than enough room for him to press her back into the corner. Both of his arms were around her. It was more contact than she’d had with anyone since Darid, and more contact than she’d ever had with Gavin. His smell filled her nostrils, wood smoke and wine and the same stale smell they all had, because they could never get clean, and his slippery, treacherous despair filled her mind. It was frightening. Her spine arched against him in resistance and a gasp of horror escaped her.
Quickly, he clamped a hand over her mouth. Which was worse: bare skin. His strength was too much and the despair was too much and she went limp.
Then she heard it, as if from underwater. Footsteps. Slow, steady. There was nobody it could be, nobody it should be, down here. No light came; only the steps. The walker was passing Gavin’s grandfather’s tomb. Clorin’s. The walker was in sight: Theron. Moving through the darkness with no light of his own, he didn’t even seem to notice as he entered the wan flicker of their lantern. His eyes were fixed on the ground, his expression blank.
Gavin’s arms tightened around Judah, his hand pressed more firmly against her mouth. She could barely breathe. She could barely have breathed, anyway. As Theron passed them, he shuddered; his steps quickened; but he didn’t speak to them. In a moment he’d disappeared farther into the crypt, where nobody had bothered to carve niches yet. Maybe even down to the natural rock, the caves worn by the aquifer eons ago: before the crypt, before the House, before any of them.
When Theron was gone, Gavin’s arm around her loosened, but didn’t let go. He took his hand away from her mouth, but it was too late. She’d seen inside him. The courtiers had pretended not to care, wearing apathy like a veil to shield their private desires and agendas. Gavin truly didn’t care about anything. His inner self was a yawning pit of grief and frustration. There was a flicker of warmth for her, pangs of longing for Elly and Theron. That was all.
“You don’t want to talk to him when he looks like that,” he said quietly. “I’ve tried. The things he says—” The words trailed away and she felt his cheek press against the top of her head. Another flood of despondency washed over her. It felt like the drug the magus had given her after she’d been caned. It dragged her down, emptied her. In desperation, she did what she had always done when he was upset, and filled her mind with water: the aquifer, with its permanence and patience. The feeling of drift on the boat. She had hated the boat but for Gavin she made it easy and restful.
The knot inside him loosened. She felt his body ease, too. He let out a long breath of air, and his arms around her went lax. “I’d forgotten how good it feels to be around you.”
She squirmed away from him, suddenly angry. “Because I make you feel good, you idiot.” He’d grabbed her, held her, covered her mouth so she couldn’t even object. She was angry about that, but she was also angry about the despair. Who was he to despair at the loss of his future when she’d never had a future at all?
“What?” He sounded puzzled, and she realized: they never talked about the bond. Even the scratch code had evolved without an actual conversation. The only time they’d ever discussed the bond had been in the study, when they’d been forced to.
Tell me when you feel the knife. Tell me when it begins to hurt. Do you feel the warmth of the coal, or just the burn?
“When you’re angry, or upset, I—touch you and I think about water.” She felt exposed, vulnerable. “To calm you down. Just now it was the aquifer.”
“I was thinking about the aquifer,” he said, wondering. “I didn’t even realize. Do you always use that?”
“No. It could be a puddle, or the reflecting pool. Anywhere calm. It’s as much for me as you,” she added. “Your head’s not exactly a pleasure garden, you know.”
“Like you’re any better.” He took her hand. “Do it again.”
Appalled, she pulled away. “No.”
“Just for a minute. So I can see what it’s like, now that I know you’re doing it.”
She hesitated, reluctant—but her reluctance didn’t make any sense, did it? She’d done the water thing hundreds of times, thousands even. She didn’t know why it should