Lorencz swore, stubbing out her cigar. I was still smiling to myself. A recipe for creating gods. Something like this would shatter the Reverence. It was a far more dangerous heresy than the one Jonathan and I had been proposing.
Aronson leaned forward in his chair.
“My friends,” he said, “I suggest we all agree here and now to keep this line of speculation a secret to our graves.”
The fire crackled loudly in the silence that followed his words.
I understood his concern. He was a director on the Vigilance’s board, responsible for making and enforcing sorcerous policy. His suggestion was the ethical choice. He was afraid this experiment would be tried again and again by powerful and ruthless people seeking to create a tailor-made god of their own. People like my father, who would have been deeply disappointed had he lived long enough to discover that all of his experiments had created nothing grander than me.
Had Carel known this would happen? Had she planned it? Is this why she’d kidnapped and drugged the children? Was this the Banishat’s real goal — to overthrow the adjuration-hating Reverence with a new god who was friendly toward sentinels?
Wind rattled the library shutters in gusts. A log popped and hissed.
“I’m good with that,” Lorencz said at last.
Droit and I looked at each other. The silence stretched between us again.
“I will take the oath,” I said at last, as the scientist in me squirmed in protest at the thought of hiding such a profound discovery. It was the ethical choice. I’d made few enough in my life. I could make this one for him.
“All right,” Droit agreed, surprising me. Aronson held out a hand. One by one, we stacked ours on top of his, sealing the pact.
“Good.” He leaned back, breaking the tension. “Axton, would you please ask Milka about Far’s rules of conduct as soon as you can?”
I inclined my head, accepting the assignment. It reminded me of my other duties, so I stood.
“Excuse me. I left something in the guest room the other night. I’ll be back in a moment.”
The report was still in the room, next to the whiskey the servants kept there for me. I slid out three pages, folding them and putting them into my pocket. Then I brought the report downstairs and handed it to Lorencz.
“This is my autopsy report on the warehouse corpse. The body’s probably still in my cellar.”
“They’re in the morgue,” Droit corrected me. I inclined my head in acknowledgement.
“Did you find any thing important?” Lorencz asked, making a face as she flipped through my report. “Feels like all of this happened last month.”
“He died of adjuration. I made sketches.”
“Yeah, I see. Wonderful.” She snapped the folder shut. “Thanks.”
Jon would have been fascinated. I kept standing, feeling a sudden pang of loneliness. None of my new friends had ever been interested in the same things that intrigued me, but I’d never felt the gap between us quite as acutely before.
No matter. Duty done. I’d fulfilled my promise to Arlin and to Carel. Captain Lorencz could decide what to do with the death, now — cover it up or investigate further. The pages describing the rings and my speculations about the cause of death were tucked into my waistcoat pocket. I’d burn them tonight when I was alone.
“I … I need to go,” I said. “I’m tired.”
Lorencz and Droit both nodded, and we drifted out to Aronson’s porch. The snow was getting heavier.
“Need a ride?” Lorencz asked, calling up a balesteed. I was hesitating when Droit slid an arm around my shoulders.
“I’ll take him home,” he said. “We’ll pick up a public coach down on Carriageway.”
“You sure?” Lorencz looked at me, eyebrows rising. I nodded, embarrassed, and she shrugged and mounted. In a matter of moments her steed had bounded away, faster and quieter than a horse.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as we began walking down the street. The moon was bright and almost full, lighting our way. The night’s chill helped counteract the whiskey in my empty stomach.
“Nothing. You said we needed to get to know each other better, and we didn’t get much chance tonight.” Droit looked down at me, his arm heavy around my shoulders. “You were quiet, even for you. Are you in pain? I thought you were nearly healed.”
“I like my rooms,” I said, deflecting. “I’m going to order an armoire. It’s the first time in my life that I ever thought I needed one.”
He chuckled.
“Same thing happened to me when I moved back to Cislunar. I spent years living in an army tent, needing nothing. Then all of the sudden I moved into a house and I needed everything.”
“I can’t imagine that you own that much.”
“I don’t own as much as Michael,” he conceded. “But I have enough to spare. You’re sleeping on my extra sheets.”
“I thought the flat came furnished.”
“Not with sheets and towels.” He smirked. “I figured you could try mine out to see if you liked them.”
I tried to think of something to say to that, something offhand and sarcastic like Lorencz, but I couldn’t, and the moment passed. We turned the corner and headed down to the line of coaches waiting down the block.
