Stubborn hope—that’s how he put it.
August liked the phrase.
Kate would probably say that she was the stubborn and he was the hope, and he didn’t know if she’d be right, but he held on to that idea—to hope—as Henry bowed his head, and so did August and Soro and Emily and the Council and the crowd, the gesture spreading row by row as the soldiers on the Seam lit the fire, and the bodies on the wall began to burn.
August stood on the roof of the Compound as the sun sank and the fire died to embers on the Seam.
Steps sounded behind him, and a moment later he sensed Soro’s arrival, their presence a thing solid enough to lean against.
Even now, he was amazed by the weight of their will, the steadiness of their resolve, unwavering in a way he’d never known. August was full of questions, of doubts, of wants and hopes, fears and flaws. He did not know if they were weaknesses or strengths, only that he didn’t want to live without them.
For a long time, they stood in silence, but for once, Soro was the one to break it.
“I saw their souls,” said the Sunai. “All those humans, streaked with red. How are we supposed to judge them now?”
August looked their way. “Maybe we aren’t.”
He expected a fight, but Soro went quiet again, twirling their flute-knife between their fingers as they looked out at the jagged skyline, and August followed their gaze, past the Seam and the smoke to the northern side of the city.
Once, in his first month, August had dropped an empty glass jar.
It had slipped through his fingers and shattered on the kitchen floor, throwing a hundred shards, some big enough to cup in his palm and others like flecks of dust, impossible to see unless they caught the light. It had taken a maddening amount of time to retrieve all the pieces, and even when he thought the task was done, he would still catch the glint of glass hours, days, weeks later.
The monsters of Verity were like that jar.
Sloan and Alice, the two largest shards, were gone, but so many smaller pieces remained. The Corsai, they could only hope to starve with time and light, while some of the Malchai had fled into the Waste, and the rest were scattering across the city, determined to survive. The Fangs were largely gone, but any stragglers would find themselves prey. To monsters. Or to him.
The whole city glinted in the aftermath, the shards thrown wide, and August didn’t know how long it would take to find them all, to take them up and make Verity safe again.
As for the humans, they were still divided—by anger, and loss, fear, and hope. Progress was being made, but August was coming to realize that there would always be cracks in the surface, shadows in the light, a hundred degrees of grays between black and white.
People were messy. They were defined not only by what they’d done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back—time only moved forward—but people could change.
For worse.
And for better.
It wasn’t easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt.
So make it worth the pain.
Kate’s voice whispered through him, sudden and welcome, and he drew a deep breath. Darkness was sweeping over the city, and there was still so much work to be done.
“Are you ready, brother?” asked Soro.
And August lifted his violin and stepped to the edge of the roof.
“I am.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book nearly killed me.
I always say that, but I swear, this time I mean it. It’s not a sign I didn’t love the work—after all, books can’t hurt you unless you care about them.
That’s how they get in—through the cracks that caring makes in us.
This book nearly killed me because I cared. I cared so much about Kate and August, and telling their story. I knew from the start it wouldn’t be a happy one. Hopeful, yes, but in a world with places like Verity, even hopeful endings come at a cost.
This book cost me something, but it didn’t kill me, because of those I had at my side.
My agent, Holly Root, who reminded me to breathe.
My editor, Martha Mihalick, who helped me up every time I fell (and then kept me on my feet).
My team at Greenwillow, who never lost faith.
My mother and father, who assured me I’d been down this road before.
My friends, who had the emails and texts and memories to prove it.
We say it takes a village, and never has it been more true.
Thank you.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
VICTORIA SCHWAB is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller This Savage Song, as well as the acclaimed adult fantasy novels A Darker Shade of Magic and Vicious. When she’s not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.
WWW.VESCHWAB.COM
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BOOKS BY VICTORIA SCHWAB
This Savage Song
Our Dark Duet
CREDITS
Cover photography copyright © 2017 by Casper Benson / GettyImages and Tudor ApMadoc / GettyImages
Cover design and hand lettering by Jenna Stempel
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
OUR DARK DUET. Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Schwab. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938028
EPub Edition © May 2017 ISBN 9780062380906
ISBN 978-0-06-238088-3 (hardback)
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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