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THIRTY-FOUR

AT DAWN, ARTIFICIAL LIGHT STREAKS THROUGH THE room; it highlights Erik’s face, showing off the curves of his nose, the angle of his cheekbones. He’s stunning in his sleep, but soon his eyes flutter, and I turn away, not wanting to be caught staring.

“You look lovely,” he murmurs dreamily.

I’m caught off guard. My heart is beating so fast that it aches in my chest as I lie next to him, close enough to touch him, but not daring to. I like that he said it and it’s this realization that pushes me up on my side to face him. I stretch my fingers out, searching for the courage to reach across the space between us. Erik catches them and brings my fingertips to his lips. He kisses each softly, and tingles fall down my neck.

“I’m sorry for what she did,” he says, keeping my fingers clasped loosely.

“You couldn’t have stopped her,” I whisper, allowing myself to trace his jawline.

“I should have tried. Your hands are beautiful.”

“Not anymore,” I say.

“They’re more beautiful now. Flaws make them perfect.”

He lets my hand fall away as I swallow against the words sitting in my throat. The things I want to say to him—and then the door swings open. The one I left unlocked last night because I hadn’t planned to stay here.

“Erik, have you seen Ad?”

I’m still sleepy enough that it takes a second for everything to fall into place. Jost is back, looking tired and road weary, and he has found me on Erik’s bed. I don’t have to think hard to know what this looks like.

“Never mind,” Jost says, stumbling back outside.

I’m off the bed before Erik can respond and I dash into the hall and down the stairs. A breeze brushes past me and I notice that one of the doors to the garden is propped open. I take my chances and walk into the still morning, taking in the destruction wrought the previous day. Jost stands surveying the scene, with his back to me, and overhead the Interface flashes as though Arras is peering judgmentally down.

“Jost, wait!” I call, but he strides away.

“Hey,” I snap, when I do catch up. I grab him by his arm. As soon as his eyes meet mine, my angry rebukes and excuses seem like too little, too late. He’s already decided I’ve betrayed him, and part of me wonders if I have.

“What, Ad?” he challenges me. “I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about this.”

I stare at him, weighing each possible response. They’re all lacking.

“Don’t tell me you’re speechless,” he says. “I know that can’t be true.”

“Erik and I are friends,” I remind him.

It’s definitely the wrong thing to say.

“Really?” he asks, his voice raw. “Looked like a little more than friends to me.”

“We broke up,” I say. “You left me.”

“To find answers. Answers we both need,” Jost says. “Did you run to Erik right away?”

“I didn’t run to Erik.” But in the back of my mind poetry plays. The flash of Erik’s eyes meeting mine. I didn’t run to Erik, but I found him anyway.

“I was gone a few weeks,” he says. “I’ve come back with nothing and then this. Did you do it to prove me wrong?”

“Prove you wrong?” I repeat. It’s impossible that’s what he said. It’s impossible he thinks that’s what has happened in his absence.

“Yes, I told you we couldn’t risk that, so you wanted to prove me wrong. Is that it? Tell me something, Ad, did you choose Erik to see if you could drive us even farther apart or was he the first guy you ran into?”

The accusation cuts through the fragile thread holding me to him.

“So can you still do it? Can you still catch the threads?” he asks. At that moment, I realize that my skill is more important to him than anything else. More important, even, than the fact that he believes I spent the night with Erik. More important than whether we can ever get past this.

The back and forth of the last few months. Feeling so close only to sense a wall between us. My growing friendship with Erik and subsequent guilt. The assumptions and distrust. It all overwhelms the happiness I once felt with Jost. Memories of us, the want I felt for Jost, it’s all washed away as my shame shifts to indignation.

“My talent—that’s all I am to you, isn’t it?”

He stares at me, trying to understand what I’m saying.

“Was I ever more than a Spinster to you?” I ask. “Or did you always see me as a means of revenge?”

His jaw drops open, but he shakes his head. “If you believe that—”

“What am I supposed to believe, Jost?”

“If I made you feel that way, I am sorry,” he says, his expression softening a little. “I wanted to get back to the girls. I wanted to make sure we were safe, so we—”

“Could be a family,” I cut him off. “But you never once asked me if that’s what I wanted. I’m not capable of it. Can’t you see that? I’m a danger to them.”

