Roman knew he had stayed out too late. He tried not to dwell on the consequences as he walked Iris home, one hand woven with hers, the other holding her jacket-wrapped sword. The streets were emptier than he had anticipated—even the Graveyard kept to their dens that night, as if they sensed the end was near. A slight rumble in the ground coaxed people to draw the curtains, lock the door, and curl up close to the ones they loved.
Iris’s flat came into view just as it began to mist. The lights glimmered like fallen stars, and Roman stopped between streetlamps, in a velvet patch of shadow. But he could still see Iris, faintly. The way the mist gathered, iridescent in her hair. How her eyes shined, and her lips parted as she gazed up at him.
“Do you want to come inside?” she asked. “Forest is there. I’m sure he’d like to say hello.”
Roman shifted, uncomfortable. He had conflicted feelings about Forest, but he didn’t want Iris to know that. The main issue being how he had watched Forest drag her along unknowingly during the bluff attack. How Forest had intentionally run from Roman, separating him from Iris.
And yet after living among Dacre’s forces, disoriented and lonely, carrying wounds that still ached … Roman understood things better. He felt like he had only been looking at life through a periscope before. And now he saw how vast the horizon was. There was also the fact that Roman, in a strange way, felt like he knew Forest, from all of Iris’s letters in the beginning.
“I’m afraid I need to get back,” he said, which was the truth. “But I’d like to see Forest soon. Perhaps we can go to the Riverside Park together?”
The park, which might be demolished by tomorrow evening.
Iris nodded, but Roman could see her swallow. He couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes, but he could feel his own sting in warning.
He kissed her goodbye. And he wanted to be gentle, but it was a clash of their mouths, nips with their teeth and gasps that made a shiver trace his bones. He felt Iris cling to him, and he knew if he didn’t pull away from her that instant, he never would. He would follow her into her flat. He would peel away their damp clothes and lie beside her in bed. He would hold her to his heart and pray the morning never came.
“Goodnight, Winnow,” he whispered, setting the sword in her hands. He took a step back, surprised how the distance made it feel like a rib had cracked. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right,” Iris said.
Neither of them moved. They had forged a plan to meet up in the north side of town, Iris and Attie using Dacre’s invitation for safety as a cover. Roman would hopefully have the key the girls needed to hand off to them at half past eleven. If he failed to snag it, then they would fall back to the only option they had: Roman would sneak them into the mansion and clear the way to the parlor door.
“I’ll wait here,” Roman said. “Until you make it safely inside.”
Iris took a step away, still facing him.
He watched as the lamplight gilded her, then she turned and hurried up the stairs to the apartment. He watched, hands in his pockets, heart in his throat, until he made sure Iris had entered her flat and closed the door behind her.
Only then did he surrender to the shadowed streets, heading north of the river.
To the place that he called home but felt like the furthest thing from it.
All right.
That empty phrase had been the last words she said to him.
Iris felt numb as she stepped inside the flat, locking the door behind her.
All right, as if they were meeting up for tea tomorrow. As if the world wasn’t about to collapse and burn.
“Iris? Is that you?”
She snapped out of her daze when she heard Forest’s voice drifting from the kitchen.
“Yes.” She set the sword on the sideboard and hurried to meet him in the center of the room, letting him sweep her up off her feet in a bear hug. The air was squeezed out of her; Iris almost laughed. It reminded her of the embraces he used to give her in the old days, when their mother was still with them. Before things had fallen apart.
“Gods, Iris.” Forest set her back down, cradling her face in his calloused hands. “I was worried about you.”
“I know, but I’m fine.” She smiled to reassure him. “Just a few scratches on my knees.”
She had called the mechanic shop that morning from the Tribune telephone, knowing news of the Green Quarter bombing was going to spread. She had never heard Forest’s voice shake like it had on the line, and she felt guilty that she was getting home so late.
“Is Prindle here?” she asked.
“No, she’s with her family tonight. And you should have been home hours ago.”
“I had something urgent to deliver to the printer. It took longer than I expected.” She walked to her room, thoughts tangling together. “And there’s something I need to tell you, but let me change my clothes first.”
“Funny you say that,” Forest said. “Because I have news for you as well.”
Why did Iris’s heart twist? Why did she assume it was something bad?
“I’ll make us some tea,” her brother offered, as if sensing her trepidation.
When Iris reemerged into the living room, Forest was sitting on the couch. A pot of black tea with two chipped cups was waiting on the table, and she accepted one gratefully, wrapping her cold fingers around the porcelain.
