Page 12 of The Second Death of Locke
“You didn’t write back.”
His expression flickered. “It’s been difficult,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I just haven’t been able to think, let alone write.”
“And you wantme?”
“I didn’t mean to pull you from safety,” he said, “but when I saw you listed as a well, for reassignment— Oh, Grey, I shouldn’t have, and you must think me selfish.”
She gripped his shoulders, pushed him away just enough so she could see the gleam of his eyes in the dim. He looked— She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. He looked like every dream she’d had of him, stretched over two years and too many heartbeats fearing she’d never see him again. He looked like an absolute stranger.
She moved her hands up, cupping his face. “I’m so sorry,” she said, the words coming unbidden—and she had to say them in person, write them into the space between them like she’d never been able to write them in letters. “I’m so sorry about Lot.”
He closed his eyes. Turned his head to press his lips to her palm. He was always so affectionate, even when they were children, always one to kiss her temple or link his arm through hers or lay a hand over her shoulder. She used to read something into it before she considered that it might be the only way he knew to prove she could trust him.
“Don’t,” he murmured against her skin.
His shoulders shook, and he was just a boy again. She pulled him down—when he’d gotten so much taller than her, she didn’tknow; unless he’d always been so tall and she’d forgotten, which was unthinkable—and buried his head in her neck. Neither acknowledged his tears.
Soon after, once she had collected the single bag of her belongings and her ill-fitting new cloak trimmed in Hand’s black, he said, “Pickett is wrong. You didn’t have to agree.”
“You said they were assigning me anyway. Best it’s with you.”
“Yes, but… where we’re going. It’s not anyone’s first choice.”
“Why?”
“It’s… it’s bad. It’s bloody. It’s awful. And I… I shouldn’t bring you into it.” He looked at her, then, in the darkness of the carriage. She longed to run the tip of her thumb over that new scar, feel the swell of his lip under her skin.
“Then why did you?”
He didn’t speak for a long time, just watching her. “We’re not bound,” he started.
Grey laughed. Binding significantly increased the power that a mage and well shared. It allowed the mage to draw from only one power source, allowed the well to only respond to that mage. And in return, the connection was so much more sensitive: Grey could give Kier much more of herself, and Kier could take even the smallest power and run with it.
It was also illegal, forbidden and punishable by death.
She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and laughed harder at his pout. “We’re not allowed to be.”
Kier shrugged, allowing it.Nobodywas allowed to be bound. Not for a decade; not since the High Sovereigns realized that the magic was waning in earnest. To cut off the abilities for mages and wells to be interchangeable was to cut down their usefulness dramatically, and Grey was not harboring any illusions. She was only valuable to the army for her usefulness.
“I don’t want anyone else to hurt you,” Kier said, “and I know you like I know myself.”
He turned to her then, urgent like he usually wasn’t. This wasn’t the Kier she remembered, but the Kier she knew, the boy she’d grownup with, had never nearly died. That Kier’s brother was still alive, not buried next to the tree they used to play on as children. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it—she felt the draw immediately, the pull, the unfurling of power in the middle of her chest. An unreadable look flickered across Kier’s face.
“How easily,” he murmured, “you give up your magic to me.”
She blushed despite herself, pulling away from him with something like embarrassment. “It’s not magic when I have it. It takes you to make it into something.”
“We’re not bound,” Kier said again, his hands knotted in his lap as if he couldn’t bear to say what he needed to. “But the way you know me—it’s close to it, isn’t it? Binding makes the tether stronger. If you were matched to someone else—there would be too much to know, Grey, and I couldn’t stand it, imagining you in that kind of danger.”
She chewed on her lip. In truth, she was grateful, and he was right. If she’d become Hand to anyone else, there would be a lot of hiding, or else a lot of explaining.
“Will you be my Hand?” Kier asked. “My companion?”
How could she say no? How was she ever meant to say anything other than yes?
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s in it for me?”
That drew a laugh out of him, and she was grateful—she didn’t know what to do with this new, serious version of the boy she’d always known. “Better quarters? My cheese portions?”
