I stare at it for a beat longer than I should. The size is right. The shape, too. This was meant to carry the spindle.
“It’s gone,” I say at last, closing the lid.
Nick runs an impatient hand through his hair. “Devi must have taken it with her. Fucking hells.”
I shake my head. “No. Devi was already taking a huge risk going back to Faerie. She wouldn’t have gambled with something so precious.”
“She would,” he cuts in. “If she thought she could barter it for her freedom, she absolutely would.” His gaze flicks to the open wardrobe, then to the window. “It’s probably why she left without a word.”
“I know her better than that,” I snap. “If she left, she had her reasons, but I’m telling you, she wouldn’t part with something Mabel asked her to safeguard. She wouldn’t barter it away, never.”
“You think you know her better than I do?” Nick huffs.
We stare at each other with our eyes narrowed.
“I was here. I mean— I eavesdropped on their conversation,” I admit.
He laughs, but it is no happy sound. It’s the sound of Revolutionary Nick, the hardened soldier who picked up his backpack and left us to take the fight to the Reds, as he called it.
“You mean after everything you let yourself ignore for years, you know Devi well enough to be sure of what she would or wouldn’t do? When you couldn’t see what was going on right under your nose?”
A big frown wrinkles my face. “What are you talking about?”
“The blood, the glass beads, the stench out in the streets… It wasn’t the first time Devi was attacked, Max. Not by a long shot.”
My chest tightens. “Don’t use that tone. You weren’t even there.”
“You might’ve been physically present, Max, but your mind was always at the hospital with your patients—and lately tangled up in that farce of a wedding.” His jaw clenches. “Och. I’m glad that madness is over.”
I bristle. I was already beating myself up for missing the signs, for being too self-absorbed, but Nick wasn’t even in the same country. He wasn’t anywhere near Kerri when she died. He doesn’t get to lecture me about being present.
“That’s not fair,” I clip.
“Devi had you bring her groceries because she was stuck here for the foreseeable future. She wasn’t supposed to be using her magic outside these walls, but she helped one of my sources track down two witches and murdered a whole lot of people,” he goes on. “Didn’t you read about it on the news? The men were slaughtered by an invisible force, for crying out loud.”
The story shook the whole city. An entire human-trafficking operation brought down by the wrath of gods, they’d said.
I open my mouth, then close it again. “That was Devi?”
“Yes,” Nick says, gesturing dramatically. “She used her magic, and her curse retaliated.” His eyes flick to the puddle by the window. “She probably came home battered and bleeding, and someone knew how to take advantage. Do you really think Devi Eros had one of the most powerful artifacts ever made in her possession and just left it behind?”
He doesn’t wait for my answer.
“You built yourself a neat mortal life. Meanwhile, everything that actually matters—saving witches, returning to Faerie, and avenging our mother—got shoved aside,” he adds.
His gaze lingers on the empty crate, like he’s too disappointed to meet my gaze anymore.
“You have no right to judge my choices. You left us,” I croak.
“Aye,” he says quietly. “I left. Because someone had to stop pretending all this…inaction was alright.”
Unsaid grievances permeate the air between us.
I don’t remind him that he walked away without a word.
He doesn’t admit that watching me choose a medical textbook and scalpel over a grimoire felt like betrayal.
I hear it in the silence, anyway.
