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Escort her to her Consecration, and whatever ritual August had planned around it to make her magic his own. A ritual she had to trust Anton to stop, or she and Bastian would both be dead.
It was almost funny, how easily she accepted that Bastian was magic. That he was born to channel life the same way she was born to channel death, that she was his dark reflection. Down there in the catacombs, with the unquiet dead making their slow way to the door and threads of Mortem tangled in her fingers, she’d felt it when Bastian pulled the clinging threads away. Life, rushing, her veins flooded with too much blood, her lungs full of too much air. In that moment, he’d commanded both life and death, he’d held them both in his hands.
She’d been his lightning rod, the darkness that made the light shine brighter after his Consecration. And now, hers approached. She’d felt her power growing stronger as she spent more time with Bastian, as time marched her down to twenty-four years. A moment that, for others, meant holy celebration.
For her, it meant possible murder.
That figured. Lore grabbed a piece of cheese and flopped back on the couch.
A tear rolled down her temple and wet her hair. She didn’t realize she’d shed one until it dripped into her ear, warm and wet and distinctly unpleasant.
“Fuck you, Gabe,” she murmured into the air, hoping he was still outside the door, hoping he heard. Half of her wanted to try to open it, see if he was on the other side. See what he would do if she tried to walk out. Would he tie her up? Knock her out? Kiss her?
All of those options seemed possible.
Thinking of Gabe made her mind turn to Bastian yet again. Where he was, whether Anton was being cruel. She didn’t think so—the strange conversation they’d had while chained made it seem like Anton had been keeping Bastian safe for longer than they realized; she couldn’t shake the memory of his near-reverent voice. Still, leaving him at the mercy of his uncle made her nervous.
None of them were safe here. None of them could leave.
Her mind drifted, but she didn’t let herself sleep again. The light through the window brightened to morning, deepened to midday, began the slow, golden melt of a midsummer afternoon.
She ate a little more, mostly to settle her sloshing stomach. She opened a bottle of wine from the sideboard below the window, and briefly thought of the first night she and Gabe had pilfered through it before giving a violent shake of her aching head, like the memory was a fly she could slap.
Lore drank half the bottle and swam pleasantly in the warm buzz of it as another hour ticked past and the window dimmed. It still hadn’t rained, and the dryness of the air gave the sunlight a brittle quality, like just-polished glass.
When the clock noted half an hour to eight, the door opened. Gabe. He looked at her wild hair and her flushed face and didn’t comment on either of them. He held a garment bag in his hands and thrust it at her.
“Get dressed.” He sounded like he hadn’t spoken in days, like the last words he’d said were to her and in anger. “We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”
“Such a man of his word.”
His jaw twitched. Gabe laid down the bag and backed out the door, clicking the lock behind him again.
Carefully, still feeling some aftereffects from the wine, Lore made her way over and picked up the bag, pulling out a gown. It wasn’t heavy—panels of sheer dark lace made up the skirt, with a simple black bodice that dipped low in the front and back and left her arms bare. No appliques, no embroidery. Just black lace and black silk.
“Showtime,” Lore muttered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
To hold both darkness and light—to hold everything the world is made of—should be the burden of only one god. All powers will come into My hand, and then the world will know the hour of My return.
—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 856 (green text, spoken directly by Apollius to Gerard Arceneaux)
Twenty minutes later and ten until eight, Gabe opened the door again, just as Lore was dragging a comb through her hair. “Give me a second,” she said, twisting it into a messy braid and winding it around her head. The bag had held a handful of jet hairpins; she stuck them in the braid to hold it in place and only stabbed her scalp once.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t relax his pose. Gabe’s shoulders nearly took up the width of the doorframe, solid and straight. He’d evened out whatever apprehension had made them crooked before. A harsh sound; his throat clearing. “You look…”
She looked good, and she knew it. The gown fit perfectly, as if it’d been made for her, and the lack of ornamentation or jewelry suited it just fine. Lore resisted the urge to twirl. She’d done it a couple times before he opened the door, but as satisfying as the swirl of skirts had been, it felt somewhat morbid, what with an impending doom ritual. Instead, she ignored Gabe, nodded at her reflection in the spotted mirror, and approached the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
But he didn’t move. Gabe blocked the door, looking down at her with an expression that seemed to hover somewhere between determination and pain. She met his gaze, tried to keep her own expression from saying anything at all.
“I’m going to keep you safe,” he murmured. “You can trust that.”
“I can’t trust anything,” she said lightly, and there was no waver in it; she wouldn’t give him wavering. Lore nodded to the door. “We’re going to be late.”
He stood there a moment longer, looking for words and not finding them. Finally, Gabe turned and offered her his elbow, the same way he’d done when they were newly arrived and dressed like foxgloves, headed to Bastian’s masquerade with no idea what to expect.
They walked into the hall. They were silent.
