Page 98 of The Deadliest Candidate

“I’m not asking you to trust me. I know you don’t, you’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m only…” He paused with a sharp sigh. “I’m asking you to avoid throwing yourself into danger.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Keeping away from you isexactlyhow I’m keeping out of danger.”

Lautric’s mouth twisted, the muscles in his jaws jumped. He stepped forward, closing the space between them. Fern caught her breath.

“You would keep away from me to stay safe,” he said, low and, for the first time, a little rough, “and yet keep venturing into Carthane at night, alone and defenceless?”

Fern drew her dagger from its sheath and thrust the point under Lautric’s chin.

“Defenceless? I wouldn’t be so sure.”

He frowned. Even though the point of the blade had pierced the skin, he did not move back. He seemed no longer angry, but gazed down at Fern with the expression of curiosity he often gave her.

“You’re angry at me.” He sounded surprised, almost disappointed.

“No, Mr Lautric.” Fern felt a surge of satisfaction. Finally, the veil of courtesy and dissimulation between them seemed to be falling away. “You’re not worthy of my anger. Now step back and get out of my way.”

A droplet of blood slid like a tear-shaped garnet down the length of his neck, but Fern kept her blade exactly where it was, forcing him back.

If he was in pain, he did not show it. Instead, he asked, “Did you find Vittoria?”

“No.”

She thought of the overheard exchange in the Alchemy Wing, the books he’d borrowed from Vittoria, how she’d first wondered if she was witnessing a tryst and how, the night of Vittoria’s attack, Baudet had slapped Lautric, and how Lautric had let him.

Did he truly wish to know what had happened to Vittoria, or did he already know and was merely trying to ascertain how much Fern knew?

She backed away from him, extending her arm to keep him at the tip of her blade.

He did not follow her, but his eyes were intent upon hers. “You did not find her… but you saw something. What did you see? I’ve never seen you so shaken up.”

Fern paused, facing Lautric.

“You and I have nothing more to say to one another. Let me clarify this for you: you and I are professional rivals, nothing more. Our partnership ended when the second assignment did. Once you fail to get past the third assignment, you and I will never see each other again.”

It felt good to say it, at last. She’d needed to hear it out loud as much as he did—perhaps more so.

“For now, stay away from me, and I’ll stay away from you. You may have all the power of your house behind you, but believe me when I say this, Mr Lautric. You do not want me for an enemy.”

“It’s not an enemy I want you for, Fern.”

His eyes were wide, his petal lips had fallen open in his surprise. His mouth moved as though he were aboutto say something else, something delicate and soft and terrible and utterly manipulative.

Before he could speak another word, Fern whipped around and wrenched his door open. She ran out of his room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Back in her apartment, she collapsed face-down onto her bed, and lay motionless and awake for a long time, feeling completely and irreversibly empty. A weight settled on the low of her back, followed by a warm, vibrating sensation. Inkwell. It was not like him to stick quite so close, and the surprise was perhaps what allowed Fern to finally sink into the darkness of sleep.

The eye in the tower awaited her in that darkness, and watched her through her dreams.

Chapter forty-eight

The Pit

The final day beforethe assignment was spent at her desk, where Fern sat silently arranging, perfecting and compiling her research. The eye, straining and awful and horribly aware, seemed to watch her from every darkness: the shadowy corridors of Carthane, the night sky, even the darkness behind Fern’s eyelids.

She longed desperately to tell someone of what she had seen, what she knew—anything to make her feel less alone with that horrible knowledge. But the risk was too great, and she had come too far, and she was too close.

So instead, she tried to prepare for the third assignment. It was the best she could do. It was theonlything she could do.

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