Chapter 14 #2
“You’re the man who can’t swim, jumps into a lake, and is stunned when he drowns.
Unbelievable.” Jesstin stretched his arms above his head and hunched into quick squats, as though preparing for a leisurely run.
“You know, I believe you about the aerialist nonsense, but don’t pretend you didn’t benefit from what happened out there. Anytime Elloven suffers, you gain.”
It was a toss-up whether Taven was more tempted to reproach the insolent man for his nonsense or confirm it. Of course Ellie needed him. She always had. Always would. He didn’t require validation from Jesstin Skylark. “You know she’ll suffer if you die?”
“She’ll be free if I die.”
“You cannot be certain of that.”
Jesstin’s head wobbled back and forth. “They wouldn’t let me do this otherwise.” He stretched again.
Taven braced through his temptation to leave it there, to say nothing more, because Jesstin was likely right.
He no longer trusted what was fact, what was fiction, but the pretor’s family needed Elloven for something and wouldn’t let Jesstin die if it meant she’d die too.
“If you want to hurl yourself from a cliff later, I’ll command the wind to speed your demise, but if we agree on one thing, it’s that we need to leave here, with Ellie, before something worse happens. ”
A man wearing a leather suit and a tall hat peeked in. “You have one rotation to ready yourself for the harness.”
“Huh?” Jesstin’s face pinched at the man, who had already left.
“I am asking...” Taven grunted. “Begging you to put our differences aside, just long enough for us to help her.”
“Why did you bring her here?” Jesstin straightened. “The truth, if you can manage it.”
“The truth? It’s simple. I love her, have looked after her for most of her life, and believed bringing her here, to her people, was what was best for her.
” He had nothing to hide, but it didn’t mean Jesstin deserved his full truth.
“Until I can make sense of what they...” The heathen couldn’t know about his clairsight, where it had come from.
No one could, not even Ellie. “What they want from her, the best course is to withdraw and reorganize. You’re lying if you disagree. ”
“Uh-huh.” Jesstin’s brows fused. “If you’re bored, you could always look into what happened out there.”
“How do you mean?”
“You really think she fell by accident?” Jesstin shrugged.
“Just because some of them need her, doesn’t mean all of them need her.
” He clapped Taven on the shoulder. “If your wisdom is as enduring as you seem to think it is, then a vice-lord like myself would only be a hindrance.” He ran his hands through his hair and started outside.
Taven’s disbelief followed him. “You only pretend to care about her?”
Jesstin slowed and looked back over his shoulder.
“Whatever visions you had, they brought you here. Something else brought me here. You’re not curious why?
How? Well, I am. And if they won’t tell me what the fuck is going on here, then let’s see how they react to me sending myself to certain death.
” He winked. “I wouldn’t wager too much gold against me though, Considine. Not my first dance with the dead.”
The night had been the longest of Sesto’s life, and he hadn’t spent a minute of it with Jesstin.
His only mission was to make sure his friend didn’t get himself killed, and it had only taken one surreal evening to fail miserably.
Sesto had to remind himself that Jesstin wasn’t thirsting for death; he was challenging it. There was no talking Jesstin out of something once he was resolved. He could only endeavor to minimize the fallout.
What he could do was keep Lady Elloven calm.
If what Daire had said was true, and if her chaos magic made an appearance, the situation would be far worse.
Daire had been curious about Jesstin and Elloven’s relationship, and Sesto had led with his loyalty to Jesstin by abjectly denying any romantic or sexual interest on his friend’s behalf, but there was something between the two.
Intimacy was clearest in the quiet moments.
Like in the carriage, when Sesto had caught the two of them just missing each other’s glances.
How Jesstin didn’t even realize how often he prioritized Elloven’s well-being.
Holding out an arm if the carriage stopped too fast..
. watching for her reactions to everything others told her in the sept.
Even at Nightwood, when he’d been so furious with her, Sesto saw through to the heart of Jesstin’s anger and knew it for exactly what it was.
He’d never seen Jesstin more terrified than when he’d realized what Elloven had intended to do for him in Mythgarde.
However altruistic Lady Elloven’s intentions were, Jesstin couldn’t see them that way.
She challenged his defenses, and he couldn’t have that.
She questioned the lies he fed himself, in a way words themselves could never reach, not even Rhiain’s.
For too long, he’d operated on a steady regimen of barely suppressed rage and the thinnest band of self-regulation, and Sesto had been waiting for it to burst for years.
