"Did you hear back from the Consistory?” I all but blurt it out. The question's been weighing on me for too long. Especially after my failed confession this morning. "What did they say?"
Because this is what’s lingering in the back of my mind. I wonder. I wonder if they knew. If this was the plan all along, if Father’d brokered a deal with the Brothers years ago to hand over everything he owned, if they wereexpectingthat bequest.
If that’s the case…if that’s the case, I couldn’t even be surprised. He all but gave them his firstborn son.
Kai studies the ergo grip a little more intensely, turning it over and over in his fingers.
"Kai," I say a bit more sharply. "The White Brothers. You wrote to them to tell them everything, didn't you? Have they answered yet?”
Secretly, I hope they haven’t. I am hoping for long delays, inadequate postage, a mail carriers’ strike.
If they’ve answered, if that matter is settled, then we have to tell them. We are obligated to tell them.
So I don’t want to know. I don’t want tohaveto know.
"Yeah, they did," Kai says at last, still staring at the hand grip. "They did."
I wait. And wait.
"Kai," I mutter, trying not to let frustration get the better of me. "Come on. What did they?—”
"I didn't tell them," he interrupts.
I'm stunned into silence. "You didn't--what?"
"I didn't tell them," he repeats. "I didn't tell them--"
“You didn’t tell that that Father left them everything in his will,” I finish for him. My heart plunges.
Kai winces. “Well, yeah, Idefinitelydidn't tell them that. Because that would have required telling them that he was dead in the first place."
My mouth actually falls open.
"What are youtalkingabout, Kai?" I bite out. "You can't be suggesting?—"
"I'm notsuggesting," Kai interrupts. "I'mtellingyou. I'm telling you exactly what I told them, which is that Luther Pendragon is alive and well and has nothing to report from the campus of Caliburn University. Or no, technically—" He squints. "Technically, Luther Pendragon himself told them that. In my approximation of his handwriting."
"What?" I practically spit the word. Fury, fury and something more frantic, is bubbling into my chest. "Kai, why would you think that's evencloseto a good idea? What the hell got into you?"
Now Kai looks up from the grip, his eyes burning on mine.
“Why would I think that?” Kai repeats, sounding almost incredulous. “Why does that even matter? Because if memory serves, Kingston, you were in no state to do anything. You told me, and I quote, ‘I trust your judgment.’”
I tighten my jaw, tighten my fists. Tighten everything. But I don't say a word. I just look at him intently.
My teammate. My brother.
Because that is what he is.
No one else could interfere with my life so entirely.
And now...
My head spins. I can't even begin to pick apart all the ways in which pretending my father is still alive, forging his existence, has made everything worse, more complex,needlesslycomplex. Now we're lying. We are really and truly lying.
And what is Kai’s end game, exactly? To do this forever? That's absurd.
I glare at him again—reckless, careless, selfish, who-gives-a-damn Kai Pendragon—and feel the anger coiling tight in my gut.
