It was true. The Auphe had once broken his mind, but they had never broken his will.
He shook his head, not completely convinced. “You always think the best of me. When it comes to the Auphe part anyway. One day you’re going to be wrong, Cyrano.”
“I’m never wrong.” Completely untrue, but he needed to hear it anyway. Because he was right. I’d been wrong in the past, I’d be wrong in the future. But I would not be wrong about this. “And trust me, the last time I thought the best of you was before you spoke your first word.”
He gave a half grin. “I come by that naturally. Good old Sophia probably knew words I still don’t.”
“At least ‘mother’ was part of it. Couldn’t leave the other half off, could you?”
Not true, of course. His first word had been much shorter. He still said it every day. Like this moment.
“Nik, do we . . .” The words trailed off as he settled back against the bench, the anger visibly reduced. Still there, but faded. He exhaled, “Stupid. There’s no ‘do we,’ is there? We have to tell everybody. Hate for someone to have to die for taking the last piece of pizza.” It was a joke, yet it wasn’t, and it deserved only one thing.
“Idiot.” I swatted again. “(A) You are not going to kill anyone over artery-clogging food. (B) We tell them only if you want to.” I said it and I meant it. Without reservation.
“After what Promise did, keeping an entire family secret? You think that’s okay now? Not telling them something that important?” he asked with a skeptical curiosity. “Me being the last . . . you know.” He grimaced, but went on, “That won’t make a difference to their survival, one way or the other, but this might. And you don’t think we should tell them?”
There it was, wasn’t it?
“Just because I’m your teacher doesn’t mean I still don’t have a thing or two to learn,” I answered ruefully. “I haven’t lied to Promise about you since the entire mess first came out with Darkling, but . . . I would.” How odd I hadn’t known that about myself. I’d assumed a situation wouldn’t come along where I, the so highly principled Niko, would stoop from my pedestal of unyielding truth and honor to actually lie to someone I cared for.
I would.
Cal was my brother, but I had also raised him. My brother, my family, the one I’d protected from the moment he took his very first breath. I would tell any lie to anyone to keep him safe. Make any omission. Promise had told her lies for a different reason . . . to keep herself safe from the heartache of her failure and the blood-soaked memories of her past family. But all the lies originated in the same place. To protect. I wasn’t in a position to be her judge.
“So good enough can be good enough?” he asked.
“That makes absolutely no sense, and, yes, maybe it can.” For Promise and me—if she understood what Cal was to me and it wasn’t a burden, maybe it could be enough. I spotted a hot dog vendor setting up down the block. “Hungry yet? You can eat all the mystery meat you want, and this once I won’t say a word.”
“Really? Mustard, chili, onions, the whole nine yards? And no bitching?” He stood and dug for a few dollars in his jeans. The crumpled paper appeared and he folded the bills back and forth as he hesitated. “Nik? You’re not afraid, then? Of me?”
“Afraid of you?” I leaned back to drape an arm along the back of the bench and cross booted ankles. “I’m still waiting for your testicles to drop so we can buy you a cup for sparring. Now go eat your hot dog,” I commanded.
The glower, snarky grin, and annoyed mask he wore as armor against the world—I’d seen the making of those over the years, and I’d seen through them just as long. This time I didn’t have to. There was nothing to hide the emotion: relief, pure and strong. It was in the loosened set of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the lightening of his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze away for a second before looking back again with the armor once more firmly in place. “Just for that, you bastard, extra onions,” he promised vengefully. “Until it comes out my pores.”
“And that would be different from a normal day how?” I snorted. “Bring me back some bottled juice. And remember, just because it’s orange does not necessarily make it juice. Look at the label. Try a little of that reading thing you hear so much about.”
He was thinking of flipping me off, I knew it. But I also knew he was thinking of what had happened the last time he had. Ah, the interesting process of making a brace for a sprained finger using a Popsicle stick. Education at its finest. Grumbling under his breath, he turned and crossed the grass to the sidewalk. I put on my sunglasses against the just-risen sun and watched him go. Jeans, old cracked and worn combat boots, and a beat-up black leather jacket. Wind-tangled mop of hair and a scowl only a native New Yorker could’ve equaled. Despite what he thought, he was so human, in all the very best and worst ways there were to be human. Grit, loyalty, determination. Anger, vulnerability, fear.
Afraid of him? No. Afraid for him? Every day. Every single day.
He came back with a bottle of something purple that consisted, per label, of nearly two percent genuine fruit juice. It was effort on his part and so, against my better judgment, I drank it. The chili cheese dog was half eaten and the rest tossed to the squirrels brave enough to face the onion fumes. There weren’t many.
“You only get one bitch-free one,” I reminded him as he tossed a piece of bread with mustard toward a squirrel sitting on a brightly colored swing set. “You shouldn’t waste it.”
“I know. Just not all that hungry.” He threw the last bit and wiped his hands on his jeans. After a minute of quiet, he said, “When I opened the gate, I had a flash . . . a feeling. It was what I was thinking before, but this . . .” He shrugged. “It might confirm it. I don’t think the Auphe are done playing with us, with you guys yet. I think they still want their fun. The end game is coming. . . .” When they would kill us and take him to an existence a thousand times worse than any death. “But right now?” he continued. Rubbing a thumb along the arm of the bench, he studied the faint rust smear as if it held the secrets of the universe, before looking up at me and saying flatly, “I think they still want to play. Pick you off one at a time and let the rest of us wallow in it. But . . .”
“But?” I prodded.
“I don’t know for sure. Hey, I’m only the diluted product.” He gave a humorless grin. “Watered-down whiskey. The half-and-half of the evil empire. But still good enough for stud service. Lucky me.” He gave a minute twitch that I saw him refuse to let grow into a shudder.
I ignored it. He would’ve wanted me to. Sometimes support is all that keeps us standing, and sometimes it’s what lets us give up and fall to our knees. So instead, I snorted. “Only you could make a dairy reference melodramatic.” If that were his best guess, that’s what we’d have to rely on, because the Auphe followed no logic of battle I’d read of. They had the driving purpose of a dying race. They had obsession and sadistic madness; it was a mixture that was difficult to predict.
“Also, I’ve been thinking. . . .”
“Thinking? That’s astounding, little brother,” I interrupted, tilting my head down to peer over the top of the dark glasses. “Would you like a gold star for that? I’d hate for excellence to go unrewarded.”
“I’ve been thinking,” he repeated between gritted teeth, “maybe we should ask Delilah about Oshossi. He could be holed up in Central Park or staying someplace else and just keeping his pets there. She might know.”
Or he could simply want to put off returning to where he’d lost control and opened up a gate to hell without even realizing it. Either way, I could see the benefit. He needed time, and we could use the information. Cherish wasn’t going to go away, no matter how tempting it was to wish that she would. At least she’d made the offer to stand on her own. That had meant something to Promise.