“So long as he has designs on hurting this charming young lady,” said Johann, “what other choice has Cedric left us?”
Helena smiled at Johann, though her expression faltered when she again glanced to me, almost as if she assumed I had to be scowling within my hood, and that I was aiming my disapproval at her.
She must think I was agitated by this turn of events, and my friends’ intervention. By her, too. Maybe I hadn’t exactly given her a different impression.
“If White finds out,” I argued, “if any of The Few find out—”
“No one’s going to find out,” said Johann. “And I’ll tell you why.”
I shook my head, because I didn’t like where this was going. I was the one who’d broken the rules. In fact, I wasn’t sure at this stage if there were many that I’d leftunbroken. Johann and Flora had to understand I wasn’t about to let them go down with me.
“This isn’t—”
“Shut up, Grim,” said Johann. And because it was Johann, and only because it was Johann… I did. It was Flora, though, who picked up on providing the explanation for the bizarre scenario I’d walked in on.
“We explained to your lass what you were trying to tell her—how she’s fated to move on and go into the White Basin. She told us how you saved her on that balcony, something that put a wrench in our works here.”
“Putting it mildly,” mumbled Johann with a short and wry huff of a laugh, his words earning him a slight smile from Helena, who in my absence had apparently—though unsurprisingly—endeared herself to both my cohorts.
How could she still smile while we were all casually discussing her impending departure from this life?
“After finding out about Cedric’s… incapacitation,” Flora continued, “Helena thought it might be a good idea for her to return home and, well, let fate do its job.”
“Not exactly a delicate way of putting things,” I snapped at Flora, who blinked at me, taken aback. Then she scowled, her cheeks flushing red—never a good sign.
“Well, I’m not the coldhearted numpty who told her the only reason I was saving her was to keep my bony ass from getting sacked!”
“Thatwasthe only reason I was saving her!” I roared.
Like yelling it would make it true.
“You’re a right fibber and a big ugly mood killer,” she said, crossing her arms as she glared up at me. “And you’ve got zero game, Grim.”
Helena giggled and my head snapped her way. Again, she stifled her mirth, mistaking my sudden attention—my utter shock at her reaction—for reproach. Was that because she still thought of me as mean?
I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t like I had a face she could read.
Or maybe Iwasmean.
I hadn’t meant to be. Not to her.
Taking a step toward me, Helena spoke up at last. “It’s okay, Grim. What Flora, Johann, and I came up with was this. Basically, I go back home, return to life, and… well… wait for you.”
My soul contracted, clenching into a tight iron ball of pain.
Wait for her death to occur was what she meant.
“Then,” Helena continued, “you can take the hidden method Flora has found to infiltrate the realm of the White Basin, smugglingmy soul in so that no one will know I was ever missing. When I’m accounted for and sent on my way, you can release Cedric.”
Flora must have told her I’d asked about entering the White Basin covertly. Did she think of me as a coward?
Why did being banished to the Black Basin seem preferable to that?
“Cedric won’t be able to do anything of consequence at that point,” observed Johann as he stroked his beard. “Even if he went to tattle to Sir White, he wouldn’t have any evidence, would he?”
This was a bad idea.
“C’mon,” said Flora, as if she’d been able to read my thoughts. “This is a banger of an idea. And what’s more, your hen’s the one who thought it up.”
