Christopher drank his tea.
“Other people’s pain brings Hugh discomfort.”
I almost laughed. “Hugh d’Ambray?”
Christopher met my gaze. “Do I strike you as a man likely to jump to conclusions?”
Barabas chortled in his chair.
“The nature of his magic is such that when he sees an injury, it creates distress. Not pain exactly, but a high degree of anxiety. This mechanism allows him to precisely identify the problem and correct it. He is compelled to heal.”
“You’re describing someone who is almost an empath, but instead of emotional pain, he feels physical pain. That kind of person wouldn’t willingly harm others. Hugh is a killer.”
“A paradox,” Christopher said. “So I asked myself, how do I reconcile the two? And then I watched your father. What I’m about to tell you is conjecture, but it’s conjecture based on careful observation and a lot of thought. I believe your father required a warlord. He wanted someone young and with a great deal of magic. He found Hugh and he tried to mold him into the tool of destruction he needed. However, the position called for a psychopath with a sadistic streak. Hugh was never that. He was perfect in every other way: he was physically and magically gifted, a superior fighter, a talented strategist, charismatic, loyal, happy to serve, but he wasn’t a sadist. So your father used the blood bond between them to blunt his emotions. On multiple occasions, I’ve observed Hugh agitated and arguing his point. Your father would speak to him and suddenly Hugh would come to his point of view and the source of the agitation would no longer matter.”
I should’ve seen it. Suddenly so many things made sense. Mishmar made sense. My father told him to do whatever was necessary to make me comply and numbed him enough to do it, so Hugh did it.
“You have a blood bond with Julie,” Christopher said. “Tell me, can it be done?”
I sighed. “Yes. I can impose my will over hers. I can make her not care. It comes with a heavy price tag.”
Christopher set down his cup and leaned back, braiding his fingers on his knee. “What are the consequences?”
“If you superimpose yourself on your blood bonded, eventually their mind will break. There will be nothing left except a reflection of you. They will be lobotomized. My aunt gives me a lecture on this at least once every three months, just in case I forget. She’s fond of Julie.”
“Question.” Barabas raised his finger. “Hugh was bound to Roland for decades, and now we know Roland blunted his emotions. Then Roland broke the blood bond.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why isn’t Hugh dead?”
I raised my hands. “Because he is Hugh. He’s unkillable. Curran broke his back and threw him into a magic fire that melted an entire stone castle, and he’s still alive. He shouldn’t even be able to form coherent thoughts.”
The name Iron Dogs fit in more ways than one. A dog is hardwired to please a human. When you got a puppy and raised it to adulthood, you shaped the dog. Take a puppy and give him a loving home, and in most cases, he will be a sweet dog. Take the same puppy and chain him in the yard, and it will be a whole different story. My father had taken a stick to his dog and beaten him senseless every time he strayed out of line. Poor Hugh. But he never turned on his master. He never bit the hand that held the stick.
“Yes, my father imposed his will on him, but that doesn’t absolve him of responsibility for having done horrible shit.”
“My point precisely,” Barabas said. “There is no way to tell how much of what he did was Roland’s doing and how much was him. Maybe he is a violent psychopath. He could’ve rebelled. He didn’t.”
“Hugh wouldn’t rebel,” I told him. “He is loyal. The real question is, who are we dealing with now? My father is gone. It’s just Hugh. None of us know who Hugh is. He’s done so much fucked-up crap. I’m not sure I can deal with it. I don’t know if it’s in me. I mean, Christopher, he put you in a cage.”
“Your father put me in a cage,” he said.
“But Hugh kept you there,” Barabas said.
“Have you ever wondered how I survived two months in a cage with no food or water?” he asked. “Why I didn’t go into organ failure? Why I had no sores, despite sitting in my own filth?”
“Hugh fed you,” I guessed.
Christopher nodded. “At night. He talked to me.”
I threw my hands up. “He shouldn’t have kept you in the cage in the first place.”
“He kept me alive.”
Barabas sighed.
Christopher’s expression sharpened, growing somehow more fragile. “The two of you only remember the man in the cage. Before that I was the Legatus of the Golden Legion. I murdered my way to the top. I committed atrocities. And unlike Hugh, I have nobody to blame but myself. I own everything I’ve done. I did it because I wanted power. I must live with it. Hugh lives with his memories. It will be his choice to atone for what he has done, or not. But I’ve forgiven Hugh, because if I don’t forgive him, there is no hope for forgiveness for someone like me.”
He rose and went upstairs. Barabas went after him, and I let myself out.
I WALKED INTO our house and went down to the basement. Yu Fong was still comatose. Adora was nowhere to be found.
I climbed back up and walked into our kitchen. The light was on, warm and soft. The air smelled of cooked butter and fresh coffee. Curran stood by the stove, toasting bread. A plate of sliced smoked meat sat next to him.
I unbuckled my sheath, Sarrat still in it, and hung it over a chair.
It was so comfortable here, in the kitchen. Just me and him. I loved our son, but sometimes it was nice to take a short break from being responsible for a tiny human.
“Where is Adora?”
“I sent her home to take a break. Shower, sleep, that type of thing. She’ll be back in the morning.”
I set the table. We would never be ordinary. We would never have sheltered lives. But we could have this, a quiet moment of simple happiness, sandwiched between danger and desperation. I lived for these moments.
“I’ve decided to give d’Ambray a chance,” I said.
“I thought you might.”
He slid the last slice of bread onto the plate and turned around to me.
“What gave me away?”
“You tend to give people second chances. And third. And fourth.”
“Pot, kettle. Can you work with him?”
He shrugged. “We need him and his wife. I can always kill him later.”
His Furriness, the Long-term Planner. “We’ll have to sit down with them eventually and have a conversation. Can you be civil?”
I pulled a block of cheese out of the fridge and cut it into paper-thin slices.
“Can you?”
“I’m always civil.”
He crossed his arms. The muscles on his forearms stood out. Mmm.
“Really?” Curran asked.
“Sometimes I jump on the table and kick people in the face, but I’m always civil about it.”
He moved behind me. His breath touched my skin. I stopped slicing.
“Always civil?” he murmured. His fingers eased my hair from my shoulders. His lips grazed the sensitive spot on the back of my neck. I shivered.
His lips were hot on my skin. I arched my back against him, raised my hand, and slid it into his hair. He hadn’t buzzed it down.
“We’re childless tonight,” he murmured into my ear. “Nobody in the house except us.”