14. I am the autumnal sun
I am the autumnal sun
One hour later, Tennyson stood with his hip against the hood of the car, trying not to obsess over how long it was taking Louna to return.
She had left the castle several minutes ago, after promising Cristian she would return early enough the following morning to help orchestrate the decorations.
It was the perfect cover for Louna, and the perfection of it made him feel like there was someone waiting around a corner with an anvil to drop on his head.
Things didn’t work out that painlessly in real life. They had to be missing something.
“Stop tapping,” Lindsey grumbled. “Is a little peace and quiet while I wait for my execution too much to ask?”
“You’re not going to be executed,” Tennyson said.
“You used to be better at hiding your anxiety,” Lindsey countered.
Tennyson pressed both palms against the cool metal hood. “I used to have fewer things to be anxious about.”
“Figured a kidnapping like this was nothing special,” Lindsey said. “Not compared with what you’re used to.”
He really had been listening. Everything Tennyson had said about his work with Harlow, the worries he’d poured into the unanswering earbud—Lindsey had heard it all. The thought made his throat feel tight, and new concerns sprouted like weeds over the vulnerability he’d gouged into his own defenses.
Lindsey had asked for his help because he had no choice, and because he was worried about the other Marines. It didn’t mean he’d accepted the things Tennyson had done.
“I’m not used to having to worry about anyone else,” Tennyson said at last.
Lindsey snorted. “You’ve been worrying about other people since preschool.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Louna said. She stepped into view through a shaft of golden sunlight beaming down between the bare oak branches, and Tennyson inhaled to keep from sighing in relief.
She lifted her eyebrows at him, and he scowled back. “Why did you volunteer me for the music?”
“Cristian said he didn’t have anyone who could play harpsichord,” she said.
“I can’t play harpsichord.”
“Oh,” Louna said, waving a hand. “It’s close enough to piano. You’ll be fine.”
“Do you still play piano?” Lindsey asked.
“He plays beautifully,” Louna said, her tone dismissive. She crossed the mud path between the main road and the car and sat on the hood beside him. “Did he learn when he was a child?”
Lindsey hummed. “We took lessons together when we were kids, but I never had a knack for it. Tennyson could play anything after hearing it once.”
“Shut up,” Tennyson said.
“Do you know any Liszt?” Louna asked.
Tennyson crossed his arms. “You want to free Lindsey during the party, then?”
“Of course,” Louna said. “Cristian is desperate to make a statement with this event, so I convinced him to make the dance a masquerade. He will have cloaks and masks to hand out to every guest. It will be the perfect cover to sneak Lindsey out of the castle.”
“Where are you going to get the cloaks and masks?” Tennyson asked.
“I have my ways.”
“Ilya again?”
“Not every secret is tied back to Ilya,” Louna said. “What about you? What did you find on your little walk?”
His irritation cycled immediately back to worry. “There’s at least a dozen guards on the grounds. If I stick around to watch their patrol patterns, I can figure out a way to break in overnight.”
“By tomorrow?” Louna asked.
No. He’d need more time to put together the pattern, and he wanted a full twenty-four hours to observe before attempting anything. They would only get one shot at this.
His silence answered for him, and Louna nodded. “I will get you music to practice,” she said. “And I’ve arranged to have Philippe and Jean-Claude attend as florists. Then all we have to do is break Lindsey out, give him a mask, and walk out the front door.”
“How am I supposed to break Lindsey out while I’m playing harpsichord?”
“You won’t be playing all night,” Louna said. “You’ll be free to enjoy the party after your set. Isn’t it perfect?”
It was. Damn it.
“Come on, then,” Louna said, tossing Tennyson the keys. “We should get back to Jean-Claude and Philippe.”
Tennyson caught her wrist loosely. She stopped and looked back at him, and he opened his mouth, but bit back the words at the last second.
He needed to stay behind. There were too many unknowns—he hadn’t seen Hartmann, and still didn’t know what he planned to do with Lindsey, especially now that he had more witnesses to contend with.
The way it sounded, Cristian Ardelean and his party had been a surprise to them all, and there was no knowing how Hartmann would react to it.
Tennyson couldn’t leave Lindsey without backup.
But Louna was keeping secrets. Whatever she’d gone to discuss with the Russian professor was important enough to keep from him, and he didn’t want to leave her to her own devices.
“What is it?” she asked, her body language stiff.
He couldn’t trust her. Not to tell him the truth, not until she was ready—if she ever was.
He couldn’t even ask it of her after the way they’d met.
The lies he’d told, the danger he’d put her in...
He didn’t blame her for withholding. She couldn’t trust him, either, and she wouldn’t wait idly by while he tried to do this on his own.
Whatever she was up to, at least she could do it safely from the Nest.
“You go,” he said softly. “Someone should stay with Lindsey.”
Louna raised her eyebrows, and Tennyson went on before she could argue. “We don’t know what Hartmann’s orders are. If he’s only waiting for the witnesses to leave, Lindsey won’t stand a chance.”
“I can take care of myself,” Lindsey put in.
“You’re unarmed and handcuffed,” Tennyson said. “If Hartmann comes in with a gun, what are you going to do?”
“What are you going to do?” Lindsey retorted.
“Stop him,” Tennyson said, his voice clipped.
Louna was still looking at him, searching his face for hidden motives. “What’s your plan?” she asked at last. “Spend the night alone in the woods? It’s freezing.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tennyson said.
“But what will you eat?”
“It’s one night,” Tennyson said, giving her a faint smile. “I won’t starve.”
