CHAPTER FIVE
I pace my rooms the next day, long grey dress brushing the ground as I try to decide what to do about Selene. Should I go to Ironhold? Should I demand to see her to work out what she’s doing? Should I go there and try to find proof that she’s the psychomancer I believe her to be?
What kind of proof could I find, though?
And if I go there, what can I say? That I had a bad dream and couldn’t connect to the animals near her?
Selene would probably laugh at me for that and make as much as she could of my weakness.
She would use it as an opportunity to belittle me, and probably demand to know why I’m spying on her anyway.
She might be able to sway support away from me and to her.
That would only make her more dangerous.
What can I do to help the people she's influenced in the city?
I might not have proof, but I'm convinced she's gained influence over Octavio and Oliva, Cesca, and others.
Can I do anything to break them free of Selene's grip?
I've been able to escape the control of psychomancers in the past, thanks to my magic as a beast whisperer, but I can't see a way to use those powers to help others.
Could I find a psychomancer of my own to counteract Selene’s efforts? It might be dangerous. If they’re powerful enough to save the senators, they’re probably also powerful enough to control them. I might be replacing one threat with another.
I’m still considering that when there’s a knock at the doors to my room that snaps me out of my thoughts. I assume it’s a servant, coming to me with more papers and reports to consider. I can’t ignore my duties as a senator, so I head over and open the doors.
It isn’t a servant. Instead, Marcus stands there, in his senatorial toga, looking nervous in a way he never normally does.
“Marcus?”
It’s a surprise to see him here, when we’ve barely spoken to one another in the weeks since I found him at the heart of a series of death matches within the city, running the underground games and pulling in wealthy supporters.
He hasn’t made any effort to talk to me since, although in truth, we’ve only really seen one another in the senatorial box of the games, and it isn’t as though we can really speak openly there.
There are too many people who might overhear us and neither of us wants to admit to having been in the middle of the illegal fights.
“I wanted to speak to you,” he says. “May I come in?”
I hesitate. After everything that’s happened, a part of me wants to turn him away and shut the door once again.
“Please, Lyra,” he says, with a pleading look in his eyes. “I don’t want us to fight like this.”
“Is that all this is to you?” I ask. “Just a fight?”
Marcus shakes his head. “I know it’s bigger than that, but I still hope we can work things out between us. We were going to be married!”
Actually, I never got around to accepting his proposal before I discovered the truth about him. I’m glad I didn’t get to that point. I suspect it would have hurt even more to find out that he was running the illegal games if I’d been engaged to be his wife.
It still hurts more than enough as it is.
“But then you betrayed me,” I say. “You betrayed everything I believe in by running-”
“Please,” he says. “Can we talk inside? Or, better yet, out in the gardens?”
He’s obviously worried about being overheard by the servants.
It’s not an unreasonable concern, when many of the messages I’ve received seem to have been read by spies, and when every senator seems to try to find out the business of every other by whatever means they can.
Even I’m guilty of it, since I once broke into Senator Domitian’s rooms, searching for proof that he was about to betray the Republic.
“You haven’t wanted to talk to me for weeks,” I point out.
“I… I didn’t know what to say,” Marcus replies. “I hoped that if I waited long enough, the right words would come to me, or you’d want to talk, and things would cool off a little. Or I thought I might be able to just forget about you. That I might be able to stop myself from feeling anything.”
“You were hoping that you might be able to just keep ignoring me?” I say.
Marcus winces. “Please, Lyra. Please, just walk with me. If, by the time we’ve walked the grounds, you still don’t want to speak to me, I’ll leave you be.”
I hesitate again, then nod. “Very well.”
I want answers from him, and I’m not going to get them here.
Maybe, if I take this walk with him, Marcus will be able to explain his involvement in the death matches in a way I can forgive, or at least understand.
Maybe we’ll be able to find a way to make things right between us once more, even if I can’t see how we could ever do that.
So I walk with him down into the gardens of what was once the imperial palace.
The gardens are spectacular, with flowers larger than my head and trees that provide patches of shade.
Gardeners work with magic as much as with shears or scythes, shaping the plants so that they grow in the most beautiful ways possible.
There are animals too, in a great menagerie that was once intended to show off the power of the emperor.
There are lions, tigers, and stranger creatures.
Birds flit from tree to tree, while butterflies the size of my hand move between the flowers.
I love to walk here, the sun warming my skin as Marcus and I make our way along one of the paths.
“What did you want to say to me?” I ask him. I want to know what he can say that might possibly make me think better of him.
