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He smiled, seemingly pleased.
"I hope you'll keep teaching me how to use it."
His smile widened. "Of course I will. You have only to tell me when."
"I was looking at NYU—Ruth likes their film department and they have a fencing team. I know that's a different thing than the kind of fighting you've been teaching me, but I don't know, I was thinking it might not be completely different. And there's always lacrosse."
"You would come to New York?"
"Sure." Val looked back at her slushy feet. "I have some school to finish. I got all your messages." She could feel that her cheeks were hot and blamed the cold. "I was wondering if there was a way to send something back to you."
"Do you mind birds?"
"No. The crow you sent was beautiful, although I don't think he liked me."
"I will have my next messenger await your response."
Just a short time ago, she might have been that messenger. "Have you heard anything about Mabry? What is everyone saying?"
"Rumors from the Courts hold that Mabry was some kind of double agent, but each Court denies her. The exiles in the city know she was the poisoner—the Bright Court appears to be claiming that she was killing at the behest of the Night Court—but so far she has not been linked with Dave. Regrettably, I fear time will reveal his involvement."
"And then?"
"We Folk are a fickle, capricious people. Whim will decide his fate, not some mortal idea of justice."
"So are you going to return to the Bright Court? I mean, now that you know the truth about Tamson there's no reason to stay exiled."
Ravus shook his head. "There is nothing for me there. Silarial counts deaths too lightly." He reached out a gloved hand and stilled her swing. "I would remain nearer you for what time there is."
"Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted.
Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath."
>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."