“What did you do today? Besides visit Dr. Hawkins?”
I tried to find an answer that wouldn’t raise too many questions. Should I tell him about meeting Malkin? Did it matter anymore? The young man would be well out of Cislunar by now if he had any sense of self-preservation. Should I tell him what I knew about Carel? About my past?
I was still pondering my response when we reached the coaches. Droit hired one to take us to Southgate. We climbed in and sat in opposite seats, looking at each other.
Jon and I had always understood each other. Uncomfortable silences had never stretched out between us, and I’d never felt at a loss for words around him. By contrast, I seldom knew what to say to Droit, or how to respond to his quips and teasing. We had very little in common.
Maybe I’d be the same with Jon if we met again now. I’d been out of Hellsgate almost a year, but I still struggled to remember how to act like a normal person. Maybe the problem wasn’t with Droit, but with me. Maybe I had too many secrets and too much violence in my past. Maybe I was fooling myself to think I could ever have a normal relationship.
“You’re lost in thought again.”
“I’m sorry.” I sighed, wondering how many times I’d apologized this evening. “My leg does hurt. And … I’m bad company today.”
“Well, you aren’t making this easy,” Droit grumbled. “This is why I prefer to go straight to the sex and leave getting to know each other for pillow talk.”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” He was right. I was the one who’d said we needed to know each other better, and yet I was the one keeping all the secrets. I made an effort. “I was thinking about my life before Hellsgate. I had a room of my own at the university. There wasn’t much in it except a bed, a table, and a chair. They had ten rooms for charity scholars. They all looked like a monks’ cells.”
“Your family struggled?” He asked, a little awkwardly. I doubt he really cared, but it was nice that he made the effort.
“My father died when I was seven, and my mother when I was nine.” I swallowed. “I stayed in the orphanage until I was eleven. I knew how to read and write, so when I got out, I took a series of clerking jobs and eventually saved up enough money to take the university entrance exams.”
“How old were you when you were accepted?”
“Eighteen.”
“Don’t most students start university at sixteen?”
“Eighteen isn’t that unusual for students who need to work to support themselves.”
“Were you still a student when you were arrested?”
I nodded.
“Yes. I was twenty-five. I would have graduated at twenty-three if I hadn’t changed my focus from anatomy to alienism.”
“You ‘found minds more interesting than bodies,’” he said, paraphrasing Hawkins. “I prefer bodies, myself.” He grinned, barely visible in the dim lamplight from the streets the coach was taking. “What did you do, anyway? Why’d they arrest you?”
I chose my words with care.
“I was sentenced for the illegal and unauthorized dissection of a human body.”
“Did you kill the guy before you dissected him?”
“No. I mean, he was dead, but I hadn’t killed him.”
“Then you shouldn’t have gotten more than a fine and a warning. Maybe blackballed out of the medical profession at worst. How did you end up getting ten years at Hellsgate?”
I shrugged, not wanting to answer the question.
“Did you have an enemy on the bench?” he pressed.
“I think … I think I was intended to be an example.”
“You don’t sound very bitter about it. If it had been me, I would have started killing people as soon as I’d gotten out of jail. Made a few examples of my own.”
“It’s over now.” Or it had been, before Carel had stirred up old ghosts. No … it was over. Jon was dead, and so was the eager young man I’d been back then. My ten-year sentence had started out badly, but after the first year or two I’d settled in and even figured out how to take advantage of knowing so many violent criminals. And now I had a respectable job and highly placed friends. So why had Carel’s reprise of my past disturbed me so deeply?
I bit my lip. Because thinking about Jon made me feel guilty, that’s why. I’d outlived him and I’d stopped thinking about him. If I’d really loved him, I shouldn’t have been able to do that.
No, that was ridiculous. Moving forward was natural. Healthy. But seeing that manuscript had made me remember him again, and now I couldn’t help thinking that my new friends fell short.
I needed to exorcise his memory. I could think of one efficient way of doing that: encourage Droit. Maybe invite Droit up to my room. My leg hurt, but … a little more laudanum would deaden of all kinds of pain. I was fairly certain I could do it. I was fairly certain I needed to do it.
I sighed. Someday, anyway. But tonight, maybe I’d tell Droit good-night and go up to my room alone. Drink a little more whiskey and burn those pages from my report. I might wake up with a hangover, but at least I’d still respect myself in the morning. Even now, I wasn’t certain whether Droit would.
