Page 91 of The Ragpicker King
“I still don’t understand why she’d approach you,” Merren said.
“Because she knows I’d do anything—” Jerrod broke off, rising to his feet. “Because she didn’twantyou to do it. She didn’t want her brother to live with blood on his hands. And my hands”—he smiled a twisted smile—“are bloody enough already.”
Merren thumped his closed fist against his thigh in frustration. “She’s my sister. Of course she thinks I’m a child. You should know better. I am neither weak nor delicate.”
“I never said you were weak,” Jerrod growled. “But I think taking a life will change you, and I don’t want you to change.”
Merren glared at him. “That’s not your decision to make.”
Behind the mask, Jerrod’s eyes flashed. Embarrassed, Kel said, “Merren, I don’t think—”
But Jerrod had taken two steps across the room and caught hold of the front of Merren’s shirt. He bent and kissed him—a fierce, hot, demanding kiss, his hands rising to cup the nape of Merren’s neck. Merren arched back involuntarily, fingers digging into the mattress on either side of him.
When Jerrod pulled away, Merren looked dazed in a way that seemed to have little to do with his head injury. He lifted a hand to touch his mouth. Kel had wondered if anything like this had happened with them before; now he knew it hadn’t. The air in the room felt charged like the air after a pulse of lightning.
Jerrod’s hood had fallen back. He ran a hand through his reddish-brown hair; it was shaking. “I’m done,” he said. “Done with the lot of you.”
He walked out of the room, pushing past Kel with his head down, like a defeated fighter leaving the Arena.
Merren sat bolt-upright in bed and cried out, reaching for his shoulder. “Go after him,” he said. “Kel—”
“Merren—”
“Justgo.”
Kel plunged into the corridor. Jerrod had only left a few moments before, but he seemed to have vanished. The corridors had twists and turns, and Jerrod was a Crawler. They knew how to disappear. After a quick search, Kel found himself in the Great Room, where Ji-An and Lin, who had been deep in conversation, turned to look at him in surprise. Andreyen, who had not moved from his chair, did not look up. He said, “If you are looking for Jerrod, he’s already gone.”
“He said none of us should follow him,” said Lin. “He said he’d know if we did and—well, the rest of it was rude.”
Kel sighed. “What a mess.”
“He’ll come back,” Ji-An said.
“I don’t think he will,” said Andreyen. “I suppose it is no surprise he wants no part of what comes next for us all.”
“Whatdoescome next?” Kel said. It was the thing he had wanted to know most since they’d arrived at the Black Mansion.
“A game of Castles on a new board,” said Andreyen, staring into the fire. “Jerrod was born on the streets of Castellane. Stealing doesn’t bother him, murder doesn’t bother him, violence doesn’t bother him. But we place ourselves now between countries. Countries ready to go to war.” Andreyen gestured with a long-fingered hand, as if at a playing board none of them could see. “It is a thankless task, and dangerous. I would not blame any of you should you choose to refuse it.”
No one spoke or moved. All around the room, the firelight cast strange and dancing shadows. Andreyen looked steadily from one of them to the other; his eyes came, at last, to rest on Kel.
“Very well, then,” he said. “The Solstice Ball is soon, is it not? And Ciprian Cabrol will be there?”
Kel nodded. “It’s in four days.”
“Excellent.” The Ragpicker King leaned forward. “This is what you must do...”
Lin returned troubled from the Black Mansion and crawled exhausted into bed. Still, she could not fall asleep. She kept going over and over the events of the night in her mind. After she had left the Black Mansion, she had been surprised to find that Andreyen had followed her quietly out into the night.
Scarlet Square had been dark and silent, the eastern sky not yet touched with dawn. Andreyen had been a shadow beside her, gazing out at the city. “Is something wrong?” he’d asked. “Just now—you seemed troubled in a way unusual for you.”
Lin had not planned to tell him. She had not planned to tellanyone. She was surprised to find the words tumbling out, as if she had tripped over something and unexpectedly dropped what she was carrying. “In the Sault tonight, before you summoned me,” she said. “I was with the Exilarch, just talking, and I felt something strange.”
Andreyen had frowned. “Because of him?”
“No. I knew somehow that I was sensing a thing outside the Sault. That something terrible was happening. As if a voice had called out a warning, and even as it was calling out to me, I saw fire burning across water.”
“Ah.” The Ragpicker King passed a hand across his forehead. “You felt the magic Elsabet Belmany did on Tyndaris.”
