Suddenly, he turns on me, lifting a finger to my face. “You’re sure this has nothing to do with your sudden absence from Sterling tonight? Some way to get back at him for spending his Esbat with her rather than you?”
I purse my lips, lowering my gaze. “My troubles with Sterling have nothing to do with this. Forgive me for thinking you’d like to know if the girl was in danger.”
“Why do you care? You’ve made your stance on Evangeline quite clear. Why the sudden change of heart?”
“I thought we’d both madethatstance, Aamon. Yet here you are, spending your Esbat between her legs.” I cock an eyebrow towards him. “Besides. It doesn’t matter what I think. Sterling has insisted on pursuing her. Which means if she’s in danger, he’s in danger. When Sterling loves something, he loves with his whole being. And I have no doubt he would easily give up his life if it means saving hers. AndI don’t want him to be the thing standing between Andras and the girl.”
Aamon crosses an arm over his chest, papers folded against his ribs as he rests his jaw in his other hand. His knuckles pass absent-mindedly over his mouth as he thinks. “So what would you have me do with this?” he asks. His eyes are wide. Disbelieving and yet uncertain. Helpless.
“Send her away,” I say after pausing for several moments. “Make her leave. Not just the ungoverned district, but all of Requiesse.”
He scoffs, throwing his hands in the air as he takes to pacing again. “I can’t do that, Ezekiel.”
“Of course you can. She’s bloodbound to you, is she not? She will have to obey a direct command from you.”
“It’s not that simple.” He drops onto the bed, letting the papers fall to the mattress with the others as his head hangs in his hands. “If I do that, it will wreck her. I cannot repeat what her father did. I won’t hurt her like that.”
I sink back into the chair beside the desk. “Fuck, you’ve really fallen for her, haven’t you?”
Aamon looks up at me, eyes exacerbated. There’s bags under them, and it’s beyond obvious he needs blood. Badly. But all of that can’t do anything to hide the emotional torment that love brings. And a pang of jealousy runs through me, forcing me to look away.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admits.
“You get her to safety. No matter how much it hurts her. No matter how much it kills you. You order her away because if you do not, Andras will take her and hand her right back to her father. And she will be subjected to a lifetime of experimentation under that bastard’s orders. Or worse, she’ll experience the same thing here under Andras’ watch when he decides he no longer feels like playing nice with Raziel.”
I rifle through the letters beside him on the bed, handing him the worst of them. “She will never see the light of day again, Aamon. So it doesn’t matter how much you love her. How badly you want to be with her. You order her away to save her. And you make her believe it. Because if she comes back, Raziel will get her and never let her go. Not now that he knows the full extent of her power.”
Aamon’s eyes flit over more text, taking in the details I already read hours ago. The ones that outline how Evangeline's magic has since manifested, and the hefty sum Raziel has agreed to pay to get her back.
“Okay,” he says at last. His voice is defeated, his shoulders slumped. He lets the papers fall back onto the bed, shaking his head. “Okay,” he repeats. “I’ll do it. But under one condition.”
“Now isn’t the time to negotiate.”
Aamon holds up a finger. “I’ll send her away, but only if you promise to go with her.”
I open my mouth to argue, to explain that she won’t want my company. Not after how poorly I’ve treated her. But he continues before I can get a word out. “You already know Sterling won’t leave her side. Quinn may be just as obsessed with her, but he won’t leave me. Not for anything. And as much as I trust Sterling, I know she will need more to keep her safe out there.”
I sigh, shaking my head.
“I know you and Sterling have spent time out there. You can do it again. You can keep her alive. Go with her, prepare ahead of time. Take whatever you need, just be ready. Because if what you say is true, we need to act fast. Andras will notice these are gone.” He gestures back to the papers behind him. “So we need to make a movenow. Before the sun sets.”
A chill runs through my body at the idea of returning to the WildLands so soon. But I don't have much of a choice. If Aamon orders the girl away, Sterling will go too. And I can’t let him be out there alone. He barely made it out alive the first time, and now he’ll have a whole other life to care for.
“You want to send her out in the broad daylight?” I ask, shaking my head.
“Like I said." The smirk returns to Aamon’s lips. Fainter this time, weighed down with the sadness in his eyes. “She was well fed last night. It will hurt like the hells, but she’ll make it.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. I shake my head, pushing off my knees to stand. I slip off my cut, folding it gingerly and laying it across the chair I was sitting in. “How much time can you give me?” I ask as I move through the room.
“Two hours at most." He turns towards the papers, gathering them up into one neat stack. “But we need to get her out of here with plenty of time before Andras wakes. So she’s nowhere near the city’s border when he realizes she’s gone.”
“Want me to put them back?” I gesture down to the bed. “May buy us more time if they appear untouched.”
Aamon shakes his head. “I have other plans for them.”
My face hardens. “Aamon . . .” I warn. But he doesn’t give me time to argue.
“Thank you for sharing this with me, Zeke. You have no idea how much—” Aamon swallows, shoving down whatever emotion is threatening to spill out of him. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t.”
