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“Like you didn’t feel the Mortem at the well?” But Malcolm sounded distracted, not accusatory. He opened his own hands, staring into his palms, an inverse reflection of Lore’s stance. Dark eyes went from his hands to the vine, tracking along its length.
“I can’t channel Mortem anymore,” he murmured, almost to himself. “There’s none to pull out of the catacombs, and I can’t even feel it in dead matter. But I feel…” He closed his hand and didn’t continue.
A weight on Lore’s shoulder. Gabe’s hand. He gently nudged her up from the table. “We should go, Lore.”
She stood on shaky legs. Briefly, she considered reminding Gabe that they hadn’t actually worked on her barrier yet, but her forest grew riotous in her mind, thick and green.
It’ll hold, the voice reassured her.
Lore grimaced. Aren’t You what I’m supposed to be keeping out?
No reply.
Gabe looked to Malcolm, still standing by the bookshelf, still studying his hands. “I’ll be back after I return Lore to her rooms.” Bastian’s rooms, but none of them voiced the correction. “We can look through more books.”
“Not unless I write to Farramark,” Malcolm said distractedly. “I’ve looked at our other books, they don’t have anything useful.”
“Seems like allowing one god to tell all the stories before disappearing wasn’t the best plan.” A yawn punctuated the end of the sentence. Lore wasn’t sure how late it was, now, but her body seemed to think it was the middle of the night.
Malcolm just grunted.
Right before she stepped through the arched doorway, Lore looked back. Malcolm still stood by the bookshelf, though his attention had gone from his hands to the vine stretching across the books. Tentatively, he raised his finger, touched one of the leaves.
Lore turned and followed Gabe into the hall.
When they were a few steps away from the library, Gabe turned, face thunderous, and backed her into the wall.
Lore wasn’t sure what to do, caught between his body and the stone behind her. Warmth emanated from him, as if he housed some internal fire, and the light from the sconces flickered in his one eye.
“Tell me the truth.” The warmth she felt was nowhere to be found in his voice. It was all hard edges with no blunting. “Did you make the vine grow?”
“No.” It came out hoarse and small; Lore swallowed and tried again. “There’s something else happening here. Something bigger than Mortem or Spiritum.”
“Bigger than you and Bastian,” Gabe growled. “Imagine that.”
He was very close. Her chemise and robe were very thin.
“Most things are.” She matched his tone, a lacing of anger around something far more volatile. “If you’d get your head out of your ass long enough to realize it. I thought we’d finally left all this shit with me and you and Bastian behind, but you keep trying to narrow everything down to just this.”
They’d never left it behind, could never leave it behind. It would haunt them through this life and any other.
“This,” he repeated. The hand fisted on the wall came close to her face instead, his thumb skating over her cheek. “And what is this, Lore? You’ve never said.” His rough fingers feathered over hers. “You’re wearing his ring, but you’re here with me, and you aren’t going anywhere. How does that figure into just this?”
She didn’t have an answer for him. Barely had one for herself. The voice in the back of her head was silent.
“You made a choice,” she murmured. “That night in my room. You left me, and then you betrayed me. Whatever could’ve been between us, you stomped it out. If you regret that, you have no one but yourself to blame.”
“And I do.” His mouth was so close to hers, now, so close she felt his breath across her lips, took it in as he gasped it out. “Every fucking night, I do.”
His hand dropped down the wall, slowly, like he was waiting for her to run away. She should. She didn’t.
Gabe’s hand landed light on her shoulder. A gentle friction, raised ridges from the tattoo on his palm, where it hadn’t healed quite right. His thumb traced her collarbone.
“Tell me to stop,” he breathed. “Tell me to stop, tell me you want him instead.”
His voice hitched on him, a longing he couldn’t hide, not this close together.
“I can’t,” she murmured. “And neither can you.”
