Page 91 of Wicked Salvation

Not anymore.

A sharp, chilly wind cuts through the trees with a whistle, making the rustling leaves sound like whispers. Then I hear footsteps.

My body tenses.

Eden?

I glance sideways.

My heart sinks a little—it isn’t her.

It’s Tyne. No habit. No veil. Just a grey wool coat, black slacks and a turtleneck. She looks soft and modest, but most of all,human.

“Well,” she says as she reaches the steps. “You’re exactly where I expected you to be.”

I roll my eyes, but don’t say anything.

“You’ve certainly done a number on the place,” she quips.

I don’t smile, just tilt my head to the empty space beside me and hold out the joint. She chuckles and takes it without hesitation. Tyne sits beside me, and takes a deep inhale.

“I forgot this was the entry fee to the world of Lucian Augustine-Beaumont,” she mutters, fingers brushing when she hands me back the joint.

“Glad you remember,” I mutter, taking another long inhale. I lean back on my elbows, watching the smoke dissipate into the air.

I swear I see Eden’s silhouette in the smoke.

“Was all of this really necessary?” Tyne exhales slowly, mirroring my movements and crossing her legs. “The Labby I know was never one for this kind of…drama.”

I shoot her a glance. “Don’t call me that.”

Labby.

The childhood nickname derived from my initials that she gave me because I kept calling her Tiny instead of Tyne. My eyes are on the bells missing from the bell tower when I finally get around to answering her question.

“It had to be done.”

“Why?”

I get the ash off the tip by smoldering it a bit on the rock beside me. “Else she’d be stuck with that asshole for the rest of her life.”

Tyne hums.

It’s that neutral sound she always makes, the one where she’s not quite in agreement with what you’re saying but doesn’t want to offend. “You could have told her.”

“She wouldn’t have believed me.”

“So, instead you turn Augustine into a war zone and embarrass her in the most vile way possible in front of London’sentireupper echelon? Photos of her running out of the party with tears in her eyes are splashed all over the front page of the papers.”

I hadn’t seen that.

“I just brought honesty into the picture,” I say. “None of what I’ve done or said is a lie. Everything has always been this way. I just tore the masks off.”

She nods slowly.

I hand her the joint. She takes a lungful, staring at it like it holds answers. She’s always been pensive, reclusive. We only became friends because we attended the same preparatoryschool. She was a couple grades ahead, but I was the only kid she could tolerate.

Or the only kid who could tolerate her, I suppose.