“You go first, Forest,” Iris said, settling beside him on the cushion.
“Well,” he began, but hesitated, scratching his jaw. It looked like he was trying to grow out a beard, but it was still too sparse. “You know I went to the doctor last week? He gave me medicine to ease my symptoms, which have been helping, but he also wanted to take an X-ray. So he did and … I had another visit with him yesterday about the results.”
Iris braced herself for anything. She felt light-headed as she said, “What were they, Forest?”
He sighed, staring into his tea. “They found bullet fragments still in me. I think when Dacre healed me, he left them behind intentionally. To serve as a punishment if I ever broke away from him. Maybe he even thought the pain would eventually drive me back to his side. But now I realize it’s been gradually making me feel sick, a little more each day.”
Tears welled in Iris’s eyes. She set her teacup aside and turned to face Forest on the couch, reaching out to take his hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t even imagine what that feels like, Forest.”
He chuckled. A way to deflect, but there was a tremor in his hands as he also set down his tea. “The bad news is I need more surgery. But the good news is the doctor believes he can remove all the fragments, and while I’ll probably still have symptoms, they won’t be as bad as they were. The medicine will help me manage them.”
“And I’ll be here to help you,” Iris said. “When do they want to do the surgery?”
“Next Mir’s Day.”
Now Iris was the one to hesitate. The hospital was south of the river, and she wouldn’t put it beyond Dacre to bomb it.
“What is it?” Forest whispered, reading the lines on her face.
Iris told him about Dacre’s ultimatum. How she’d had to rush to the printer to force the edits, and how she believed certain streets and houses would be safe despite the imminent bombing. She hated how the words burned through her like smoke. How the hope in Forest’s eyes, kindled by his recovery and his hope for the future, swiftly dimmed.
He leaned back against the couch, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. “We won’t be safe here, will we?”
Iris wasn’t sure. Sometimes their flat had strange quirks, but she didn’t know if it was due to a ley line or the fact this building was old. She glanced around and tried to imagine what it would feel like if their home turned to rubble, but she still felt numb.
“I think we’ll need to shelter elsewhere. I know a few good places that aren’t too far from here.” She almost told Forest that she wouldn’t be with him the entire time, that while Oath was weeping, she would be in the realm below. But the words tasted like rust; she kept them to herself, and instead reached for a thick book on the table. “One of Prindle’s?”
Forest seemed glad for the distraction. “Yes. I’ve been reading to her in the evenings. She’s trying to convince me that I do, in fact, like fiction. I just need to find the right story.”
“Will you read it to me?”
Her brother gave a shy smile but accepted the book, opening it to where he and Sarah had left off. “I might put you to sleep.”
“That’s all right,” Iris said, pulling a blanket over her legs.
All right. Those two words again. They didn’t fit the night, or maybe they did, and she just couldn’t realize it until now.
Iris let herself rest, listening to Forest read, his deep voice a comforting burr. She didn’t tell him that she was afraid to sleep alone, worried about what she would meet her in dreams. Explosions and broken bodies and blood and Dacre following her through the smoke. She didn’t tell him that she was afraid, but the more he read, the more her fears gave way. They lurked in the corners, but were weak compared to Forest’s steady, luminous presence.
Iris fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.
There was no need for Roman to sneak back into the estate. After he had watched Iris leave the parlor that afternoon, he’d decided to approach Dacre directly, his heart smoldering. He had looked the god in the eye and calmly asked if he could trail her.
“Why?” Dacre had said. He didn’t sound suspicious, but he wanted to be convinced.
“So I can ensure she does what you ask,” Roman had replied.
“You think she won’t?”
“Did you not see how stubborn she is, sir?”
Dacre was pensive. But then, for some wild reason, he had agreed to it.
Roman had walked out the front gates of his own volition, and now he was returning, hours later. He knew his time of freedom was overspent and Dacre would be wondering what had delayed him. He also knew he needed to snatch the key from the war table where it had sat on a pile of papers, the iron darkened from Captain Landis’s blood.
Roman was thinking about that as he approached the front doors, clicking his fingernails together. The mist had beaded on his trench coat, soaked through his hair. He coughed into his hands, again and again, clearing his lungs despite the razor-sharp pain in his chest.
It tasted awful, but he swallowed it down, his stomach nauseous from the walk home.
His mind was far away as the doors groaned open. Two soldiers met him, stone-faced and silent as Roman started to walk past them, his wet shoes squeaking on the foyer floor.
