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CHAPTER SIX

GABE

Desperation and dignity never hold hands.

—From a letter written by Fergus Almont, Rotunda delegate

H e was not himself, and he was watching Apollius.

Gabe felt his shoulder lean against a tree, the bark rough against skin that he knew was not his own.

It felt stretched in the wrong direction, too short, broader and more muscled.

And that should have made him panic—panic lurked in the very back of his head, relegated to animal instinct—but he was distracted by the man in front of him.

It was Apollius—he knew it was Apollius—but much as knowing that he was not in his own body should have been a source of panic and was not, the sight of his former god working a forge in the greenest forest he’d ever seen didn’t alarm him.

Instead, he was warm all over, content. Happy. What a foreign feeling.

The forge was open-air, in a small clearing.

The stones that made it were of a piece, like they’d been manipulated into shape rather than built.

Apollius was stripped to the waist, his brown hair matted against his skull with sweat, skin gleaming.

Golden phosphorescence hovered around him like a halo.

He was the most beautiful man Hestraon had ever seen.

The back of Gabe’s mind—the part that was still him—jolted when he thought the name of the fire god as if it were his own.

This wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.

Apollius whacked at whatever he was creating with a steel hammer, turning it in the fire. Gold and silver, melted together into the shape of a dagger. He looked up at Hestraon, grinned. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

“I still can’t believe I let you take first crack at forging something with the ore on the island. That’s quite an inaugural project.”

“I can believe it.” He turned the blade again, showering embers. His smile lit up the whole island. “You let me do whatever I want.”

The first shade of a dark thought in the alien consciousness that trapped Gabe’s own. It was true.

Hestraon pushed off from the tree and approached the forge.

For a first attempt, Apollius’s dagger was better than good.

The pommel was a bit crooked, and the blade a bit thin, but he had no doubt the weapon would hold up to use.

He hadn’t experimented with anything mined from the Mount, but it stood to reason that it would be stronger stuff than he used to work with.

Back when he was human.

Apollius picked up the dagger with tongs and dunked it into a bucket of water. Steam roiled over him, turning his body momentarily ghostly. “There.”

Hestraon gave the blade a moment to cool before plucking it from the water. It shone bright in his hand. “Well done.”

“Had a good teacher.” Apollius stood close, the heat of him warming Hestraon’s arm. He pushed forward until they touched, and the burn in Hestraon’s chest had nothing to do with his power.

“Imagine how much we could sell that for on the mainland,” Apollius said.

“You’re a god now, and you’re still thinking of money?”

“I have retained my practicality.”

When Hestraon turned, Apollius’s face was close enough to feel his breath. Hestraon’s eyes closed, almost of their own accord. His mouth parted slightly.

Apollius leaned in. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d kissed, but with him, it always felt like it.

No kiss came. When Hestraon opened his eyes, confused and slightly hurt, Apollius was grinning, his eyes bright as a child’s who’d just pulled off a trick.

“Why not?” Hestraon breathed, no dignity in the plea. He was past that with Apollius. Always used to begging.

The god of light and life smiled, leaned in closer, so his lips brushed Hestraon’s cheek. “Because you haven’t earned it. Go on. Try again.”

This was a joke, and a cruel one. Ever since the Fount, Apollius had amused himself by asking Hestraon to try channeling Spiritum, the power that now came to Apollius as easily as calling a well-trained dog.

It was impossible—when Hestraon concentrated, he could barely see the glimmers of gold, and they wouldn’t obey him.

Still, he tried. Closing his eyes, focusing so hard he swayed on his feet. Sunlight threads, weaving through everything alive, but no matter how he coaxed them, they wouldn’t respond.

Failure landed like a rock in his ribs, sinking low, settling. Familiar, by now.

“No kisses for the weak.” Apollius grinned. “Come on. Let’s go show Nyxara. See if she thinks my work is as good as yours.”

Gabe opened his eyes.

His breathing came ragged as he reoriented himself to the correct dimensions, got used to filling the whole of his head again. This was what had happened to Lore, back when Nyxara first burrowed into her mind—dreams that were memories, the goddess’s life played out behind her eyes.

I didn’t mean to do that.

A voice that was not his. Low and rough, warm, like the graze of hot smoke when you drew too close to a candle.

“Fuck.” Gabe grabbed his head. “Gods damn it.”

Apt.

