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Bastian’s hand paused in the air a moment before settling on the wood of the door. “Of course he will. You’re here.”
Then he slipped out into the hall.
Lore took a few more halfhearted bites of peahen before lying down on the couch, the upholstery holding on to Bastian’s heat. She wondered how long he’d been here before she roused. It was hard to imagine Bastian sitting still for long, but the warmth of the cushion under her cheek was proof he’d stayed awhile.
She closed her eyes, heaved a sigh. But the image behind her eyelids was Gabe’s face, blank and terrified and looking at her like some kind of monster. So she opened her eyes and stared into the fire instead, thinking back over the little she could recall from her dreams.
The only concrete thing she could remember were the voices. Gabe’s, Bastian’s. Their voices, and the fact that Bastian’s presence—Bastian’s touch—had chased away the heavy Mortem holding her under, brought life into death. It reminded her of the alleyway, how she couldn’t call her magic when Bastian was near.
Did it have something to do with being an Arceneaux, being Apollius’s chosen? No one in the Arceneaux line had ever used Spiritum before, as far as anyone knew, but maybe they were looking at it wrong. Maybe Spiritum was just as changeable and mysterious as Mortem, and wielding it was something subtle.
Those would be questions for Gabe, when he showed up again.
The rich dinner Bastian brought sat heavy in her stomach as Lore worked at her fingers, bending them back and forth, still slightly numb from all the Mortem she’d channeled. She checked her mental barriers on the off chance she went to sleep, closing her eyes again long enough to visualize the forest, the interlocking branches, the blue sky beyond. One more thing to remind her of Gabe and the tangled web they’d strung between them, heat and friendship and suspicion and divided loyalties.
Not that she could really blame him for the divided loyalties. Not after hearing that voice.
You can’t flee from what you are.
“Watch me,” she snarled into the flame-glow of her gloomy room, fierce even as her eyelids grew heavy.
The creaking of the door hinges woke her.
Lore sat up quick, a fight-or-flight urge punching at her chest, her hair tangled and her gown twisted uncomfortably.
But the discomfort didn’t matter, because Gabe was standing in the doorway. A bandage was wrapped around the end of his pointer finger, shorter than it should be.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither of them knew what to say.
Eventually, the silence weighed Lore’s gaze down from his one blue eye, bringing it instead to the package in his hand. A cloth bag, bundled up. She vaguely recognized it as being from one of the local apothecaries.
Gabe followed her eyes, then held the bag out. “Medicine.” It came quiet and almost hoarse, like he hadn’t anticipated using his voice, and he was surprised to hear it issue from his throat. “For your hands.”
Lore stood, crossed the room. Took the bag without touching his skin. Inside was a small bottle of salve with a strongly medicinal smell that seeped through the cork stopper. She recognized the scent. Clove and cinnamon, warming things.
“We use it when we have to channel,” Gabe continued, somewhat less hoarse now. He straightened, and she had the sense of a mask wedged back into place. “It stings like a bitch, but brings the feeling back into your fingers faster.”
“Like a bitch, huh?” She looked up and gave him the edge of a smile, but maintaining eye contact felt too difficult, so she focused on the slight freckles across his nose. “Two weeks out from under Anton’s thumb, and you start swearing like you were born to it.”
The mention of Anton made him flinch, just a bit. But Gabe just shrugged. “I blame you.”
Said lightly, but those three words could carry so many meanings between them, be the foundation for so many stones. They both seemed to realize that at the same time, and though neither moved, it suddenly felt like there was more space between them.
“Thanks,” she said, tucking the bag with its bottle under her arm. She was cold, after stepping away from the fire. She hadn’t realized just how cold until now, and gooseflesh rippled across her skin almost painfully, as if making up for lost time. She shivered, turned back to her room. “I’m going back to bed, I think. I know I slept for a week, but it wasn’t good sleep.”
“Who was here?”
Lore’s brows knit as she glanced back at Gabe. His eye was on the tray full of half-eaten peahen. The twitch of his fingers—curled like a fist, then forced straight—said he already knew the answer.
“Bastian,” Lore said, and refused to make it sound regretful. “He was here when I woke up.”
She didn’t mean for it to seem like an admonition, but the way Gabe turned his face toward the fire said he took it as one. It was nearly a flinch.
Orange flame-light bathed his features, made the shadows of them stark. The sight plucked at something almost like a memory in Lore’s still-tired mind. She shook it away.
“Do you think Malcolm would let us into the Church library?” she asked.
“If we had a good reason. Do we?”
