Page 17 of Serpent and Shadow

I’d fought to make sense of that mouthful.

It took a few seconds before the meaning of his words clicked.

“You think they won’t see it as a kidnapping?” I couldn’t hide my incredulity. “You think they’ll view what happened today as Bones joining up?”

“I think it’s very possible, yes.” Forsooth met my gaze seriously. “I understand why this seems incredible to you, and I sympathize. But Caelum is Malefic’s son.”

He cleared his throat, making his voice more diplomatic.

“He has also been seen to operate in Dark Cathedral spaces before this… including in threatening ways, particularly towards royal families who refused to pledge their allegiance to his father.” Forsooth paused, gauging my eyes. “Some of the royals you saw in the Palace of the Lions today have experienced your husband’s magic firsthand. They have seen loved ones experience it, as well. Those individuals are not likely to feel overly sympathetic to his plight. Nor are they likely to trust he wasn’t fully complicit in the attack today.”

I stared at him, speechless.

I fought with the part of me that wanted to argue with him.

But I’d known, hadn’t I? Even if I’d never pressed Bones for details, I’d known.

I’ve killed people, Leda… do you really not understand that?

“Everyone saw Caelum get knocked out.” My voice shook slightly. “They saw Bones dragged, unconscious. How could that be interpreted as anything other than taking him against his will?”

But I remembered the disgust of the Praecuri soldier who’d brought me upstairs. I remembered the things he’d said about both of us. If he’d witnessed everything that happened and still thought we were responsible, others would believe the same. There’d be Magicals who thought I was in on it, simply by association.

Me throwing magic at Malefic and other Dark Cathedral fanatics wouldn’t matter. Once it came out that Bones and I were married, I’d be hated by both sides.

And how much worse would they view Caelum?

They’d either worship him or want him dead. Many students at the school already saw him exactly like his father.

Then there were those who wouldn’t want to cross anyone in the Bones family at all. They would use Caelum’s so-called “complicity” to say he didn’t require rescuing, that he’d merely been reunited with his blood.

Malefic Bones was still immensely powerful, rich, feared, admired, even idolized by elements within Magical society, and not only the royals. The King and the Ethnarch might sense the politics shifting in Malefic’s favor following his escape, especially with an army of infamous, powerful, resurrected royals standing behind him.

Would dead Magical children make them more determined to fight him, or less?

Opportunists within both governments would likely be calculating along pragmatic, power-based lines, rethinking how to position themselves if Malefic won. Whatever Malefic had done, however determined the Ethnarch and the King had been to quash him after his arrest, the fact that the Bones family appeared so high up on the succession order would give many of them pause.

Most would want to be on the side of the winner in the end.

Likely some of them now wondered if that winner might be Malefic.

Forsooth had delicately cleared his throat before throwing another wrench at my mind.

“Your… well, the younger Mr. Bones… certainly seemed to have some awareness of the connection between the two of you,” he’d ventured next. “He might not want you anywhere near his father for that reason.”

My eyes had closed, outside my will.

“However much he may have been fighting the implications,” Forsooth went on to add carefully. “He asked me a number of pointed questions that suggested he’d done some research since he found a name for his condition…”

Implications, my mind repeated numbly. Fighting it.

That definitely tracked from what I’d seen of Bones these past few weeks.

“…I am thinking that if you can locate him,” Forsooth ventured next. “And if you can actually communicate with Mr. Bones through the connection you share, it might make sense to speak with him before we attempt any sort of rescue. Perhaps you could ask him what options he thinks we have to retrieve him? Just so we don’t exacerbate the situation. Or give his father an even more powerful weapon to use against him.”

I’d struggled with the truth I’d heard in those words.

I didn’t agree with them, of course, but I knew Bones, and I knew Forsooth was probably right how Bones would see this.