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“Bleeding God.”
“Not Him.” But jocularity faded quickly from Bastian’s face, his arms crossing over his chest. “I was there because I tried to follow you to the leak,” he said, after a moment of quiet. “I didn’t make it out before the Church doors were locked.”
“Why did you want to come? You couldn’t have done anything.”
His eyes raised from the floor, one dark curl falling from his forehead to brush his cheek. “To keep an eye on you.” A scoff. “And Remaut, too. Neither of you excel at self-preservation.”
Lore didn’t have the energy to bristle at that. She just sighed and ate another forkful of Bastian’s hated peahen.
“Did Malcolm tell you what exactly happened?” she asked after she’d swallowed. “With the other Presque Mort? I was there… it was my fault, I mean, but I don’t know—”
“It was not your fault.” It was the fiercest she’d heard him sound, barring that night in the alley, and it made her look up from the remains of her dinner. Bastian still sat on the arm of the couch, the lines of his body nonchalant, but there was a tenseness to him that belied anything casual. “You did what you could.”
You can’t flee from what you are.
She considered telling him about the voice. But the moment the thought came, it was dismissed, instinct telling her to keep that to herself. She had to have some secrets.
A moment of quiet, where she stared at her food and the Sun Prince stared at her, then Bastian sighed. “He told me,” he said. “But before I tell you, you should know that the Presque Mort whose foot was… injured… is recovering just fine, and the Church will pay for a prosthetic. He’ll be well taken care of.”
Lore nodded numbly.
“Apparently,” Bastian continued, “when you started channeling Mortem, it… surged. Like a wave. It ignored all the other Presque Mort and came only to you.”
Like it’d been waiting for her. Or directed toward her. “All of it?” she asked. “Or just the Mortem that Anton shaped?”
Bastian’s brow rose. “No one mentioned anything about Anton.”
Maybe she’d imagined it, both the knot and the voice. Maybe the Mortem flowing through her had made her see and hear things that weren’t there.
“Anyway, the Mort—his name is Jean—stepped up to you, presumably to help.” Bastian shrugged. “But he came too close. The Mortem was still seeping over the ground, and his foot got caught in it. Malcolm pulled him out before it could eat any further, and then they left you to it.”
They’d tried to help. A man who didn’t know her at all had stepped forward, and lost a limb for it.
“It’s honestly remarkable you’re standing,” Bastian continued, softer now. “You were unconscious for a week. There were more than a few times where we wondered if you’d wake up.”
She’d wondered, too, floating in that in-between, caught in dream and memory. Lore took another mindless bite of food.
“Gabe is recovering fine, too.” Bastian pushed a curl out of his eyes. “If you were worried.”
A flurry of panic swam through her stomach. “Recovering?”
“He reached for you and lost the tip of his finger.” A wicked smile twisted his mouth, but the look in Bastian’s eyes was almost… resigned. “Not that he was using it to any great effect, if you get my meaning. Not with those vows.”
Gabe had reached for her. It didn’t make up for the fact that he wasn’t here, but it was something.
They stood there, the only sound the merry crackling of the fire. A moment, then Bastian stood, brushing dust of the back of his dark pants and scowling at the mess of clothes and blankets Gabe had left on the floor. “No one has been allowed in here to clean since you’ve been ill, but I’m sending around a maid. Remaut is apparently unable to keep up with his own housekeeping.”
The sight of the blankets was a balm, another small proof that Gabriel had cared even after seeing what she’d done.
“Thank you, Bastian,” Lore murmured.
“Of course.” Bastian stood, headed toward the door. “You should rest. At this point, you might as well go back to sleep. Morning is in eight hours or so.”
Lore nodded listlessly but didn’t rouse herself to go back to her bedroom. Bastian was almost to the door when she managed to speak again. “Do you think Gabe is coming back?”
His blankets were on the floor, but she needed the reassurance. Needed someone to say they thought he’d still choose her, someone who knew what she was.
Someone who knew what she was, and cared anyway.
