Page 110 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘She’s here to see me, Tobias.’ Theo looked up from his journal, revealing a glimpse of the designs he’d been sketching. More steelfire, arrows and bolts to fit their crossbows.

After their meeting in the vault, Theo had asked him to meet her in the cloakroom. She had come at once, dogged by Ransom’s shadows that had trailed her all the way down the hall until she’d shooed them – and him – away.

‘Go and find Fabian,’ Theo told his cousin now. ‘Tell him to deliver a message to the blacksmith, Anatoli. I’ll need the forge again tonight.’

‘So now I’m a messenger for your messenger. This is getting humiliating,’ grumbled Tobias, pointedly jumping off his stool with a thud. He stormed out, muttering under his breath.

Theo watched him go. ‘And I thought I was impatient.’

‘Paola’s making probably hasn’t helped.’

‘I’m glad it went well.’ His words were earnest but his hands were twitching in his lap. ‘I suppose Val has told you what I am.’

Sera hesitated, the word like a funeral gong in her head. Soul-eater.

Hearing it for the first time had made her retch into her porridge. Now, at least, she could pretend like the horror of his power – the guilt that she had been the one to curse him with it – wasn’t searing her to the bone.

His smile was wry. ‘You need to work on your poker face.’

‘This is my best attempt.’

‘It is not good.’

‘Do you feel well?’

‘You mean villainous?’

She huffed a laugh. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘I feel positively unmurderous.’

‘That’s a good start.’

His dimple returned. ‘Ironic that I spent so long coming up with steelfire when we had our very own saint-killer all along.’

‘I guess that’s the silver lining.’ She tried to match the lightness in his voice. Ransom had suspected that Theo’s magic was troublesome. If he had been right about that, then was he right to keep nurturing his suspicions about him?

Theo drummed his fingers along his notebook. ‘If my magic wants to devour another’s soul, then why not let it have Andreas?’

Sera frowned, trying to imagine it. Theo had a quick mind and a talent for theft, but he was no killer. ‘Do you think you could do it? If you got the chance?’

‘I’d like to think so.’

Hardly a resounding cry. And after what had happened at the Appoline … when Theo had had his chance to kill Andreas and squandered it. Well. She wasn’t sure she believed him.

‘I’m afraid,’ he admitted. ‘My power … it feels like a flame clamouring for air. I don’t know what will happen if I feed it. What if I can’t douse it?’

It was the way her own magic felt sometimes. ‘Your soul is your compass, Theo. It will guide you true.’

He chewed on the edge of his thumbnail. ‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because I know you. I know your heart. I know what you stand for.’ Making a point of drawing closer, of showing him she was not afraid, she pulled up a stool. They sat across from each other. The low lights revealed the shadows under his eyes and the grooves along his brow. ‘And I know you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not sleeping.’

He leaned across the workbench, and said, not unkindly, ‘Are you?’

‘Maybe you’re not the only one afraid of your magic,’ she conceded.

His brows rose.