Page 59 of Reap & Sow

“And would you?”

His expression was unreadable. “If I felt I had to.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’re so—so unfeeling, so brutal—”

“The world is a brutal place to children. Yours and mine both.”

Eda’s stomach turned as she thought of the little girl butchered on the street. “All the more reason not to add to its cruelty. Between them, the High Governor and Tenelle might be able to expose Bishop Fane. All of this madness will stop.”

“Will it? Florian Fane is just one thorn on the stem of history’s bad characters. My brother can always make more deals. As long as demons like him are free to roam the mortal world, lives will be destroyed.”

“I know that. I only meant that someone should stand against people like the bishop. At least he’s mortal. He can be stopped.”

“And would that person be you, darling? Fancy yourself some sort of folk hero?” He sneered. “Very interested in the bishop all of a sudden. Have you suddenly acquired a working moral compass?”

She bristled. “That’s not—I hardly think wanting to see Fane undone makes me a hypocrite, if that’s what you’re trying to say. It would benefit me too.”

“Mortals suffer every day, whether it’s a child butchered on the street or quietly starving in a drafty house with too many mouths to feed. The only difference is that you actually had to look at the former, and so now it’s riled you up into a sanctimonious fever.” His vitriol was palpable. “Powerful people like my brother and the bishop, even Abelard Wolfram—they’ll only do the right thing if it benefits them. The justice you seek is doled out by the powerful, and the powerful got where they were by looking out for themselves. You want to parry with the likes of them? Forget honor and mercy, for they’ll give you neither.”

“And that excuses you, does it? Threatening children rather than saving them is fine, because it’s just the done thing?”

“Why not?” he hissed. “No one saved me. No one tried to rescue me.”

Eda’s words died. Looking at him now, his fists clenched, she suddenly understood. Her spouting of heroic ideals had rubbed salt in a very old wound. Her anger wavered. “I’m…sorry for that. For whatever Baelion did to you, growing up. I’m sorry no one protected you. They should have.”

Kit stilled, looking vaguely thunderstruck. Eda’s chest tightened. Was a kind word really so foreign to him?

He gathered himself. “It’s no matter. ’Twas all a very long time ago.”

Not to you, she thought sadly.

“What about yourself?” His eyes flitted intently between hers. “Your conspicuous lack of venom for my brother is rather misguided. Are you not angry for your own lost childhood?”

“It was my father that got us in this mess.”

“Ah. So he is the real villain.”

She sensed he was mocking her. “After what he did to my mother, to us—”

“That wasn’t his work. You think your grieving sire knew what he was getting himself into when he made that deal with Baelion? You said he asked for his wife back. Baelion knew reviving her as she’d been was impossible, but he took on the Pact anyway. A lie by omission is still a lie.” His lips thinned. “Seems to me your father’s only crime was loving his wife so much that he forgot all sense. Forgot you. Blame him for that, but not for what your mother became. That particular cruelty is all my brother’s.”

Eda looked down at her boots, swallowing. She’d only ever seen the greed and weakness of her fellow man, but how many, like herself, made deals out of sheer desperation? The mother of the little girl killed by the fiend—would Eda honestly blame her if she begged whatever power that listened to give her daughter back?

She considered her father. That he might be as much of a victim as any of them. Lawrie told her Oswin acted out of love; had she not bargained with Kit for just the same reason? Mr. Night would have derided her for it—and not so long ago she would have sneered, too. The thought shamed her.

Eda pinched her nose. Mortifying tightness swelled in her throat. “It’s my fault, anyway. All of it. Sometimes I think my birth was a bad omen. I killed my mother in the childbed. I got Ben and Lawrie captured.” She laughed, hollow. “If Mr. Night is at fault, so am I.”

A hand snatched hers without warning. Eda jerked.

Kit glared down at her. “Never,” he snapped, “compare yourself to him. You’re worth a thousand of that arsehole.”

She stared. His hand was very warm, smooth and free of calluses. Never seen a hard day’s work in your life, have you? she might have jibed, but her tongue was unresponsive. Long fingers curled over hers. His thumb moved against her palm, discovering the creases there.

Eda couldn’t recall ever being so affected by a person’s proximity. His scent, the brush of his clothes against hers. The way his eyes flayed her to the bone. She felt seen.

Kit’s gaze dipped to her mouth. It was shocking somehow. Heat pooled low in her belly.

Enough.