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Smooth as silk, Dare, you fucking moron.
“It’s not as though I can avoid it,” Grace replied, twisting the blanket nervously between her fingers. “I have to fix this, Dare. People will die.”
“We,” I corrected. “You’re not in this alone. Though for what it’s worth,youdidn’t provoke the goddesses into responding, and said goddesses might not care too much about what you have to say on the matter.” I thought about it for a moment, assessing the likelihood of humans groveling enough to appease both goddesses. “Though if youcouldconvince the goddesses to drop it, or it at least looked that way, it’d probably do wonders for your reputation. Optics, and all that.”
“Except we can’t broadcast it,” Grace pointed out. “Though I’m not sure I’m that upset about that part. After watching my mother talk about me like I was deranged on international television, I was pretty ready to never watch TV again.” She shot me a strained smile. “Though now it’ll be so much harder to keep in touch with people. Impossible, basically. I know Wild is feeling the pressure already. He has so many daimons back in Milton who rely on him and now he has no way of contacting them.”
“Onyx will hold down the fort,” I replied confidently. “Milton was falling apart around us when I was there, but Onyx was cool as a cucumber. She even took time to check in on me and encouraged me to get my ass over here, despite all her other responsibilities. She’s got this.”
“I’ve been wondering why you didn’t stay at Underworld,” Grace said cautiously, evidently worried she was wading into dangerous territory. “I mean, you knew Onyx, right? That’s why she was sending those pictures of me. And you weren’t banned from the club like Riot was.”
I let out a surprised laugh. Riot and Wild were so clearly comfortable around each other that I’d forgotten how thoroughly Wild had fucked Riot up for selling drugs in his club. “I mostly avoided Underworld establishments in an act of solidarity even though Riot had one hundred percent been in the wrong. I was staying at Rogue’s place—I woke up there, and she called in Dr. Martinez to patch me up.”
I swallowed thickly, thinking of baby Quinn. I missed my little Quinbee like crazy, honestly. When I’d made the decision to leave, my focus had been totally single-minded, aneedto get to Grace. But once I’d boarded the plane, I’d been filled with regret at leaving Quinn behind without saying goodbye. For leaving her behind atall. Rogue wasn’t a bad person—well, no worse than other daimons—but she clearly struggled with motherhood. Resented it, even.
Dice wasn’t around to help out because he was too busy chasing Mercy’s ghost, and I just wanted little Quinn to be okay.
“Rogue was nice to both me and my cousin,” Grace murmured, a sad look crossing her face. “She let Mercy spend time at her house to get to know Dice, even though it was apparently awkward.” Grace shook her head slightly, bewildered. “My feelings about Mercy are complicated. She would have been under a huge amount of pressure from the agathos, but I struggle to wrap my head around what she did. I could never betray any of you the way she did to Dice. He, Riot and Bullet could have all been killed that day because of Mercy’s actions. I know it haunts her, I’ve seen her dreams and they’re… Well, they’re horrible. Traumatic. I wouldn’t wish them on anybody.”
I reached across the bed, giving Grace’s hand a squeeze. “I don’t know if this helps, but from what I hear of Dice, he’s notstruggling,per se. He’s just really fucking angry.”
Grace gave me a resigned smile. “What about you?”
“Me?”
Her fingers flexed against mine. “Any anger? Even among, um,normalsoul bonds it’s pretty common for there to be some jealousy or resentment, especially for whoever joins last. It’s very unusual for an agathos woman to meet all of her soul bonds at once—sometimes there’s years between the first and last.” Grace swallowed thickly. “It’s something we were warned about, things we’re supposed to do to make sure everyone feels equally appreciated—”
“Hey, I promise if I need extra attention, I’ll ask,” I cut in, a faint sense of nervousness skittering over my skin that wasn’t mine. “I always need extra cuddles, but I blame my Philotes heritage for that.”
Was I angry? It didn’t feel that straightforward. I decided to offer Grace as much of the truth as I could, while still trying to keep a little to myself while I worked out how I felt.
“I think I’ll always have guilt. I feel bad that I wasn’t here with you guys when you could have used me, but if I was, I’d have struggled forever with the guilt of not spending time with my mom before she died. Either way, I was going to lose.”
Shit, I hadn’t meant to make Grace cry. A steady stream of silent tears were streaking her cheeks, and she shoved them away roughly with the heel of her hand like she was frustrated they were there to begin with.
“And I’ll always feel guilty—” Grace began.
“I know why you did it.” It was the elephant in the room, and it had to be addressed. “I know now that Bullet’s future became less certain the moment our paths crossed. Honestly, if he’d told me that was the case, I’d like to think I’d have been selfless enough to stay away, though I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m still a daimon.”
I shrugged, unease sitting heavily in my chest at the thought of condemning Bullet to death by just existing in the same space as my soul bond.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to Bullet,” Grace said firmly.
I reflected back on the deal we’d struck, which suddenly felt like it had been years ago rather than yesterday. “Me neither. Want me to go get him?”
“He’ll come down soon,” Grace replied easily, rubbing her chest where I guessed she felt the bond with him. My own jealousy tasted bitter in my mouth. “I think he’s enjoying the darkness, just a little, but he feels bad admitting it. For an Oneiroi daimon close to the Goddess of Night, he wasted his nights sleeping so he could be in the dreamscape with me.”
“I guarantee you, he didn’t see that as a waste,” I assured her. She yawned, and even though I didn’t think it was night yet, going to bed early didn’t really matter now that the whole world was in perma-darkness.
“You, Bullet, and Wild should sleep in here,” I suggested, reluctantly taking my hand off her leg. “Riot and I can take shifts helping out Arsène. I don’t know what Vasileios told him, but if he was expecting ten of us, maybe he thought he’d be getting more help.”
“Right,” Grace agreed, scrunching her nose slightly. “Maybe you and Riot can nap in here later to make sure you get enough sleep too? We’ll be on the boat at least a few hours, won’t we?”
“I’ll ask.” I could hear movement in the cabin, probably Bullet making his way down here, and shifted to the edge of the bed to leave.
“Hey,” Grace said softly, scooting up behind me and lightly touching my elbow. “You know that serene smile doesn’t work on me, I can sense what you’re feeling. At least a little.”
“How am I feeling?” I asked playfully, hoping to trick my brain into a less sensitive mood. We had too much going on for me to get up in my feelings right now.
