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“How did you find out?” he asks.
“That is hardly the point, is it?” I snarl. “That’s the other part you didn’t want to tell me when we were sitting on the wharf? Just before you…”
Kissed me.
“Yes,” he says.
“And so, you were spying for them and kissing me?”
“I didn’t want to work for them,” he argues. “I wanted to kiss you.”
“Should I swoon now?”
“I didn’t tell Miss McCleethy anything. That’s why I kept pushing you away—so I’d have nothing to confess. I know you’re very angry with me, Gemma. I understand but—”
“Do you?” The magic sparks in my belly. I could make this all go away, but it wouldn’t. Not really. Not for good. I’d still know. I use every bit of my concentration to push the magic down, and it coils inside me, a sleeping snake. “Just tell me why.”
He sits on the floor, resting his arms on his bent knees. “Amar was all I had in this world. He was a good man, Gemma. A good brother. To think of him trapped in the Winterlands, damned for eternity…” He trails off. “And then I had that terrible vision when Fowlson”—he swallows—“tortured me. He would have killed me, and at that moment, I wouldn’t have minded. It was Miss McCleethy who stopped it. She told me that with her help, I could save Amar. That I could save you. But she needed to know what you were about. She knew you wouldn’t tell her.”
“For good reason,” I spit.
“I thought I could save you both,” he says.
“I don’t need saving! I needed to trust you!”
“I’m sorry,” he says simply. “People make mistakes, Gemma. We take the wrong action for the right reasons, and the right action for the wrong reasons. If you like, I’ll go to McCleethy tomorrow and tell her she has no more hold over me.”
“She’ll send Fowlson,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “Let him come.”
“There’s no need to go to McCleethy,” I say, pulling a loose thread till my hem unravels further. “Then she’ll know that I know. And anyway, I’ll not be telling you my secrets again. And you’re wrong. Amar wasn’t all you had in this world,” I say, blinking up at the wooden rafters of the boathouse. “You didn’t have any faith in me.”
He nods, accepting the blow, and then he is ready with his own. “I wonder if you allow yourself to have faith in anyone.”
Circe’s words return to me: You’ll come back to me when there is no one else to trust.
“I’m going. I shan’t be back.” I bolt for the door and push through it with all my strength, letting it slap against the side of the boathouse.
Kartik comes after me, and takes hold of my hand. “Gemma,” he says, “you’re not the only lost soul in this world.”
It’s tempting to keep holding fast to his hand, but I can’t. “You’re wrong about that.” I slide my fingers free of his and ball them into a fist at my stomach and run for the secret door.
I pass Neela, Creostus, and two other centaurs in the poppy fields on the way to the Temple. They’ve a bushel of poppies, and they argue with the Hajin over the price.
“Off to make bargains with the Hajin?” Neela sneers.
“What I do is none of your concern,” I snap back.
“You promised us a share,” she says, shifting into a perfect replica of me and back again.
“I’ll give it when I choose,” I say. “If I choose. For how do I know you’re not in alliance with the Winterlands creatures?”
Neela’s lips curl back in a snarl. “You accuse us?”
When I don’t answer, Creostus steps forward. “You’re just like the others.”
“Go away,” I say, but I’m the one who leaves, traveling up the mountain to the well of eternity.
