141. Lazarus
LAZARUS
“No.” Brows furrowed, Violette stares down at the scroll as though it were nothing more than a stain, or a bit of shit on her shoe. She seems surprisingly... okay? The color has even returned to Levi’s cheeks as he reads the scroll from over her shoulder.
My eyes narrow with uncertainty. “No?”
Violette looks up at me from Azrael’s letter. “No.”
When Levi straightens, finished reading, she crushes it in her delicate fist.
In a flash of flame, the scroll burns to ash that flutters to the ground in the same moment that Violette wills her fighting leathers to be replaced with one of her gowns. She turns towards Levi, gently patting his cheeks. “Look alive, darling—we ride at dawn.”
What?
Ride at dawn?
Is she... joking?
She stares up at Levi, a small smile tilting her lips with a sparkle of hope in her eyes.
By some miracle, Levi’s mouth actually twitches before curling in a grin. “As you wish, my queen. I shall ready the bugle and trumpets.”
Bugle and trumpets?
Violette’s grin splits wide to accompany unrestrained laughter. Levi chuckles, wrapping his arm around her and presses a kiss to her head. It’s clear they have some kind of inside joke that I’m not part of, and it makes some small, lonely, petty part of me sink.
As if sensing it, their attention shifts to me—and the confused frown on my face.
To my surprise, Levi is the first to extend the proverbial olive branch. “And what of the horses?”
Encouragement sparkles in Violette’s eyes.
It’s clear they’re speaking in universal literary tropes, but for some reason, memory—no pun intended—fails me.
I find myself wincing at my own retort. “They’re... brewing the coffee?”
Levi’s head tips back on a deep rumble of laughter that drives my tension away. Replaces it with something warm. Something I can’t remember having felt... ever.
Violette titters, offering me her hand. “Come, soulbound. Time awaits no one.”
Unity, I realize.