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Will sat in the darkened room, listening to nothing but the quiet chatter of the pubgoers outside. They were no real threat to him or Violet, but it was one of those illusions he found himself fond of, an illusion of normalcy amongst the endless hell he confronted in his mere existence.
There were a few candles burning around him, but little moonlight came in the grubby window to the outside world. He almost regretted asking to meet here. He almost regretted asking at all. For all he knew, this would turn into some ambush, and he’d be forced to fight his friends. Die or live, it wasn’t what he wanted.
But, just as agreed, Violet Ballard appeared at the door, shrouded in a black cloak. He could have identified her from a hundred metres, by the pace of her step and the beat of her heart.
She was his lion after all.
‘We don’t have long. Cyprian woke as I left, and I promised him that if I wasn’t back in an hour he could tear the town apart.’
‘Very well. I said the very same to James.’
‘Did you not order it? I hear he now wears that collar.’
Will couldn’t help the look of pain that creased his face for a split-second. For most people it would have just been a flicker of candlight. Violet clearly knew it for what it was.
So she sat down across from him.
‘You didn’t order it, did you?’
‘Of course not. I can’t bear that he wears that thing. It’s part of the reason I wanted to meet with you.’
‘It doesn’t come off.’
‘That we know of. But that isn’t why I called you here.’
‘Then why? If not to get the collar off him.’
Will hesistated a moment. He had asked Violet here, he had all but asked her to betray her friends for him in meeting with their sworn enemy. Surely that was enough for him.
But he knew that his lies and omissions drove them away. He knew he had to be honest.
‘Because I need someone I trust.’
‘You have James, don’t you? Wrapped around your pinky finger by some fine golden chain.’
‘That’s the point. I don’t have him. As in...’ Will hesistated a moment. ‘Will doesn’t have him. Perhaps Sarcean and all those emotions and desires have him, but I don’t believe that he doesn’t hate me.’
‘You’re hardly going to convince me not to hate you.’
‘But you’re here, and that’s a start.’
‘Part of it,’ Violet said slowly, as if not sure that she wanted to continue. Will held silent, leaving her the space to speak. ‘Is that I am the Lion, and I think that I will always be drawn to you.’ She leant forward onto the table, looking Will full in the face. He could make out her eyelashes, and she could see every change in emotion. ‘What makes me any different to James?’
‘Nothing makes you different to James pre-collar, but there are no relationships I can have free of that taint.’ Will tried to let his emotions show, but it was so difficult to let reality through all of the layers he’d learned to put between his emotions and the face he showed the world. ‘But it’s one less layer of control. I don’t know how the collar world, I don’t know how James feels.’ Will hesistated again. Violet was silent. ‘And it kills me, Violet.’
That was possibly the most honest admission he’d ever made.
‘I want to hate you and I desperately don’t want to. I trust Will, I don’t trust Sarcean. But how can I trust myself? The Lions served the Dark King. I’m as bad as you, and so is James. Cyprian drank from the cup. And we still think ourselves worthy of protecting the Lady.’
‘Please don’t leave Elizabeth,’ Will said, leaning over the table.
It was that honesty again. It was very nearly begging. Violet didn’t flinch.
‘Of course we won’t. Isn’t that your whole refrain? We’re all good, despite what we’re born and made to do.’
Will nodded. ‘Yet, forgive me, but why am I not afforded the same by you.’
‘We are not as good as you.’
Violet’s admission startled him.
‘I killed Simon.’
‘To save us.’
‘I as good as revealed that army, in the throne room.’
‘Because we’re all conduits of some bigger game. I don’t know if I should trust you. I trust Will with my life, and I know he’d give anything for me. I don’t trust Sarcean, and I worry that he’d sacrifice me and all our friends faster than I could draw my shield.’
‘I think I feel much the same way, yet it must all be turned inward. I, Will, seek good, but I use Sarcean’s methods. Who is to say he didn’t start this way? The Lady and the King trusted him, the guards did too. What if I am yet to become him? What if this is just the beginning?’
‘We have to take fate as it comes, and remain good through it all. We can’t ask anything else of ourselves.’ Violet held his wrist tightly, as if to force this revelation. He held her arm back lightly, valuing the connection more than she could know.
