“Don’t start, Ade,” Gerard warned.
“Jack seems … annoyed,” she noted all the same.
Kai could have shattered at the sound of her voice. Perhaps something inside himdid, something vital. Perhaps that was why he still could not move, could not race to the door and send her away to safety. His broth was cooling in his hands, limbs as weak as his will.
“Oh, and I suppose you think that’smyfault?” Gerard was saying hotly. “You thinkIput my foot in my mouth? Said something well intentioned but ultimately very hurtful, and those few words are the most he’s spoken to me in days?”
“That’s rather specific, love,” said Adeline, gently bemused. “Is that what happened?”
There was a decidedly exasperated rustle and clap, as though someone had thrown their hands up at their sides.
“Of course it is,” Gerard huffed, before the sound of his footfall echoed down the hall.
For a moment longer, Kai heard nothing more. He dared to hope, for the slow passing of seconds, that Adeline had followed her friend. Gerard might then realise the danger he’d put her in and drag her back to her own rooms. But the sinking in his gut said otherwise; she’d choose him, choose the risk, if even for just a single moment together. He knew she would.
And he was right.
She had her arms hugged around her middle as she rounded the door, some combination of nerves and the impenetrable chill dimming her usual sunlit glow. She paused on the threshold, a smile flickering. Too timid.
“Hello.”
Kai was halfway to her before he heard the crash of his mug on the floor, and it simply did not matter. Not when she surged to meet him in a buoyant wave of warmth and curls and indiscriminate kisses, her lips on his chin, his jaw, his cheek, his brow.
“You stubborn, bloody fool,” she whispered against his skin.
“Youstubborn, bloody fool,” he breathed into her hair. He clung to her, every muscle in his body defying him as he murmured, “You can’t be here, Adeline, you’re only safe as long as you stay away from me.”
And, he did not add, as long as he played his part for Avette. He didn’t need to say it aloud; he saw that Adeline heard the unspoken truth when she drew back, and he saw the ferocity in her knotted brow.
“I told you,” said Adeline, cupping his face with a gentleness entirely at odds with the set of her jaw. Her words ground out between clenched teeth. “She won’t win.”
Kai weaved his hands over hers, breaking her hold on him so he could knot his fingers in her hair. He locked his gaze with hers, dredging as much tenderness as he could from the withered scraps of his soul. Whatever was left belonged to her anyway; it was the very least he could do to offer them up.
“Shehaswon, Adeline,” he said gently. “I had a chance to end this, and I couldn’t. She owns me.”
“No—”
“She does. Because your safety hangs in the balance.” Her breath caught, and he felt it as an airless pang within his own chest, but Kai pushed urgently on through her silence. Sheneeded to understand; he was going to push her away,again, and this time he needed her to know why. “She threatens everyone I love, every single person—and Adhlas, Iloveyou. I can’t pretend I don’t. I couldn’t hide it even when you were halfway across the world. She knew, even then, and she wielded it as cruelly as she does her pendant. Now you’re here, and she’s going to see the way I look at you and the things I’ll endure to keep you safe, and it will only make her more vicious. So I need you to stay away from me. I need you to go.”
She laid her hands over his wrists, gripping hard as though she’d stop him from pulling away—which she might. His limbs felt barely solid enough to keep him upright, and the tug in his chest was stronger than his own will. Stronger still when she spoke, her voice thick, defiant even as she wobbled on the edge of overwhelm.
“I’m staying.”
His eyes fluttered shut, and he was almost grateful for the reprieve from her gaze, so wide and imploring he could hardly stand it.
“Please,” he rasped, each word more brittle than the last. “This is all I can do. You’re all I have left. I’ve already failed my court, they are undoubtedly wandering into a trap—”
“Kai,no.”
She broke free from his hold, and though her backward step felt like something physically torn from his own body, he was too weak and weary to stop her. His head swam at the sudden shift, but when he opened his eyes, she was still standing before him. So beautiful andsodetermined, eyes never leaving his as she rifled through the pockets of her woollen dress, until she drew out a handful of paper scraps in one hand and a shimmering blueconch shell in the other. She held up both, closing the distance between them once more with her hands cupped to his chest until his weary arms responded and lifted to take her offerings. Adeline plucked a scrap from his hand and unfurled it, holding it up for him to see. Kai read it; read it again, and again, confusion giving way to utter disbelief.
That was Oswalt’s handwriting scrawled out before him.
His breath evaporated from his lungs, from his very blood, knees buckling so violently he nearly dropped the handful of treasures as he sank to the bed. Adeline followed, settling gently beside him to pluck another scrap from his hand.
“This one’s from Ceri,” she whispered. “And from Al, see?”
Kai’s heart thundered for his cousin, his sister, his friend. Safe enough to write, tojoke.