The coach jolted and rattled through the Markets.
“You know,” Droit complained, “this isn’t so much of a conversation as an interrogation.”
I blinked, called back to the moment.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, weakly. He put a hand against the coach window and stood, swinging over to sit next to me. I moved over, tensing. No. No, I wasn’t ready to invite him to my room yet.
“Talking’s not getting us anywhere,” he said, sliding an arm over my shoulders, his coat falling open as he faced me. “So let’s work out a compromise. How much pain are you in?”
I was trapped between him and the side of the coach. I hunched my shoulders.
“I don’t —“
“If I don’t touch your leg, will you be all right? I’ll behave myself. I promise.”
“It’s not —“
He leaned forward, his free hand cupping the side of my face as he kissed me. His tongue was hot and intrusive. I flinched, turning away and damned myself for being a coward.
“Tell me ‘no’ or decide to trust me,” he murmured, tugging my face up again. He gave me a few seconds, then leaned forward and kissed me a second time, gently but firmly. This time I sat still, forcing myself to endure it, because even if I didn’t entirely trust him, I also didn’t want to tell him no.
“Relax,” he urged me, running a thumb over my cheek. The coach jolted over a cobblestone and he pulled me closer, careful of my leg as he trapped me in the corner of the seat. His long hair and open coat formed a private space around us. He smelled like leather and weapon oil. The scent wasn’t as elegant as his cousin’s cologne, but, oddly, it was just as comforting.
I looked up uncertainly and he smiled, capturing my mouth again. This time an electric thrill raised the hair on my arms and neck and jolted through the pit of my stomach to my groin. I closed my eyes and let my lips open. He tasted like apple juice. It was a curiously childish flavor for an infamous killer.
My hand fell on his chest and I let it rest there, feeling the straps under his shirt that held his concealed daggers in place. For some reason, knowing the knives were there reassured me, too.
This is a terrible idea, I thought. For so many reasons, this is an absolutely terrible idea. …But I wasn’t paying attention to the pain in my leg anymore, at least.
At last he lifted his mouth from mine, running his fingertips over my lips. I opened my eyes. His face was only visible in flashes as the coach passed beneath streetlamps.
“That’s better,” he said, with satisfaction. “I was starting to wonder if you’d been lying about being interested in me.”
I swallowed, acutely aware that I was still touching him. I felt uneasy about it, but I was afraid that if I pulled my hand back, I’d send the wrong message.
“I never lie,” I said, sounding hoarse.
“Attraction is demonstrated by actions, not words.” His tone was dry. “You’re a quiet man, Ax. I don’t think talking is how I’m going to get into your head.”
“You don’t want to get into my head.”
“I want to get into every part of you. And I will, eventually.” He moved his hand to the lapel of my waistcoat, tracing it upward. The coach made a turn, rocking us against each other. “Talk to me. If this were one of your smutty novels, what would I do next?”
“That would depend on whether you were the hero or the villain,” I said, flushing as his hand cupped the nape of my neck. “And what part of the story we were in.”
“Oh, I’m definitely the villain.” He leaned forward again.
I wanted to remember everything the novels said about kissing, but Droit was making it difficult to think about anything except him. I gave up and let him lead, feeling as awkward after ten years of prison as I’d been the very first time I’d fallen in love.
He had promised that he’d behave, and I suppose, for a self-styled villain, he did. It seemed only seconds later that the the coach slowed and stopped in front of my boarding house. I felt a stab of disappointment as Droit slid his hand out of my trousers.
“I could tell him to drive us back to my house in Parkside,” he breathed, his face inches from mine. I took a deep breath to clear my head. My lower half wanted to say yes. My top half knew better.
“Another day.” I said, embarrassed. “But — thank you.”
He growled.
“I’m not good at delaying gratification, Ax.” His voice was rough as he reached out and pushed the door open. “Get out of here before I remember that I’m not good at all.”
I climbed down, shivering in the sudden cold but grateful for its chilling effect. I straightened my shirt collar, hoping Droit hadn’t left any marks, and pulled my coat closed to hide the lingering effects of his wandering hands.
“Excuse me — are you Mister Axton?”
“Yes?” I looked up, to see three soldiers wearing the crest of the Vigilance of the Snowy Owl standing next to the coach.
“Good evening. You’re under arrest for the possession of proscribed books.”