Chapter 613

I know,” I said.

“It’s taking longer than it should,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“That’s not fair to you,” he said.

“I know that too,” I said. “And I’m still not walking away from it.”

He looked at me with the expression that I’d been learning for nine months – the one that existed when all the layers were down, the one that was just him. It had the complexity of everything that had happened and the honesty he’d been working toward and something else underneath both of those that I was getting better at naming.

He was starting to want this.

Not the bond. Not the responsibility. The actual thing – me, specifically, in the specific way that the book club’s window was different from the door, the way choosing was different from settling.

It was early. The beginning of it, the way things were at their beginning recognizable but not yet solid. But it was there.

Silver felt it too.

*He’s getting there,* she said.

*I know, I said.

*Khris is close,* she said.

*I know,” I said.

present but not yet fully formed,

*This morning in the woods,” she said. “When he told me why he didn’t run with the team. When he said he wanted to chase her and roughhouse her and talk to Ivy. He was honest about it.*

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s the beginning of honest,* Silver said. *He couldn’t have said that three months ago.”

“No.” I said. “He couldn’t.”

And he’s saying it to you now,” she said. “That’s different from before.

It’s different, I said.

“The Convention letter,” I said, to Kael. “Cassium’s claim. What happens to me if Jordan’s plan doesn’t work

16:59 Tue, Sep 15

cks he wad.

the sand.

lecomtestin, he sauti “Frommully. the Commeil level An Alphacan contestantium er prisoneri grossuolormal proceedings and make the: da bi ti perdang

tter the same Convention

gmmate.

you wm that case, sauti

lan and ivory imit the case, the sath make it

ats the case. Esand.

you came to Shadowmere as a legate amate candidate, he said. That theboorneemaumaliz hich did, the bonds a tatter lint the arrangement brought you here but the bonussvol vou inmutacie fated bonds. That wom mentions were regular buste outcome was legaimaate He sed. And that Cassium prion dama mwilinaue there was no prior claim) 081 which doesn constitute cham under the Convention: own demon

ivory satt.

thereyasininterest

smute!

Hiortzan has. it said. “It does whatcrtian tinikitties-

bilinosi 1–said.

anwerind something else. he sand.

1.Tissatu.

massonething else.” in saut agam and his vote hathin specie mality of someone who arriveria mitcom diaposition and was standing ommat

Jortalium.

“I

311

14

Aliiswi bameditated bonds because of what they testistamity and had ended a working hugis whau that meant. Autite man whodisatomne dømmunitier the scaleti wall and sai

chainmanaged. Authe wolf who’d bowerthshirentum use/en–year–old because sometimes this estwin was finoshimportant one.

71

sunerting coroth you. sand.

aitect

I work SHI!

ng Dowd in messo

M

Tue, Sep 15

Chapter 613

“What about Ivory,” he said.

I thought about the forty pages of notes. The recalibration sequence written twice. The muted thread on the link when she shifted. The specific peace of someone who’d decided. Killian with the research, reading the map, the only person she’d told.

I thought about what Silver had been saying for weeks.

The countdown.

And I thought about Killian’s voice when he’d said “show someone, let someone check the work.” and the way Ivory had held out the page, and the thing Ivy had said underneath the management- you could be wrong.”

“She’s keeping something,” I said. “Something about the root removal Something she hasn’t told anyone

He was very still.

“How do you know,” he said.

“I’ve been watching her for weeks,” I said. “The lab. The documentation. The specific way she carries herselt right now the peace in it. The muted thread in the link when she shifted, which she shut down

–

immediately so you wouldn’t feel it.” I held his gaze. She shut it down so you specifically wouldn’t feel it

“What is she keeping,” he said.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Killian might know. He’s been talking to her I paused. But something in the root removal isn’t what she’s told us it is.”

He looked at the window.

At the eastern garden with the nightbloom.

“Before the root comes out,” I said. “We need to know what it actually costs

He turned to me.

The twelve layers were down. Just him, across the table, with the specific quality of someone who hear something they’d needed to hear and were processing it from the inside out.

“Yes,” he said.

“Whatever it is,” I said. “Whatever she’s decided. We need to know before it’s irreversible

“Yes,” he said again.

Silver was warm in my chest. The specific warmth of something that had been baking a direction.

“We hgure it out together.” I said

He held my gaze for a long moment

16:59 Tue, Sep 15

Chapter 613

“Together,” he said.

the managed version.

The actual one.

“Yes,” I said. “Together.”

The word sat in the meeting room between us with the specific weight of something that had been earned rather than assumed, built rather than given, chosen rather than inherited.

Not perfect.

Not the version from the book where everything resolved cleanly at chapter twenty–two and the window was behind you and the door was forgotten.

The real version. The one where the window had been gone through and the door was still visible and both things existed simultaneously and the choosing was something you did every day rather than once.

I was choosing.

Every day.

Starting now.

*Good, Silver said.

Outside the meeting room window, the eastern garden was luminescent in the afternoon light, the nightbloom doing what Ivory had built it to do – beautiful at every hour, present at every hour, built to outlast the hands that had made it.

I looked at it.

Then I looked at Kael.

“Tell me about the children’s names,” I said.

He blinked.

“The ten names,” I said. “Jordan said ten names for ten children, Tell me.”

He looked at me.

“Why,” he said.

“Because you’ve been carrying the old future,” I said. “And I’ve been fighting a gl And I want to know what the ghost actually looks like.” I held his gaze. “Tell me together”

He was quiet for a long time.

Then, slowly, he told me. And I listened.

And in the telling and the listening, something shifted between us – not the bond, not the form

clearly.

menhang smaller and are real than ether.

began of actually knowing each otherr

Not the managed venues. The actual ones

Outode, the nightloom was incom and for pack was alueide in and the mansdown. Dil revening sorocwhere I could’s fully see yes

Best I was here. In this room With him ChocHETHE

An Aria ehn, sach a masochist, they gave you chance to uzteareas, fus & with nobody told Ana about what she was maly brought for I have been unga de waved that copy but nooooo Ivory was a b****