“I know. Iknow.I just…he…” Eli sighed. He understood why Rey was worried. It was a foolish choice to make and a childish one. He could still feel that indignant anger burning inside him, just under the surface. “I didn’t realize it would hit me so hard to see him.”
Rey laid a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “You might have to deal with feelings like that again, Eli, and you might have to swallow them.”
Eli closed his eyes, and opened them again in alarm as Rey pulled him into a hug. “Let me go.”
“Just let me, you battle-hungry wild man.”
Rey squeezed Eli’s shoulders, and Eli felt something else come loose inside him, a torrent of grief and uncertainty. Eli tentatively held him back, and then gripped him tight as he let it all wash over him.
“You’re all right,” Rey whispered in Eli’s ear. “We can still do this. You’re all right.”
The others on the road gave them a wide berth as they made their slow way into Duciel. Eli hadn’t imagined his return to be like this, twisted up with emotion he couldn’t control, trying to trick his only living family to fetch a spirit’s sword. He’d barely imagined a return at all—the past few years had been about the chase, survival, and trying to outrun the magic of the Hunt.
He put up his hood as they trundled into the lower city. Duciel was built like a spiderweb with a spiraling main street that wound toward the palace, and the lower city was a mess of houses and shacks built on top of each other like plants stretching for the sun. It felt like a lifetime since he’d walked those streets, but Eli settled into the rhythm of city traffic immediately. He knew that if he closed his eyes, he could walk all the way to his family home in the upper district.
But they weren’t headed there. Eli and Rey aimed for the rental townhouses next to the pleasure district, where poor noble relations could rent a house for a few weeks with all the furnishings necessary for breakfast visits and the occasional family row. Eli had never been allowed to pass through the pleasure district, though, and he slowed down as Unicorn plodded her way past the lavishly decorated houses where courtesans waited for their noble patrons.
“I remember when they first made these,” Rey said, leaning in as they passed the glittering House of Gold. “There were just two back then, and they weren’t this expensive.”
“Well, you definitely can’t afford any of these courtesans,” Eli said. A tall man with pale lavender hair stepped out of a carriage in front of the last house on the street. He was dressed in a velvet suit with a hat that ruined the look of his hair, but Eli drew back a step regardless. “That’s Lord de Rue. I remember him. He’d just been given a title when I was young. It was such a scandal because he used to be a courtesan. I wasn’t even allowed to look at him.”
“So that means we should befriend him, then,” Rey said. He winked at Eli. “I’m assuming we ought to do the opposite of whatever your mother suggested.”
“Probably,” Eli said. “But what would we even talk about?”
“Notwe,you’re the hired sword. Your job is to stand there and look intimidating. I suppose we could talk about sex, but you’d think he’d be tired of that by now.”
“Oh, yes, he looks like someone who’s just begging for a nice long talk about economics,” Eli said, watching Lord de Rue disappear into his pleasure house.
“Lovely to have you here, my lord,” Rey said, in a posh tone. “What’s your opinion on the sheep tax?” Eli snorted. “Or the climbing cost of rhubarb?”
“Stop.” Eli shoved him lightly.
“He’s going to be our neighbor,” Rey said. “We ought to be friendly.”
Eli almost relished the thought of befriending a scandalous noble just to upset his mother’s ghost, but he doubted Lord de Rue would be able to help them with convincing Sabre of their plans.
Thankfully, there were several houses for rent, including one with a stable for Unicorn. Eli helped Rey brush her down after the landlord left them with the key, and Unicorn seemed perfectly content with the little stable. The cart took some wrangling to put away, but there was just enough space for it, so Eli could probably risk sleeping there.
Rey must have caught his intentions, because he took Eli by the hand and pointed to the house. “This is mine for now,” he said. “And I’m offering it.”
“I don’t know if that counts,” Eli said. He hadn’t been in a house since the Blanchet estate had burned, and sometimes, he still dreamed of pipes bursting and wood snapping around him.
“It counts. Come on.” Rey unlocked the door and stepped inside, waiting for Eli.
Eli approached the door. He stopped a few feet away, looking up at the framework of the house. Two stories. If the roof collapsed, it would crush whoever was on the second floor, butthere might be time to run if the house took its time to fall. It wasn’t as sturdy as the Blanchet home, though. Perhaps that meant it would fall faster. Would Eli and Rey be able to escape if it did?
“Eli.” Rey’s voice sounded distant. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” Eli said. Rey moved closer, reaching for his hands. He took them, and Eli stumbled as he followed him to the doorstep. “I can’t. I can’t. It’ll fall. It’ll all fall around us.”
“It won’t fall. You’re safe, Eli.”
“I’m never safe.” Eli thought of Lord Blanchet shoving at the hem of his trousers, the sickening realization of what that meant dawning on him only when Eli had curled up in Rey’s cart, the heat of Lord Blanchet’s blood on his hands, water running down the wall, ashes in his mouth.
“You’re safe with me,” Rey said, and drew Eli over the threshold.
Eli tensed. He stood there for several long, awful minutes, listening. The house didn’t creak. the windows didn’t shatter. No pipes rattled, no ceilings groaned. He was standing in a quiet, dark hallway, and he was safe.
