“All of them.”
I baulk in surprise.“But they hate each other.”
“I know.”She glances back at the paper.It’s aged and scroll like, but too thick for me to see the words through the parchment.
“What do they want?”I ask.
“My help.They want me to adjudicate their mafia games.”
I shake my head, not quite understanding.She sighs.
“Their don must have died.”
“Or been killed?”
She shrugs.“Yeah, or that.But they need to elect a new leader.And they’re requesting a representative from each city to oversee and make sure it’s fair.”
“Are you going to do it?”I ask.
She shrugs.“Yeah, why not.Looks like they’ve invited Octavia from Sangui amongst other representatives.It would be a good chance to catch up, thank them for their help once again.”
“I think you’ll have to tell them you’re busy,” I say and slide my arms around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her neck.
My teeth skim her throat, and she tilts her head to give me better access.Her fingers reach up and thread through my hair.
“Mmm, you’re very busy, Chancellor Corvine.You have an urgent matter to attend to.”
I pull her desk chair out, swing it around and unbuckle her trousers.
“Midnight,” she whispers.
But I am too busy pulling her trousers down and nestling between her legs to listen.
It’s funny, but I used to carry the weight of time on my shoulders.Always pressing, always heavy, always present.
I’d always know what time it was.To the second.For over a decade that countdown was the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.
Now, I have no idea what time it is.
And for the first time in my long, strange, violent little life, I am in absolutely no rush to find out.
47
Architecti
Angels are meant to be divine.
We aren’t.Not really.
In the end, I knew she was going to destroy everything I made.But I couldn’t stop building.I didn’t want to stop.
Such an unbearable truth I must hold for eternity.I was the keeper of possibility, the weaver of infinite fates and yet the one future I never allowed myself to see clearly was my own.
The one where my sister was never going to love me back no matter how hard I cared.No matter how much I built and shaped and carved, she wouldn’t love me the way I wanted.
Oh, she loved me, but the only way she could: with vision and force.Fury and fire.Most of all, she loved me with violent destruction instead of the way I craved: with tender possibility.
I suppose, ultimately, I loved her with betrayal.
