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“I’m not asking you to trust Bastian.” It was a struggle not to say it through her teeth. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
“No, technically, you’re asking me to trust Mortem. The power of death that has corrupted our city and had implications for the entire continent. The power that made people afraid of being buried underground, flowing from the corpse of a manipulative goddess.” He stood, then, his shadow eclipsing her, stretched long on the floor. “Forgive me, Lore, but the Mortem told me isn’t the most convincing argument.”
Her face flushed hot, and she stood to match him, glaring up into his one blue eye. “What about Anton doesn’t care about you beyond what you can do for him or August is a liar who wants to kill his own son? Are those convincing enough?”
His lip lifted. “Back to Bastian, again.”
“At least Bastian isn’t so far up someone else’s ass that he can only see out of their eyes.”
“No, he’s too far up his own, and he’s not doing anything but trying to get you in his bed.”
“Even if that were true, why would you care?”
“Because I thought you were too smart to fall for a handsome face that tells you what you want to hear. Because I thought you made decisions with your mind instead of your—”
Her teeth ground, almost audibly, and her hands moved before her brain told them to. Lore shoved at Gabe’s shoulders, forcing him back toward the couch—his knees hit the cushion and folded, making him sit down hard, cutting off what was sure to be something inappropriate for a monk.
Lore planted her hands on either side of Gabe’s head, gripping the back of the couch. It put them almost at eye level, but the Mort didn’t lean back. He kept his head steady, his almost-snarling mouth only inches from hers.
“His face has nothing to do with it.” It was a whisper, hissing into the scant air between them. “It has everything to do with being used by the King, the Priest Exalted, the Presque Mort. I came here through manipulation and it’s all I’ve known since. It’s all Bastian has known, and it’s all you’ve known, too. But at least the Sun Prince and I are smart enough to admit it.”
Are you so accustomed to being used that you don’t realize when it’s happening, as long as it’s done kindly? Bastian’s words echoed in her skull. Gabe hadn’t been used kindly, but he didn’t think he deserved kindness. Maybe that was the root of it. All he accepted was constant penance for a crime he’d never committed.
When Gabe breathed, she felt it. And he was so close. So close, and all of him so warm, and there was a cold deep in Lore she was always trying to thaw.
“That’s the thing about the manipulated,” Gabe said softly. “They become the best manipulators. There’s no teacher like experience.”
They stayed there, too close and too heated, anger and something else crackling between them. And even as Lore wanted to lean forward, kiss him, wrap all of this up in something she understood, it strengthened her resolve.
Gabe couldn’t know the truth about her.
He wanted her to kiss him. She could see it reflected in his one visible eye, almost a plea. Want was a palpable thing, vibrating in the air, but Gabriel was one of the Presque Mort through and through, and even in the haze of it, he couldn’t be the one to lean forward and break his vow.
Slowly, deliberately, Lore released the back of the couch. Slowly, deliberately, she stood up, staring down at the monk as he gazed up at her like he was fire and she was fuel.
“I’m looking for the bodies,” she murmured. “With or without you.”
“Just you and Bastian, huh?” It came out like he’d wanted it to be flippant; instead, it sounded half breathless. “Good luck with that.”
“Oh, I don’t think getting lucky will be a problem.”
Gabe made a low noise, then sat forward, wiping his hand over his face. A heartbeat, then he looked at her. “If the bodies are being hidden somewhere, what does that even prove?”
The tension of the previous moments dissipated; words no longer seemed to have double, heat-filled meanings. “Lots of things, probably, that we won’t really know until we see where the bodies are and what they’ve done to them. But for now, it just means we can’t trust August or Anton. It means everything they’ve told us about the bodies, about Kirythea—we can’t trust any of it.”
At the sound of Anton’s name, Gabe closed his eye, and she felt a pang of sympathy. It hurt, carving out trust from places it had lived so long. Even if it had been manipulated into you.
Gabe stared at the carpet between his boots. “What about what happened when you tried to call Mortem with Bastian in the room?” He glanced at her, morning light reflecting off his reddish-gold hair. “Are we going to talk about that, Lore?”
He said it almost like an accusation.
“We can. But I don’t know what it means.” She sighed, rubbed at her tired eyes. “I tried to call Mortem when he first pulled me away from the ring. It was impossible. When he was touching me, I could barely sense it at all.”
His brows drew low. “I couldn’t sense it in the vault, either. Maybe something about him being an Arceneaux repels it, somehow.”
“But I’ve never had that problem around August or Anton.” Just Bastian, who didn’t want to be an Arceneaux at all.
Gabe’s expression darkened. “He could be using some kind of stolen elemental power to—”
