I let out a sigh. I look down at the chess set myself, pick up one of the horse-headed knights and roll it between my fingers.
“Figures,” I mutter.
Lanz frowns. “What?”
I don’t look up at him, just keep staring at the little knight. “Kingston. Kai. Now you.” I shrug. “Those two I get. But I’d never peggedyouas an outright liar, Lanz.”
It’s a little manipulative. I know it is. But if he can…if he can kiss me once and act like nothing ever happened, then I can jab at his self-esteem right back.
“No. No. I’m not—it’s not like that.” Lanz takes a step closer, which I’d prefer henotdo, but I hold my ground. I set down the glass knight and look right into those stark blue eyes.
“It’s not?”
“It’s…” He blinks, blows out a breath. Swallows. Darts a glance right, then left.
And then leans in even closer.
“They’re after the same…thingas we are, Gwenna. The same quest.”
The air goes still in my lungs. “What?” I hear myself say.
“They have been for…I don’t know. Centuries. St. Ignaty’s—it’s some splinter group of the Russian Orthodox Church. More or less the same as the Consistory, I guess. We don’t really know what they do or what they believe, exactly. Just what they want. And that’s…”
He trails off, because both of us know how that sentence ends.
The Grail.
Me.
“So…yeah,” Lanz goes on. His eyes are back on the little glass queen, his long fingers slowly spinning it one way, then the other, on its square. “As far as most people know, it’s just a sports rivalry. But the schools are just, like, covers. In a sense. Both us and them—those go back way further.”
My head is spinning. I clench my fist around the knight, letting its corners dig into my hand. “So when he came to—”My eyes flutter shut, thinking back to the reception room, to the confounding fact of Alexei Moroslav coming to visitme.
Surely you didn’t…come here to talk about the weather.
Of course he didn’t. Ofcoursehe didn’t.
I open my eyes again, stare at Lanz.
“When he came to see me,” I say again. “If you guys hadn’t shown up. What would he have done? Does he—do theyknow?”
Lanz shakes his head firmly.
"We don't think so. I mean, if they knew what you were, they would have tried something already. Taken you, not just shown up to chat. From everything we can tell, they think the Grail is some kind of…object. But we still have to be…”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence.We still have to be careful.Still have to guard me. Just in case.
My heart pounds inside my jacket. I’m desperate to know more, to ask another question, yet I can’t even seem to articulate one, to pin down all of what this could possibly mean.
“Boom.” Morgan strides back over from the counter, now laden down with two large white shopping bags. “Mission accomplished.” She gestures at Lanz, proffering the bags forward. “Would you be so kind?”
“I’m not your…” Lanz glances at me. I just stare back. He swallows. “Um. Sure.”
“What’d you get?” I ask Morgan, grateful for the change of subject.
“Somuch.” She beams, happily dropping the bags to Lanz, who gives a softoofof surprise effort as their contents click and roll around. “Candles, candlebras, tea lights, tapers…anyway. Hot beverages?” She looks between the two of us. “I’m dying.”
Lanz stays motionless. “Um. Up to Gwenna.”
