Page 119 of Love, Nemesis
He saw the flicker of a response, something rolling in the cells of her soul, like a prisoner flinching at the first spot of light. She was disoriented and fatigued.
He stroked her hair, standing slowly to his feet as he surveyed the room a final time. Soldiers were frozen in motion. Hailey stood calmly nearby, having not even turned his head.
Lethe approached him, meeting the man’s eyes a moment before drawing his dagger and driving it forward. The movement was quick and easy, no blood seeping from the wound as Lethe returned his dagger to his belt. The blood would come later, when Chronos withdrew, but Hailey was as good as dead.
He stepped away, sweeping Ana into his arms. Picking her up, he held her close to his chest as he turned from the hallway and returned through the streets.
Cal was waiting in the same spot when he left the sphere. “—not staying right here,” he said, finishing the line Lethe had already heard him say. The boy jumped backward, blinking at him in surprise and confusion. “Whoa! How’d you do that?”
“Let’s go,” Lethe prompted, setting Ana up on the horse before hopping on behind her. The sphere of time shuddered behind them and started to fade.
“It’s going away,” Cal said.
“Ana.” Lethe nudged her, coaxing her out of daze. “Where do we go?”
“She mentioned having a place in Satellite,” Cal said. “I think that’s a good start. It’s out of the way.”
“Satellite it is then,” he said. “Lead the way.”
Cal inspected Ana for a moment and then glanced back up at Lethe. “All right,” he said and started off. Lethe wrestled the gloves from his belt, slipping them over his hands before he followed after Cal.
It was a sizable distance to Satellite. Ana took the reins when they arrived near her home, still not speaking. She led them through the rest of the trails, hopping off the horse and stumbling toward the cabin. She threw open the door.
Lethe and Cal ran in after her to see her collapse against the kitchen counter. She grabbed the nearest knife. Setting her mechanical arm on the counter, she tried to wedge the blade into a gap in the arm near the elbow. She slammed the blade into the wedge, and the device reacted with a whirring sound, sparkingthe knife back and sending electricity reverberating through her body. It threw her back, her body crashing into the floor and rolling. She sat up, reaching for the knife again that had fallen beside her.
Lethe swept in, grabbing her hand and pulling her tightly into his chest.
“Ana,” he called firmly and she fought him off.
“No!” she shouted, her first word, voice broken and dry.
Lethe wrestled the knife away, tossing it to Cal, and she shoved at him.
They stumbled back, flipping the table over. The cup of tea, having sat on the table for weeks, flew across the room, shattering as it threw liquid across the floor and walls. What remained of the bottom of the cup rolled toward the door.
Ana gripped her hair, turning as she shouted again, throwing her hands down over the counter and gripping the edge as Lethe released her, each hand on either side of hers on the counter. His chin hovered over her shoulder and he stayed there behind her.
She panted, white-knuckled, body trembling from weakness. She sank down against it, Lethe helping her down before backing away.
She turned so that she could look up to the ceiling. Her head rolled to the side, gaze following the pathway of spilled tea across the room. Her eyes lingered on a painting leaning against the opposite side of the room. It bore the depiction of rich,colorful flowers, each of the petals painted like different types of feathers.
No one spoke as the minutes passed.
“Lethe,” she said in the silence.
“Hm?”
“As a Rider, you dedicated your life to protecting the Sanctus Ghost, even when you felt like you might have failed.” She paused, but her expression remained void. “Was it worth it?”
Lethe didn’t speak for a moment. “You’re asking me if I think it’s good to be good. Are you sure you want my answer to that question?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Even if you don’t like my answer?”
She didn’t reply, turning her head to look at him as if to prompt his answer.
“I gave everything I had and more for the Sanctus Ghost,” he said, “but we called it that for a reason. You can’t touch holy and you can’t touch a ghost. Sometimes it felt like the Sanctus Ghost was more like an ideal that would avoid us if it actually existed.”
