Page 96 of Gunpowder

“I believe he loves you, as well. The best he can.”

Blair smiled. “I know.” He looked up at Reymond. “Did you love Felix?”

Reymond pushed his glasses further up his nose and turned away briskly. “We should get back inside.”

Blair didn’t push him. They walked back inside, and Blair settled in the armchair by Felix’s couch. No matter what, that was always going to be Felix’s couch. Reymond stood at the opposite end of the table from Blair, and Marie slid over to make room for Spencer on the couch, both of them leaving that one space empty, where the back had a permanent dip from Felix hanging his head over it.

“So,” Wren said, coming over to sit on the arm of Blair’s chair. “What now?”

Spencer looked at him over the top of his glasses. “You with us now or something?”

Wren put his hand on Blair’s shoulder and Blair reached up to lace their fingers together. “I’m with him,” Wren said, voice dripping disdain for the idea that he would be on their side. If Blair didn’t feel like there was a cement block in his chest, he would have laughed at how committed Wren was to hating Incindious on principle.

“It’s not like anybody wants to take his place. Felix was our reason to fight. He loved this city, but we loved him,” Marie said, pulling her legs under herself and curling up, making her tiny form even smaller.

Spencer nodded. “We took our oath to Incindious, but our loyalty was always to Felix. They were one and the same. Nobody ever thought there would be an Incindious without him.”

Blair ran his thumb back and forth across Wren’s knuckles, swallowing back a childish surge of anger at the way they talked about Felix like was dead or something. He wasn’t angry at them, so much as the way their words forced him to accept that even if Felix was alive, he was gone. Not there anymore. Not coming back.

“Well,” Wren said, crossing his legs. “If you’re all this hopeless and pathetic without him, I guess you should go get him back.”

Spencer looked at him, then to the bar, like he was weighing the benefits of breaking a bottle over Wren’s head. He must have decided it wasn’t worth the profit loss, since he sighed and said, “He got arrested for murder. Getting him out would be—”

Wren scoffed. “I know you’re not going to say impossible. After all this, after Blair got shot for your stupid war, I know you’re not going to roll over now.”

“Our war,” Blair corrected gently. “I joined Incindious by choice. I knew the risks.” And was still there because of Wren, but he didn’t think that would be a helpful thing to mention.

“Turf wars—and whatever the fuck this was—aren’t uncommon for people like us,” Spencer said, resting his elbows on his knees. “Breaking someone out of federal prison is in a completely different league.”

Blair tightened his grip on Wren’s hand. “The boss would do it for one of us,” he said.

“He would fail,” Spencer said flatly.

“He would still try,” Blair said.

Marie twisted a platinum curl around her finger. “I mean, it’s not like going through the front door is the only option,” she said, looking over at Spencer, then at Reymond and Wren in turn. “We have all of Incindious, a doctor, and a hacker at our backs. We don’t know it’s impossible if we don’t try.”

Something took root in Blair’s chest that had laid dormant since he watched Felix get handcuffed, since he saw Julian fall to his knees in the street. Hope. He looked up at Wren, who raised an eyebrow at him in challenge. Blair smiled at him. The embers had been suffocated by one devastating loss after another, but he felt it flaring to life, scorching through the pain and the doubt until there was only fire.

Spencer looked between them all, shoulders slumping when he found even Reymond staring at him expectantly. “This is never going to work,” Spencer said.

Blair didn’t look away from Wren, who smiled back at him. Just a little. “You never know.”

EPILOGUE

Two Months Later

Wren walked through the cemetery, passing under a willow tree, the arching branches draped with moss that hung down like scraps of verdant lace. Blair walked next to him with his hands in his coat pockets—the coat he’d finally accepted as being his now, after two weeks of insisting it still belonged to his idiot of a gang leader—and the shirt that Wren adored. Wren’s voracity for learning had led him to many discoveries, whether they were related to computers or medicine, but his favorite by far was finding out that Blair wore that skintight sleeveless turtleneck whenever Wren left hickeys on him. It was the only article of clothing Blair owned that covered his neck, and nine times out of ten, he would rather wear it than withstand Incindious’ teasing.

“Cancer, huh?” Blair asked as they walked between two rows of graves.

Wren nodded. “Funny, right? Master assassin gets knocked off by cancer. I bet he was pissed.”

Wren ran a hand over the side of his head. It was still strange, feeling the cool air against the buzzed section of his hair. Blair had given him a side shave rather than shorten all of it, so about a third of his hair was shaved to just above his pierced ear, and the rest was still long and swept to the opposite side along with his bangs which Blair had painstakingly preserved. Sometimes Blair would braid some of it and pin it along the seam between the long and shaved parts. He’d done it today, actually, and Wren didn’t like the way the bobby pins felt but he did like watching Blair’s face scrunch up in concentration while he worked on it, so he let Blair do as he wanted. He’d let Blair do so much worse than just play with his hair, if it put that sparkle in Blair’s eye he got whenever he sat back and admired his work.

Wren stopped in front of his father’s grave. The sight of it brought the same prickle of dread and irritation it always did, but it was muted, dulled by the presence of Blair at his side. Wren’s own personal fire to burn the shadows away.

Blair lowered his head in a small bow, and Wren snorted.

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