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Once while Darin was recovering from Kauf, Elias and I hiked to a waterfall a few miles from the cabin. He was supposed to teach me to swim, but we learned other things about each other that day.
And after the requisite jokes about Mauth wanting to keep Elias chaste, we stuffed ourselves with cold pears and cheese and skipped stones on the water. We spoke of all the places we wanted to see. We fell asleep in the sun, fingers intertwined.
Part of me wants to sink into that memory. But most of me just wants to leave.
Every moment in the Soul Catcher’s cabin has been torture. Every second of staring at that dead-eyedthingin the body of the boy I loved makes me want to burn the place down. Shake those big shoulders. Kiss him. Hit him. I want to make him angry or sad. Make him feelsomething.
But none of it would matter. Elias Veturius is gone. Only the Soul Catcher remains. And I do not love the Soul Catcher.
“Laia?”
Tas pads out of the cabin, shivering in a thin nightshirt, and I drape my cloak around him. We stare out at the treetops of the Forest of Dusk, mist-cloaked and purple this deep in the night.
The Nightbringer is somewhere beyond the borders of this place, raising hell with his jinn. Keris is out there with her army. To the west, Grímarr and the Karkauns torment the people of Antium.
So much evil. So many monsters.
Tas snuggles deep into the cloak. “This is new,” he says. “Warmer. But I liked the one you used to wear. It reminded me of Elias.” Tas looks up when I do not respond.
“You’ve given up on him,” he says.
“I’ve given up on the idea that there will be an easy answer to any of this,” I say.
“Why?” Tas asks. “You didn’t see what they did to him in Kauf. What the Warden did. They tried to break him. But he wouldn’t break, Laia. He never gave up. Not on Darin. Not on me. And not on you. Elias fought. And he’s still in there somewhere, trying to escape.”
I hoped that was the case, once. No longer.We are, all of us, just visitors in each other’s lives.
“I thought you were different, Laia.” Tas shrugs off my cloak. “I thought you loved him. I thought you had hope.”
“Tas, I do—” But as I say it, I realize it’s not true. All has been dark for so long. To hope is a fool’s errand. “Elias as we knew him is gone.”
“Maybe.” Tas shrugs. “But I think that if you were the one who gotchained up in the forest, Elias would never give up. If you had forgotten how much you loved him, he’d find a way to make you remember. He’d keep fighting until he brought you back.”
My face burns in shame as Tas returns to the cabin. I want to call out after him,You are only a child. You have no idea what you speak of.
But I do not. Because he is right.
«««
The Soul Catcher wakes me at dawn with a hard tap to my shoulder. It is the first time he has touched me in months and so perfunctory that I wish he had woken me with a curse and a kick to the heels, as Cook used to.
“Time to leave.” He drops my pack—already buckled shut—by my head. The others are up and ready moments after me. Tas looks hopefully toward the stove, but it is cold and barren.
Just as well.
“You all right?” Darin lifts my pack as I pull on my boots. “That’s a dumb question, isn’t it?”
He looks so rueful that despite everything, I smile. “I am fine,” I say. “In a way I’m glad I saw him like this. I needed to be reminded that Elias is gone.”
It takes mere minutes to reach the border of the Waiting Place. Beyond the tree line, the land slopes down into gentle rolling hills, their yellowed grasses poking through old snow. The presence of the Empire settles over me like an iron mantle.
The Soul Catcher does not step beyond the trees. He holds something in his hand, examining it absently. My heart leaps when I realize what itis: my armlet. The one he made me months ago. The one I gave back to him.
He’s still in there somewhere, trying to escape.
“The jinn will sense your departure,” the Soul Catcher says, armlet still in hand. “By nightfall, they could come after you. Move swiftly. I do not wish to welcome any of you to the Waiting Place.”
He turns his back and a small hand reaches out to stop him.