“The Lord Commander is waiting for you at the war table,” one of the soldiers said.
It was never good to keep Dacre waiting, but Roman was prepared. He nodded and made his way to the parlor, but with each step, his confidence waned, until he felt like a husk of who he had been just hours ago when he was with Iris.
The parlor doors were open. Light spilled out into the corridor, and Roman stepped inside, surprised to see a group had gathered within the room.
Dacre was sitting at the table in his favorite chair, with the fire crackling at his back and shadows dancing over his face. Four of his officers stood beside him, one of them being Lieutenant Shane. Mr. Kitt was also present, but he looked the most haggard Roman had ever seen him, his clothes rumpled, his body slumped in a chair like he had lost all hope.
It was the red-eyed despair of his father that made Roman’s heart falter.
Something was wrong.
“Lord?” Roman said, his gaze returning to Dacre. “She delivered the article to the printer. It should be on the front page of the Inkridden Tribune tomorrow, as you desired.”
“You are quite late, Roman,” Dacre replied, as if he hadn’t heard a word Roman had said. “How come?”
“It took her a while at the print factory. To make an edit like that … the head printer gave her some resistance.”
“Hmm.” Dacre smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He traced his lower lip with the edges of his teeth. “Why did you steal from me?”
Roman’s breath wavered. “Sir?”
“Have I not been good to you? Have I not given you more freedoms than most?” Dacre stared at him for a long, torturous beat. “Search him.”
The two soldiers who had greeted Roman at the door stepped forward. They roughly tore his coat away and began to pat him down.
Don’t resist it, Roman told himself, even as he bristled.
“Sir?” he said. “I don’t understand.”
Dacre didn’t reply. The soldiers came up empty save for the green bird volume. They tossed it onto the table, and Roman watched as Dacre sifted through the brittle pages. His brow arched when he realized there were no hidden messages to find within it. There was nothing to cast guilt upon Roman. It was simply a book about birds, and Dacre snorted, hurling it into the fire.
Roman flinched as Iris’s book flared into a bright flame. Slowly, it melted into smoke, leaving behind curls of ash. But the words and illustrations remained, seared into his mind.
He thought about the owls, the herons, the albatrosses, the nightingales. The pages that had been worn down the most. Dog-eared and smudged, as if they had been touched by countless hands, read over and over again.
He thought about the birds that had broken their wings, refusing to remain captive.
“Where is the key, Roman?” Dacre asked.
“What key?”
“Don’t play coy. I know you saw it, sitting on this table. It was here this morning before Iris Winnow visited, and now it is gone. What have you done with it?”
Roman’s mind raced. Sweat broke out on his palms. “Sensitive information was removed from the table before Iris visited, to be stored in a back room. So she wouldn’t see anything of note. It was your own orders, sir, and the key must have been misplaced—”
“How many other lies have you told me?” Dacre interrupted.
Roman froze. This is a test. And yet he didn’t know how to answer.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. A lazy, confident pace. A second later, Roman felt the rain-soaked presence of someone tall and intimidating standing behind him.
Roman turned to see Val, jaded eyes boring through him.
“Report,” Dacre said.
Val’s gaze shifted to meet Dacre’s. “He followed her to the printer, as he told you. He waited outside for hours, until Iris Winnow emerged. She walked down the street; he trailed her. When she made a stop at the Tribune, he did as well. They were together for an hour or so before he walked her to her flat. They had … quite the romantic exchange.”
The blood drained from Roman’s face. Up until that moment—when he realized Dacre had sent Val to follow and observe him—Roman had believed he could salvage this situation. Even with Dacre’s paranoia about the missing key. But now he knew his time had come to an end. There was nothing he could say, no lie he could spin, that would free him from the web.
“I take it Iris E. Winnow is Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Dacre said in a smooth, dark tone.
Roman’s attention snapped back to the god. He finally noticed the papers spread before Dacre on the table. Roman’s handwriting, sprawled across the pages. His confession, which Shane had been holding.
It’s over.
You don’t have to pretend anymore.
Roman glanced at the lieutenant.
Shane appeared bored, his hands laced behind his back, his eyes heavy-lidded. But his nostrils flared when their gazes clashed.
Roman wanted to ask him why. Why betray him now? Why expose him now? His fingers curled into fists, nails biting crescents into his palms, and he wondered if he should likewise expose Shane for who he was.
You have no proof!
The truth rang through him like he was hollow. He had burned the missive Shane had given him, because he had been afraid to have it on his person. A mistake now, although maybe it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.