The conversation paused for a few second, the noise of the pub suddenly reaching them.
‘Violet, do you hate me?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want him dead.’
‘I want Sarcean dead. I want Will alive.’
‘I’m not sure those two things are separable.’
‘Nor am I. But then I am a Lion. I kill my brother or he kills me. One of us joins you. You and your sister too, but you know you couldn’t kill Elizabeth, as surely as I couldn’t kill Tom. Tom wouldn’t kill me either.’
‘Elizabeth might well kill me, and she’d be right to do it.’
‘Would she?’
‘I’m born to be him.’
‘And what we’re born as is the be all end all of our existence?’
Will smiled. His own words were so contradictory. How far could he carry that statement before it became meaningless? How long before his birthright took everything he’d worked for, every kindness he’d put his mind to bestowing.
‘I won’t kill Tom, and he won’t kill me. I don’t know what this will do to this stupid fate thing, but I won’t do it. I deny it, and I can because you had faith in me.’
‘Have.’
‘Have?’
‘I have faith in you. My faith in you did not end with this reveal. I had faith in you before and after I knew.’
‘You have faith in everyone.’
‘It matter to me that I do, but the faith I have in you isn’t quite that. I meant what I said earlier, about you being the only person who couldn’t hate me. I’m not good at telling the truth, I clothe my words in deceit and omission, but you’ve been there since that boat. My mother did the best she could, but she was never there for me. Katherine died before I could have a family, and Elizabth knows she must kill me. James wears the collar, and everyone else hates me for a past life. You’re the only family I have. Maybe you were the only family I’ll ever have had.’
‘My father had my mother killed, and that home was a nightmare. Tom might love me, but it’s soured by that horrible curse, as much as I struggle to think of it. Maybe I have more of a family than you, but family is more than that blood. You’ve been as good as a brother to me, and I suppose that’s why I’m here.’
‘I didn’t know if you’d come.’
‘I’m sure you did.’
‘Perhaps, but I’m not sure on which level. Did you come as Violet or as the Lion.’
‘Violet.’
‘And I came as Will.’
Violet glanced at her watch.
‘I’d love to stay, I wish we could sit in this dinky little pub forever and forget the fate that forces our hands at every turn, but Cyprian will be after me soon, and I still have to get back.’
‘I wish we could too, but I don’t need James finding you here. But, if you ever need help, I know you won’t want to do it, but you know that S sign?’
‘Yes.’
‘Carve it into something, and I’ll come save you.’
Violet shivered slightly, but nodded.
‘Is that what happened to Leclerc? I should have known, I suppose.’
‘How could you have? But I’ll do anything to keep you safe, you, Cyprian, Elizabeth, Grace, even Visander, I suppose.’
‘I appreciate it, but I hope we never need to use it.’
‘So do I, but I’d like to know that I’d made the offer. Don’t fear me too much to use it, if the time comes. Please.’
‘Of course not.’
Violet stood, then stepped across the table, and embraced him.
Perhaps this was what it was supposed to feel like to rest in your mother’s arms. Perhaps this was what it felt like to be in a family that wasn’t torn apart by ancient magic and curses. Perhaps this was what friendship offered. Perhaps he had predesigned it all in a past life.
Will pushed that thought away for now, settling his face in the comfort of Violet’s broad shoulders, muscle strengthened by rigorous training. He found himself blinking furiously, hoping she couldn’t feel it, hoping she didn’t know about the tears brewing behind his eyes.
She pulled back after a while, and Will could have sword that her eyes had the slightly glassy quality that spoke of tears unshed.
‘I have to go. I hope we see each other again, in better times and circumstances.’
‘I suspect they’ll only be worse, but I can’t say how much I needed this.’
‘I needed it too. I feared you had turned, I feared this was some ambush.’ She laughed a little. ‘I should have known better than to mistrust you.’
‘I thought you might have ambushed me too. I should have known better.’
‘See you soon,’ Will said, smiling a little. He very rarely did, and it felt odd, but quite right, here in this little room.
‘See you soon,’ Violet said. Then, she drew her cloak up, pulled the hood over her face, and prepared to walk back through the deserted streets. At least Will knew she was in no danger tonight, and, as far as he could manage it, she would never be in any danger.