Chapter 57
Chapter fifty-seven
Dominick
Pink slivers of light were breaking across his floor when he decided he needed to leave.
Dom walked the streets of the Citadel complex looking for Theo.
He hadn’t shown up last night. They had made plans; Theo knew it was important.
Dom’s hands shook within his robes as he stepped onto the white stone of Daedeth’s streets.
Bakers and merchants were setting up their stalls and unlocking their doors as he raced to Theo’s flat. Dom pounded on the door again and again, yelling his name.
There was no answer.
So he turned to the only place he had left.
“Have either of you seen Theo?” He was frantic. His parents looked at him as if he were drunk. He wished he were. Wished that in a few hours, he’d snap out of his stupor.
“What is wrong with you?” His father’s clipped voice shot through him. “Your mother is a wreck, and you charge in acting a fool?”
“He’s gone,” Dom whispered.
His mother set her teacup down with a delicate clink. “When did you last see him?”
“Yesterday morning. He left early for the pools.” Dom collapsed into the kitchen chair. “They were closed when I tried to return… when I realized he wasn’t home.”
“We’ll find him,” his mother said.
Tristan Benero nodded and swung his red cloak around his shoulders. “He must be somewhere within the walls.”
Desperate for help, he followed his father from the row house. His stomach was sour from stress and lack of food, but the thought of eating something made it worse. He had to find Theo.
“You sure he’s not visiting a friend or something?” his father asked.
“No, it was…” Dominick hesitated. It didn’t matter what his father thought. Theo mattered more. “It was an important night. He knew it was important. Theo wouldn’t have missed it.”
“Dominick.” His father stopped. Dom noticed for the first time the gray hairs in his father’s goatee. The lines around his eyes. He’d aged years, it seemed, since Colton. “You and Theodore are good for each other. We’ll find him, bring him home for a hot meal, and all will be right.”
Something in his chest snapped. Instead of shame flooding in, it felt something like relief. Relief that his father saw him for who he truly was and, in his way, had given permission for Dom to be himself.
Dom wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Thank you, Father.”
“Come on. You recheck the pools, and I’ll go to the dining hall and common areas in Darine Hall.”
Dom raced up the front steps of the Ogdelo, ignoring the mastria and the aliato posted at the entrance. He kept the wall tight around his mind, not bothering to give them a memory to latch onto.
The pool was quiet. A few oracles were on platforms, starting their day’s quota.
Throwing his hands out, he pulled for Theo.
A string of blue wobbled, then pulled tight, racing for him.
It didn’t fall apart or crumble; he was still alive.
He wished he had gotten far enough in his training to pull the image, but this was enough; it had to be. Theo was alive. But where was he?
Too many were disappearing. Too many had been executed by Raphael’s blade over the past week. He wouldn’t let it happen to Theo.
Dom raced down the steps to meet his father in the Darine courtyard.
Tears spilled down his cheeks. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Theo was fucking gone.
Colton, Nora, Sera… Theo.
Heavy arms wrapped around him. His father pulled him to his chest, and Dom broke. “I’ll take you home, son.”
They left the courtyard. His father hugged his shoulders tight in one arm and guided him through Daedeth Quarter’s streets back to his childhood home. His father didn’t let go until he sat him down in a chair facing the bronze clock in his parents’ sitting room.
He had to keep hope. Had to.
A high-pitched ringing in his ears drowned out the sound of his parents whispering in the other room. Quiet. Numb. Nothing but the clock ticking away in time with his heart.
“Dominick!” his mother screamed as she ran into the room and threw him to the floor.
A second later, his father was above them… and the walls caved in.