Page 73

A FTER A FEW HOURS OF PATCHY, SHALLOW SLEEP, SAFFRON SPENT most of the next day trying to contact Aspar, but every time she said “ Dragontail, ” Aspar would reply falling, meaning it wasn’t safe to talk.

Saff was inwardly relieved not to be able to talk freely to her commanding officer—she did not want to relive the botched raid, and she certainly didn’t know how to broach the subject of Tiernan.

Part of her hoped that she’d be able to find a necromancer and revive him before Aspar ever knew he’d died.

Although, in truth, the Order of the Silvercloaks was no place for a Risen.

Not only would he be a traitor, but he’d also be the maligned undead.

Even if Saffron managed to bring him back, he’d still lose everything.

Everything but Auria. And that had to be worth something.

In any case, her hours of research had proven fruitless.

Segal was nowhere to be found—she had no idea where his sleeping quarters were, and thus no idea where his necromancer scroll might be lurking—so she headed to the library to browse every piece of literature Miret could find on necromancy.

All the tomes were well-worn, dog-eared on countless pages, others annotated with the swirling cursive she recognized from Levan’s diary.

Levan.

Thoughts of him shredded all else.

Had he left the cell? Or had the pain sunk him deep into shock, his organs shutting down, taking his final breaths alone and scared?

That evening, she finally caved to the urge to go to him.

In a fit of decisive energy, she leapt from her bed, books scattering to the ground, but as she crossed the room, there was a knock at the door.

She opened it barefoot to see Levan standing on the other side, an impenetrable expression on his face.

His cheekbones jutted, his eyes bleary with exhaustion.

He wore a fresh scarlet cloak, a black tunic and trousers, with leather boots laced up his calves.

At the end of his right arm was a golden hand.

He held it up to the light, and it was unlike anything she’d ever seen—except maybe the enchanted tongues gifted to those poor children in her first year on the streetwatch.

This replacement was the exact shape and size of his own hand, and as he clenched and unclenched his fist, it moved in exactly the same way—perhaps even more fluidly, more convincingly, were it not for the brilliant gilded hue, the radiance as it caught the light.

“That’s incredible,” Saffron breathed, relief flooding into every chamber and atrium of her heart. He was alright.

Levan looked at the hand with a strange expression on his face—somewhere between horror and reverence.

“If T?lun doesn’t receive the Vallish Distinction Prize for this work—just because he’s Nyr?thi—I’ll burn the Palace to the ground myself.

I’ve never seen magic like it. It … I can feel everything.

” He ran a golden fingertip down the wooden frame of her door, then lowered his golden hand, cerulean eyes searching hers. “Zares is gone.”

Trying not to skip a beat—and trying not to betray anything on her face that might hint toward what happened with Tiernan—she replied, “I didn’t think you were going to survive. And the thought of your father getting hold of her … you made it sound like he couldn’t know.”

Levan pinched the bridge of his nose with his regular hand. “Hells. It cost us so much to bring her in.”

“Are you angry?”

“Not with you.”

“Your father? For what he did to you.”

Levan’s eyes darkened. “No. I understand it.”

“You aren’t going to punish him?”

“When my mother returns, she’ll want him in one piece.”

They stared at each other for several long moments, a thousand unsaid words hanging in the warm, citrus-sharp air. Somewhere behind Saffron, Rasso snored obnoxiously.

“Will you lie with me?” she whispered, nodding her head toward the book-scattered bed.

For a moment, Levan stopped breathing.

And then he followed her into the room.

He surveyed the considerable chaos with something like amusement on his face.

There were books everywhere, not carefully arranged like his own but rather strewn facedown on top of her trunk.

Crumpled piles of clothes lay in various heaps on the floor.

Empty mugs of hot chocolate sat on her ring-marked desk, and the faucet in her sink was trickling for no particular reason.

“You’re sort of messy,” Levan remarked, raising a single brow.

Saffron shrugged. “Always seems to be something more pressing going on.”

He took in the rumpled mess of her bed, topped with leather-bound volumes and single sheets of paper with scrawled notes. “It’s quite unclear where I’m supposed to lie, exactly.”

“Fine,” Saff grumbled.

With a muttered levitation spell and a flick of her wand, Saffron stacked the books on her bedside table, then lay on her side, head resting on the pillow.

Levan perched uncertainly on the opposite edge and slowly, painstakingly, unlaced his boots.

