Queen (The Blackcoat Rebellion #3)(51)

“It wouldn’t have been that bad, would it?” I looked around the bedroom. A mahogany dresser stretched across one wall, along with a matching armoire, and a door led into what I assumed was a bathroom. Or a closet. “I know thatwasn’t the plan—that you probably never intended for us to ever actually get married, fake as it would’ve been anyway. But once we stopped trying to kill each other in our sleep, it wouldn’t have been that bad.”

I buried my nose in the pillow again and closed my eyes. With his scent came a rush of memories, and I let myself wallow in them for far longer than I should have. After losing the people I loved the most—Tabs, Nina, Benjy—I didn’t understand why Knox’s death had hit me so hard. But over the past several months, despite our differences, we had become inseparable. He had been there for me, guided me, protected me in his own way, stopped me from blowing everything on more than one occasion—he had become my compass, and I didn’t know where to go without him.

Losing Knox wasn’t just about him, though; it was also about losing the war. If Knox was alive, we would still stand a chance. But the more time that passed without word from him, the less I could convince myself to believe it. Whether he was alive or not, he wasn’t here. He was gone. We were adrift—I was adrift—and the revolution was over. I mourned that as much as I mourned him. Or so I told myself, because nothing else made sense. We’d barely tolerated each other the past few weeks we’d been together. I had no right to mourn him like this.

But I remembered those last few moments in Somerset, before I’d been captured—the way he’d looked at me. The way he’d touched me. Everything we hadn’t said, and everything we hadn’t needed to say. I didn’t know where we would have been if everything had continued—if Knox and I hadn’t gone there that day. If I hadn’t been captured. If I had returned to Elsewhere that evening and talked things out with Benjy.

Maybe things would have been different. Maybe they wouldn’t have been. But in the lonely quiet, I gave myself permission to wonder.

Kitty Doe would always be Benjy’s. But Kitty Hart... I didn’t know. And now it was looking more and more like I would never find out.





XII

One Chance

I didn’t know how long I sat there, hugging Knox’s pillow and trying not to drive myself crazy with uncertainty. The shadows in his room grew longer, and the light from the sun dimmed. Eventually, once I was stiff from sittingin the same position for too long, I considered getting up. But before I could talk myself into it, the bedroom door opened.

I flew to my feet, ready to defend my reasons for being in there to Daxton or any of the guards he might have sent to check on me. But to my shock, it was Benjy who slipped inside. As soon as he caught sight of me, he stilled,and the shirts he carried fell to the floor.

“I’m sorry, I—” Lila would have never apologized, but I shook the thought from my mind and hurried to help him pick up the laundry. I had barely dared to think about him since his execution had been stayed, not sure how many more times my heart could break and still remain a whole. But here he was, kneeling down next to me, and I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly everything I’d been thinking about Knox felt like a betrayal, and I swallowed hard as my face grew warm. He’d caught me in Knox’s bedroom, clearly upset. I didn’t know if he had the right to be angry or not, not anymore, but I wouldn’t blame him if he was.

But he didn’t look angry. Benjy stared at me, his blue eyes wide and bright, and for the first time in what felt like my entire life, I couldn’t read the look on his face. He wasn’t angry, though. That was something. “I was hoping you’d be in here,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“Is that why you’re bringing clean clothes to...” To a dead man’s room. But I couldn’t say that, so instead I tried to refold a shirt. My efforts were uneven and laughable at best. Benjy gently took it from me and refolded it with perfect precision, and I bit my lip, not wanting to know why he’d been trained to do something so ordinary when he had a VI on the back of his neck.

Had a VI on the back of his neck, I remembered. Because just like me, he’d been sent to Elsewhere, too, which meant the VI he’d worked so long and hard for was now scarred over with an X. All because of me.

How much guilt could one person take? How many burdens could I live with until my mind and body simply gave up? Whatever that limit was, I was sure I would soon reach mine. It simply couldn’t be possible to live with more thanI already was, to hurt the people I cared about—to watch them murdered because of something I had done—and not crumble into dust.

Once the shirts were stacked neatly again, I stood and took a step back, not sure what to say. He opened and shut his mouth, no doubt struggling with the same problem.

“I know it’s you,” he finally said, even though I’d already known from what he’d said at the execution. “I just—I need to—”

“I’ll wait,” I said softly, and with a grateful look, Benjy disappeared beyond the door I’d wondered about only minutes earlier. It turned out to be a massive walk-in closet, even bigger than the one Lila had had at Somerset, and as I waited, I vowed that if Knox were somehow alive, I would never let him live that down.

A minute later, Benjy ducked back into the room, closing the closet door behind him. We stood there with only a few feet between us, but it might as well have been infinite. I didn’t know what to say or what to do, which only disturbed me more. This was Benjy. He was my best friend. There should have never been any distance between us at all, even if we were half a world away from each other.