Lady Elloven intervening in his self-destructive dance, once more, would be more than enough to spark it.
They had to find her first.
“I don’t see her... I can’t see anything...” Daire craned his neck, rising to the tips of his toes. It was almost funny. As a fellow short person, Sesto related to both the effort and the futility.
“We go to where Jesstin is getting ready,” Sesto said. “She’ll end up there eventually.”
“Sesto, if she—”
“I know. You’ve told me. The maze will eat him alive the moment he loses focus.” Sesto crossed his arms. “Where do they keep men foolish enough to anger this monstrous hedge?”
Daire nodded absently, his mind clearly working the problem. Well, Sesto’s was too. It was more likely Elloven already knew. The pretor’s family might or might not have foreseen Jesstin throwing down a challenge at the Labyrinth of Deception, but they’d make use of it either way.
They started down the hill, into the valley of gardens that stood between them and the maze, and wove their way through groups of watchers unnoticed, like children running underfoot.
Daire spotted her first and waved his arms, but Elloven was on a mission.
She was half marching, half running toward a large tent, her strawberry hair snapping against the evening wind like an angry flag.
Ugh. Running, Sesto thought, right as he resolved he had no other choice if they wanted to intercept her. The other abbots at the Reliquary used to tease him for how light he was on his feet and how that was, apparently, not how running was done.
Huffing and puffing, Sesto slid in front of her.
She snapped her head in a tight, startled shake. “Sesto? Where have you been?” Her lips turned inward. “Did you know?”
“I most certainly did not,” Sesto said, indignant. A determined Jesstin was not a stoppable Jesstin. “But if that’s where you’re going, then let’s talk first.”
“There’s no time.” She thrust her arm toward the tent. Her face glowed red. “They’re starting any moment now!”
“Lady Elloven!” Daire’s pitched plea arrived before he did. “Please, it’s imperative I explain things to you... if you’d be obliged to listen.”
“Can we do this later, Daire?” she said. “Jesstin is about to get himself killed... again.”
“He knows, love,” Sesto said, taking her by the arm and turning her. She resisted, so he gave her a less-gentle tug, which she scoffed at. “Lady Elloven. Dear. You cannot stop this. What is in motion will remain in motion.”
“I can and I will stop it.” She wrenched her arm away. Fire flickered across her face. The wind picked up, and clouds moved faster across the dark sky.
“My lady, please,” Daire said gently. He touched her elbow, and the wind died down. “He cannot go into the labyrinth upset. And if your magic takes over when he’s in there, you will, without question, get him killed.”
Her eyes flared as she sized him up. “Me?”
“Do you trust me?” Sesto asked, only realizing the asininity of it after. She didn’t even know him. He wouldn’t trust someone he’d only just met.
She seemed poised to say exactly that, but her wild demeanor softened. “Jesstin trusts you. Asterin and Rhiain trust you. I suppose it would be shortsighted for me not to.”
Sesto sighed in relief. She was far more reasonable than Jesstin. “Then trust me when I tell you there is nothing you can do aside from wait.”
“How? How am I supposed to wait and just hope...” She flailed her arms.
“Once Daire explains matters, you’ll understand why we’re asking for caution and patience. Jesstin is different from anyone else who has done this.”
Elloven glanced at Daire, who nodded solemnly, then turned her attention back to Sesto. “What if I’m the only one who can save him?”
“Nothing you do can save him,” Daire said. “The labyrinth is warded against outside magic. You’ll only alert him to your own distress. Distractions will get him killed faster than anything else.”
“How is Jesstin unlike the others?” Elloven asked in challenge. “Because he’s not from here?”
“His enhanced necromancy, of course,” Daire said.
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head and shrugged her hands in confusion. “I’m sorry, his what?”
Sesto’s eyes fluttered closed. It was not how she should find out, but disclosure would calm her better than withholding. Jesstin could be testy about it later. “Jesstin can... on occasion... speak with the deceased.”
“Speak with the deceased,” Elloven replied, deadpan. A dull snicker escaped her throat. “Since when?”
Since before he killed your brother. “I can’t say for sure. A while. It isn’t something he’s particularly pleased about.”
Elloven shook her head at the ground. “No, it doesn’t make sense. That kind of magic doesn’t exist. If he could do this, he wouldn’t be walking around freely. He’d be at the Sepulchre. He’d be... studied.”