‘That’s what they called themselves,’ she said. ‘Men and women in old-fashioned clothes. But they were – they weren’t natural – they were—’
‘Is the boy alive?’ interrupted her father.
She had prepared for this too. ‘I don’t know. He used the distraction and escaped.’ It was close enough to what they knew already, but ambiguous enough that it muddied the waters. ‘He wasn’t natural either. At least, I thought I saw … What was he?’
Tom and her father exchanged looks. Instead of answering her question about Will: ‘The Stewards are enemies of Simon,’ said Tom. ‘And they hate our family.’
‘Why?’
Tom opened his mouth to answer, but their father cut him off with a small gesture. ‘There are some things you need to be told, but not until you’re rested. It’s a long story that shouldn’t be heard late at night, half-exhausted.’ He smiled at Violet. ‘What’s important right now is that you’re home.’ His hand came down to rest heavily on her shoulder, squeezing it a little.
Tom took her upstairs to her room. Alone with him, she found her heart pounding, her mind crowding with all the things she wanted to say. How much she had missed him. How scary it was to have found out he was a Lion … and that she was one too. He was the only other Lion that she could talk to, and she had a thousand questions. About Rassalon, about the Dark King … all of them stopped in her throat.
‘I’m sorry.’ It was Tom who spoke, the words a blurt, the moment they were alone. ‘I’m so sorry. I kept thinking that I was the one who had told you to go down into the hold. You wouldn’t even have been on the ship if it weren’t for me. You saved my life, and the last thing I said to you was—’
Go home. It had lodged in her like a knife.
‘You were trying to protect me,’ said Violet, taking in a shaky breath. ‘You tried to make me leave. You knew it was dangerous – that’s why you said—’ You’re too old for this. Following me around. Wearing my clothes. It had hurt. Now she saw his curt words in a different light: Tom nervy, watching the horizon, knowing what was locked in the hold.
Tom said, ‘You’re my sister.’
She wished suddenly, painfully, that she could just tell him. That she could tell him all of it and have him believe her. Looking into his open, honest face, she thought, surely if he knew what their father was planning – what he really wanted to do to her – if she could just tell him—
‘I thought about you every day,’ she said. ‘There was so much I wanted – to tell you—’
‘You can tell me now. I want to hear all of it,’ he said. ‘Violet, I thought you’d died. I kept replaying the attack, trying to imagine a way that you’d survived.’
He couldn’t know, could he? He couldn’t know that she was the sacrifice, that he was meant to kill her?
‘I—’ she said as he reached out to put his hand on her head as he’d always done.
She almost reared back. The black, curling S burned into Tom’s wrist. Her breathing shallowed at having it that close to her. The Dark King’s sigil. Did Tom know what it really meant? Did he know what Simon was trying to do, what he was trying to unleash, a shadow that could not be fought? As she looked at the dark swirl of that brand, she felt the painful gap between them, how utterly she could not come home.
‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ she said with a smile. ‘Hot rolls with currants, like we always do.’
‘All right. But I’m here if you need me.’
‘I know,’ she said.
He ruffled her hair, a gesture as familiar as breathing. ‘Good night, Violet.’ And he was gone.
She stayed in her bedroom doorway for a long time after he disappeared down the hall. He looked just like she remembered, young, handsome and tall. She’d only ever wanted to be like him. He was the image in her mind that had always made her strive.
‘You.’
Violet jerked around and saw the cold eyes of Tom’s mother. Louisa Ballard was a woman of forty-one years, too thin, but very well-dressed. She wore her dark hair in a respectable dropped bun, and her well-styled dresses were proper for a woman of her age. Her lips were narrow as she frowned. The look she gave Violet was one of inflexible hostility.
‘How dare you come back here.’
Violet drew in a painful breath. For a moment, Violet had thought … but any ridiculous fantasy that Louisa’s words might be a ploy – cruelty to force her out for her own safety – was gone. This was no ploy. This wasn’t Tom trying to get her off the ship because he knew she was in danger.