Chapter 161: Dinner’s On Me

"CASPER!"

Pollux hit the end of the lane at a dead sprint, and for a second I honestly thought she was going to run straight through the gate and punch the dark.

I caught her by the back of the nightshirt instead.

"Let go!" She twisted like a cat. "Valen, *let go,* he’s walking right in, I’m going to—"

"You’re going to get eaten. Look at the floor."

She looked. A thin line of white salt ran across the cobbles, from the open gate to Casper’s bare feet. It hadn’t been there at sundown. Somebody had been laying it all night, one grain at a time.

Casper stood in the gate’s mouth with his arms hanging loose. He turned his head, slow and dreamy, and smiled at us. The thumbprint under his left eye had opened into a dark, wet seam.

"Hi, Valen," he said, in a voice that was almost his. "It’s setting the table."

Then he walked in.

The salt line slid ahead of him like a welcome mat. Pollux tore out of my grip and lunged, and the stones *coiled.* A white ribbon whipped up, wrapped her ankle, and yanked her flat on her back so hard her teeth clicked. Another loop pinned her wrist.

"Don’t fight it!" I dropped beside her and slapped my palm on the ribbon. "It tightens!"

"I *want* it to fight me!" She was snarling, half laughing, completely unhinged. Then her voice cracked. "Valen, he’s *walking away.*"

I burned the ribbon with a spark of Aurelix’s fire. It hissed and fell apart.

"Pollux. Listen. Get Lyra. Get your brother. Tell him to bring every jar of salt-breaker in the potions loft."

"I’m not leaving him!"

"Then he dies, because I can’t pull him out alone." I held her eyes. "Go. I’ll keep him alive till you’re back. Deal?"

Pollux has never walked away from a fight in her life. I watched what it cost her.

"Deal," she rasped, and bolted.

The two guards at the gate stood rigid, swords drawn, eyes open and glassy. Every few seconds a tiny, polite hum came out of them, like somebody saying grace.

*Valerian,* Aurelix said quietly. *You’re going in without the mask. With a cracked rib. With a notch you’re not allowed to touch.*

"I know."

*I just wanted to hear you say it.*

I went in.

---

The hall was lit.

That was the first wrong thing. Last time I’d walked in blind in the cold. Now a hundred golden candles burned along the pillars, the salt on the floor sparkled like sunlit frost, and the air smelled like warm bread, honey, and old wood.

It smelled like home.

A long white-clothed table stood in the center, with seven chairs and seven plates. Six small loaves sat at six places, each with a thumbprint in its crust. Casper occupied the fifth chair, with a napkin tucked into his collar and a loaf in both hands.

He looked up and smiled with his whole face.

"Valen! You’re just in time. They saved you a seat."

Day one, this kid had shouldered my trunk off the cart and told me commoners could use the servants’ gate. Noble brat, fancy house, a sneer you could’ve hung laundry on. Somewhere between then and now, he’d bet money on me. I hadn’t even noticed it happen.

"Casper. Put the bread down."

"But it’s *so good.*"

"Welcome, Seventh."

The voice came from everywhere. It wasn’t deep or monstrous. It was warm and tired and a little shy, like a grandmother who’d cooked too much and was afraid nobody would come.

*The Giver,* Aurelix breathed.

The altar had become a hearth, wide and low. In a nest of embers lay something huge and curled and pale. I only saw its slow breathing.

"I made your plate myself," the voice said. "Sit, Seventh. Nobody should go hungry. You’ve been hungry a very long time."

I’d braced for threats. I hadn’t braced for *that,* and it landed right under my cracked rib.

"I’m taking him home."

"He’s already home. I fed him when nobody else would." Hurt crept in. "He came to me hungry. Is that a crime?"

"He didn’t *ask.*"

"Did you?" A pause. "When they took your seat, Seventh, did you ask?"

*Don’t answer it,* Aurelix said sharply. *It’s reading you.*

"No," I said. "I didn’t."

"Then you know." Soft. Sad. "You know what it is to be left off the guest list."

I thought about a man on a scaffold who’d had nobody at all. *It’s not wrong. That’s the worst part. It isn’t even wrong.*

Then I looked at the brat with the napkin in his collar, and thought, *But he’s still a kid.*

"You can’t have him."

The candles guttered.

