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Theobald watches Lapin hit the ground, thin body sagging under the weight of Keradin’s brutal swings. He was never meant for this, Theo thinks. Never meant for combat or blood or brutality, thin-limbed and straight-backed and waspish as he was. He was the ruler of his own domain back in Candia, dusty pages and candy chalk and light pouring in through his tower’s windows, never quite aware enough to see through the princesses’ tricks and looking the fool for it. Theo thought privately that Lapin would be useless if they ever ended up in a combat scenario, unlikely as it was. He’d been wrong, of course. He wishes he’d never gotten the chance to know.
Lapin’s magic swirling around Theo had prickled and popped against his skin like soda bubbles, filling his nostrils with the cloyingly sweet smell of spun sugar. It had smelled like home, and for a moment Theo had thought that the lightness he felt in his body was just the after-effects of joyous familiarity. Then Lapin had finished the incantation and Theo had felt himself actually lift off the ground, gravity no longer a concern of his. He’d realized in a flash of his strategic mind what Lapin was giving him - freedom of movement, the ability to get Liam and Ruby away from the fight, the ability to get away from the fight himself, to help breakdown the windows get everyone out.
Everyone, Theo is realizing, except Lapin.
Lapin knew what he was doing when he chose to cast that spell on Theo and not on himself. It was selfless and beautiful and so smart and Theobald finds himself at a loss as to how he could’ve misjudged Lapin so badly for so long. They’d never understood each other, never seen eye-to-eye, and with this newly-revealed Lapin in front of him, the one who’s smart and cunning and competent and so brave, Theo wishes that they’d tried harder. That he’d tried harder to know Lapin as he really was, and not as Theo had believed him to be.
When Lapin’s limp body hits the ground with a dull thud and the sugary-sweet magic clinging to Theo’s skin fades away, Theo knows how this ends. There’s no one left to save Lapin. Amethar is the only one left standing on the first level of the cathedral, and he’ll die if he stays there much longer. Their only chance is to take out the balcony windows and escape, and that means leaving Lapin to die - whether that’s now, at the tender mercies of Sir Keradin in this false god’s temple, or later, in front of a cheering crowd of Bulbians eager to see an apostate given his just reward.
Theobald knows, like he knows the cadence of his own heart, that his duty is to King Amethar, his liege, a good man and a kind ruler; to the princesses, stubborn and headstrong, as dear to him as if they were his own daughters. He has no duty to Lapin, to this man that he couldn’t stomach until days ago, and yet Theo hesitates. Just for a moment. Just long enough to see the fragile up and down of Lapin’s chest drawing in his last breaths. Theo knows that there’s nothing he can do. Lapin will die whether or not Theobald does the desperate things his traitorous heart is begging him to do. The best that Theo can do is to get Amethar and the princesses and Liam safely back to Candia, to honor Lapin’s sacrifice by making sure that it wasn’t in vain.
There’s no hope of saving Lapin. Intellectually, Theo knows that. Lapin has been as good as dead as soon as he hit the floor. Maybe even earlier than that. Maybe as soon as he cast the spell on Theo. As soon as he’d revealed his true nature to Keradin in that cell. As soon as he’d left the safety of Candia. Maybe they’re all going to die here, in this foreign land full of people who hate them, and there’s nothing that Theo can do to stop any of it. There’s certainly nothing he can do to save Lapin. He’s running the scenarios in his head, trying to find a good ending to this encounter, an ending that doesn’t involve Lapin lying dead on the cathedral floor because he sacrificed himself to save the rest of them. There’s nothing. No future where this ends with all six of them leaving, safe and whole and on a ship bound for Candia. Theo swallows the realization down, accepts it as he knows he must. Lapin made a choice - a brave, honorable choice - and Theo will honor it.
Theobald allows himself one last look at Lapin - his thin body sprawled artlessly across the tiled floor of the cathedral, his intelligent eyes closed, his smart mouth open to take in his last gasping breaths - before refocuses his gaze on the stone ribs of the window in front of him, the next obstacle between him and doing what he must.
Theobald hopes that he will see Sir Keradin Deeproot again. When he does, he’ll make sure to get close enough for his sword’s magic, raw and arcane and deliciously dangerous, to take hold. When Deeproot raises his mace again, it will be to swing it at Theobald. And when Theo gets the pleasure of driving his sword through that carrot’s chest, he already knows what he’ll say. Call it a tribute.