been made. The Kings would be saved, and still Macready had not picked a side.
He didn’t have to pick a side. Crane and Delphine had saved him from that choice. Ashiol and Velody would live.
A little way down the hill, Garnet stood watching them, the Lords and Court arrayed behind him. ‘Take off your sword,’ he ordered Crane.
‘Is he alive?’ Kelpie asked in a whisper.
Like Macready, she was still on her feet, not moving one way or the other. Like Macready, she would rather die than give up being a sentinel, but that wasn’t an option available right now.
Ashiol looked bad. He wasn’t responding to Crane’s attempts to feed him. The cobbles were sodden with his blood.
‘Kelpie, take my sword off,’ Crane said, not moving from where he kneeled.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said hopelessly.
‘Take it off,’ the lad snapped.
Not a lad any more, oh no. More of a man than Macready, so he was.
Kelpie slid Crane’s skysilver sword from his back and laid it on the cobbles beside Delphine’s. She was crying, tears sliding down her face, her breath coming in short bursts.
Ashiol gave a choking gasp, and began to suck on Crane’s wrist. Alive. Holy feck, alive. Powerless, but saved.
Kelpie squeezed her eyes shut and started walking down the hill towards Garnet. Away from them. Oh, lass. Macready watched her go, understanding her choice, still not sure if he was going to follow or not.
Velody was feeding properly now, suckling at Delphine’s wrist. Crane let his skysilver knife join the sword on the cobbles and returned his attention to Ashiol, not even looking at Macready and Kelpie. As if they had no decision to make, as if it was obvious what they would do. Crane was taking charge, saints help him. He drew Delphine’s skysilver knife out of the side of Ashiol’s neck and put it with the others. No blood ran free. For now, Ashiol was as mortal as the rest of them and the skysilver could not touch him.
Kelpie looked back at Macready only once, and he saw the despair in her face. She was not choosing Garnet over Ashiol. She was choosing to keep the oath she had made the only way she could, just as Crane and Delphine were keeping theirs. He understood. Better than she might think.
Macready hated Garnet. Hated him. The thought of leaving Ashiol and Velody in the street to follow that colossal arsehole was revolting to him. But the swords were his. He didn’t know how to function without being a sentinel. He couldn’t give it up.
He had served Garnet before. He could do it again. Couldn’t he?
Velody cried out, a low, quiet sound like she was struggling with a bad dream.
Garnet spoke to Livilla and she sent several of her child courtesi to scamper up the street and pick up the fallen weapons, warning them to only touch the leather-wrapped hilts. One lad was too small to lift Crane’s sword properly and dragged the tip awkwardly on the ground. The sound scraped Macready’s heart.
‘Mac,’ Delphine said in a small voice, so small. She had finally noticed that he hadn’t chosen his side.
Feck. Feck. Feck.
Ashiol would live. Velody would live. They didn’t need him to give anything up. Macready could stay on the inside, keep an eye on Garnet. A dozen justifications for that choice rose up in his throat, choking him.
One of Livilla’s lambs was watching them. A dark-skinned demme on the edge of growing up, her hair in short twists against her scalp, her eyes wide and watchful. The thought of what the Court could do to her was enough to resolve him to this: the final moment of letting go. Macready took his sword off and held it out to the little lass, hilt first.
Giving up his blades the first time Garnet had demanded it had been a sacrifice, and it had burnt in his gut. Losing those original skysilver blades to the dust devils had been another loss, another wound. This time it was oddly freeing. No more of it. He could walk out of Aufleur any time he wanted. He could go home, visit his sisters and those tribes of babbies they had. He wasn’t going to do any of those things, but he could if he wanted to.
‘The Creature Court,’ he said loudly to Garnet, ‘can suck my fecking balls.’
Garnet smiled like ice, and turned away. The Court went with him, down the side of the Lucretine towards the Arches. Kelpie went,