Page 148 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

But Kitty remembers. After all these years, she remembers who I was.

We stare at each other.

Years of friendship flashes in that single look. All the missions, the close calls, the nights we kept each other alive when the world wanted us dead. I remember the first time we worked together. Aurora saved my life by putting an arrow through a guard's throat at fifty paces. She stitched up a wound on my side, her hands steady even when mine were shaking from blood loss.

Aurora Vortigern.

This might be the last time I ever see her again.

“Where will you go?” I ask.

“South of Avalon maybe. Somewhere with too many people to notice one more runner.” She divides the coins, pushes half toward me. It’s enough to buy passage, supplies, maybe bribe a guard or two if necessary.

“You?”

“North,” I say quickly. “The Wastes. Maybe I can find what’s left of the Wolven clans in the Darvan mountains.”

It’s a lie.

The Wolvens are dead. They’ve been gone for years, slaughtered in the purges and scattered to the winds. There’s a slim chance I’m going to find any long-lost family waiting to welcome me home. But it’s a better story than ‘I’ll run until they catch me.’

My eyes drift around the chamber and settle to the chessboard Garrett and I never finished.

The pieces are still where we left them. My knight threatens his king. His queen is positioned to counter. I can’t remember whose turn it was.

“He drugged me.”

Kitty pauses in her packing.

“To keep you from interfering and to save his family from slaughter,” she says without judgment. “In his position, we’d have done the same.”

Would I?

I think about Garrett’s hands on my skin, his mouth saying my name. Those moments had felt real. Does he even know what he’s condemned me to? Perhaps I should have told him what happens when an assassin fails their contract. I wonder if he would even care. Perhaps he thinks the sacrifice was worth it to save his house.

“Good luck, Wolf.” Kitty shoulders her pack and moves to the door.

“Wait.” I call to her.

She pauses and turns.

“Be careful,” I say quickly. “The routes to Avalon are crawling with bounty hunters. Stick to the Fae King’s roads during daylight. They won’t try anything in front of the Red Road Sentinels.”

“I know.” Her voice catches slightly. “You too. The Wastes are unforgiving even without the guild on your heels.”

There’s so much to say and no words for any of it.

Thank you for the years, thank you for standing by me. Thank you for being the closest thing to family I’ve had since the Sylverins.

Everything I want to tell her lodges in my throat. “Aurora—”

She crosses back to me quickly and pulls me into a fierce embrace. Her arms wrap tight around me. I can feel her heart beating against my chest. It lasts only a moment but I memorize it. I store it away in the place where I keep the few good memories I have.

I don’t want her to leave me.

She pulls back, adjusting her pack. Her hand finds mine and she squeezes once. “If we both somehow make it, meet me in five years. Shepherd’s favourite bar. Midwinter night.”

“Five years?”