Page 143 of Silvercloak

Self-loathing churned in her gut. “I’m sorry.”

“I swore I’d never let myself feel like that again. That’s why I kept the tattoo instead of dissolving it.” A tense beat. “It was supposed to remind me of the dangers of falling in love.”

Saff felt as though someone had reached a hand into her chest and wrung her heart like a washcloth. “What happened? With Alucia.”

“She was infiltrating from the Whitewings. It was years ago, before they were as prevalent as they are now. They started out as ascenite bandits, then did well in achullah for a while. Cut it with darkseed to make it more addictive. But once we brought lox into the city, we stole most of their business. They sent Alucia to get close to me, then ultimately sabotage us.” A fleeting shot of grief passed over his face. “Vogolan killed her the second he found out who she was.”

“Why didn’t you retaliate? Against Vogolan, I mean.”

He tapped two fingers over his brand. “Vogolan’s act was clearly in the Bloodmoons’ best interest. Mine would not have been.” A narrowing of his eyes. “Which begs the question … how didyourbrand not kill you? When you took his life?”

She’d almost forgotten about her confession back in his bedroom. A slip of the tongue, a careless show of her hand.

“Maybe it’s because he hurt me first, and it was self-defense,” she said. “But I’ve been going over and over it in my mind, and I think … I think maybe he had grown sloppy, stopped acting in the Bloodmoons’ best interests. He killed Papa Marriosan for no reason other than bloodlust, in broad daylight and with witnesses, and it’s that kind of shortsightedness that makes us vulnerable to the Silvercloaks.” The casual use ofusstill made her squirm. “So perhaps the brand believed that in neutralizing his threat, I was not acting against the Bloodmoons, but in our favor.”

Levan gave a scornful laugh. “In truth, I’m jealous you’re the one who got to do it. I’ve fantasized about killing him for a long time. Although I’m glad you didn’t justlethim hurt you. You’ve got fire, I’ll give you that.”

Saffron rolled onto her back, so she wouldn’t have to face him. “I’m sorry Alucia wasn’t who she said she was.”

Levan tentatively rested his golden hand on her lower ribs. Her diaphragm rose and fell against his crypt-cold palm.

“You’re not hiding anything from me, are you?” he said, pressing his forehead against her upper arm.

Even though she was secretly on thegoodside, therightside, Saffron felt like the most evil person in the world.

She had to destroy the Bloodmoons, but she didn’t have to toy with his heart. Withhim.

“I’m hiding a lot of things,” Saff replied, trying to sound playful, but it came out a little strangled. “My favorite gelato flavor is chocolate—”

“Heathen,” he said, mock-affronted. “Pistachio is far superior.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I no longer respect you as a person, but alright. My favorite song is ‘This Way the Griffin Flies—’”

“Saccharine nonsense.”

“And my favorite time of year is summer.”

Hetsked. “How can someone so beautiful have such bad taste? Autumn is objectively correct.”

Her heart hitched at the wordbeautiful.Something she’d beencalled many times before—something she knew to be objectively true about herself—but there was still something wrenching about hearing it from Levan. Closed off, dead-behind-the-eyes Levan, who had slowly but surely come back to life over the time she had known him.

She shot him a wry smile. “At least we can agree onLost Dragonborn.”

“I suppose that forgives you the other sins.”

“My favorite childhood memory … there are a lot.” Saffron didn’t know why she was saying all of this. Maybe because sharing true things made her feel less horrible about the myriad lies. “My dad once enchanted a scarecrow with an entire personality. Jickety Snoot, his name was, and he was an absolute crank. I still don’t understand how he did it. My dad’s magic … it was like nothing else I’ve ever known.” Exceptyours.“Jickety Snoot once made my honeywine-drunk mother laugh so much she peed herself.”

Levan stroked her rib with his thumb, and it made it hard to breathe. “My father used to be playful like that too. He would invent elaborate board games for us to play together. Spend hours making tiny figurines for me to paint. Write up the rules in formal scrolls, carve wooden chests to keep the board and pieces in. He even sold a few of them—Flight of the Raven did pretty well up north.”

There was a lurching sensation in Saff’s stomach. “Holy hells. We played that.”

Another of the infinite ways their lives had been braided from the start.

And yet this time, it did not fill her with rightness, but a kind of sickly dread. How could her parents have not known how interwoven they already were with the Bloodmoons? Mellora had been watched for years for her necromancy, and Lyrian’s board games had found their way into the Killorans’ enchanted family home. The tendrils had snaked around their ankles without them ever realizing, until the knock that turned their front door black.

Then again, maybe her parentsdidknow. Maybe there was more to that fateful night than she would ever understand.

But Levan smiled at the revelation that they had played the same game as children, that his father had a legacy beyond brutality. “Smallworld. And my mother—she was formidable, but she was also … I know you probably think everyone here is fundamentally evil, but she wasgood,Silver. She helped people more often than she hurt them. When I was five, she and I helped evacuate an entire flooded village. She wound back time a few minutes and saved a family from drowning, even though it ruined her for weeks afterward. That’s all she ever wanted to use her weaving for. To help people. But it wasn’t strong enough, no matter how much ascenite she gathered. I think you’d have liked her.” A wistful smile. “She would’ve made a good queen, and she knew that. She knew she’d been robbed of the throne.”

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