City of Spells (Into the Crooked Place #2) - Alexandra Christo Page 0,50

the curtain drawing back.

What he’d meant to imply was that putting herself in unnecessary danger would have been stupid. What he’d actually said—what Tavia had heard coating his words—was that he didn’t think he mattered enough for her to try.

He didn’t think he was worth saving.

She thought back to when she’d seen him in the clearing, shirt torn and his feet bloodied with dirt.

She’d had to try so hard to keep from crying.

“You’re worth the risk, Wesley,” Tavia said.

She turned to him, finally, dressed in the best suit she could find. It fit him snugly and though, yes, it was a little too tight around the shoulders, if he hadn’t said it, she wouldn’t have noticed. He looked like he belonged in that suit. He looked like himself in it.

Except for the bruises.

Except for the bags under his eyes.

Except for the way he smiled, like he didn’t mean it at all.

Tavia hated Ashwood and Zekia more than anything in that moment.

“You should let Saxony heal you,” she said.

“I can heal myself.”

“You shouldn’t need to.”

Wesley didn’t answer. He just sighed and adjusted his cuff links, as he always did when he was trying to distract his mind.

“I have something for you,” Tavia said.

She slid the bone gun onto the floor beside the bottle of Cloverye.

It had been the only thing of Wesley’s she’d had to keep her mind calm and her heart alive, but now that he was back, she could feel the old gun calling to its owner, begging to go home.

When Wesley saw it, his smile turned, far more genuine than the one he’d given her just seconds before. It was the smile he’d had when they were kids running from the amityguards with possibility in their pockets, and the smile he’d given her when they got rooms opposite each other in the busker dorms, and the smile she’d savored when they created their first crystal ball together.

It was her favorite thing in the world.

“Damn, I missed this thing,” he said.

Wesley took the gun from the ground and sat beside her. His feet dangled next to hers, close enough that they could touch if they were ever so careless.

“I hope you took good care of it,” he said.

He examined the bones that made up the weapon, checking for scuffs and scratches.

“If there’s a mark on here anywhere, then you’re cleaning it off.”

“Your precious little murder weapon is fine,” Tavia said. “I’m glad to see your priorities are still in check.”

Wesley shrugged and placed the gun into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, right where his heart was.

“Do you think Karam is okay?” Tavia asked. “Saxony looked really worried earlier.”

“Aren’t you?”

“She’s good at fighting her way out of trouble,” Tavia said.

Only, she was still just as worried as Saxony was. Karam could fight, sure, but that didn’t mean that she could fight anything Ashwood threw at her. It didn’t mean she was invincible, and Tavia cursed herself for thinking otherwise. She’d always seen Karam as unstoppable, unkillable, but that was a lie and now that she wasn’t here, Tavia couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d let that lie comfort her too often.

She hoped desperately that Karam would come storming back into camp, angry that Wesley had escaped before she’d had a chance to rescue him.

“There are a lot more people here than I thought there would be,” Wesley said.

He peered over the edge to look down at the camp below, brimming with buskers and Crafters.

“Yeah.” Tavia took the bottle from Wesley and downed another swig. “Saxony contacted all the Lieges in the four realms and a bunch of them agreed to send us more Crafters. It’s not much, but including Saxony’s and Asees’s Kins, we have eighty Crafters already. When the others come, it should bump that up to a hundred and fifty or so.”

“And the buskers?” Wesley asked.

“A little deal I made with Casim,” she said. “We’ve got fifty of his buskers and he’s negotiating with the other underbosses of Uskhanya to send us their forces too. So that gives us ninety altogether so far, with more possibly on the way.”

Wesley looked vaguely impressed.

“I used your name to threaten him, by the way,” Tavia said. She passed the bottle back over to Wesley, neither of them bothering to use the glass. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Go for it,” Wesley said. “I’m glad my name still strikes fear in the hearts of my cowardly colleagues.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Underbosses really are all chickenshits.”

Wesley laughed and the sound jittered amid the rain,