“We are not.”
“Why, again?”
“Diago doesn’t like it.” I check my sense of the alupi, but he doesn’t seem to be moving.
“Hm.” Eidhin looks at Aequa.
“Hm,” agrees Aequa sympathetically, watching the forest as cautiously as he is. Not quite as dubious as my redheaded Cymrian friend, but not far from it. She glances at me. “You’re sure about this?”
“He saved my life. Multiple times.” I make the assurance absently; this is a conversation we’ve already had. Veridius conceded earlier that alupi were smart and loyal enough that, perhaps, my history with Diago could have accounted for his fending off the iunctii after the Labyrinth. But given everything since then … “And I cansensehim. I don’t know why I have this connection to him, but if it’s something to do with what happened in the Labyrinth …”
“I know. You want to chase every lead you can, no matter what the Principalis says. You can’t stop a Cataclysm if you’re dead, though,” she reminds me.
“We jumped the wall so I wouldn’t have to have this conversation,” I note, alittle tetchily. Veridius hasn’t bothered putting the tracker bracelets on us again, but I know he’d deem what I’m doing too dangerous.
Silence as we wait. A lot of that, since I got back from the dormitory. We spoke briefly during dinner, but for the most part, we’ve all been largely lost in thought. Trying to come to grips with everything we’ve learned today.
“We could tell everyone, you know,” Aequa says suddenly. “Make what Veridius told us public. Leave all of this to the Republic. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“We could.”
“The Senate would listen to you. As absurd as that is,” adds Eidhin.
I give him a crooked smile. “They might.”
Neither of them are actually suggesting it, though. Not really. It’s just something that had to be spoken aloud, the obvious idea we all need to make sure we’ve agreed to discard. In a perfect world, revealing the impending danger pulls the Senate together. They put all their time and resources into figuring out what’s coming and how to stop it, without bias or hesitation. Without even a thought as to who might benefit most, during or after the crisis.
There is a reason Veridius hasn’t told them.
Aequa sighs. “So we’re going to do exactly what the Principalis has been doing,” she concludes quietly. “Keep the end of the world a secret?”
Still no motion from Diago; I take a moment to encourage him toward us again, my shout vanishing into the swaying trees, then exhale heavily. Nod. “I suppose so.” Still hard to wrap my mind around the concept. The end of theworld. Even now, the thought fills me with a disconnected sense of unease more than the genuine panic I know it should. As if something so vast and terrifying can’t be real, is so impossible to imagine that it cannot be properly feared. “Gods.”
Grim silence, and then Aequa rubs her face. “You know, it’s not the Cataclysm, so much,” she observes. “It’s more that you might be our only hope of stopping it.”
I gesture rudely as Eidhin shakes his head. “That is barely a concern—”
“Thank you, Eidhin.”
“Barely a concern next to the fact there are apparently three of him now.”
“Gods. I’d almost forgotten that part,” says Aequa.
“Proof that evil powers are at play,” adds Eidhin gloomily. I glare at him. He holds my stare for a long, long second. Expression unchanging. “Threeof you. By all the dead and rotting gods.”
Aequa finally breaks and laughs as I snort, unable to contain a small grin of my own. Some sense of relief washing through me at the gentle mocking. No different to yesterday. They’re not looking at me strangely, not being careful or cautious about how they’re treating me. I’m glad. I don’t know if I could have taken that, on top of everything else.
I make another gesture in Eidhin’s direction and then turn back to the forest. There’s movement from Diago now. Pace languid, though he’s clearly heading toward us. “He’s coming.”
I feel the anxiety of the others beside me and I can’t help but shift apprehensively myself, casually placing myself between them and him. I truly don’t believe he’ll attack me, but that confidence doesn’t extend to anyone else, just yet.
A few more seconds and the massive alupi stalks from the shadows into the orange of my torchlight. His dark eyes assess the three of us, and I can see Eidhin’s muscles bunching. Can hear Aequa’s breathing suddenly stop. All of us frozen, tensed in anticipation.
Diago huffs, then turns in an unhurried circle and lies down on the grass.
Aequa and Eidhin exchange relieved looks, and I feel the tautness leaving my own limbs. “See?” I take a step forward. Hold out my hand with one of the scraps of meat I took from the kitchen. Wave it enticingly. “Come here, Diago …”
Diago watches the meat disinterestedly, and doesn’t move.
