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“It’s all right.” I rub my forehead. I’m not sure I want to talk to either of the other men just yet.
I’m not sure I want to talk to the men right in front of me all that much either.
I motion to Casimir. “If you could put the food on the bedside table… And could I have a little space to myself? That might make recovering a little easier. I don’t feel all that bad—you don’t need to hover. You two must have classes and everything too.”
“That doesn’t—” Alek starts, but Casimir makes some gesture that cuts him off.
The courtesan gives me his gentle smile that brings a different sort of ache into my chest. “You never did get the alone time you were looking for yesterday. You should have that. But if you need us…”
He pulls out a silver trinket, an oval about the size of the pad of his thumb, with hinges on one side like a locket. When he flicks it open, I realize itisa locket—a plain one with no picture tucked inside.
“Benedikt had the idea of us getting these made when we were first starting our investigations,” he says. “I suppose Julita’s was lost. Press the inside, and it’ll send a small magical pulse to alert the rest of us and indicate where we should go.”
He sets the locket on the table next to my lunch. Alek adjusts his weight on his feet as if he’d like to say more, but his mouth stays clamped shut.
Does he expect me to apologize for the thingsIsaid?
I’m exhausted just remembering it, but it was all true. There’s nothing to take back.
Casimir nudges him. Alek bows his head, making a quick three-fingered tap down his front that I guess is meant for my safety, as if the divinities care about that.
The two of them leave the room. A moment after the outer door clicks shut behind them, another tremor ripples through the room.
My stomach knots. Whatever’s going wrong, it’s getting worse.
And whoever’s behind it knows that I’m hoping to stop them.
It’s too much. My world hasn’t stopped falling apart in the past day. It’s only fractured into more pieces, so many I don’t know how to fit them back together.
I close my eyes. The tingle of Julita’s presence stirs in the back of my skull.
“You’re still there, aren’t you?” I say. “You talked to me when the medic was first healing me.”
I’m here.Julita pauses.I thought I should probably wait and let you decide when you wanted to hear from me.
I guess my outburst yesterday was as critical of her as it was of the men.
I grimace. “I’m not angry with you. It was mostly them. The way they talked about you and the way you talked about them was just so… different.”
Something about the momentary silence has me picturing the chestnut-haired woman she once was bowing her head in shame.They’re good men, all of them. I just—Ineededthem. I needed someone. I couldn’t take on a whole conspiracy of scourge sorcerers on my own.
“Of course you couldn’t.” But that doesn’t mean she had to go around manipulating people’s vulnerabilities to get that support.
I needed to be sure,she says, as if she sensed my unspoken criticism.That kind of power—the temptation of it—there couldn’t be any chance…She trails off.We did work well together. They were always there for me. But it’s not as if it was really about me anyway.
“What else could it have been about?”
She lets out a rough chuckle.Stavros needed glory. Alek needed to be chosen. Benedikt needed someone to see him as more than a joker. Cas needed to do something bigger than catering to patrons’ whims.
There’s a weird tenderness in her tone, not like her usual amused condescension. She did know them well.
I offered them what they needed, and they gave me what I needed in return,she goes on.It isn’t as if… Even if Ihadwanted… They wouldn’t have really wanted me, just as myself.
My throat constricts. Maybe the things I told the men weren’t completely true after all.
Because all I hear in Julita’s voice now is affection and doubt. I’ve seen signs of her concern for them in the past too.
Just how much did she care about the four of them underneath? How much might she have wanted and simply refused to let herself acknowledge?
