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“Sleep is as important as a full belly. Night.”
Timmons saluted her with a meatless thigh bone. “Good night, you deadly little thing.”
Ren added another log to the fire. Theo looked lost in the flames. Timmons tossed the morsel into a pouch. Cora had instructed them to save their bones, just in case they needed to boil them for nutrients higher up in the mountains.
Overhead, stars glittered, countless in number. They’d chosen an elevated clearing that offered a view of the small lake below. The light of the stars was mirrored on the glass-still surface. Theo broke the silence with the last thing Ren ever expected him to say.
“I’m long overdue for an apology.”
Ren and Timmons exchanged a glance.
“For the party. The incident with the seventeen-string was… incredibly reckless. You asked me before what I’ve been dreaming about. My worst memory. And that’s the answer. I’ve been dreaming about what I did at that party. I know… what you must think of me. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what I did.”
Ren remembered him spotting the newspaper—with the article about the incident—when she’d emptied her satchel. She guessed that he’d been waiting to explain himself for some time now.
“I wanted to visit the hospital where the injured were taken, but my father had our chariots removed. I also demanded to be put on trial for any damages or crimes, but the presiding judges were already bribed to keep matters quiet. I’m very aware of how all of that makes me look.”
His eyes were on Ren. She felt that anger pulsing to life inside her chest. She was grateful that she’d taken a moment last night to settle her mind. Otherwise, she might not have held it all together. Some of that anger must have slipped into her expression, though, because Theo didn’t meet her eyes for longer than a moment.
“I know we must seem obscene to you. My father’s wealth. Our way of life. I grew up wanting to be a wyvern rider because it felt like a way out. An escape from all the expectations. All the greed. I wanted to fly up to a place where my father wasn’t the first thing people saw in me.”
Ren didn’t know what to say. She glanced at Timmons, who looked speechless as well. The two of them sat in uncomfortable silence as Theo went on.
“I am not asking for your sympathy or your forgiveness,” he said. “I made a grave error. People could have died.…”
The weight of that word finally freed Ren to speak. “Then why did you do it?”
His face fell again. “There’s a pressure that comes with my name and my title. A pressure that I have, at times, allowed to shatter my will to change our family’s legacy. And that is my will. I do not want to be one of the Broods of old. I have no designs on living as a bloodstained magnate, turning one coin into two by holding a blade to society’s throat. That’s never—I’ve never wanted to be like him.”
The emphasis on that word made it clear. He didn’t want to be Landwin Brood. But Ren wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Not even close. “Peer pressure? That’s why you dangled a seventeen-string out over the heads of the people in the Lower Quarter’s poorest neighborhoods? For the sake of popularity?”
He shook his head. “Pressure is why I sometimes feel the need to… perform. I wanted to show off my magic that night. And that’s what the incident was. Not a failure in pride, but a failure in magic.”
Ren bit her tongue. She felt it was a failure of both.
“As I said, I’m very aware of how you see me. I’m very aware that the incident doesn’t help your opinion of me. I’d understand it if you secretly hated me. I have every intention of making amends for what I did. My life will not look like my father’s, or his father’s before him. I will be a servant to the city of Kathor.”
A small piece of the puzzle that was Theo Brood clicked into place in Ren’s mind. She thought back through the details she already knew and finally saw the direction he was heading.
“So you’re training to be the city’s next warden?”
Theo’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Oh, come on. You have your own personal livestone statue,” she said. “You’re majoring in tactical defense and city planning. Very few jobs use both. And now this speech about living a life in service to others. If I recall correctly, the current city warden is due to retire next year. Your education would conclude at a convenient time to claim the post.”
He swallowed. Ren watched him process everything she’d said. He likely realized that denying her guess would lower her opinion of him even more. At this point he knew how smart she was. And now she’d pegged him with the barest of clues.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I am training to be the city warden. There aren’t many stations that satisfy the demands of the Brood name. My father would fold me into his own plans if I had no direction. Becoming the city warden allows me to serve the people of Kathor, rather than his interests. Rather than the interests of his friends. It has been my goal for years now.”
Ren shook her head. She’d reached a breaking point. Her plans of entering House Brood called for her to make nice. Nod her head at the nobility of his decision. To hell with that.
“That’s your big sacrifice? Becoming the city’s most powerful force of defensive magic? You’ll be attuned to fifty of the most expensive statues ever created. You can snap your fingers and summon gargoyles. How damn noble of you.”
Theo looked surprised by her interpretation. Of course. He’d never imagined the decision was anything but heroic. It probably felt that way compared to the way the rest of his family operated. It was easy to look innocent in a room full of butchers.
“What? You didn’t realize there was privilege in claiming one of the most desirable positions in the city, even if it’s a step down for your family’s reputation? Do you know how many people would get down on their knees and beg for a job like that one?”
The expression on his face made it clear that he’d never considered this angle. Not even once. Now he floundered for an explanation. “But I’ll be commanding those statues on behalf of the people, not for the benefit of House Brood. I will be the first warden to truly serve the city—the masses—in decades.”
