22 #2
“Indeed. That’s where all the higher-ups stay, including Gabriel. It’s also where the main building—the Citadel—is.”
Slade growls deep in his throat. He’d been listening with his arms crossed, growing visibly more displeased as he glances between Emeric and Ceri.
“If I manage to kill my brother, the Regiment will stop at nothing to catch me. And if I don’t manage to kill him, they’ll still stop at nothing to catch me.
If anyone suspects our connection, you’ll both be arrested, and I won’t let you throw away your lives. ”
“What about Talin?” Ceri shoots back. “You’re fine to let her throw her life away?”
The silence that follows is heavy. Slade’s features are strained as he tips his head back, nose ring glinting in the dim light. “Talin is a different case.”
“What he means,” I say pleasantly, “is that I’m already dying, so it makes little difference.” I don’t add that doing this—taking this risk—is my only real chance of survival.
“Because of the Bloodrot.” Emeric’s soft words aren’t a question.
I give a terse nod.
Slade’s cold gaze locks with mine, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the promise he made me. If he’s considered the implications of making me like him. When I swallow, his focus slides down to my throat, analyzing the movement. “We can argue about this tomorrow. It’s late.”
Ceri’s light laugh is a welcome reprieve. “Do I take it that means you’re staying?”
“If you’ll have me,” Slade tells her, but his eyes don’t stray from my face.
* * *
Ceri gives me directions to an upstairs bedroom, and I slink awkwardly down the hall just in time to hear her tell Slade he has two minutes to beg her forgiveness.
I don’t linger to eavesdrop. All I want is to get far away from the sobering realization that even the Warden of the Trench has people he’s close to.
People who care about him, and whom he cares for in return.
According to the Regiment, diabolists are immune to the Bloodrot because they’re touched by the devil. In Sundbourg, that’s the worst thing one can possibly be, and yet Emeric and Ceri’s lives look a hell of a lot better than most.
I think unwillingly of the community I grew up in.
Of Vicar Johannes’s fevered gaze, my sister’s empty one, and my mother’s guttural sobs turned furious screams. I think of bowed heads and splintered knees and stinging eyes and voices turned hoarse from reciting words that are still burned, inextricably, into some dark corner of my mind.
When my rage isn’t quite so potent, and when I find myself experiencing a rare moment of empathy, I can almost understand why my parents did it.
Why they’d been lured in by sugared words and false promises and answers to all the questions they’d been silently asking themselves.
When I’m scared and lonely and frustrated by everything that doesn’t make sense, I can almost understand it.
Almost.
I walk into my borrowed bedroom on leaden feet, shutting the door behind me. I scan it briefly as I flick on the light, but my eyes refuse to take in the details. Someone else’s things, someone else’s life. I’m a guest everywhere I go. A transient visitor.
I clean myself up, shut the lights off again to change—now that I finally have more than one disgusting outfit—and recline on the bed.
I should be exhausted. I am exhausted. But my mind won’t stop spinning, and my body won’t relax.
I think about moving furniture in front of the door like I did at Slade’s house, but if that taught me anything, it was that no number of wardrobes will stop a diabolist from entering a room if they really want to.
I stare blindly into the opaque darkness, listening to the hum of voices downstairs.
I hate that I’m straining to hear his voice specifically, even as I try to convince myself otherwise.
No matter what Slade says, I don’t believe he’ll passively wait around and let the Bloodrot destroy me.
He needs me only so long as I know more about Gabriel than he does.
And then, once his brother is dead, Slade will probably kill me too. It’s the logical next step.
It’s what I would do if I were him.
Gabriel, too, is a problem. How am I supposed to make contact from here? What do I tell him? Including Ceri and Emeric makes everything more complicated, but I can’t say a word to Slade without igniting suspicion.
The latch on the bedroom door clicks suddenly.
I lurch up, my legs still dangling over the end of the bed, my heart leaping into my throat.
My fingers itch to grab a weapon, but this time I’m not about to hurl a knife at whoever enters.
With my luck, it’ll be Ceri, and she’ll kick me out for attacking her a second time.
But the silhouette in the doorway definitely doesn’t belong to Ceri. I recognize it even before my eyes adjust to the spill of light trickling in from the hallway.
“Slade.” I say his name through gritted teeth. “What the fuck do you want?”
