Trapped in You by Morrison Lee: Shadows of Our Love novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: For Sabine, When She Knows

The key was warm from his belt when he pressed it into my palm.

I opened the box in the cold crypt with Mathis standing three feet behind me.

Inside lay one folded sheet and nothing else.

I knew the paper by its smell, my mother's yarrow salve and my father's pipe smoke, three years old and still there.

"Sabine," I read aloud. My voice was not mine. "If you are holding this, you asked about the Accord, so the Council did not tell you."

I stopped and breathed.

"I wrote the paper at the border with Draycott's father dying in the next tent. His son held my wound shut with both hands. His pack had shot at our glider for two years, and the son took off his coat and laid it over me."

Behind me, Mathis did not make a sound.

"The cellar is not his idea. It is the Council's clause, and I could not get it struck. Do not hate the boy for it. If you must hate someone, hate the ones who wrote it."

My eyes burned.

"You may refuse him. A pledge written for you is a cage, and I did not raise you for one. You hide when you are hurt. Don't hide from this. Your father."

I folded the page along its old creases.

"He could have written that for anyone," I said. "The Council forged a name on a roll this week. I can't tell what's true."

"You don't have to believe a line of it from me," Mathis said.

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