She didn’t finish the sentence. She wasn’t quite sure how.
The mischievous curve to Michal’s mouth said he noticed. Now dressed, he crossed the room, hooking his hands languidly on her hips as she turned away to hide an answering smirk. He leaned forward, chest against her back, brushing his lips over the shell of her ear. “Your what?”
Lore turned, flicking his collarbone, biting her lip to keep it from turning up. “Mine,” she finished decisively, and let him kiss her again.
Still, cold clawed into her chest. She could feel Mortem everywhere, now, like her realization that it was somewhere it shouldn’t be had sharpened her perception of all the places where it should—the cloth of Michal’s trousers beneath her hands, the stones in the street outside, the chipped ceramic of the mug on the windowsill. Here on the outskirts of Dellaire she didn’t feel it as intensely as she would near the catacombs, near the Citadel, but it was still enough to make her skin crawl.
The Harbor District, on the southern edge of Dellaire, was as far as Mortem would let her go. She could try to hop a ship, try to trek out on the winding roads that led into the rest of Auverraine, but it’d be pointless. She was tied into this damn city as surely as death was tied into life, as surely as the crescent moon carved into her palm.
All of it, reminders—she shouldn’t linger too long. She shouldn’t get too close. It wasn’t safe.
Michal’s mouth found her throat, and she arched into him, closing her eyes like it might shut out the cold in her chest and the itch of so much death. Her fingers clawed into his hair, and his arm tightened around her waist like he might lift her up, carry her to their mattress on the floor, and forget all about running poison for Val. Forget about everything but safety found in skin.
She wanted to let him, and that was the decision-maker, in the end. Lore had to stop using people like fences, like moats, like things to wall herself in with.
Masking it as playful, she pushed Michal away. “Go. Val won’t wait.”
Blue eyes hazy, Michal pulled back. “Will you?”
He asked every day. Neither of them knew if it was a joke. But today, there was something newly apprehensive in his face, as if for the first time he knew the answer was no.
So Lore kissed him again instead of speaking.
He lingered at her lips a moment before stepping back. “I’ll see you at the Northwest Ward, right?” He switched into reciting the plans for the drop-off instead of asking her anything further. Smart man, not to push. “Right at the bell, when the guard is changing. Leave the cart at the old storefront. And you’ll stay with it until it gets picked up from the catacombs’ entrance.”
A tiny shiver slunk over Lore’s skin at the mention of the catacombs. “Shouldn’t take long,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. It wasn’t so bad, the outer branches of the catacombs—outside of the city center, they were little more than tunnels, the dead were all kept under the Citadel—but being close to them still made her feel twitchy.
Lore knew the catacombs. Not just in the sense of someone who remembered the twists and turns of a place—Lore felt them, a part of her, like if you turned her skin inside out, a map would be printed on the wet, bloody underside. And because of that uncanny knowing, she’d be able to tell if someone was coming through them.
Another handy side effect of a dark, strange childhood.
She’d been the watchdog for the crew since she was thirteen, when Mari first found her wandering the streets with blank eyes, and brought her back to Val’s headquarters at the docks. Val, thankfully, didn’t ask why or how Lore had acquired such an odd skill. She just put it to use.
And if Lore stayed with Michal, who was increasingly vocal about his objection to her dangerous position, things could get precarious for him.
She closed her eyes.
A calloused hand on her cheek made them open again. Michal kissed her, sweetly this time, without heat. “Be careful,” he murmured. Then he slipped out.
Alone, Lore took a deep, ragged breath. Despite the chill outside, the sun through the cracked window was warm on her skin. She rested her forehead against the glass and counted her breaths, an old trick from childhood to calm her heart, calm her nerves.
They’d still be looking for her. Lore knew that. And the longer she stayed in one place, the easier she’d be to find.
She could move in with Val and Mari again, if she wanted. That door was always open. But having someone who tried to control her comings and goings never sat well with her, after… after what her life had been like before.