“I guess I assumed,” he says quietly. “But apparently I assumed too much.”

“Don’t you dare,” I seethe. “Don’t you dare make me feel bad because I needed someone to listen to me. Don’t you dare, Josten Bell.”

“I wouldn’t,” he says.

“And as for my skill”—I spit the word out like it’s rancid—“I wish it were gone. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to put up with any of you anymore.”

“So you’d give up your sister to not have responsibility?” he accuses.

“No, I’m still going to find her. But maybe if I can’t warp or weave, then you guys will be forced to do something useful for once.”

“I am doing something useful. I’ve been out there searching for the Whorl so we can get the girls back before it’s too late. Before time takes them away from us!” Jost grabs my arm, his fingers squeezing the soft flesh.

“And what good has it done us?” I ask. “We’re no closer to saving the girls than we were weeks ago. We’ve lost nearly two years in Arras, Jost. Two years.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he growls. “You think that every second that passes doesn’t remind me that Sebrina is slipping away?”

“I’ve been training,” I say. “I can alter, unwind. Don’t tell me that I’ve done nothing.”

“You have done something,” Jost says. “You’ve become a weapon. Did you fight yesterday? Fulfill your purpose?”

I hate that word—weapon. But I hold my ground and don’t miss a beat. Jost won’t win this argument. I won’t let him. “I’m no one’s weapon. No one is using me. I’m not being dragged around looking for a mythic answer to our problems.”

Jost gives me a rueful smile. “Enjoy your pedestal, Ad.”

“You’re the one who put me up there.”

Jost turns to go, but it’s at exactly that moment that Erik appears, dressed only in his jeans. He must have heard me chasing after Jost, which means he’s been listening to us fight.

“The problem isn’t the pedestal, Jost,” Erik says. “It’s that when we fall off, you won’t help us back up. We can’t all live according to your rigid moral standards.”

“So you slept with Adelice,” Jost counters, “to prove me right? To show you’re as good as the dirt you landed in?”

Erik’s eyes meet mine and I see pain in them. “You have it wrong. Nothing happened, but from now on what does happen is between Adelice and me,” Erik says, edging closer to his brother, “because I’m in love with her.”

Well, that’s out in the open.

“You’re in love with yourself. You’ve never cared more about someone else’s happiness than your own. You wanted her so you took her. Like you wanted to leave Saxun, so you did. You never consider anyone else,” Jost accuses.

I know what Erik has gone through. I know he’s struggled with what might have been if he’d stayed in Saxun. I know it. But Jost doesn’t. Because Erik and Jost barely talk to each other unless they’re arguing, and I’m sick of it.

“Don’t stop now,” Erik says. “Tell me how I should have stopped what happened in Saxun. Tell me how I could have stuck around and wasted my life fishing. Tell me that I should have stood in the shadows while you ignored the only good thing you had going instead of falling in love with Adelice.”

“You don’t know the first thing about love.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Erik admits, “but I know a thing or two about fighting. When are you going to step up and fight for something, little brother? I never held it against you that you didn’t share my ambitions. When you came to the Coventry, I didn’t judge you for watching and thinking. And when you went after Adelice, I didn’t blame you. But there comes a time when you have to figure out what to fight for and actually do it.”

I might as well not even be here, because their gazes are locked on each other.

“And what do you fight for?” Jost asks.

“Adelice,” Erik says without hesitation. “You had your chance. I’m not waiting around any longer. I’ve held back because I felt bad. But this time you lost, and it had nothing to do with me.”

“Anyone care what I think?” I ask in a quiet voice.

“No!” they respond in unison without turning to me.

“Fine.” I walk away, leaving both boys in the dim glow of halogen, but before I can flee to my quarters, two Sunrunners step into my path.

“We’re going to need you to return to your room, miss.” A row of stitches runs up the side of one’s face. He must have seen some action last night.

“I’m on my way,” I tell him, maneuvering around the pair toward the door.

“You too,” the man calls to Jost and Erik, interrupting the brothers’ heated argument.

“In a minute,” Jost responds, not bothering to look at the Sunrunner.

“This estate is on lockdown. Our orders are to shoot anyone who resists us,” the Sunrunner warns. “If you have a room, I suggest you go to it.”

I wait long enough to see both Erik and Jost slinking back toward their rooms before I disappear into the safety of mine.