Same-Old Reunion

Knowing this was a scheme of their mother's doesn't make it that reassuring.

It's nice to see she's well, at least. Well and thriving. Despite its run-down facade, her hideout’s sturdy stone walls contain all the amenities for a basic living, as well as a surfeit of explosives. When asked about those, she just laughs. She's made some friends. Made some plans. The kids best lay low while she figures things out, though. She'll handle this. Don't worry.

She's hunting the cult too, apparently. After dismissing the guard with a suck and a kiss, Desiree seats herself on the bed. Reyl informs her about the abandoned town, but Desiree just laughs. Hah, that was us.

Us?

Desiree looks up to the ceiling. Heavy footsteps sound from the attic, alongside the drifting buzz of radio static.

He’s an entertaining guy. You should go see him, Jay.

Jayden instead asks whether her guest is, as rumor would tell, a cultist. Talk to him yourself, says Desiree. She sets her hand on the bed beside her and calls, Jackie.

He’d barely been Raum for a month.

As Desiree spreads him down on the bed, Jayden asks when they can plan to beat this joint and get back to Ordanz. Desiree pauses, twirls a lock of Jacklyn’s hair around her finger, and snorts. You want to go back? She asks, incredulously.

Of course Jayden wants to go back. The Thorns—

That’s all yours now. Go ahead whenever you want. To christen Jayden’s ascension, Desiree passes her a piercing ripped bloodily from her chest. As Jayden’s stare shifts stoically between the piercing, Jacklyn, and Desiree curled over him, Jacklyn thinks.

He really had hoped he could’ve been someone different, here.

But with the shiver of her fingers trailing down his chest, where else could he have wound up. In a castle?

He grimaces to Jayden, urging her to act. How could she be in the room and do nothing. Come on! He wants to scream.

She clenches her trembling fist around the piercing, shoves it in her pocket, and yanks Desiree off the bed. The glee soaring through Jacklyn’s chest crashes the second Desiree slams Jayden to the wall, knees her in the chest, hits her and kicks her and screams in her face. Jayden’s hand flashes to her knife — Desiree’s yanks it from its sheath first. Crescents of blood spatter again and again over the wall, the wide arc of the blade unrelenting.

Jacklyn’s throat tightens too much to vomit. Though his teeth, he barely squeaks, “mom."

Desiree soon dumps the knife and returns to the bed. The weak, wet breaths issuing from Jayden, puddled on the floor, sputter as if sucked through a straw. She could be dying, he realises. Desiree strokes his hair softly, as if nothing happened.

She doesn’t want you enough to keep you, says Desiree.

Mom, Jay’s dying.

That’s all right. I’m here.

Her touch is disgustingly soft, like always.

But even for his revulsion, getting angry at her feels wrong. Vile as it is, rancid as it is, this is how Desiree does love.

And love is a powerful, addictive thing. He would lie and accept it. Because only someone of steel like Jayden could defeat it, not an unsteady wimp like him. Not when it had so long infected him, sunken under his filthy skin, rotted his impious bones, and fattened his soul into tar.

—Of all things, in that moment, he thinks of Phoenix Valens.

That sanctification. A purification.

Down to his soul, the most sublime pardon.

A new purpose. A new ground and desire.

Truly, a resurrection.

As if possessed by a titan, Raum shoves Desiree off him. Small woman she is, she moves light as air. Her expression is stunned as he takes a breath, grabs her by the face and breaks her head against the stone wall. Something snaps with a loud, sick crack, and a wetness runs down Raum’s fingers.

Through blotted tears, his vision strobes black. As rushing footsteps pound from above, he scoops up Reyl’s limp body and races out the door.

The first guard that finds him frantically ushers him onto a carriage that speeds to castle Indris. Once inside, a servant takes Reyl to a guest room for treatment while the castle’s majordomo receives Raum, offering tea and a light meal to calm him. Between the sobbing and nausea, it takes a while to happen.

Thank god you’re alive, the majordomo begins. He apologises for the abruptness of their meeting, and for the chaotic welcome they’ve received in Indris. Long story short, Aquila had heard the rumors out of Burmal and arranged for the castle to shelter them the second they entered the city. But apparently the terrorists had pinpointed them, also, and almost succeeded in assassinating one of them. Between the obscurity of Raum and Reyl’s place in the Whitewood family tree, the secrecy around the absence of their bodies at the cathedral, and that the only real information out of Burmal was the existence of two Ordish siblings, that the cult so quickly ascertained their positions suggests a frightfully more competent information network than the Crown had assumed.

Raum, still too shaken to properly digest this, asks about Reyl. The majordomo assures that experienced staff are overseeing her treatment and, though not insignificant by any means, initial estimations see her injuries as treatable. Gruesome, but not vital. The blood loss is worrying, but she should hopefully rebound after good rest and plenty of stitches. She is also partly Ordish, which makes her hardy, after all.

The majordomo then asks what exactly happened. Raum recounts what he can — the majordomo notes that incendiaries from the city’s weapon stores had been going missing. Looks like, as they feared, a guard was smuggling them to cultists — and the majordomo becomes alarmed upon the mention of the twins’ mother. The cult was holding her hostage? He questions. When Raum clarifies that their mother was the one who sliced Reyl, the majordomo’s chilled expression flips Raum’s stomach.

They have more to talk about, but Raum is exhausted. The second he’s led into his quarters, he collapses asleep on the bed.