Chapter Thirty-Four
Olympia
Ididn’t have the slightest clue what Milo and Jude were talking about. They were speaking too quickly for me to understand even if I did and they’d been doing so since the moment Jude pulled us through that gate and led us back to his own personal study deep within the mysterious House of Harlowe.
He’d kicked all the acolytes and students out and locked the doors behind them before sitting down with Milo and both journals. Then they’d begun muttering incomprehensibly about dates and timelines not matching up and the differences in Simi’s tone throughout.
I wandered around the room, looking for weak points, spots where anyone might be listening in just to fill the time.
There were none. So I busied myself with reading the spines of the books on his shelves instead, trying to ignore every mention of the necklace now currently dangling around my throat, the one Milo had forbidden me from taking off until we were safely back on House Avus property.
I was starting to get the distinct impression I was only here to protect this thing which seemed to be his ticket into Harlowe.
Jude kept glancing my way from time to time, lifting his head from where it was bowed with Milo’s to check that I, and the necklace or whatever this thing really was, was still there.
I glared back at him each time so he returned to his study quickly enough but the leader of the House of Harlowe was acting suspicious, I couldn’t deny that.
He seemed fidgety as he stared down at his books.
His focus was drifting away from his reading far more than my cousin’s. Something was off.
I was beginning to think their research was never going to end when Milo said my name, drawing my attention to them.
“Go home, Olympia,” he commanded. “Get some rest.”
Jude’s frown deepened as his gaze dipped to my neck and I knew his displeasure was more for the jewel leaving his presence than me.
I chewed the inside of my cheek with hesitation.
I couldn’t leave Milo here unprotected, not with Jude acting as out of sorts as he was, not with so many unexplained mysteries surrounding this necklace and the strange temporary camaraderie it seemed to spark, but I couldn’t disobey a direct order from my Heir either.
“I’d rather stay here to make sure you’re–” I started.
“Jude knows if he harms me, he’ll never lay eyes on the necklace again,” Milo said easily, without looking up from the page he was reading, the threat plain in his tone.
I blinked back, stunned. Maybe Milo truly was growing into his authority.
Jude frowned in response but dropped his eyes back to the book before him a moment later.
My cousin finally looked my way and narrowed his gaze so I understood.
This dismissal was more about getting the jewel to safety than it was about me.
Whatever this necklace was, Milo seemed to believe it was more important than him.
Though I didn’t agree, I nodded back to show I would do as I was told.
Then, leaving the two of them alone in Jude’s study, I made my way out of the House of Harlowe with more than a few glances in my direction and a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The members of the House didn’t seem to care greatly for Jude’s decision to let us in and even less for his lack of escort at my departure, but it didn’t matter.
Their leader had made his choice and now Milo had what he wanted.
I’d tried to warn Jude before. You didn’t tell the Heir no.
Maybe it was the long day I’d had. Maybe I was more emotionally spent and exhausted than I realized. Maybe it was a prolonged feeling of apprehension about all things Harlowe I couldn’t shake that distracted me. But I didn’t see him.
He was standing right out there on the street, just behind the light illuminating the House of Harlowe, hidden in the shadows of the stairwell protruding down into the Second Ring.
The moonlight glinted off the sharp edge of his blade a moment before he was on me and I heard the brief intake of breath as his blade slashed toward my throat.
I cursed and reacted on instinct, raising my hands in time to make contact with his forearm, shoving him hard and driving his momentum down away from my neck.
He swore at the miss and lunged for me again.
In a panic, I leapt back and lifted my arms to shield myself.
That only earned me a deep slice across my forearms. I cried out in pain as blood blossomed against my pale skin and dripped down through my sleeves.
I fumbled for the knife in my boot as my arms grew numb, half walking, half crawling back toward the House of Harlowe.
They certainly wouldn’t let me in now, not pursued by a madman as I was, but I was desperate and it was worth a shot.
“Jude!” I cried, knowing the man himself wouldn’t hear me but if someone beneath him heard me calling for their leader, maybe they’d get him, maybe they’d let me in the gate. “Jude, please! Let me back–”
My voice failed me as my assailant finally took a step into the light and my lips parted in pure shock as Bade wiped his bloody nose on the sleeve of his shirt and frowned at me.
“Bade?” I asked, gaping at him.
“Godsdamned it, Olympia,” he growled, sniffling. “I really wish it had been anyone but you.”
With that, he lunged. But he’d given me the time I needed to prepare, to come to terms with what was occurring.
Whether he’d given me that time intentionally, as a way to recognize what existed between us, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t intend to ask as I rolled to the side and came up bouncing on my heels, knife in hand after having finally managed to extract it from my boot.
His gaze dropped to the knife and I saw him grip his own blade tighter.
It was a long, jagged thing, twice the size of mine and meant to destroy anyone who got too close.
The problem with a knife fight was that you always had to get too close.
I eyed the blade warily as we sized each other up, crouching and preparing for the next move, whatever it may be.
I prepared myself for the pain I knew was coming and grit my teeth as I fought to maintain my grip on my own blade while blood poured between my fingertips from the wound Bade had already inflicted.
“Why?” I croaked out across the distance between us, across dark stones and cruel shadows.
