Chapter 15: Get Up

Lucas did not move.

Behind him, Thomas had gone as still as a post.

"I came for Noah," Lucas said. "Not for your welcome."

A murmur ran around the dark boxes.

Abysis smiled wider.

"A human with a tongue," he said. "Good. I was told you would be a clerk."

He came down the stage steps with his cane tapping, and Noah stayed on his knees in the light.

"This one came to me at dawn," Abysis said. "He offered himself back, his voice and his knees, for the price of leaving his friends alone."

He tilted his head.

"A noble offer."

"It isn't his to make," Lucas said.

"No?"

"Noah doesn't decide alone. That's the rule."

"Whose rule?"

"Mine."

The tapping stopped.

Abysis looked at him for a long moment, and the smile did not leave his mouth, though something behind it went still.

"A rule," he said softly. "From a boy who sells shirts from a folding table."

He walked back to Noah and set the silver tip of the cane under his jaw.

"Look up."

Noah looked up.

His black eyes were wet, and his hands were fists behind his back, and he was shaking.

Lucas felt it in his own stomach, hot and sick.

"Say it again for the boy," Abysis said. "Say you came of your own will."

"I came of my own will."

"And that you'll stay."

Noah's mouth trembled.

"Noah," Lucas said.

The cane did not move.

"Noah. Get up."

He said it plainly, in the voice he used to make a queue move.

Noah's head turned.

For one breath he stayed where he was, with the cane at his jaw.

Then Lucas saw his shoulders loosen.

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