Page 63 of Last Rites

“No, Penny.” His voice rose, but it remained ragged. “I need an answer here. You aren’t devout. Everything you know about Eeus, you learned from me. And what about anything I’ve ever said would make you want to pray?”

I huffed, arms crossing tight over my chest. “I learned other things. Not just from you.”

“Like what?”

“I told you. The Symbiarch said we were wrong. They’re wrong. About him. And I thought…” My lungs burned with the breath I dragged in. “In case we fail. If all we did was slow them down, and the resistance isn’t enough. If they succeed in calling Eeus down, I thought he could—maybe—inhabit me instead so they can’t control him.”

Kit’s expression went blank, unreadable.

“Are you going to say something?” I pressed.

“Why?”

I groaned, rubbing at my eyes. “Gods, Kit…”

He shook his head. “Did you—” His voice cracked before flattening into steel. “Did you, in all your consideration, also consider that to be inhabited by a god, to become a vessel, you would have to be dead?”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and left me feeling abruptly ill. “What?”

“Dead, Pen.” His tone was flat, merciless. “You’d have to be dead.”

The talk with Sybil replayed in my head. My brow furrowed, and sweat dampened my hairline. “That’s not what… She said…”

Kit moved closer until his shadow swallowed mine. Fleetingly, I hoped he was going to offer comfort, but that thought wisped away as he spoke over me, low and steady. “What do you think Merrick’s monstrosity is made of?”

My eyes cut aside. “I know what it’s made of,” I muttered.

He waited. Silent. A weight pressing me down.

I sighed. “Bones.”

“Bones,” he echoed. “From the dead. Dead parts from dead people.”

The words rattled in my head, echoing over and over until I thought I’d go deaf from it.

“Do you want to die?” His voice trembled, but still, he didn’t reach for me. “Because I feel like that’s something we should have discussed before I did… gods, I have done everything to keep you safe. Not just me. Levitt’s gone. Philippa sacrificed herself. I—” He hesitated, swallowing hard. “I killed a man. To save you. And now you’re going to do this?”

I shrank back. He hadn’t talked about what happened with Anders. Neither of us had. The subject felt forbidden and still too fresh, even weeks later.

He was pale, and I knew the admission weighed on him. I also knew he was right about the things and people who had been lost for my sake. I didn’t want to diminish or dismiss them, so I tried to downplay my own actions instead.

“Well,” I said, “I haven’t done it yet…”

“What have you done?”

“I prayed.” My hand swept toward the makeshift altar around me. “I made this. I completed… some rites.”

Kit dragged a hand over his face, fingers digging into his skin like he could claw the situation away.

His dismissal cut deeper than he knew, and my frustration surged to the surface. “I’m tired of being helpless. Useless. Foolish. This gave me—” I shook my head, choking on the words. “I felt like I was doing something besides waiting on you. Needing you. Relying on you. I want you to rely on me, Kit. And I’d like to think… I’d like to prove I can rely on myself, too.”

The silence after that built like a wall between us.

Finally, Kit asked again, “Do you want to die?”

“Of course not!” I snapped, adamant, almost desperate. “I want to get married, Kit! I want to have a normal life! I want to go home!”

The words rang in the air, too loud for such a small room.