They weren’t supposed to do this. They weren’t supposed to be this strong. But hadn’t he known something was happening? The singe in his nostrils, the heat in his hands. It’d been growing stronger for weeks.

“You can’t do this,” Gabe murmured into the dark. “We thought You couldn’t do this.”

When Hestraon’s voice came, it was apologetic. You were wrong.

Gabe’s next day was spent in a flurry of aching stomach and jittery hands, trying not to think of what had happened in the night.

Finn wasn’t coming to collect them until dark, so he set out before dawn lightened the sky, ranging along the beach until the sun was high enough that he could probably find a fight.

Off to the barn, then, where he had his ass handed to him three times before his body told him in no uncertain terms that he’d taken enough beatings for one day.

He pulled up his hood as he left, avoiding the bloodcoats that seemed to linger on every corner, and headed back to the boardinghouse, where Malcolm was still poring over the latest book Adrian had sent him.

For a moment, he considered telling Malcolm. Asking about his dreams. He didn’t. If it was happening to Malcolm, too, they were well and truly fucked.

And if it was only happening to Gabe…

He didn’t want to think about that.

His knee bounced nervously as he sat down, arms braced on his knees. Malcolm calmly turned pages and made rows of neat notes. The ledgers he was supposed to be working on had been shoved aside, a drift of paper falling off the edge of the desk.

“Find anything else?” Gabe asked.

“Not really.” Malcolm sighed and leaned back, rubbing at his eyes as if they ached.

“The Fount is broken, and It can’t hold all of Its power until someone repairs It.

Which means that if we want to get rid of our god-power problem without handing it over to Apollius, the Fount has to get cobbled back together first.”

“I assume the books have no clues about where the pieces are.”

“Of course not. That would actually be helpful.” Malcolm shut the book with uncharacteristic force. “But it seems like our only option is to try looking for them. Myriad hells.”

“If what Finn said is true about the Prime Minister’s interests, maybe he’ll have an idea.” The words sounded hollow. Neither one of them had much faith in this new venture with Eoin Iomare.

His friend raised a brow. “You think it will be that easy? Just ask him, and he tells us? Even if he knows where the pieces are and by some miracle gives us asylum, the chances of him turning over what are undoubtedly some of the most valuable things on the continent—on the damn globe—are next to zero.”

“Maybe if we tell him what’s happening to Bastian—”

“Then he’ll just want to kill Bastian, Gabe. He won’t care that Bastian isn’t in control.”

He was right. Dammit. “So we keep it secret. What’s happening to Bastian, and what we’re looking for. And just hope it somehow drops into our laps.”

“Stranger things have happened.” Malcolm’s jaw worked, his eyes canted to the side like he didn’t want to meet Gabe’s gaze. “Or we tell him anyway.”

The unspoken consequence was clear. Tell Eoin. Let the war start.

Let him try to kill Bastian.

His hands felt like they were on fire. Gabe closed his fists, hard, half expecting smoke to leak between his fingers. “No. That’s not an option.”

“It might have to be,” Malcolm murmured.

“But it doesn’t have to be right now.” Gabe looked up, flame-shadows spinning in the corners of his vision. “Please.”

I was never too proud to beg , said a voice in the back of his head. Not for His sake.

Gabe gritted his teeth.

Malcolm sighed, leaning back in his chair until it creaked ominously, fingertips on his temples.

When he spoke, it wasn’t about Bastian. “I lied to Michal. Blackmail isn’t the worst possibility.

The worst possibility is that there’s a reward attached to our upcoming warrants and Finn is trying to get it first.”

“Michal was a poison runner. He knows.” Gabe thought about asking why Malcolm would feel the need to assuage the other man’s feelings, but he bit down on the question.

He’d seen the sidelong looks they gave each other, how they always wanted to be within touching distance.

He was happy for his friend, though the circumstances were far from ideal.

But jealousy was a thorn in his side: That the person Malcolm cared for was with him.

That he could at least attempt to keep Michal safe.

“If he tries anything,” Gabe said quietly, giving words to what they both knew, “we kill him.”

Slowly, Malcolm’s chair balanced on all four legs again. He knit his fingers on the table, addressed them instead of Gabe. “Is it hard?”

Gabe had killed before. Malcolm hadn’t. His position as the head librarian kept him from the usual violence of the Presque Mort, from the arrests gone wrong and the revenants put out of their misery.

“No,” Gabe said, standing. “It’s not hard at all.”