He shrugged off his scarlet cloak, then folded it precisely and laid it on top of the trunk at the end of the four-poster bed.

When he finally lay down next to her, the mattress sank beneath his weight, but he kept almost a foot of space between their bodies, as though he had no idea how to look at her.

Saff took Levan’s hands in hers. The golden hand was as cold as marble.

War waged behind his eyes as he looked down at their interlaced fingers. “Will you ever look at me the same again?”

Saff almost laughed. She’d thought the exact same thing when she’d left that cell, but in reverse. “How do you think I look at you?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled his golden hand away and rubbed the back of his head. Saffron remembered how soft the hair was there and longed to stroke it again, but supposed he had put distance between their bodies for a reason. “It’s my first time being looked at like this.”

“What about Alucia?”

He flinched as though she’d struck him. “How do you know about Alucia?”

Saints. She knew about Alucia because of his journal.

Think fast, Killoran.

“Harrow mentioned a life partner,” she replied quickly. “And then you used that name with your father, the night I was hiding in your wardrobe. I put two and two together. Then the holly on your ribs …”

With a bitter twist of his lips, he laughed unconvincingly. “Alucia betrayed me, in the end. It was never real to her. I was just a piece on a board game.”

Self-loathing churned in her gut. “I’m sorry.”

“I swore I’d never let myself feel like that again. That’s why I kept the tattoo instead of dissolving it.” A tense beat. “It was supposed to remind me of the dangers of falling in love.”

Saff felt as though someone had reached a hand into her chest and wrung her heart like a washcloth. “What happened? With Alucia.”

“She was infiltrating from the Whitewings. It was years ago, before they were as prevalent as they are now. They started out as ascenite bandits, then did well in achullah for a while. Cut it with darkseed to make it more addictive. But once we brought lox into the city, we stole most of their business. They sent Alucia to get close to me, then ultimately sabotage us.” A fleeting shot of grief passed over his face.

“Vogolan killed her the second he found out who she was.”

“Why didn’t you retaliate? Against Vogolan, I mean.”

He tapped two fingers over his brand. “Vogolan’s act was clearly in the Bloodmoons’ best interest. Mine would not have been.” A narrowing of his eyes. “Which begs the question … how did your brand not kill you? When you took his life?”

She’d almost forgotten about her confession back in his bedroom. A slip of the tongue, a careless show of her hand.

“Maybe it’s because he hurt me first, and it was self-defense,” she said.

“But I’ve been going over and over it in my mind, and I think …

I think maybe he had grown sloppy, stopped acting in the Bloodmoons’ best interests.

He killed Papa Marriosan for no reason other than bloodlust, in broad daylight and with witnesses, and it’s that kind of shortsightedness that makes us vulnerable to the Silvercloaks.

” The casual use of us still made her squirm.

“So perhaps the brand believed that in neutralizing his threat, I was not acting against the Bloodmoons, but in our favor.”

Levan gave a scornful laugh. “In truth, I’m jealous you’re the one who got to do it. I’ve fantasized about killing him for a long time. Although I’m glad you didn’t just let him hurt you. You’ve got fire, I’ll give you that.”

Saffron rolled onto her back, so she wouldn’t have to face him. “I’m sorry Alucia wasn’t who she said she was.”

Levan tentatively rested his golden hand on her lower ribs. Her diaphragm rose and fell against his crypt-cold palm.

“You’re not hiding anything from me, are you?” he said, pressing his forehead against her upper arm.

Even though she was secretly on the good side, the right side, Saffron felt like the most evil person in the world.

She had to destroy the Bloodmoons, but she didn’t have to toy with his heart. With him.

“I’m hiding a lot of things,” Saff replied, trying to sound playful, but it came out a little strangled. “My favorite gelato flavor is chocolate—”

“Heathen,” he said, mock-affronted. “Pistachio is far superior.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I no longer respect you as a person, but alright. My favorite song is ‘This Way the Griffin Flies—’”

“Saccharine nonsense.”

“And my favorite time of year is summer.”

He tsk ed. “How can someone so beautiful have such bad taste? Autumn is objectively correct.”

Her heart hitched at the word beautiful.

Something she’d been called many times before—something she knew to be objectively true about herself—but there was still something wrenching about hearing it from Levan.

Closed off, dead-behind-the-eyes Levan, who had slowly but surely come back to life over the time she had known him.