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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Now

I find Camille in the upstairs hall, standing outside the closed bathroom door.

From within comes the sound of a running faucet, the splash of water in the sink.

She looks anxious and overalert, skittish in a way I’ve never seen her before.

Her entire body is drawn tight as a wire, her lips bitten and her fingers curled against her palms.

She nods toward the door. “He won’t tell me anything; he only wants to speak with you.”

“I’ll see what I can get out of him, then. And I might need to borrow some clothes. Your father said I should dress for dinner . As opposed to showing up naked, I guess.”

Camille makes a face at my mention of Marcus. “I’ll go and find something for you to change into. Good luck with the Salt Priest.”

She squeezes my hand, her skin sweat-damp, her fingers trembling, then she goes down the hallway into the depths of the house. I knock on the bathroom door. “Hugo? May I come in?”

The latch clicks, and Hugo opens the door. He’s washed the blood from his face, though his nose is still swollen, and there are spreading bruises beneath his eyes.

“It’s not broken,” he says flatly when he notices me examining his injuries. He turns to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “Close the door, will you?”

I step into the room and close the door.

Leaning my back against it, I fold my arms and look down at Hugo.

He’s so deceptively innocent, a blue-eyed boy with golden curls and a spray of freckles dusted over his cheeks.

And part of me wants to plead with him for help, to lay out the whole truth of my connection to Therion—and his incomplete banishment—like cards on a table.

But I’ll not trust him so easily.

“So,” I begin guardedly. “You’ve left the Salt Priests. Why?”

He gives me a querulous look, then ducks his head. “Because I feel terrible about what I’ve done.”

“Which part, exactly? Banishing our god, or nearly collapsing my family’s mine, or attacking me? Or perhaps when you betrayed Alastair after he trusted you?”

“He told you about that, then.”

“He did.”

Hugo picks at the cuff of his sweater, tracing the shape of the dried bloodstain on his sleeve. “I never meant to hurt him—or any of you.”

“You’ve got a strange way of not hurting people.”

He shoves a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face.

He looks miserable, but there’s a hard, flinty anger in his expression.

“You have no idea what the Salt Priests are like. The ways they demand loyalty, the things they make us do. I should have left a long time ago. I wanted to leave with Alastair, truly I did. But it wasn’t possible. ”

I shift back to lean against the opposite wall. “What changed?”

“I had a sister. Georgiana.” He picks up a damp washcloth and begins to blot at the stain on his sweater.

“Five years younger than me. She was still a child when Alastair asked me to leave with him. I wanted to bring her with us, but she was… fragile. All the Salt Priests use a tincture as part of our rituals, even the children. It’s addictive.

I knew she wouldn’t survive the withdrawal. ”

I remember what Alastair told me about the drug the sect uses to ensure loyalty. How no one can be away from the compound for longer than a few days before they sicken. “Is that why you decided not to leave?”

Hugo lays aside the washcloth with a sigh.

His eyes are red-rimmed, blurred with held-back tears.

“I still wanted to run away. But I needed to steal enough of the tincture for Georgiana. They caught me. I refused to tell them what I’d planned at first. Then…

they threatened her. I confessed everything.

” He bites his lip, looks down at the floor.

“This time, when I left, I didn’t try to steal anything. I just ran.”

“Won’t you need it, though?”

“I’ve been secretly taking less, whenever I can. They watch us, to make sure we drink, but I would pretend and then spit it out later. I’m still… sick. But I won’t die.”

Hugo extends his hands to show me. They’re trembling so much he can barely keep them outstretched. I notice that his nails are stained dark blue, as though all the blood has been leeched from his fingertips. A symptom of the withdrawal.

“And what,” I ask slowly, “about your sister?”

“This year she was chosen to be… honored… at our equinox ritual.”

He doesn’t elaborate but his meaning is clear, couched in the pauses between his words, the way he speaks of her in past tense.

The other regions of Verse have their own gods, but here, where we worship Therion, everyone has heard rumors of the Salt Priest rituals.

The extreme lengths they use to earn the favor of the god of salt and seafoam.

How followers are entombed alive inside tidal caves or held beneath the sea until they drown.

