PROMISE

CHAPTER 9

Hain smacked his lips as he followed Lilith through the open courtyard of the Keep, making sure to draw out the wet plop of his tongue on the floor of his mouth. Exactly, he knew, the way Lilith hated.

Lilith threw a glance back at him, disgust painted on her face, but she didn't slow her pace.

"Something wrong?" Hain asked innocently.

"Aside from you making that disgusting sound, and being annoying, and making me wish I didn't know you?" The disgust lingered on her face. "No, nothing at all."

"So long as it's nothing." He tugged shaggy black hair back from where it hung over his jade and grey eyes. "And you can consider the annoyance as payback for dragging me along to do whatever it is we're doing, when you know I've got to get out to the Viajero camp. Which, in case I haven't mentioned it, I don't appreciate."

"You mentioned it," Lilith said. "Twice, in less than five minutes."

"Consider this the third time then," Hain said through a yawn. "That way, it's a charm."

"A charm?" Lilith said. "How is that even remotely charming?"

"Third time's a charm," Hain said. "You know, like the saying?"

Lilith showed him a blank look. "Is this some kind of Echo thing I don't know about?"

"It's a saying that's–" Hain broke off. "You know what? Never mind. I haven't slept in a day and my brain isn't prepared to deal with explaining how words work to you."

Lilith shrugged, apparently comfortable with this. Hain fumed, but he let the subject drop. Even the prospect of launching into an explanation felt exhausting, and since he hadn't slept a wink after the incident at the gate the night before, he was already plenty exhausted.

The courtyard was all rising walls around him, the grey stone speckled with moss like splattered green paint. Dewy light trickled through the morning air. The space was vacant, the Keep's inhabitants sleeping off a late night spent cloistered in the Sepulcher for mass.

"Explain for me again why you decided to go follow those people again," Lilith said over her shoulder. "Specifically the part where you decided to follow them for no apparent reason."

Irritation crawled up Hain's neck at the question. By people she meant the Vrai patrol. The mostly dead Vrai patrol.

"I've already explained it," he said, then miming her voice added, "twice in less than five minutes."

Lilith stopped at the entrance to the hall where both the Regent and Sam lived before rounding on Hain.

"So you were sitting in the Hoh, you saw them, and thought, 'Here's a good way to get killed'?"

"Oh, Heaven and Hell, Lilith, yes." He shook his head. "Or, no, I mean. Not the killing, but yes to the other parts." He let out a growl of frustration. "How many times are you going to make me say the same thing before you get it?"

"I'm just trying to make sense of a very weird story."

"It's not weird just because you wouldn't do it."

"No, it's weird because your explanation doesn't make sense."

"Is that so?" Hain tipped his chin up defiantly. "Then please, tell me what actually happened, since I'm sure you've already worked out a theory."

"I think you saw them leave from the haven well before you followed them to the coast," she said in a matter-of-fact way. "And I think you didn't tell me about them on purpose."