I want to think better of him, though. I can’t deny the attraction I feel every time Marcus is close to me, the way my body responds to his presence.
I can’t ignore everything that was between us before, or the ways in which Marcus is a good, even great, man.
He’s clever and kind, seems to care about the people of the city.
It's just, those things don't outweigh the things he's done, the ways he's contributed to people fighting to the death in the city. Marcus needs to explain himself or I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive him, however much I care about him.
“I want things to be all right between us,” Marcus says.
“How can they be, when you were lying to me for so long, and when you were running deathmatches beneath the city streets?”
Marcus looks briefly ashamed, but only briefly. “Someone had to. Do you think, after Domitian fell, that those fights were just going to go away? At least if I was the one running them, I had some control.”
“Meaning you got to choose which people lived or died,” I say. “That doesn't make things better, Marcus.”
“It meant I was able to limit the number of people dying,” Marcus says. “But it also means I've been able to build up contacts and connections that I would never have been able to if I were just a senator.”
“You're justifying it on the basis that it gives you additional power?” I say, barely able to believe it.
Marcus shakes his head. “Although I've been able to use that power for the good of the people. I've made sure the gangs don't get in the way of Rowan's rebuilding projects in the slums. I've been able to persuade senators to vote for projects that will help the poorest people in Aetheria.”
“Through corruption,” I say. “You’re a part of the most corrupt aspects of the city, Marcus.”
“But don't you see, Lyra? That's the whole point.”
He walks with me into a space surrounded by rose bushes, their tangled briars reminding me of the deadly networks of favors and threats within the city.
“The whole point is for you to get as immersed in corruption as possible?” I ask. I don't understand where he's going with this, or how Marcus thinks it will improve my opinion of him.
Marcus sighs, looking down for a moment.
“I know as well as you do that corruption is a problem in the city.
The Republic is young, but it's already mired in layers of favors and grift and bribes.
It's tempting to ignore all that and do things the right way, but that just means it builds up in the background, until it's ready to burst and drown us all in the filth it has produced.”
“I'd think more about your stand against corruption if you weren't the one running fights to the death,” I say.
Marcus spreads his hands. “We can't root out the corruption in the city if we don't know the details of who’s involved with what.
We can't bring the corrupt elements back onto the right path if we don't have any influence over them. And where there must be corrupt elements, at least we can use them for good ends, ensuring innocents don’t get hurt.
I gain that influence through running the fights, and because I'm the one running them, people trust me. I've learned more about the things going on in this city since I stepped into Domitian’s place than I ever learned before.”
I stand there staring at him, wondering if he truly believes it.
“You told me all this before, with Domitian,” I point out.
“You told me that you were only involved in the games to bring them down from the inside.
You played your part in taking down Domitian.
So now you're going to try to tell me you're doing it all again?
How many times do you get to tell me that you're only up to your neck in filth to root out that filth before I stop believing you, Marcus?”
He looks hurt. “You can't really believe I want to be corrupt?”
“I think you want power,” I say. I raise a hand to forestall his objection.
“I know you want it for what you believe are the right reasons.
I know you think that if you have power within the city, you'll do all the right things for the people, but does that make any of this right, Marcus? How many people get hurt so you can connect a little deeper with the people who give you what you want? How many people have died in your matches?”
“I'm doing what I can for the people,” Marcus says. “When the time is right, I'll expose the most corrupt of those involved, and force the rest to work the right way. By doing this, we're gaining control of a whole layer of power and money beneath the surface.”
“We?” I say, surprised that he still thinks in those terms even now.
Marcus puts his hands on my arms. “I've never stopped caring about you, Lyra. I hope you can see I'm doing this for the best.”
“I know you think you are,” I say. “Or at least, that you want me to believe you are.”
“I'm not lying to you, Lyra,” he says.
“How can I tell?” I counter. “Give me something real, Marcus. Give me proof of what's going on. Show me that you're not just in this for yourself.”
Marcus pulls back from me. “I hoped you would trust me more than this.”
“After last time?” I say.
Marcus looks hurt. “I know I have a long way to go to regain your trust. But I'll do it, Lyra. I want things to be better between us. I want to prove to you that I’m the man you used to care about, and that I love you.”
I don't know if those words make me feel better or worse. They start a dull ache within me. My feelings for Marcus haven't gone away, but things aren't so simple. I don't know if we can ever get back to where we were.
“It's time for me to head back,” I say.
“Please just think about the things I've said,” Marcus says.
I suspect I'll do little else. I’ll lie awake thinking about Marcus and everything he means to me. About where we might be headed. I need to work out what I want from him, and if there can ever be anything between us again.