‘It wasn’t,’ Locke says quietly a moment later.
‘What wasn’t?’ I ask in spite of myself.
‘Worth it, Bryn. Nowhere near.’
I scoff and then take no more notice of him.
A little while later, Jak comes back. He seems glad to see me. He offers me food.
I don’t look at him. He and Morgan speak in quiet tones where I can’t hear. They don’t talk to Locke at all, I notice.
Later, Morgan comes and tells me that we’ll all be leaving for the Light the next morning.
I let him know with a snarl that his joke is in poor taste, and I try to ignore thefalseempathyin his eyes when he tells me that he understands why I wouldn’t believe him.
I wonder where they’re really taking me tomorrow. Will they try to get close to me once more? Try to make pretend amends so that it’s all the sweeter when they betray me again?
I stare into the glowing embers far into the night and I vow to myself that I will never trust any fae ever again, let alone these three cruel pricks.
LOCKE
The next day,Morgan and Jak have to leave before us.
I don’t like it because if Warrior was able to escape the pits, he could already be lurking in Merediea, but the councils in both Halsford and in the Underhill are filled with bureaucrats as faras I’m concerned, bar one or two, and they won’t take kindly to the idea of anyone travelling the Breach in and out of the Light without their permission, which is given rarely outside of special circumstances. Saving a ‘Dark Realmer’ would not be considered a sufficient reason. Not these days. It’s best that no one knows that they ever left the village.
They use the slightly odd-looking amulet Morgan got fromsomewhereto call the Breach in the dark corner of a cellar in an abandoned warehouse not far from the room I keep in the White City. We’ve known of this place, this secondary anchor for the Breach for a while. We and other spies of the Underhill have used it many times since it was found by accident, and, in fact, the fae now own the entire building to ensure no one else stumbles across it.
It’s on a practically derelict street down by the docks, but I still keep an eye out in case anyone got through the wards somehow, or Warrior is waiting. Jak and Morgan step into the void with final looks at Bryn, which she ignores, and they disappear, leaving her and me alone.
‘It won’t be long,’ I say after a few moments of standing in silence, trying to reassure her…and myself, I suppose, as I brush my thumb over the purple stone of my own amulet that was loaned to me by the Underhill to return to the Light from here when my part of the mission was complete.
Bryn’s eyes are on it, and I wonder if she’s planning to steal it from me and escape.
‘It only works from this cellar,’ I say quietly, ‘and it only goes to the Light, so you might as well just come with me.’
She doesn’t say anything and I let out a long breath.
Though I’m glad to be returning home after so many months in the Dark Realms, a part of me worries. The village is finemostly, and we have a cottage that we use when we’re not outon assignment. But, in truth, we haven’t spent much time there since the fire two winters previous.
I glance at Bryn who’s standing next me. She stares straight ahead at nothing, as if she’s waiting for me to give her an order. Her expression is familiar, one I’ve come to understand is a mask she wears when she’s in the company of masters. I hate it because I see now that she had begun to let me glimpse beneath it before all this. Before what I did.
Now, well, she’s barely looked at any of us, not spoken either. She’s very angry. Rightfully so. Hurt, as well. That, I didn’t expect. Fool that I am, I didn’t understand that she truly cared for Jak and Morgan. I thought the regard she showed them was a trick during our journey from The Barrack to Merediea, simply a means of survival for her. I didn’t begrudge her it, but I see now that I was wrong. She feels betrayed by them more than me, I think. She had truly begun to trust them, and I blew it all apart to get what I wanted.
As we wait for our own small bridge to open, I turn to her.
‘It wasn’t them,’ I say, hoping she’ll listen to me today because she refused to last night. ‘Morgan and Jak. When they left you, it was because they didn’t remember. I worked magick on them both so that I could complete the mission without them.’
‘It hardly matters,’ she says stiffly after a moment. ‘It’s not as if I’ll ever see them again, is it?’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
She rolls her eyes before staring straight ahead once more. ‘Come, Locke. I’ve at last learned my lessons where the fae are concerned. Where are you really taking me? Are you going to make a little extra coin by selling me to some First Circle goblin lord? Or to the Citadel as a cleaner? Or, maybe, you don’t have a plan at all. Maybe you’ll just sell me to the first master who’s interested.’
‘No, Bryn,’ I say, gently, wishing she’d believe me because I know she’s likely terrified under all this pretended nonchalance. ‘I’m not selling you. We’re going to the Light. I vowed it to you, remember?’
Snorting, she looks away from me.
‘Of course. The Light Realm. Just as you promised.’ She stifles a yawn.