"Then you’ll *sit,*" the Giver said, and the salt rose.

---

It came up through the floor in a white wall, then in a hundred white arms. They hooked my ankles, my knees, my wrists. They wrapped my chest and squeezed the cracked rib until I saw stars. I got a blade out of the staff and cut one ring clean through, and ten more took its place.

*Fire!* Aurelix cried.

"If I burn it, I burn *him!*"

The salt was running up Casper’s legs, too. Gently. Lovingly. The way you tuck in a child.

"Casper! Cas! Wake *up!*"

"I’m awake." His voice was dreamy. "I’ve never felt so full."

"You’re not full, you idiot, you’re being *eaten!*"

"That’s what you said last time." He smiled. "When you said you’d buy me dinner."

I went still.

"In the hall. You promised. It’s been *days,* Valen." Something moved behind his eyes, small and far away. "Did you forget?"

My throat closed. "No. I didn’t forget. Real food, Cas. Hot. Fried. You pick the place."

"Yeah?" Casper’s eyes were wet. "I used to think the good seats came with the name. Funny how nobody ever saved me one."

"*Cas!*"

The doors slammed open. Pollux stood there with Lyra beside her, and behind them, huge and calm and carrying a satchel of white jars, her twin brother.

Castor took in the table, the salt, the arms, the god, and the exact angle of my situation in about one second. "Don’t charge," he said, in a voice like a man reading a recipe. "It reacts to resistance. Lyra, circle the perimeter with breaker first. Pollux. *Pollux.* Stay behind the line."

"He’s *eating* the bread, Castor!"

"I can see that. We’ll hit it in the right order."

Pollux bared her teeth. "Fine. But I get to hit it *first.*"

"You get to hit it third."

"Cas!" Pollux wasn’t listening. Tears were running down her face, and her fists were clenched so hard her knuckles went white. "It’s me! It’s Pollux! Wake up or I swear I’ll hit you! You hate bread! You said so for *three years!*"

Casper blinked.

"...Pol?"

"I’ll buy you dinner myself!" She was sobbing and snarling at once. "I’ll buy you *every* dinner! I’ll fight the entire kitchen, just come *back!*"

The thumbprint flinched like a bruise being pressed.

"Now," Castor said.

Lyra hurled the jars. They cracked against the floor in a spray of grey powder, and the salt arms recoiled, hissing, curling back like burned fingers. For one breath, the hold on me went slack.

That was all I needed.

I tore free, got one hand around the staff and the other around Casper’s collar, and hauled him out of his chair so fast the loaf flew out of his hands and burst across the floor.

"No," the Giver said. It was the first time its voice cracked. "No, wait, please. He’s *mine.* He’s—"

"He’s got dinner plans," I said, and ran.

---

We hit the open air in a heap, a tangle of arms and legs and one stolen napkin. Behind us, the gate swung shut with a long soft sigh, as if somebody had decided not to slam it.

The frozen guards sagged. One blinked. The other sneezed.

Casper lay in Pollux’s lap, half-conscious, shaking. The thumbprint had closed to a thin grey line.

"Valen," he mumbled. "Steak. Please."

"You’ll get steak."

"With the mushrooms."

"With the mushrooms."

Pollux laughed, and it came out as a sob. She buried her face in his shoulder and wouldn’t let go. Castor stood over them with his arms folded, his jaw working, and said nothing at all. His twin was crying into a noble brat’s shirt, and he, the logical one, quietly turned his back so no one would see his eyes.

Lyra knelt with a hand on Casper’s forehead. "It’s not gone," she whispered. "It’s just asleep."

"I know."

"How long?"

"I don’t know."

I’d lost the fight. I’d won the night. Those aren’t the same thing, and I’d learned the difference the hard way.

*It was lonely,* Aurelix said softly. *Did you hear it?*

"Yeah."

*That’s going to make this harder.*

"Yeah."

I got to my feet. The lane stretched empty toward the dorms, lamps still dark. Except at the far end, under the last broken lamppost, a girl stood with her coat buttoned to the throat and her hawk on her shoulder.

She’d been there a while. I could tell by the way she stood.

She didn’t wave. She didn’t smile. She lifted two fingers, small and deliberate, and held them up where I’d see them.

*That’s two.*

Then she turned and walked away.