Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(12)

Rowan’s demeanor soured slightly. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

But Citra had to know. Had to hear it from him. “Is it true you’ve been butchering and burning scythes?”

He was clearly offended by the accusation. “I’m ending the lives of scythes who don’t deserve to be scythes,” he told her. “And I don’t ‘butcher’ them. I end their lives quickly and mercifully, just as you do, and I only burn their bodies after they’re dead, so they can’t be revived.”

“And Scythe Faraday lets you do this?”

Rowan looked away. “I haven’t seen Faraday for months.”

He explained that after escaping from Winter Conclave last January, Faraday—who most everyone else thought to be dead—had taken him down to his beach house on the north shore of Amazonia. But Rowan had only stayed for a few weeks.

“I had to leave,” he told Citra. “I felt . . . a calling. I can’t explain it.”

But Citra could. She knew that calling, too. Their minds and bodies had spent a year being trained to be society’s perfect killers. Ending life had become a part of who they were. And she couldn’t blame him for wanting to turn his blade on the corruption that was rooting its way through the scythedom—but wanting to, and actually doing it, were two different things. There was a code of conduct. The Scythe Commandments were there for a reason. Without them, scythedoms in every region, on every continent, would fall into chaos.

Rather than dragging them into a philosophical argument that would go nowhere, Citra decided to change the subject away from his actions, and onto him—because it wasn’t just his dark deeds that concerned her.

“You look too thin,” she told him. “Are you eating?”

“Are you my mother now?”

“No,” she said calmly. “I’m your friend.”

“Ahh . . . ,” he said a bit ruefully, “my ‘friend.’?”

She knew what he was getting at. The last time they saw each other, they both said the words they had sworn they’d never allow themselves to say. In the heat of that desperate but triumphant moment, he told her that he loved her, and she admitted to him that, yes, she loved him, too.

But what good did that do now? It was as if they existed in two different universes. Dwelling on such feelings couldn’t lead them anywhere good. Yet still she entertained the thought. She even considered saying those words to him again . . . but she held her tongue, as a good scythe must do.

“Why are we here, Rowan?” she asked. “Why did you write me that note?”

Rowan sighed. “Because the scythedom is eventually going to find me. I wanted to see you one last time before they did.” He paused as he thought about it. “Once they catch me, you know what will happen. They’ll glean me.”

“They can’t,” she reminded him. “You still have the immunity I gave you.”

“Only for two more months. After that, they can do whatever they want.”

Citra wanted to offer him a shred of hope, but she knew the truth as well as he did. The scythedom wanted him gone. Even the old-guard scythes didn’t approve of his methods.

“Then don’t get caught,” she told him. “And if you see a scythe with a crimson robe, run.”

“Crimson robe?”

“Scythe Constantine,” she told him. “I hear he’s personally in charge of sniffing you out, and bringing you in.”

Rowan shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

“Neither do I. I’ve seen him in conclave, though. He heads up the scythedom’s bureau of investigation.”

“Is he new order, or old guard?”

“Neither. He’s in a category all his own. He doesn’t seem to have any friends—I’ve never seen him even talk to other scythes. I’m not sure what he stands for, except maybe for justice . . . at all costs.”

Rowan laughed at that. “Justice? The scythedom doesn’t know what justice is anymore.”

“Some of us do, Rowan. I have to believe that eventually wisdom and reason will prevail.”

Rowan reached out and touched her cheek. She allowed it. “I want to believe that, too, Citra. I want to believe that the scythedom can return to what it was meant to be. . . . But sometimes it takes a necessary darkness to get there.”

“And you’re that necessary darkness?”

He didn’t speak to that. Instead, he said, “I took the name Lucifer because it means ‘bringer of light.’?”

“It’s also what mortal people once called the devil,” she pointed out.

Rowan shrugged. “I guess whoever holds the torch casts the darkest shadow.”

“Whoever steals the torch, you mean.”

“Well,” said Rowan, “it seems I can steal whatever I want.”

She hadn’t been expecting him to say that. And he had said it so casually, it threw her for a loop. “What are you talking about?”

“The Thunderhead,” he told her. “It lets me get away with everything. ?And just like you, it hasn’t spoken to me or answered me since the day we started our apprenticeship. It treats me like a scythe.”

That gave Citra pause for thought. It made her think of something she had never told Rowan. In fact, she had never told anyone. The Thunderhead lived by its own laws, and never broke them . . . but sometimes it found ways around them.