Page 23 of The Second Death of Locke
“I’m sorry,” Kier said. “About earlier.”
Grey sighed. She felt the apology coming, maybe even guilt through the tether.
“Flynn.”
“What.”
“We should talk about what happened. During the battle.”
“I should’ve let you die,” Grey lamented.
“You probably should’ve,” Kier agreed, but he grabbed her hand and hoisted her up into a sitting position, then arranged her bodily to sit with her legs crossed, knee to knee. “You used too much of yourself on me. You should’ve snapped the tether earlier. Far earlier.”
“When you have power,” Grey said, “you can tell me how to do it.”
“Grey,” he said, so soft on her name that it broke her heart. He picked up one of her hands, brushed his lips against her knuckles. “You cannot put yourself at risk for my sake. I cannot live without you. Okay?”
“And I won’t live without you,” she said, like it was simple. “But I will try to be safer, for both of our sakes.”
His eyes were very serious, dark shadows never fully gone from underneath. She remembered again how it had felt to see him for the first time in that sunny office, superimposing the remembered boy over the man he’d become. Sometimes she looked at him and it was like nothing would ever change about him; not his scars, not even the silver of his hair.
“Concord pulled me aside today,” Kier said. “Threatened in earnest to send me to retraining.”
Grey snorted. She could imagine it: Mare, she suspected, was a force to be reckoned with. “I was not kind to her when she brought the matter up with me.”
One eyebrow arched. “When?”
Grey waved a hand. “While I was stitching you up. After I—very kindly, might I add—did not let you die.”
He moved slowly to cup her face in his hands. It was easy to read this as something it wasn’t, and she kept her own hands balled into fists in her lap even as she leaned into the warmth of him despiteherself—mages usually ran hot, and Kier was no exception. “You,” he said, “are a credit to your profession.”
“Fuck off,” she said. But she let him press a kiss to her forehead and did not allow herself to think what would happen if she asked for more of him.
Think of Hands as devoted hounds. The handbook encourages “healthy respect,” yes, but it often appears more as obsession. A good Hand will do everything in their power to protect their mage, murder included. It would be in your best interest to encourage your own Hand to take a path of mercy and sensibility rather than retribution. You do not want to be on the receiving end of their fiery anger, nor should you wield it without careful consideration.
Surviving the Front: An Unofficial Military Companionby Captain Iowain Jessop, published 4 yearsPD
seven
THAT NIGHT, GREY WAITEDuntil Kier’s breathing was heavy and even. She sat up, watching his face for any signs of consciousness. He was a light sleeper, but perhaps he was immune to noises as long as they were hers. And he did not wake now—he slept on his side, facing her, one knee tucked to his chest.
She didn’t bother with a light. The moon was round and full overhead when she pushed out of the tent, fully dressed. The camp was quiet on this side: their tent was one of many small ones for officers and the masses of auxiliary staff who traveled with the companies, with a line of fire pits between them and the large tents reserved for the rest. Grey picked her way around the fire, nodding to a sentinel who stood guard near the kitchens. She hesitated for the barest of moments outside the infirmary, thinking of Leonie, before she hurried on her way.
They kept prisoners in the middle of camp, in a tent guarded by day and night. The two typics standing guard in front of the door eyed Grey as she approached, moving through the dark camp like a ghost. One bowed his head when she came close and the other, probably barely older than Grey had been when she first joined Kier in battle, hurried to follow.
“Can I help you, Hand Captain Flynn?” the older one asked. Grey didn’t recognize him—he wasn’t from her company. It was for the best. Kier was well liked among those in his command: it wasn’t hard to imagine them exerting unnecessary cruelty on the prisoner.
“I have orders,” she lied, “to assess the girl’s health.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “In the middle of the night?”
She pulled gauze and a jar of salve out of her pocket, displaying both for the guards. She’d stolen them from the infirmary earlier—they wouldn’t be missed, and she’d use them eventually so they weren’t wasted. “If you don’t believe me, you can wake the master yourself,” she said. “And I guarantee she will not be pleased.”
The soldiers exchanged a look, the younger chewing on his lip. Finally, the older sighed. “You get five minutes,” he said.
“I’ll take two minutes and your discretion.” Grey slipped him a small flask of liquor as she passed by. He glanced at her, lips pressed together, but he didn’t protest or hand her bribe back.
The tent was lit by a flickering orange magelight, casting long shadows in the dim. The girl sat alone in the center, hands and feet bound, but she was not gagged. She looked up as Grey entered, her eyes scanning over her in a way that made her feel frankly scrutinized. Grey wondered again at her age—she looked younger now than she had in the carriage, in the heat of battle; she was a teenager, but Grey couldn’t say how old.
