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Luis crossed the room to kneel down on Ravus's other side.
Ravus looked up at him and then back to Val. "You both… you both saved me?"
"Come on," said Luis. "You make it sound like it was hard for Val to go to the Unseelie Court, strike a deal with Roiben, challenge Mabry to a duel, win back your heart, and then get back here during rush hour."
Val laughed, but her laugh sounded too loud and too brittle, even to her own ears. Ravus's gaze settled on Val and she wondered if he hated that it was she who'd saved him, if he felt that he would now be indebted to someone who disgusted him.
Ravus groaned and started to sit up, but his strength seemed to fail him and he fell back. "I am a fool," he said.
"Stay where you are." Val scuttled over to a blanket and pushed it under Ravus's head. "Rest."
"I'll be all right," he said.
"Really?" Val asked.
"Really." He reached up to squeeze her shoulder, but she flinched as his fingers grazed over the cuts on her back. His eyes held hers for a long moment, then he pulled a wad of the material of her shirt up. Even out of the corner of her eye, she could see it was stiff with blood. "Turn around."
She did, kneeling up and lifting the back of her T-shirt over her head. She held that pose for a moment, then dropped her shirt back to cover her. "Is it bad?"
"Luis," Ravus said, his voice sharp. "Bring me some things from the table."
Luis collected the ingredients and set them on the floor beside Ravus. First Ravus showed Luis how to salve and treat Val's back, then how to doctor his own ripped piercings, and finally he wove together amaranth, crusts of salt, and long stalks of green grass. He handed them to Luis. "Tie that into the shape of a crown and place it on David's brow. I only hope it will be enough."
"Take the car," Val said. "Come back for me when you can."
"Right," Luis nodded, moving to stand. "I'll bring Ruth."
Ravus touched Luis's arm and he paused. "I was thinking about what was said and unsaid. If rumors from either Court implicate your brother, he will be in great danger."
Luis stood up, gazing out the windows at the glittering city. "I'll just have to think of something. I'll make some kind of bargain. I've protected my brother so far; I'll keep protecting him." He looked at Ravus. "Will you tell anyone?"
"You have my silence," Ravus said.
"I'll try to make sure I deserve it." Luis shook his head as he walked through the plastic curtain.
Val watched him go. "What do you think will happen to Dave?" she asked, her voice low.
"I don't know," Ravus said equally quietly. "But I confess that I care much more about what will happen to Luis." He turned to her. "Or you. You know, you look terrible."
She smiled, but her smile faded a moment later. "I am terrible."
"I know that I have behaved badly toward you." He looked to one side, at the planks of the floor and his own dried blood, and Val thought how strange it was that sometimes he seemed ages and ages older than she, but at other times, he didn't seem any older at all. "What Mabry told me hurt more than I expected. It was easy for me to believe that your kisses were false."
"You didn't think I really liked you?" Val asked, surprised. "Do you think I really like you now?"
He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face. "You did go to quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but… I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that."
Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?"
He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat.
"And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them.
"You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that."
She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep.
A note arrived in the beak of a black bird with wings that glistened purple and blue, as though it were made of pooling oil. It danced on Val's widow-sill, tapping at the glass with its feet, eyes shining like bits of wet onyx in the fading light.