Shane had the upper hand, throwing Roman to the wolves to save himself.
And Roman would not do the same to him. Even now, in the moment before his disgrace took root, Roman wouldn’t see another man brought low and wounded by a devious god.
I’ve played my part, and I’ve been outsmarted.
But his chest stung when he thought of Iris. She was depending on him tomorrow.
Roman’s silence had gone too long. Dacre rose, his full height menacing. Every wall, every person in the room seemed to lean toward him, like he was a whirlpool. A collapsed star. The center of gravity.
“I will ask you four final questions, Roman,” Dacre said. “Four questions, which you may answer. Choose your words wisely because I will not tolerate any further lies from you.”
Roman gave a slight nod, waiting.
“Why did you betray me?” Dacre asked. “Why did you give Iris Elizabeth Winnow the information about Hawk Shire? Was I not good to you? Did I not save you?”
Roman exhaled. He was thinking about his reply, what he wanted to say and how to articulate it, when his father stood abruptly from his chair.
“Lord Commander,” Mr. Kitt pleaded. “Please, my son is unwell, as you can see, and—”
Dacre held up his hand. “Be quiet. Let Roman speak.”
Mr. Kitt bowed his head.
Roman didn’t look directly at his father, but from the corner of his eye, he saw how he was quaking. A strange thing to witness, one’s formidable father brought low.
“I betrayed you,” Roman began, “because I love her.”
Dacre wasn’t expecting that response. He appeared baffled, and then he laughed, a rich but scathing sound. “And that is grounds to destroy yourself? My, you mortals think with your hearts when you should give power to your minds.”
“I betrayed you because I love Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Roman continued smoothly, as if he hadn’t heard Dacre’s taunt. “She represents all that is good in this realm, and your attack on Hawk Shire, simply put, threatened her.
“I couldn’t bear to live in a world where she was slain by your selfishness, and so I warned her. I couldn’t bear to live in a world where you killed countless of my people or wounded them, only to heal them in part so that they would feel confused, indebted, and beholden to you. You, sir, never healed me as you should have. You are the author of my wounds to begin with. I would have never breathed the gas that has scarred my lungs if not for you. I would have never felt the bite of shrapnel in my leg if not for you.
“And what a cruel and terrible thing it is, to be a divine with such power and magic, and yet find yourself so small-minded and afraid that you decide to live out your endless days harming others. Instead of letting us choose to love you for the good you could be, you have forced us to serve you by way of pain and terror. That is unforgivable, and a lesson you will have learned too late, when you lose this war against us.
“You never saved me, like you claim. In the field of Avalon Bluff. You didn’t save me, but Iris did.”
Dacre slammed his fist on the table. His lips curled back in a sneer. All his immortal beauty morphed into something so ugly that Roman winced to see the true bones beneath the skin. The rotten heart of Dacre, a divine who only cared for himself.
“You betrayed me for a woman?” Dacre said. “You are the greatest fool in my forces, as well as my greatest shame.”
The words rolled off Roman. He smiled, feeling like he had swallowed a flame. It was lighting up his marrow. Illuminating his veins.
“Oh, I would betray you a hundredfold,” he said, his voice rising. “I would betray you a thousandfold for her.”
“Enough!” Dacre’s outburst cut through the air. Tension crackled in the room like lightning; Roman waited to be struck.
He wasn’t afraid. Even as his knees shook, he knew the trembling was forged from courage. He had spoken the words he wanted—the words that he felt—and he had no further regrets.
“Take him below and shackle him on traitor’s row,” Dacre said to Val.
Roman didn’t resist as he felt Val grip his arms from behind, twisting them to make Roman acquiesce.
“Then, once he is secured below,” Dacre continued, and his voice took on a delighted edge, “go and fetch Iris. Bring her to me. I’d like to speak with her again.”
“No,” Roman whispered. The full force of Dacre’s command hit him like a sword, splitting him open. He began to flail. He fought Val’s iron-tight hold. “No!”
He screamed until his voice felt ripped clean from his throat. Val was dragging him to the parlor door, which waited open like a maw, shadowed from the realm below. But Roman made it difficult. He almost slipped away, his skin tingling with bruises, when Dacre loomed over him.
The god lifted his hand and curled his fingers.
Roman gasped as his lungs tightened in response.
The strength drained from his limbs as he began to slump. Stars speckled his vision. But he whispered her name in his mind. He clung to it as the darkness devoured him.
Iris.
