Chapter 11: The Real Words

I told Emeric where I was going, because I'd promised myself no more secrets.

He didn't argue.

He stood in the dark hall with his coat half on.

I saw what it cost him not to say stay.

"I'll be a street behind you," he said instead. "If you scream, I'm there."

"I won't scream."

"Then if you think about screaming."

I kissed him on the way out, quick and hard, and walked into the night.

Pippa was waiting at White Point Garden, on the bench under the big oak, with the harbor black behind her.

She had changed into a long dark coat and wore no lipstick.

She looked younger without it, and tired, and it almost worked on me.

"You came alone," she said.

"Sort of."

"Sit down."

"I'll stand."

She sighed and took a small folded card from her pocket.

"It's three lines," she said. "You say them to him, with your scar touching his, and the oath comes undone."

She held my eyes.

"I only gave you the cup because Thaddeus made me. I want you safe."

I held out my hand.

The card was thick and cold.

The three lines were handwritten, in an old script I could just read.

I take back what I gave.

I take back the blood I spilled.

Let it be still.

I read them twice.

I am not a clever person, but I've spent a lot of time with words that sound like help.

"Let it be still," I said. "Which of us?"

"What do you mean?"

"The blood. The heart that holds it. The man you want me to say it to." I looked up. "Whose heart stops, Pip?"

She didn't blink.

"It's the old form. It's only a phrase."

"Then say it yourself."

Her mouth tightened.

For a second I saw my sister on a lawn in her good supper dress, twenty-two years old, with soot on her face.

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