Page 26 of The King's Man 3
“I couldn’t save my mother. And the conditions there... It’s proof of all those things you said about me. I can’t take care of my people. Can’t take care of my family. I am useless.”
“But it’s because—”
“It doesn’t matter. The people on that island are suffering. Like the rest of this kingdom.”
I ball the edges of my cloak. “If they knew how much you’re doing to change that.”
“Sincerity doesn’t feed you.”
“That’s why you let them say those things?”
“Six months ago, I would have been irritated.”
“Three months ago.”
Quinlooksat me, and I mouthwe’re even. He continues, “Now I understand. If a mother doesn’t feed her children, the children will cry. If a king doesn’t feed his people...”
I stare glumly, stomach all kinds of tight. He’s right of course. Those people downstairs are suffering.
Only, Quin is suffering too.
I wish... ugh. I glare at him. “Why do you make me feel such strong, conflicting feelings? It literally makes me shake. Look.”
“You have a way of getting on my nerves as well.”
“Aren’t we a right pair?”
Quin is silent. He stares towards the windows, the open books on the table. At the sight of scrawled letters and diagrams, my mind jumps. Quin’s image, pasted on walls all over the kingdom.
I swallow. “It’s a trap, isn’t it? If you’re recognised, crusaders will slaughter you on sight.”
The lines of Quin’s face tighten; a nearly imperceptible twitch in his jaw.
“Or vespertines will capture you for the reward,” I murmur. “But it’s money that won’t come. You’ll be made to pay with your life.”
Quin’s mouth is one grim line.
Cold rushes over me. I’m numb as Quin shifts to his belongings at the end of the bed. “What will we do?”
He plucks something from beneath the folds of fabric. “This belongs to you.”
Wood framed with riverpearl.
Warmth pulses to my fingers when he presses it into my hands.
“I asked Florentius what he wanted as a reward, for helping us,” Quin says. “This is what he wanted.”
The soldad. I’d left it behind, on the island.
My dream, handed back to me.I turn it over. Stamped. I’m a complex-medius vitalian.
I grip the soldad hard. I suck in a nervous breath. “Why are you giving me this now?”
“You’d have passed your exam under fair conditions.”
I rub my thumb over the fourth stamp. “Whyright now, Quin—”
His hands shoot out in quick succession, hitting my acupoints in a pattern.
