That was logical, even if Zeb wanted to run to the gate in the straightest possible line. He matched Gideon’s brisk pace and ducked round to his painful side, got his shoulder under Gideon’s, took a bit of his weight.
“Thanks,” Gideon said on a breath. They were walking at a speed that couldn’t be called running but was uncomfortably brisk. “Didn’t go well with Bram?”
“You were right. He killed Elise.” Zeb had to stop there a second, pressing his lips together against the wave of grief and anger. “He said Florence’s ghost made him do it.”
“God.”
“He wasn’t in his right mind. Wynn’s been drugging him, and scaring him out of his wits, and it was all Florence this and Elise that. But even so…he was still going after the inheritance. That was what mattered to him. In the end, it was all that mattered tohim.” The words were desolate in the moorland air.
“Yes,” Gideon said. “That’s what he chose. And if there was ever anything to be done about it, it wasn’t by you, and it wasn’t now.”
They walked for a moment in the silence you got when there was nothing else to say. Gideon steered them down a side path. “Let’s head to the damned drive. Ow.”
“You shouldn’t have been running around the house,” Zeb said, his voice wobbling with gratitude that Gideon had done exactly that. “How were you there?”
“I had a look around the room while I was waiting for you and found another secret passage which I realised must lead towards the hall. I’d noticed earlier that you’d left your satchel with the coats there, and I suspected you might not remember. So I thought I’d try to get it.”
“My—” Zeb belatedly noticed what he was holding. His satchel, reassuringly thick with paper. “Wait. You went out there just to get my manuscript? You saved mybook?”
“Well,” Gideon said, sounding a touch embarrassed. “You write them, and I’ll look after them?”
Zeb couldn’t find words. Gideon gave him a quick smile. “And we couldn’t abandon the new Faraway Meadow. Imagine what my nieces would say. Anyway, I had started heading back after the gong, and I thought I heard you shout, so I came to listen.”
“Thank you,” Zeb said raggedly. “Jessamine locked me in. I couldn’t get out, and—and I thought, if you didn’t go, if you waited for me and you missed the chance to escape because ofme—”
“Of course I didn’t go. I made you a promise, remember? A concrete and specific promise that you can mark as kept, and to which you can refer back as evidence when you’re wondering about future promises.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have!”
“But I did, because I love you,” Gideon said. “You lit up my life when you asked if you could buy me a drink, and when the light went away—I can’t do that again. I am with you and that is all there is to it, even if it means staying in this hellhole. Although, in the name of all that’s holy, can we not.”
“Amen,” Zeb said. “And I knew you wouldn’t go without me, really. That’s why I was so upset. Because I knew.”
“Good,” Gideon said softly. “Then—Ohshit!”
Zeb didn’t know what he meant for a moment, and then he saw it. Far too far ahead of them, well out of hailing distance, a horse-drawn cart, heading up the drive, towards the gate.
“Run,” they said together.
Zeb hadn’t run any sort of distance in a very long time. He set off at a spanking pace, far too fast, because his legs started to hurt within a few steps. It was so cold that every dragged-in breath felt like broken glass in his lungs. His shoes were utterly inadequate and dangerously slippery, his satchel and overcoat felt like they weighed as much as himself again, and this was a nightmare where you ran and ran without ever getting any nearer your goal.
Gideon had hurt, perhaps cracked, ribs, and he was stillcharging on though his breath heaved and sobbed. Zeb put his head down, and forced his thighs to move, tasting something like iron in his mouth. Something like blood.
Blood. Wynn. Bram. Hawley.
Run.
“Can’t,” Gideon gasped. “Can’t. You go.”
The cart wasn’t so far ahead now, but the gate was in sight, too, and the gatekeeper might emerge any moment. Zeb looked over his shoulder, grabbed Gideon’s hand, and said, “Motor. They’re coming.”
He could feel the pulse of shock. Gideon made a panicked noise and sprinted with a last burst of energy, long legs covering the ground, accelerating away. Zeb pounded after him, trying to catch up and failing, blood roaring in his ears, and then Gideon stopped running and doubled over, hands on knees, and Zeb thought,No, no, no, you can’t give up now, and took just a few more frantic paces before he realised the cart had stopped too.
The carter was twisted round in his seat, looking at them both oddly. Zeb could hardly blame him.
“Lift,” he managed through whoops as he attempted to suck in oxygen from air that seemed very short of the stuff. “Town?”
“In a hurry, are ’ee?” the grocer’s man enquired.
