Well. So much for war coming; it was here.
Sophie closed the door as soon as she’d made her pronouncement, rushing back to Alexis. Bastian, Jax, and Alie stood in shocked silence, until Bastian broke it with a harsh laugh. “How much do you want to bet Gabe is on that ship? Impeccable timing.”
A shimmer in the air. Bastian’s spine and stomach momentarily felt like they were trying to change places, a sucking gravity pulling him toward the center of the room, then pushing him away hard enough to bow his back.
A spark of light, embers in the air. The sharp scent of green.
Gabe and Malcolm stood in front of the fountain.
So not on the ship, then.
The way they’d arrived, in a sudden drift of magic, let thembypass any defenses. Not that any would have held them back, Bastian was nearly certain. Malcolm stumbled, tipped forward. The hands that stabilized him on the floor before his nose smashed into marble had tiny leaves growing from the nailbeds. The same small leaves sprouted from the corners of his eyes, closed now against what looked like a splitting headache.
And Gabe… gods, he was magnificent.
The eye patch was gone, so nothing covered his face, nothing to hide how beautiful and terrible he was. The white of his eye glowed red-orange around the bright-blue iris, like a beacon on a stormy shoreline. A flame hovered in each outstretched palm, shivering above inked candles. Char lines tracked from his wrists to his elbows, like he’d dipped his hands in ash.
But there was more different about him than just his appearance. This man wasn’t the one who’d escaped on that ship to Caldien a month ago.
He was more.
“Remaut.” Bastian’s mouth was dry. “Gabriel.”
“Is it you?” His voice sounded different. Softer, strangely, with an underhiss of ember.
“It’s me,” Bastian said. “He’s gone.”
The blue-and-red eye closed, both in relief and, strangely, in sorrow.
They moved toward each other, cautious, the space between them volatile in a different way than it ever had been before. No, that wasn’t right. Things between them had always hovered around this want, this desire, but they’d never allowed themselves to acknowledge it. Not until Lore was in that space, too, the magnet drawing them both.
Bastian stepped toward Gabe, and already his hands rose with the want of him. Something softened in Gabe’s never-soft face, despite the fire in his eye.
But then Gabe saw Jax.
Even lost in his struggle with Apollius, Bastian had found ways to keep Gabe away from the Emperor. His care was that deeply rooted, that he would refuse to let Gabe get hurt, even with the god in his head and the enmity that his love had twisted into at first. He’d thought that perhaps it was overkill. That it’d been so long ago, maybe Gabe wouldn’t recognize Jax even if he was right in front of him.
Stupid thing to think.
That almost-softness fled, set on fire and burned away in seconds. Gabe still moved forward, but not toward Bastian—he all but pushed him out of the way, his other hand rising, that tongue of flame growing tall and unflickering, and Gabe brought up his flat palm like he’d throw the fire directly in the Emperor’s face.
He would have. And Bastian would not have stopped him.
But Alie did.
“Gabriel!” She darted in front of Jax, hands up. Wind whipped at Bastian’s hair, but he couldn’t see the threads she wove. “Stop!”
He wasn’t cowed by her magic, but his name in her mouth gave him pause. Gabe didn’t close his fist and dispel the flame, but he lowered his hand, brows drawing together. “What are you doing, Alie?”
He said her name like he had to think about it. Like another had come first to his tongue.
“Stopping you from committing murder.” She drew in a shaky breath, standing at her full height. “And creating an international incident.”
“Too late for that one,” Bastian said. He wanted to interfere here, wanted to pull Alie aside and let Gabe finish the job. But he restrained himself. Mostly because he still felt weak in the knees and couldn’t bear the idea of losing a potential fistfight to his half sister.
“Too late indeed.” Gabe’s mouth was a snarl, his eye fixed on Jax beyond Alie’s shoulder. “War is here. Killing him won’t make it come any faster.”
“But it won’t stop it, either,” Alie said.