“We are creatures of our Houses, Olympia,” he called back. I could hear the anguish in his voice but couldn’t spare him the pity at the moment, not when he was doing everything he could to kill me. “We do as we’re told.”
He lunged again, but I was ready. With a grunt, I ducked, avoiding the first sweep and kicking out at his calf.
He growled when my boot connected to the muscle there and he went careening forward into the night.
I got to my feet again, readjusted my grip on the knife, and stared into the darkness, willing my enhanced eyesight to make him out amongst the shadows.
Unfortunately, Bade had the distinct advantage of having prepared for this fight.
A moment later, he came running out of the night.
He tackled me to the stones, knocking the wind out of my lungs so that I wheezed when my back hit the pavement.
We grappled for a moment, Bade wrestling for my arms, trying to reach the knife, me slashing out wildly to get him off of me.
He gripped my wrist and held it up so I couldn’t slash at him any longer.
I whimpered and wriggled beneath him, desperate to get free.
With his other hand, he reached for his dagger.
“If there’s anything you want them to know…” he started, trailing off as he flipped his blade and prepared to strike.
I was seconds away from death. I could see it haunting me from the depths of Bade’s dark eyes. With my knife gripped in the wrist Bade held above me, trapped so firmly beneath him as I was, there was only one thing I could do. I hated myself for it, for even thinking of it.
I nodded through my tears and he hesitated, only for a second, to allow me to speak my last words.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed and then dropped my knife.
In one fluid motion, I reached out with the wrist Bade did not hold and caught the blade. Then I slammed it into his gut.
Bade’s eyes went wide as he sat back on his heels, still straddling me. He looked slowly down to the knife protruding from his stomach and the growing pool of blood against his abdomen, soaking into my pants, in shock.
“I’m sorry,” I wept, pulling myself out from beneath him and crawling forward through the blood. I swiped his dropped blade aside and slid forward until my head was against his chest and my tears were soaking through his shirt just above where his blood was soaking through below. “I’m so sorry.”
“Tell him,” Bade said softly, a rattle behind his words I knew meant he didn’t have long. “Tell him I loved him.”
Then he breathed his last and slumped forward against me.
“No,” I whined, gripping his head in my hands and holding him up. “No, Bade, no. Fuck!”
I had to get the knife. I couldn’t leave it here to be found and connected to me. This was a First Ringer dead on the Second Ring right outside of the House of Harlowe. Bade would be found, questions would be asked, and I had to make sure those answers didn’t lead back to me, to my House, to Milo.
We are creatures of our Houses, Olympia. We do as we’re told.
I was sobbing when I wrenched the knife from his gut, wiped it off on my bloodied pants, and rose on shaking legs.
That was when I remembered my forearm and the blood I’d lost too.
I sidestepped, off balance, and nearly fell right back over into the puddle of blood growing beneath Bade, running in grooves through the pavement and toward the House of Harlowe.
I breathed heavily as I stared up at the lights illuminating the House of Harlowe’s courtyard, the lights emanating from within the House itself.
They wouldn’t let me in and I couldn’t risk going up to the First where the gods only knew how many Vipers were after me in the night.
Bade was the best of them. He’d known where to find me.
But that didn’t mean he was the only one after me.
Woozy, I stumbled to the side and caught myself on the gate. I blinked at the iron gripped in my bloody hand. When had I gotten back here?
I looked up at the stairs ascending to the First and turned toward where I knew those descending to the Third would be. I needed help and I wasn’t going to find it going up. Resolved, I stumbled forward a step.
Get to Avus, I sent out the moment I had the strength to do so. Get to Isla. Tell her to send Pax down to the Second. Milo is with Jude. Something is…he might be in danger.
Olympia? Luca replied after a moment. I could hear the confusion in his tone, the concern. What is it? What’s wrong?
Get to Avus, I repeated, stumbling once on the stairs and nearly falling down them all. I gripped the wall for support for a moment to catch my breath and left a bloody handprint there when I moved on. Get to Isla. Send help for Milo. He’s with Jude.
Olympia.
Please, Luca.
I’d tell him about Bade. I’d tell him exactly what happened and let him decide if he could ever forgive me for what I’d done, but not now.
That was a conversation best had in person when I wasn’t covered in the blood of the man he’d loved, when I wasn’t dripping blood of my own all over the cobblestones of the Third Ring.
It smeared against the door to the apartment building as I fell against it. It was blessedly propped open as always. I pushed with all my might until it budged enough to slide myself inside. Then I started up the stairs.
I collapsed more than once and had to pull myself up with the strength of my will and desperation alone.
I knew I was bleeding all over the stairwell.
I knew I was leaving a trail right back to the scene of the crime that had occurred on the Second.
I knew now all hope of slipping away quietly into the night had vanished.
But it didn’t matter, because it was about survival now.
My vision was narrowing to a blurry pinprick of light as I made it to the fourth floor and crawled toward the door at the top.
Darkness had closed in around the edges and I could feel consciousness slipping away.
I had only moments. In a blind panic, I lunged forward, slamming into the door with all my might before crumpling to the ground beneath it.
I watched the blood gathering on the stones in front of me as I listened to the rushing steps from inside the apartment.
But just as the doorknob above my head began to shake, just as the door whooshed open and released a welcome burst of cold air, the darkness claimed me.