The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [135]
“I know you’re not scared, not you.” Dean’s heartbeat was steady, steady as a clock. “So what are you? I know something’s up after that scene about your brother.”
“I’m angry,” I said. “I’m angry that I know nothing about my family and that those Proctor bastards shot Conrad, and I’m angry there’s nothing I can do about any of it except take orders from that pale bastard.” I crumpled the schedule and tossed it into the road. “That’s all my life’s been, Dean. Doing what I’m told.”
Dean dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his boot. “I made you something.”
“Oh really?” I grumbled, not in the mood to be cheered up. “Have you taken up knitting in all of your spare time?”
Dean pressed a folded scrap of vellum into my hand. “That’s what folks in my part of the underworld call a geas.”
The scrap was folded on itself eight times, inked with a circle and a cross. “Dean …” I flinched as it prickled on my palm. “Dean, did you go snooping in the witch’s alphabet? You used it?”
“No!” Dean exclaimed forcefully. “I told you, I can’t do that sort of thing.”
“Then how?” I demanded, fed up with his denials. I wasn’t dumb. “You said you didn’t have a Weird, just a knack. Either you’re lying or snooping.”
Dean heaved a sigh. “Those the only two options you can come up with, eh? I’m either a liar or a spy?”
“Or both,” I shot back. “Dean Harrison, tell me what is going on this instant. And take this.” I thrust the paper at him. I wasn’t prepared to bear any more secrets for anyone else.
“A geas is a powerful enchantment,” Dean said. “It can steal your free will and your breath in the same moment. You shouldn’t give it back lightly.”
“I expect fibbing from Cal,” I said, getting angry he’d try to flummox me with a silly trick. “But I’d think you, at least, would be straight with me.”
“I am being straight with you!” Dean shouted. All around us, the crows took flight. “I made that. Made it for you, and nobody but. I didn’t need a musty book to tell me how, either.”
“You said you didn’t have a gift,” I gritted. “So either you lied, or you didn’t trust me.”
Dean jumped up as well and met me, our gazes inches apart. “You’re right, okay?” His face bore two spots of red and his chest was heaving with angry breaths. “I’m not like you, but I do have something. Did it occur to you that maybe I’m not as thrilled about it as you are? That maybe it’s more trouble than it’s worth?”
That put the damper on the flaming spout of anger boiling in me. “Dean … I didn’t mean it like that.”
“For your edification, princess, my mother taught me that geas,” he said, voice rough as sandpaper. “She stuck around just long enough to teach me to find north. Find lost things. Bind the truth. Nothing like your great gift”—the way he said it was like a slap—“but enough so that I could get by with one foot in Iron and the other foot somewhere else.”
“I didn’t know your mother taught you,” I said, suddenly feeling very small. Dean thought I found him common. I was just as bad as the horrid Uptown brats in Lovecraft. “Was she … a witch, like?”
“She wasn’t a damn witch,” Dean snarled. “A witch is a faker who gets hunted down and burned alive by Proctors. She was better than that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, too quiet because I was embarrassed. “I was wrong to accuse you.”
“Aoife,” Dean said, and the pain in his voice broke me from my own moment of shame, “I’m not mad at you. But … I ain’t told you the truth. And I owe you that.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, even though I desperately wanted to know Dean’s secret. “I didn’t expect to get your life story when I hired you.”
“It’s different now,” Dean said. He stepped forward, cupped my chin and kissed me softly. I cocked my head.
“What was that for?”
“Because when I’ve said my tale, I might not get the chance again.” His gaze darted from me to the road and the trees and back. I’d never seen Dean nervous before now, never mind scared. I wasn’t sure I liked it.
I reached out and smoothed down the lapel of his leather jacket. “Just tell me.”
“You weren’t wrong,” Dean