Chapter 5: Terms

He came back at ten that night, alone, on foot.

I was on the porch steps in my coat, because the kitchen was too warm for the Wane.

I had washed the ash out of my hair twice, and I could still taste it.

He stopped at the bottom of the steps with his hands in his pockets.

He was back in his own black coat, and he'd shaved.

"You should be in bed," he said.

"I should be a lot of places."

"Your mother's still up."

"She's watching you through the curtain with the shotgun in her lap."

His mouth moved, almost a smile, and then it went flat again.

He climbed two steps and stopped, and the lantern over the door lit half his face.

"I want to ask you something," he said. "And I want one answer."

"All right."

"Say you never signed it."

My stomach turned over.

I had been waiting for this, and I had hoped it would come with a day to spare.

"Cassian."

"Say it. One sentence." He pointed at the folded page sticking out of my coat pocket. "Say you didn't write that. Say it and I'll hear it."

I opened my mouth.

I wanted so badly to say it that my eyes stung.

I never signed that, and I never would have.

The first word came up my throat and stopped at the back of my tongue, hard and cold.

I could not swallow it, and I could not spit it out.

My chest locked and my vision went white at the edges, and something warm ran over my lip.

I put my hand up and it came away black.

"Linnet."

He was on the step beside me before I'd finished falling.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Cursed by the Light for Loving the Dark from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.