“Please don’t leave without hearing me out,” Archer begged. “Please. I don’t want you believing a lie.”
At that, Ridley swung around. “Are you kidding? You’ve been letting me believe a lie since the moment this all began.”
“I know! But it’s—it’s part of my past. Of course I wasn’t going to tell you about it in the beginning. And since then, since we got closer, I’ve …” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I knew I had to tell you. I’ve been trying—”
“Oh, right,” she sneered. “You haven’t been trying very hard.” Though he had tried—sort of—to tell her something the last evening they’d spent together. Stupidly, she’d thought he might have been about to confess that he loved her. A pang radiated through her chest as she realized this was what he’d been trying to say instead.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I knew it would hurt you, and I didn’t want …” He took a deep breath. “I told you I wanted you to know everything, and I meant it. I knew it would probably ruin things between us, but I also knew we couldn’t have a solid future together with all these lies piling up between us. I’ve just … I’ve been trying to find a good moment, and there hasn’t been one.”
“There was never going to be a good moment for something like this, Archer.”
“I know. I know. That’s why I kept putting it off. I wanted just one more day with you before everything fell apart between us. And then one more, and one more.”
Ridley shook her head and settled her gaze somewhere over his shoulder. On the purple bell-shaped flowers. On the plant with spiny leaves and blossoms like large pink sea urchins. Anywhere but directly on Archer’s pleading, desperate face. Part of her wanted him to be able to explain everything away, while part of her flat-out refused to fall for anything he said ever again. Still … could she really walk away without hearing the full story? If she was going to hate him, it would be because of everything he’d done, and not just part of it.
“Fine,” she said, removing the backpack and lowering it to the paved pathway between the plants. She folded her arms and met his gaze. “This is your chance. Tell me everything.”
He hesitated. “Here? We could go back to—”
“Yes, here, Archer. In the cold. In the rain. We’re not going anywhere near your Shadow Society friends.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I meant, Ridley. I just—I thought you’d be more comfortable if—never mind.” He took a deep breath and wiped the sheen of moisture from his face. “My family has always been part of the Shadow Society. My father has been director for over a decade. My mother was once a member too, but she got bored of all the meetings and the politics, and Lilah was never that interested in being part of the official proceedings either. But my father made sure I was part of it all from a young age.
“He always told us elementals were … unnatural. Twisted and perverted by the magic that constantly lived inside them. Intent on taking over and ruling the people who had no magic. It was our noble purpose to rid the world of them.”
Ridley clenched her shaking fingers into fists. “So many lies,” she hissed.
“I know. But back then, I believed him because … well, why wouldn’t I? Why would my father lie to me? I still don’t understand why he lied. Why he still lies. Sometimes I wonder if … if maybe he actually believes the things he’s always told me. It’s what the Shadow Society has taught its members for so long.”
“So when you saw me all those years ago when we were children and I accidentally used my magic while in your home, you thought I was one of these twisted, evil people?”
“No,” Archer said immediately. “No. That was the moment that planted the first seed of doubt in my mind. It was one thing when elementals were faceless evil people that the world would be better off without. It was entirely another when it was you, a person I knew. You were Lilah’s best friend, not some evil, inhumane being. So even though I knew I was supposed to tell my father, I didn’t. I told no one.”
Ridley held his gaze as she nodded slowly. This, at least, she could believe. If Archer had told someone, the Shadow Society would have killed her years ago. “So you started doubting,” she said, “but that was years ago, and your father still seems to think you’re a loyal member of the Shadow Society. Clearly you never confronted him about the horrendous things he does to elementals.”
Archer’s jaw tightened as his gaze slid away from hers. “It was just … it was easier to go along with things. Easier not to question. I thought maybe you were an anomaly. That I could put you into a separate category while still hating the rest of those faceless elementals.” He pressed one fisted hand to his mouth before continuing. “It’s terrible, I know. Horrible, shameful.”
“Yes,” Ridley said harshly. “It is.”
Archer nodded. His gaze had settled somewhere in the region of her chin. Or perhaps her shoulder or neck. Somewhere that wasn’t her eyes. “So when I finished school and went to France, it wasn’t just to take a year off and have fun. I didn’t accidentally discover that elemental community while hiking La Tournette. I was sent there when my father discovered it. To infiltrate, to gather information.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Ridley muttered. “A long-term undercover operation, as your father reminded everyone earlier.”
“Yes,” Archer answered quietly. “But I wasn’t lying when I told you that I started to change there. It just … it wasn’t in the way you assumed I meant. My father had warned me that elementals were master deceivers, but the more time I spent with them, the harder it was to believe. It seemed that everything he’d ever told me was untrue. And yet … how could my own father be so wrong? How could he have told me so many lies? I couldn’t quite believe that either, so I existed in this conflicted space for months.
“When I returned to the city the first time, with that flash drive of information that I was supposed to pass on to one of the protectors, I was still planning to give it to my father instead. I may have spent most of my youth disregarding every rule my parents set, wasting their money, and generally making an art form out of caring as little as possible about anything, but when it came to Shadow Society stuff … yeah, disobeying my father wasn’t an option. It just wasn’t.
“So even though I felt awful about what I was planning to do, I hadn’t yet realized that I could choose not to. My loyalty was to my family and to the Shadow Society, and that was just the way it was.”
Archer finally met Ridley’s eyes. “So you went all that time without telling your father about me,” she said, “but then you were going to give him a flash drive that had my name on it.”
Archer shook his head. “I removed your name. And Serena’s, and one other. I removed the names I recognized.”
Ridley felt a jolt of surprise, then reminded herself once again that most of what came out of Archer Davenport’s mouth was a lie, so he might very well be lying about this too. “Great, so a few of us would have been safe, but you were happy for the others to die.”