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“It’s okay,” he says, leaning back and exposing his elegant throat to the night sky. “My enemies will cheer when I drown.” When he notices my lack of amusement, Luke’s face softens slightly. “We’ll take turns,” he assures me.
Beside us, Finlay and Rory are lingering at the water’s edge. Rory’s feet slide farther into the water until he’s waist-deep, and I note the tension along his jawline. “It’s fine,” he calls out to Finlay as the rain descends around us. “Totally fine.”
Finlay shakes his head at him. “I know when ye’re lyin’,” he shouts, and then takes a running jump into the water. He lands beside Rory with an enormous splash that rocks the side of the rowboat, then releases a blood-curdling scream, yelling, “It’s fuckin’freezin’!”
Rory laughs, splashing Finlay until his black hair lies plastered to his forehead. Finlay, gasping, splashes back, trying to kick Rory underwater, and I watch entertained as the two of them play-fight, dunking each other and getting soaked together in the freezing loch.
“They’re such idiots,” Luke says, not without affection, before sprawling back onto the pointed bow of the boat.
Finlay looks up at me, shaking his water-straightened hair from his eyes. He leaps through the water, splashing enormously with every movement, and tells me, “Ye’ll be goin’ naewhere fast, sassenach. Let me.” He climbs back onto the shore like a soaked dog, shaking himself out as he dances on tiptoes to keep himself warm. He crouches down, untying the length of rope that secures the rowboat to the bank. He winds it around his fist, fighting the current that threatens to move the boat while holding it in place through sheer will, as he leans across to me and plants a glorious, toe-curling kiss to my lips.
“Safe travels, sailor,” he murmurs, smiling, before darting over to Rory and diving headfirst under the surface of the water. The rope falls free and slowly the boat begins to drift toward the island.
Finlay’s head pops up, a distance ahead of Rory. “Race ya!” he yells, diving back into the loch.
I grapple with the wooden oars, angling them the correct way inside the small hooks before watching carefully as the blade slices into the water. The boat ends up spinning in a lazy circle, which makes Luke laugh at least, until Danny suggests Luke gives it a shot, at which point Luke falls silent. Eventually, I figure out the correct forward momentum, when Rory and Finlay are two dots on the horizon. Rowing is at once harder than it looks but also beautifully serene. To carve our way noiselessly across the smooth surface of the loch, to find solitude at the heart of the loch, nothing but water surrounding us. The stars shine brighter here, reflected within the black depths like stage spotlights.
Danny trails his hand dreamily into the water. In the tranquility of the night, he murmurs, “Being here, you’d never think there was a war going on.”
“Is that what this is?” I ask nervously. “War?” The word sounds jarring in the peace of the night.
“They crossed the line,” Luke says in a tight voice.
“So what happens now? You retaliate?”
It’s safe here. Safe to whisper private treasons.
Luke cocks an eyebrow at me. “With what power? I have no military at my disposal. I have been dethroned and stripped of all strength.”
“Notallstrength,” Danny counters gently. “You’re still you. Still healthy. Still miraculously, despite being a chief, in possession of the majority of your marbles. Stillloved.”
“Right. Me, you, Jessa, the PM’s son, and the guy who wanted to end me.” I stare at him, concerned by his description of Finlay. “What’s that going to get me? Me and Benji, scrapping at dawn? I couldn’t take down Antiro in a fistfight. Maybe a thumb-war if I’m feeling flighty that day.”
“You don’t need to take them down,” Danny replies, like it’s obvious. “You just need tolive.”
Luke’s expression turns thoughtful. “I suppose saving my skin is retaliation enough for these ghouls. Living my best life. Thriving while they’re skiving. Yolo, et cetera. I’m sure I can do that when my family’s being hunted down one by one.” After a moment contemplating this statement, Luke pauses, looking awkward. “Can we stop?”
I place the oars down. The boat drifts idly beneath the black expanse of sky.
We’re in the middle of the loch. Finlay and Rory are so far ahead of us that they’re nowhere to be seen.
Luke takes a deep, struggling breath and expels it as quickly as if it were poison. He slumps forward, his head in his hands, the heels of them grinding into his eye sockets. “Ideally, there’d be no one here,” he mutters with a curious heaviness, his hands pressing deeply into his eyes. He slides his hands away, and I realize the gravity of the situation — that they’d been secretly wiping his eyes. “At least I know I can trust you two.”
My heart is touched. “We can go back if you want. I can tell the others—”
“No.” Luke shakes his head. “Here is good.” He looks at me in particular, his dark brown eyes glassy and wet. “Is this how it is? How it’s always going to be? Sneaking up on you until the weight of it crushes and squeezes every last drop of hope?”
I say nothing, and Luke takes my silence as assent. He takes a struggling gulp.
“Then Antiro doesn’t have to do anything more. I’ve already been left for dead.”
Danny reaches forward, stroking Luke’s knee.
“My mother…” Luke’s lips shape the word noiselessly. “I don’t even recall our last conversation. The guilt of that alone overwhelms me. I think I said I’d see her soon. Ha. That was a lie.” He pauses. “Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Iwillget to see her — very soon indeed.”
“Don’t,” I chide, because as long as I’ve known him, Luke had always been proud and noble. He’d been dressed as a damn peacock once upon a time. To see him sink like this breaks my heart.
“I didn’t think I’d ever wish to break down,” he murmurs. “But I just want all this to end. All of it.” He gazes into the watery depths as if contemplating the appeal of drowning.