“You aren’t dressed warmly enough,” she insisted.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve had training missions worse than this. Lindsey, tell her.”
“Leave me out of this,” Lindsey said.
He exhaled and pressed the keys into Louna’s hand. “You go,” he repeated. “Tell Jean-Claude and Philippe what’s going on, make your preparations for the masquerade, and I will see you in the morning.”
Her eyes narrowed, and a frown settled over her lips, drawing his attention distractingly. She paused so long that he thought she was going to keep sparring, but after another breath, she stepped back and pushed her hands into her pockets. “I’ll need your measurements, Lindsey.”
She turned away, and he had the sudden impulse to reach out and stop her, to pull her into his arms and confess everything—his misgivings, his lies, his feelings.
To whisper his worries against her lips and tell her that he knew she was worried too, and that he would listen if she brought her fears to him.
That he would wait until she was ready, no matter how long that took.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. Tennyson blinked, torn from the image of them together, and gave an unsteady nod.
She got into the car without another look at him, and he backed away from the door as she started the engine. “I’ll prepare a costume for both of you,” she said, backing onto the main road. “And a mask to go with them, of course.”
Tennyson took a long, slow breath, letting the cold air fill his lungs as the car drove away.
It was unsettling, watching Louna disappear between the trees while her voice continued in his ear.
He stayed where he was until he could no longer hear the crunching of tires over frozen earth, and then he turned and slipped into the skeletal forest.
A roof of pines and fir had dispersed the snowfall, leaving the ground beneath the trees safe to walk without leaving obvious tracks.
Even so, Tennyson took care to avoid patches of mud, iced-over puddles, and loose bark.
He made his way down the sloping earth, intending to scout the entire grounds surrounding the castle before dark—starting with the steep bluff on the southern side of the keep.
“The cloaks will have hoods,” Louna said, her voice clear in his earbud. “Dark greens will look so nice with your complexion, Lindsey.”
“My hair, you mean,” Lindsey said.
“Well, we must make it appear as though you dressed intentionally, no?”
“It’s prom all over again,” Lindsey grumbled.
“Oh, tell me!” Louna cried. “Did you go with Tennyson? Did the two of you dress to match?”
“We didn’t go together,” Tennyson growled. He ducked under a branch, careful not to break any of the grasping twigs, and stepped lightly onto a scattering of stones. “How many times do I have to tell you that Lindsey isn’t my ex?”
“His girlfriend asked me to meet her behind the bleachers the week before the dance,” Lindsey said. “I didn’t have a date, and she wanted me to take her instead. You can’t blame her—I was quarterback, Tenny was just a linebacker.”
Louna gave an appropriately theatrical gasp. “You stole his girlfriend?”
“No,” Lindsey said. “I told him what happened, and that meant neither of us had dates to prom. Our moms still wanted pictures, so we put on our tuxes and then spent the rest of the night fishing.”
He trailed off uncomfortably, as if realizing how companionable his tone had been.
The image came to Tennyson as clearly as if it had happened a day ago, rather than a lifetime.
They’d sat on the bridge over Cedar Creek, their jackets open, their bow ties hanging loose from their collars, pulling in buckets of bluegill and sunfish.
It had been a much more pleasant night than he’d expected when he got dressed that evening.
It was three months after Tennyson’s father died, two weeks after his eighteenth birthday.
That night, he’d confessed to Lindsey that he planned on leaving after graduation.
He didn’t know where to go, but he knew he couldn’t stay at home, waiting for his dad to walk in from the barn and ask him how his day was.
He couldn’t stand listening through the wall as his mother cried herself to sleep, only for her to greet him dry-eyed in the morning as though nothing was wrong.
He’d taken his father from her, from his siblings, and he didn’t want to be their constant reminder of what they’d lost.
He was going to run, he said, and Lindsey had cast his line out into the water and answered without looking at him.
“Don’t leave without me.”
It was Lindsey’s idea to join the military. They were both eighteen, and when they found a recruiter willing to take them on the promise of earning their HSEDs, they dropped out of school and left for bootcamp.
Tennyson hadn’t been home since.
The grounds around the castle were wild but dormant, tucked up in the silence and stillness of winter slumber.
There were too many people around for wildlife, but the evidence of their passing was there.
Deer droppings and scrapes, squirrels’ caches, bird nests.
He listened to the wind in the branches, feeling the weak, pale sun on his face as it dappled his path.
“Thoreau for a walk in the woods,” his father used to say. “The man couldn’t commit to meter to save his life, but he knew how to be one with the wilderness.”
Tennyson stopped, blinking away the memory of his father walking ahead of him, showing him where to step on the trail without leaving evidence of his passing.
They used to walk the woods around the farm when Tennyson was a child, and his father always recited Thoreau.
“Frost for the farmland,” he used to say. “Thoreau for the woods.”
His favorite was “I am the autumnal sun”, and he recited it regardless of the season. The words came back to him now, and he had to clench his jaw to keep from speaking them out loud.
The mast is dropping within my woods,The winter is lurking within my moods,And the rustling of the withered leafIs the constant music of my grief....
Hopefully whatever music Louna wanted him to play would be more lively.
His father would have liked her.
The realization made him start walking again, and he kept his thoughts reined in until he reached the bluff, where he paused to study the clumps of brush clinging to the face of the cliff.
Wherever the dungeon was, the cells would be impossible to breach from inside the walls of the keep, and the entrances would all be watched.
But no one would expect an assault from the cliff.
Tennyson stretched out his healing arm, flexing the muscles, and found a handhold in the stone wall.
And started to climb.