Page 47 of Soulbound

"Ten days. If I choose to go." He could feel power welling within him, sending a chill through the air around them. Expression. He was letting his emotions overpower him, and drive his sorcery. Exactly what Bishop warned him against, and was trying to teach him not to do.

With limited success.

Verity bit into her apple, chewing thoughtfully, as if she couldn't feel the air chilling. "I suppose that's a decision you'll have to make," she said, and then tossed the apple core in the gutter. A hungry rat slipped out of a pile of crates and darted toward it, whisking the core away.

Verity held her hands out to him. "Coming?"

He looked down. Verity's gift of translocation was a little unnerving. He didn't know how it worked—by all rights it shouldn't have—but Bishop had muttered something along the lines of "she doesn't know enough about the rules of sorcery to be able to comprehend the illogic of what she can do." As long as Verity believed in her magic, then she'd be able to pop in and out of midair, no matter where.

"Aren't we catching a hack?" he asked cautiously. "And what do you mean by 'that's a decision I'll have to make?' You're not going to tell my brother?"

"Do you want me to?"

Hell, no. "He'll think I'm reneging on the bargain we made."

"Yes, he'll be disappointed. I know this month hasn't been an easy one for either of you." She nodded slowly. "But it's your secret, Sebastian. Your choice. I hope you change your mind before your ship leaves."

"He'll probably be relieved," he muttered under his breath.

Verity smiled sadly. "I wish you could both trust each other. Sometimes I see so many similarities between the two of you that it makes my heart ache to see you both stubbornly butting heads, purely because neither of you will yield. He's not your enemy, Sebastian."

Similarities? She had to be joking. "Bishop wanted me dead."

"You're right," she said, holding out her hands. "He was afraid of your power, and how uncontrolled it was. The same way you once wanted your father dead, because you thought he'd abandoned you. But he changed his mind, as it seems you have too."

His father had abandoned him. And then he'd turned around and sacrificed his body to the demon in place of Sebastian's. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he stared down at Verity's gloved hands. "How on earth can you look so optimistically on the world, when you know what it's like? You're a fool."

"Maybe. But if I don't have hope the world will turn out to be a better place, then what is the point in going on?"

The words struck him, right to the heart. And he put his hands in hers before he could consider just what exactly it meant.

He hadn't made a decision yet.

He had ten days to make it.

* * *

"Do you have something to tell me?" Bishop murmured, as he followed his wife inside the carriage that would take them to Seven Dials.

Verity blinked at him, her green eyes guileless. "Do I?"

He tested the soul-bond between them, coming up against the small hard shield that blocked him from a certain section of her thoughts. The shield hadn't been there before he sent her to find Sebastian.

She'd never locked him out before.

"You're hiding something, and it has to do with Sebastian." And he didn't like it one bit. "What did he do? What did he say?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

Bishop flexed his fingers inside his leather gloves. She had to be jesting. She, better than anyone, knew how poorly the past month had gone. He could teach Sebastian how to attack with sorcery. He could teach him how to defend himself. But he couldn't reach him. "Because he won't tell me."

"If you push the issue, then I daresay I will reveal it. My loyalties lie with you, after all," Verity said, then pursed her lips. "But I would prefer not to. Your brother needs to know he can trust someone."

Words Agatha had been drilling into him for weeks now. He knew she was right.

"He doesn't trust me," he said.

"No."