Page 35 of Fortress of Ambrose
“Yagrin.”
“Come on, I have a plan.” He didn’t turn back. He didn’t dare look at her disappointed face. He hated liars. It made him feel sick that at times he had to be one.
“Yagrin!”
He stopped. Others did, too.
“Whyare we at a library?”
“I thought you liked books, come on!” He tried to usher her along, but the more he pushed, the more she stiffened. She was more stubborn than Muddy, Red’s mule. He was an ass. Nore was an ass and a half when she wanted her way. It had been three days since they left Chateau Soleil. The last two nights they slept in one of his father’s hotels, and they’d changed rooms three times because she wanted one close to a fire exit. Then the next one smelled. The third room only had one bed. They both decided to ask for another room after that one.
“Iknewyou were up to something!” She’d caught him sending a written message to his House a couple of nights ago. She assumed it was preparation for their arrival. She was wrong. “All your secret conversations, writing letters, sneaking out. Yes, I know. I saw it. I’m clever, remember? You’re—”
“Yes?” He braced for the insult. He’d heard them all.
“Lying,” she shoved between her teeth, noticing people now watching, remembering they were in public. “I’m not going another place with you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
A couple shuffling their children stared at them. It was midday. The streets were full of lunch patrons and remotely-employed booklovers, apparently. The Order was nowhere and everywhere.
“Take my arm,” he said under his breath, nodding at another onlooker, who was swiping their phone while staring. “I’ll explain.”
Nore’s lips were thin, but she roped her arm around his.
“Now smile at me like everything’s alright.”
“You’re pushing it!”
“Darling, I know you didn’t plan on a trip to the library, but please. You know I can’t resist a good book,” he said, an octave louder than an outside voice.
Nore gazed around nervously, pulling her sweater tighter over hershoulders as she realized how many people were watching them argue on a public street. “Next time, just tell me,darling, so that I remember to eat first and am notstarving.” She smiled tightly, and he led them past the onlookers, up the library steps, and through its glass doors.
She ripped her arm away from him the moment they were inside.
“You said we were going to your”—she looked around—“home.”
The mere suggestion made him queasy.
She leaned closer, and the smell of her ignited Yagrin’s senses. Tiny bumps raced across his arms. “There are four pieces of the scroll, one in each House. Ambrose is split between Ell and me. Marionne’s, we have. Hartsboro should be next easiest to get because it’s your home.”
He wasn’t ever setting foot on his home estate again. And he had no interest in discussing why with her. Or with anyone. Red hadn’t even known. His life in the Order was the one piece of himself he had never shared with her. The only part of him she didn’t truly know. And in a way, it felt like because of that, Red never really knew him at all.
He was a terrible person.
He wasn’t sure what to expect when Red returned from the dead, but he dreamed of them seeing each other again every night. Would she remember him? Would she be some shell of a person? He’d have to research the Scroll’s magic carefully before using it. If she did remember everything, he’d explain who he really was, what the Order was, and hope that bringing her back to life made him forgivable.
“That place is my House,” he told Nore. “Not my home.”
She crossed her arms. “You’re scared to go back there.”
He smoothed his clothes. Thankfully, their whispered conversation was the least concern of the passing library’s patrons.
“But you don’t want to talk about why.” She wouldn’t relent.
“Stopanalyzing me.” He skimmed the sign for an escalator and marched in that direction.
“Stopwithholding information, and I wouldn’t have to.”
He froze. She had a point. He wasn’t giving her the benefit of the doubt or making it easier for her, to be honest.