What little I can see of his face contorts in surprise. “What are you—” He cuts off and sticks his head back into the hall, presumably counting the doors. Then he drags a hand down one side of his jaw. “Hell, Ceri.”
“I’m Talin. Ceri is the taller, friendlier one.”
“You’re hysterical.”
“She sent you to my room?”
“So it would appear. Luckily I happen to know this place rather well, and I can find another. Sweet dreams, little sinner.” He backs away, making to shut the door behind him.
“Wait.” It comes out like a command, my voice harsh and unfamiliar.
Slade hesitates. I swear I can sense him raising a brow. “Yes?”
“Did you really leave just to protect your friends?”
“I fail to see why it matters to you.”
“I’m mostly interested in how you tricked them into caring whether you lived or died.”
His curt exhale might be a laugh. “So your tongue is your weapon of choice tonight. As much as I prefer it to bullets and knife-throwing, I can’t say it makes me want to tell you anything.”
Since I know—hope?—he can’t see me in the dark, I slam my fist into the closest pillow, sending a jolt of pain up my injured arm. But when Slade slips into the room, flicking the light on and shutting the door, I know he’s going to answer.
I scowl against the orange glow, blinking to focus my vision.
I’m clad in a thin silk tank and trousers, which means my weapons are out of reach.
I resent myself for not being concerned.
Somewhere along the line, my fear of Slade has dissipated, and now I feel only a simmering sort of defiance in his presence.
“Turn the light off,” I snarl.
His face is unreadable. There are still shadows under his eyes, but he doesn’t look tired, exactly. I wonder if he ever does. “I’m not having a conversation in the dark.”
“Why not? You practically live in the dark.”
“I want to be able to see your face.”
I don’t know why he says it like that: so casually, as if it’s not a fucking intimate thing to tell someone.
I’m not normally self-conscious, but I’m all too aware of his gaze as it travels the length of my forearms up to my chest. I’m well aware that my condition has progressed further than makes sense for a woman my age.
I wear the skin of someone with a lifetime of sinning under their belt, so that the sight is shocking even to a diabolist.
I hate that I can’t tell what Slade is thinking. The only indication of his surprise is a slight furrowing of his brow. I wonder if it’s borne of disgust. His cold eyes travel down my left arm in a way that feels like an examination, stopping at my fingertips. “Your—”
“I know,” I bite out before he can finish.
“They’re both like that?”
Both hands, he means. I smile bitterly, flexing my blackened fingers even as panic rises in my throat. “Should’ve ripped both gloves off the other night. Gotten the full show.”
“But you’re only—”
“Twenty-two,” I tell him, sparing us both from him trying to guess my age. “Trust me, I’m well aware. Practically a medical miracle.” Assuming miracles can be terrible.
“I suppose that explains why I’m so drawn to you,” he muses with a wanton curl of his lips. “The Savior really has it out for you, doesn’t He?”
My disgust at his first sentence is overridden by my shock at his second. It’s strange to hear him speak of the Savior, and worse still to hear him put into words the exact sentiment my family flung at me for much of my life. “Don’t tell me you secretly worship the Savior.”
“I would never stoop so low.” Instead of coming farther into the bedroom, Slade leans against the closed door, continuing to watch me with that same detached interest. “I can only imagine how long your confessions would sustain me.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say, but his words raise a question that has been eating at me since Emeric’s story. “You need to take confession in order to live, then? What happens if you stop?”
“It won’t kill us, but we grow unbearably weak, like a person who hasn’t eaten in days. Though we need to do that too—just not nearly as often as you. In most ways that matter, a diabolist is no different from a regular human.”
“Except you’re far more powerful.”
His teeth flash in the dim light. “Yes. Except that.”
“How does it even work? I mean, confessions are just…words.”
“I won’t pretend to know the answer. Hearing someone admit their sins feels like a rush of adrenaline, almost like I’m taking whatever energy they used to commit the act.
My own sins do nothing for me. It’s those of others that give me what I need.
Emeric’s theory is that we were meant to be the original hired sinners.
” A note of fondness enters his voice. “That a diabolist’s role was to exercise violence on behalf of their community, and that’s why we’re so few and far between.
He thinks we were originally meant to help our fellow citizens, back when people lived in small groups. ”
“But you disagree,” I surmise. My hands sink into the soft mattress as I lean back on them, waiting for Slade’s response.