A flicker of concern flashes across his eyes. He loosens his back and lowers his head, his eyebrows twitching ever so slightly. My delusions would have me believe that the answer I’m about to give worries him. I loathe every second of it. Because he wraps me with this illusion of safety, this silent promise that he will catch me if I fall.
“Because for the first time, I feel that my actions, no matter how small, howuseless…” I stress on the last word, and he winces.
“I feel like they matter.” My heart drums against my rib cage. And for the first time since Olivia’s murder, I let my fears out. “If I weren’t so passive, Olivia would be alive today. She wouldn’t have gone to Gorhail on my behalf, and she’d be safe at home right now. Maybe by bringing your brother and Victor back, it’s my way of seeking forgiveness. Of choosing to be different. I couldn’t save her, but maybe I can save them.”
“Stop.” He frowns, running his fingers through my hair, the softness of his palm cradling my cheek. “Your sister’s death is not on you. You didn’t tell her to lie her way through Gorhail.”
He’s right. I didn’t. But even hearing it out loud does nothing to make me feel better.
Before I’m able to stop myself, my hand reaches for his. My heart is a fool. Every single touch from Sylas brings it to life. It doesn’t yet understand that fools are always the first to die.
But there it is again. That look that makes my knees weak and my chest flutter. The seconds stretch into one another, and neither of us move.
Finally, Sylas whispers, “I’ll wheel out the bodies. You’ll go in alone, but Raiku will be with you.”
“That thing tried to kill me once—” I recoil.
The black aspier’s enigmatic onyx eyes bore into me. His hiss cuts between us; either he’s offended that I called him a thing or reminded him that he did, in fact, try to kill me.
“Besides, how will you defend yourself without your weapon?”
A faint smile tugs at his lips, and he drops his arms. “I’m immortal, Viola. I could fight with a spoon and still live.”
He’s immortal. I am not. The Gods must be laughing at the impossibility of it all.
“You don’t need to beguile me further, Sylas. I will bring your brother back.” I break away from the invisible hold he has on me. No matter how much I’ve tried to reject it, I’m a Mortemagi. I will never be anything more than that to him, to any of them. It serves me to remember my place.
“Beguile you? Is that what you think I’m doing?” His voice breaks. In the same breath, the hurt across his face dissipates, giving way to the Sylas I’m familiar with. Cold and calculating. Without looking away from me, he pulls my cuff from his pocket and sets it on the table behind me.
“It’s your life to bargain,” he mutters before we step into the Poisoned Stairwell.
Rodric, it is not a poacher uprising, I fear. Talks of Grimm have been prevalent in poacher communities, and I wonder if they’re forging the next Grimm—I will explain in person. Searches for the Deathbringer remain inconclusive. I believe she is dead and her relic was stolen, as evidenced in my attached report.
LETTER FROM HANSEL ARCHYR TO RODRIC PALTRO, JUNE 1939
Note:Hansel Archyr died July 1939
twenty-two | sylas
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1939
The sun has long set when I wake. I stare at the domed wooden ceiling, counting my breaths like Mom taught me to do when I had nightmares as a child. Something doesn’t add up.
I read the Deathbringer’s reports from cover to cover until I fell asleep with them on my chest. She had spies in the deepest poacher camps—no one knew more about them than her—and there were no mentions of Grimm.
Picking up Dad’s reports from my nightstand, I flip through the pages and stumble upon a theory that the Deathbringer was killed and her relic stolen, stamped with the notorious redREJECTEDof DOTS. But on the last page, Dad’s neat handwriting underlines two paragraphs, and next to them are these words written in bold:DIFFERING PATTERN IN POACHER MOVEMENTS—ANOTHER GRIMM?
Dad’s notes date from five months ago, just a month before his death. I hadn’t considered that the poachers could be training someone to bethe next Grimm. The endless propaganda fromThe Daily Magemust be emboldening them. But surely, if we’ve noticed this, DOTS and Firstline will have, too.
A timid knock breaks me out of my thoughts. I glance at the clock, and it reads ten. Haal, we were supposed to leave at nine. Am I late? I scramble to my feet and open the door to see Viola. She looks up at me, then averts her gaze almost immediately.
“I know you have a death wish since you decided to offer yourself as bait to the puppet who killed your sister and almost killed you, but please tell me you didn’t just go through the Poisoned Stairwell alone?” My fingers clench the doorframe. I don’t know why I bother, especially when she made it clear she doesn’t want my help, and she seems to think I’mbeguilingher to bring Beau’s body back.
“Beau came to get me. We’re late.” She shifts her weight, still not looking at me. But I drink her in, from the black, Arkani-woven training pants that hug her curves to the long-sleeved shirt that exposes a sliver of skin. I get the training pants—the stretch allows for movement. But the training shirt? She needs a combat jacket and a protective harness underneath.
An image of her lying on that table the first time I saw her—skin torn, blood gushing out of her wounds—flashes across my mind. To this day, I don’t understand how Railesza healed her completely. If things go wrong tonight, will my aspier be able to bring her back from the brink again?
Without a word, I head to the dresser and open the second drawer. For once, I’m glad Lyria uses my room as an extension of her wardrobe, because I find one of her harnesses and a combat jacket with ease.