Until now, I’d thought they were only stories. But I think of the items on their altar: the jar of seawater, the bloodstained lace, the cut-off braid. The hair in that braid was almost the same shade as Hugo’s curls.

Slowly, I cross the room and sit down on the tub beside him. A flicker of sympathy rises in me for this boy, who has hurt and been hurt, who has suffered. I lay my hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry, Hugo.”

He nods, tears welling beneath his golden eyelashes. “That night, when I interrupted your betrothal to Therion, I was acting on the orders of the Salt Priests. I mean what I say: I never wanted to hurt any of you.”

I cast a surreptitious glance toward him.

I can see what drew Alastair to Hugo, why he would have trusted him.

I feel the same pull. The temptation to confess is a palpable thing; I can taste it like sugar dissolving on my tongue.

Yet something stills me from telling him the truth.

Instead, I ask, “But why did you want to banish Therion, if he is your god?”

Hugo bites his lip, tugging at his sleeve again. Before he can answer, the sound of footsteps echoes from the stairwell. I open the bathroom door as Alastair reaches the landing, shadowed by his father. I move closer to him, my heartbeat rising.

I want to take his hands, to wrap my arms around him and hold him close.

Keep him safe. But Marcus is watching us, keen-eyed as a predator.

I think of how he tore the wreath from Alastair’s hair at the bonfire, wrenched him away from me.

I think of Alastair’s twice-broken arm, the cigarette burns over his heart.

If Marcus realizes our connection, or that I know what he’s done, it will only make things worse for Alastair.

With effort, I force myself to look relaxed. Turning to Hugo, I say, “Mr. Felimath was just telling me that they dress for dinner at Saltswan. Maybe you and Alastair can go together and pick out what to wear.”

Alastair glances between Hugo and me. His expression is veiled, his face neutral as a mask. Coolly, he beckons to Hugo, then goes down the hall without waiting for the other boy to follow him. Marcus watches them with a scowl.

In a low, warning tone, he calls after Alastair, “Don’t hit him again.”

I come to dinner in a borrowed gown of lilac silk.

The neckline scoops low into voluminous draped sleeves that leave my shoulders bare while covering my arms, so the feathers are hidden.

A wide ribbon is sashed tightly at my waist. Camille tied a matching ribbon in my hair before she hurried off to lay out the meal, refusing my offer of help.

Marcus had telephoned the village tavern and ordered a prepared dinner to be delivered to the house.

Now, as I enter the dining room, the table is already laden with covered platters and set with scallop-edged porcelain plates and gleaming silver cutlery.

A large salt lantern hangs overhead, filling the room with light.

Camille stands framed against the enormous window. Her dress is a similar cut to mine, with fabric that’s the muted green of blackberry leaves. The falling light comes in from outside, haloing her dark hair with streaks of fire.

The room is quiet, filled by a held-breath stillness.

I’m the last to arrive; everyone else is seated at the table.

Marcus sits at the head, idly holding a glass of wine that he doesn’t drink.

Hugo and Alastair are side by side, both dressed in neat, funeral-dark trousers, silk ties, and pressed linen shirts.

They all stand at the sound of my approach, Marcus and Alastair moving instinctively, Hugo awkward as he follows. Camille pulls out my chair, bending to whisper, “You’re beautiful ,” her breath rushing against my ear.

I want to laugh, to tell her she saw me upstairs already and that she looks beautiful, too.

With her silken dress and the long, elegant lines of her bared neck, she’s like a figure from a painting, all gossamer skirts and the dark brown waves of her unbound hair.

But the looming presence of her father makes my words catch in my throat.

I offer Camille a tentative smile and touch her hand beneath the table.

Across from us, Alastair sits straight-backed, his tie fastened in a Balthus knot, silver glinting at his shirt cuffs.

When he sees me, his eyes widen, and he bites his lip before quickly glancing away.

But all I can do is stare at him. He looks so darkly aristocratic, like a fallen prince, too golden and beautiful to be real.

Like he should be wearing a laurel-leaf crown and stamped in profile on an ancient coin.

Marcus clears his throat pointedly. He lays down his glass and unfolds a napkin. “Now that we’re all here, we can begin.”