Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(76)

But if he and Finn somehow stopped this dark magic, and he had the chance to become the king his parents wanted him to, then maybe he could change this? Maybe he could be a different king. Not a foot hovering overhead but a hand outstretched to pull his people up. He could make the motto of his kingdom true. If he lived long enough to become king.

They fell into another silence then and he wondered if this was what the whole journey would contain—flares of anger followed by stretches of silence and on and on.

“How exactly does the void thing work—”

“Finn,” Alfie said, his voice low with barely suppressed anger. He knew they needed that criminal’s help, but he did not want to think about it, didn’t want to face it until he really had to. “Please. Leave it be.”

She took his warning for bait. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to think about it,” he snapped. His fingers twitched on the reins, begging him to reach for the cool flask at his hip, to silence the anger that was rising in him like the tide. The anger that could turn him into someone he wasn’t. “It’ll only make me angry.”

Finn cocked her head. “Why not be angry, then? It’s as natural a feeling as anything else.”

Alfie sighed through his nose and reached sideways, letting his fingers brush the heads of the sugarcane stalks, the tingle of their touch calming him slightly. Of course she would advocate for anger; it wasn’t as if she thought twice before acting on impulse. “I don’t like who I become when I give in to anger.” An image flashed in his mind of that day, of his hands gripping Paloma by the robes and throwing her against the wall. He bit back his disgust with himself. “That person is not me.”

“Yes it is, estúpido,” she said. “Who you are when you’re angry is still you. It doesn’t have to be all of you, but it’s a piece of you all the same. If you deny that, you might as well deny your whole maldito self and be done with it.”

Alfie bristled at her tone. She spoke as if she were asking him to switch shirts instead of telling him to give in to the part of him that he feared most.

“Some things you can’t outrun.” Her voice came differently now, not soft, but lacking its usual sharpness—a blunted dagger. “Some things you ought to just run to. Get it over with.”

Alfie thought of how she’d run from Ignacio only to be dragged back, reeled in like a fish, but the horror of that memory could not dull his embarrassment. To draw this tone out of her, he must seem pathetic right now. He didn’t want her pity or her maldito advice.

“Well,” he said. “When I feel like denying my whole identity and running around in a mask instead, I’ll be sure to call on you.”

“Fine.” Her eyes rolled heavenward. “You sure you can trust Bathtub Boy to cover for you?”

Alfie still didn’t know where that nickname came from. “He’ll cover for me, and his name is Luka.” He swallowed thickly, wishing he could turn his horse back and head home. Luka had nearly died, and Alfie wanted nothing more than to protect him, to find whoever had targeted him and punish them as they deserved. His fingers twitching, Alfie reached into his own saddlebag and pulled out a mango and a small knife. His dagger glided over its flesh, peeling the fruit free. He popped a piece into his mouth, focusing on the burst of flavor instead of his desire to turn his horse around and gallop home.

Finn watched him carefully. “You want to know who tried to kill him.”

“Yes, obviously,” Alfie said, kneading his temples. “But I have to handle the dark magic first.” Even if he did somehow get rid of the dark magic, it wasn’t as if he could just tell anyone that Luka had nearly been killed without also explaining the release of the dark magic in the first place. He had no idea what his next move ought to be on that front.

“Well, I’ve got a start for you. It was definitely done by poison,” Finn said matter-of-factly. “Poison left for you.”

The mango fell from his hand onto the dirt road. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” she insisted. “I was in your room looking for the key to the vault.” She pulled a key out of her pocket, tossing it at him. It was his key. Alfie’s mind felt as if it were on the verge of bursting. “While I was searching a servant came in. I heard a bottle of something being shaken up. I wasn’t sure if it’d been poisoned or not, but after what happened to Bathtub Boy, I sure as hell am.”

His fingers were sticky with mango juice, but he couldn’t stop himself from putting his hand over his eyes. “My sleeping tonic.”

Luka had said that he’d drunk Alfie’s tonic. He hadn’t even thought of it. Part of him wanted to shout at Finn, to demand to know why she hadn’t dumped out the bottle and stopped all this from happening in the first place. But it felt pointless. It wasn’t as if she could be sure of what had happened when it had. She was a thief who owed him nothing. It seemed absurd to expect anything else of her.

His mind buzzed with an endless line of questions, each one nudging the others to be chosen next. Who had tried to poison him? Was it the same person who’d taken Dez from him? Would another assassination attempt happen again while he was away? Was Luka in danger of being poisoned while impersonating him for the day?

“You want to go home.” Finn’s voice rang quiet but strong. “Protect your family.”