.
Pain fills Kaelis’s eyes. But I can also see the relief I heard in his sigh. He can finally share his secret.
“I didn’t lie to you,” he says. “He did kill her.”
“I believe you.” I step into the dusty gloom of the closet. There are just a few paces between us. Yet it feels like we stand worlds apart. “But…did you lie when you told me you wouldn’t use the World to bring her back?”
A second of hesitation. One that speaks volumes. As if he’s trying to convince himself as much as he is me.
“I would understand,” I say gently. “I, of all people, would understand you wanting to bring her back.”
“I know.” Kaelis shifts to better see the portrait. He looks up at his mother with such longing and adoration. “But I cannot.”
“Cannot?” Not “will not.” Not “do not want to.” “Cannot.”