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She wasn’t immediately sure. It made her eyes dart away from him, made her arms cross in front of her as if they could be a barrier.
Gabe didn’t notice. He rounded on Bastian, his fists held tight by his sides, like it took monumental effort not to drive one into the Sun Prince’s face. “What in all the myriad hells was that, Bastian? You drag us out to the docks to play at being common, get thrashed—”
“On purpose, I feel like I should point out.”
“—then kidnap Lore and leave me there?” He’d been advancing the whole time he spoke, and now Gabe stood right in front of Bastian, two inches taller and using it all to loom. “What the fuck?”
“Language, Your Grace,” Bastian admonished, completely unperturbed by the large mass of angry monk in his face. “I do apologize that you ran into trouble, though it seems like you fought your way out of it just fine.”
Gabe ignored him, seething. “You might be the prince, but you can’t just—”
“He knows, Gabe.”
Lore’s voice cut him off midsentence. Gabriel froze, then turned to look at her, shoulders stiff. “All of it?”
She nodded wearily. “All of it.”
Gabe mirrored her nod. Then he turned to Bastian and slammed him against the wall.
“Gabriel!” Lore snapped, but the Presque Mort was beyond hearing. His palms pressed against Bastian’s shoulders, his nose mere inches from the prince’s, teeth bared.
“So how are you going to kill us, Bastian?” he growled. “You know why we’re here, that your father knows you’re sending information to Kirythea, and I’m supposed to believe you’ll just let that go?”
Bastian’s neck was tendon-tight, but he laughed like this was a game. “They really got to you, didn’t they? Made you think the only way to absolve yourself of treason by association was to see it in everyone else.”
Gabe’s arms trembled slightly. Lore couldn’t tell if it was with the force of pressing Bastian to the wall, or with the restraint of not punching him.
“It’ll never be enough for them, Gabe.” Despite the wicked grin, Bastian’s voice was soft. “The Church and Crown don’t forget, they don’t forgive, not any more than the gods did before them. But they’ll keep holding it in front of you like a mirage in a fucking desert. And you’ll keep chasing it, even when you know it’s not something you can touch.”
They stared at each other. Then Gabe slammed him into the wall again.
“Both of you, stop it.” Lore gripped Gabe’s arm and pulled him back—for a moment, she thought he’d shake her off, but he relented, albeit reluctantly. “Bastian, shut up.”
Bastian shook his shoulders out, wincing. But he did shut up.
Lore turned to Gabriel, breathing hard, as if she were the one who’d been seconds from a brawl. “We can use this,” she said quietly, not looking at the Sun Prince as she did. It skirted too close to what he’d said in the tunnel, all these questions about using and being used. “There’s a good chance August is framing Bastian.”
The Presque Mort gave her a withering look. “Did he tell you that?”
“Does it matter?” Lore didn’t know how to explain that she knew Bastian was telling the truth, at least about this.
“You don’t know him.” Gabe shook his head. “Lore, Bastian is—”
“Has it occurred to you,” Bastian interrupted casually, “that you are basing all of your assumptions on me as a child? Seems unfair, to be honest. Especially considering how it went for you when people did the same.”
Gabe’s fingers turned to slow fists by his sides.
A moment, then Gabe straightened, his one eye flinty. “If you want to believe him,” he said to Lore, ignoring the prince completely, “we won’t go immediately to August. We’ll go tell Anton first and see—”
“No.” It came from Lore and Bastian at the same time.
Gabe’s brows rose.
Bastian pushed off the wall. “My father wants me gone,” he said, as if he were commenting on the weather. “I’m not eager to see what he’ll do if his plan to get rid of me legitimately—at least in the eyes of Auverraine—is upset.” He gathered up his long hair, wet with sweat and water from the culvert, and tied it into a knot at the back of his neck. “And there’s still the issue of villages dying overnight. I’d very much like to get to the bottom of that, personally.”
“You’ve still given me no reason to trust you,” Gabe said through his teeth. “You may have fooled Lore, but I’ll take more work.”
He said her name like an admonishment. Like he’d expected better from her. Lore tightened her arms over her chest, shame and anger kindling to an ash-taste in the back of her mouth.
