Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
Dominick
Neither of them had slept much. The first thing Dominick wanted to do when he woke was go to Sera’s boarding room and check that the journal was still under her mattress. So that was where he and Theo were headed.
The events in the Menage the evening before had the entire Citadel in pandemonium.
Coven members from every class had rushed to their homes and bolted their doors. The aliato, however, had practically invaded the fortress city. The winged soldiers were on every street, including those of Daedeth Quarter. Patrolling. Surveying.
Dominick entered the boardinghouse, took Sera’s spare key from his pocket, and opened her bedroom door. It was…
Fine. Nothing was out of place, or at least there was no indication that the room had been searched. He crossed the floor, lifted the mattress, and exhaled a sigh of relief.
“It’s still here?” Theo asked.
“It is.” Dominick picked up the small notebook. “I think we should burn it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? You saw that warlock yesterday. He was pissing blood… Theo, they had cut out his tongue!”
Theo held his hands wide. “Teesina,” he cast, placing their sound barrier in place. “The Council of Elders is obviously hiding things. Which means the records the master oracle is keeping are false.”
“And if we get caught with these, what would that make us?” Dominick asked, straightening his robes before sitting on Sera’s bed.
Theo didn’t answer.
“Enemies… and what does the Council do to their enemies? Kill them.”
“I won’t be complicit in lies. Dominick, they’re changing our very history.” Theo paced back and forth across the wide wooden floorboards. “The outbreak of this war is already killing our people by the hundreds.”
“And what if they come for you?” Dominick said. He dropped his head in his hands. “I don’t think I would ever forgive myself if they did to you what they did to that warlock.”
Theo stopped his pacing. His shoulders sagged, and he sat on the bed beside Dominick. “Then we work to protect ourselves.”
“How?”
“We build barriers in our minds, we come up with a code, we learn more complex illusion spells.” Theo crossed his legs on the bed. “We’ll start with the barrier.”
Dominick stared at Theo, his earnest ocean eyes.
He’d meant it when he said he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. It was the closest he’d gotten to an admission of how he felt, but it was true. He’d be ruined if Theo was taken, especially over something stupid like miscalculated deaths.
But he also didn’t want to extinguish that passion in his lover’s eye. So Dominick turned to face Theo in a dirty boardinghouse in the middle of Jedan Quarter, and practiced.