Gabe took that hand, cradled it in his own. “What happened?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Her laugh was high, on the edge of hysterical. “I wished it away on the barge to the Isles. Said I never wanted it. And once I got to the Isle, my wish was granted.” She closed her fingers. “At least, that’s what Nyxara thought happened. The Fount took it back. I could hear Nyxara for a while afterward, even though I couldn’t channel Mortem, but after… after I used a lot of Spiritum, She was gone, too.”
She sounded almost bereft at that, but something like hopeleapt in Gabe’s chest. “Would it be that easy for the rest of us to get rid of Them? Just wish it away?”
But Lore was already shaking her head. “On the Isles, maybe. Close to the Fount. But not far away. It isn’t strong enough.” She sighed. “Which brings me to my next point. The Fount is weak because It’s broken.”
“I know,” Gabe said, then he told her about Eoin having the piece of the Fount in his Apollius Avenging statue. How he’d promised to give it to them, if they danced to his tune.
That part made her hold him closer, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. She didn’t speak, but the pitying look in her eyes said everything her mouth didn’t. He was being used once again. At least this time he recognized it. At least this time it wasn’t someone he’d once thought of as a father.
“Malcolm told me,” she murmured. “About what Eoin was making you do.” She paused. “About… hearing Them.”
The source of that momentary fear, when she first saw him. Gabe nodded reluctantly.
“I should tell you to stop. To find another way to get the Fount piece.” She closed her eyes and leaned into his chest. “But then I wouldn’t see you.”
“And I wouldn’t listen,” Gabe replied. “Because I have to see you.”
Another sigh, humid against his skin. “So we know where the pieces are,” she said after a moment. “At least, if Alie can find the one in the Citadel, and Eoin actually gives you the other. I found the one on the Isles.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to,” he said, leaning his cheek on the top of her head. “Whatever Eoin asks.”
So much for his dignity. He’d leave it in scraps. He’d burn himself alive if that’s what Eoin wanted, just to see if the flames hurt.
“Bastian once told me I didn’t realize when I was being used,” Lore murmured. “He said that I was so used to it, I didn’trecognize it, as long as it was done kindly.” She moved back, looked up at him. “The time for kindness is over, I guess.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabe reassured her, still stroking her hair. “As long as we can find the pieces and somehow get them to the Fount, it doesn’t matter. We’ll get our lives back.”
“Will we?” She wiped her eyes. He hadn’t realized she was crying. The sight of it set a deep ache in his heart; Lore hated crying, hated showing that weakness. “Seems more like we’re trading one kind of puppetry for another.”
His brow furrowed.
“One piece where I am, one where Alie is, one where you and Malcolm are.” She huffed an angry sound. “Does that sound a bit too coincidental? Our strings are being pulled, still. You know how I found the piece? I heard singing. Something directing me where to look. It has to be the Fount. Interfering, but only sometimes. Calling to me now that I’m close enough.” She shook her head. “Even if we win, we aren’t free.”
Gabe thumbed away a tear track. He didn’t speak.
Here, in his dreams on the beach, his mind was solely his own. But he thought about those other dreams. Hestraon breaking off the flame carving, leaving it somewhere on the Mount. He should tell Lore about that.
But did it matter? They’d find it when they got there. There was no need to distress her further.
And it sounded like she might be thinking the same thoughts he’d been trying to banish. About power. About how giving it up wasn’t so easy.
“The pantheon and Apollius might be gone,” Lore continued, “but if we repair the Fount, It just takes Their place. Sure, It will be better. It will make the world act as it should.” She rubbed the back of her wrist over her eyes again. “But we’ve seen how divinity works, Gabe. How everything is manipulated, even when it’s benevolent. How do we go back now that we know?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. In the deep of his mind, glowing embers, creeping flames.
The magic itself was not evil. It was what you did with it, how you shaped the tools given to your use. And who was to say the Fount was the best wielder of that tool?
Lore leaned back, her arms still around him, trusting him to anchor her. He couldn’t read her expression, somewhere between afraid and determined. “There’s something else. Something that will make you angry with me.”
Gabe tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Honestly, I’m too happy to see you to be angry, but do your worst.”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say; her eyes closed tight before opening again, though she looked into the middle distance over his shoulder instead of at his face. “I killed Anton.”
For a moment, nothing. His mind ran clear as a mountain stream; his body had no reaction. Then, a crush, guilt and sorrow and horriblereliefmaking him bow forward, now his turn to make her hold him up. It bent him nearly in half to bury his head in her shoulder, but he couldn’t imagine letting go of Lore, couldn’t imagine any other port in a storm.
She stroked the overgrown hair at the back of his head, a slight tremble in her fingers. “Do you want to know about it?” she whispered. “I can tell you, if you do. But you don’t have to know.”
