32. The Quiet Rebellion
The Quiet Rebellion
The gun clicks.
But no bullet releases.
Dezeeves continues to sit opposite me, alive and well. His shirt isn’t blooming rose red. His eyes aren’t rolling back in his head.
I have failed yet again.
One second he’s staring at me, a look of complete horror on his face.
And then his features twist. Go in on themselves, like they’ve imploded. He’s laughing.
It’s a laugh I wish I could rip from his larynx.
Loud, hoarse.
Hacking. Cruel.
Wordlessly, I rise to my feet and hurl the empty gun across the room.
He’s wiping his eye. Through the broadest smile I’ve ever seen him wear, he wheezes, “You wanted to kill me? You are a wonder, Ara.”
It doesn’t matter. I can kill him another way.
I try to draw my power to me.
But Dezeeves laughs harder.
“I hope you’re not now considering making me strangle myself. Don’t you know some magic is impossible?” He beams at me like a war is won. “Forcing someone to commit an action that would result in their direct death would certainly fall under that category.”
The air is knocked out of me.
And honestly, the light around me dies anyway. I don’t think I could summon any magic even if I believed it could work.
I’m powerless again.
Still chuckling to himself, he grabs his flask. Swigs deeply from it.
Placing it back on the table, he says, calmer, “The Queen trained you well. Perhaps, too well. She has prepared herself a formidable opponent indeed. If that is what you wish to be to her.”
“It is,” I insist. “She lies to her people, just like Hevalla always claimed. My country really is starving while she lives in splendour—”
He doesn’t let me finish. He speaks as if speaking to himself.
“I suppose the results of Integration do vary greatly from person to person. The Queen tasked me with protecting her soldiers where I could. She knows many have blood magic, which should not be spilled – not when it could be used to boost the dome. I found many of her people to be loyal to their country to the end, and of course, they are still here today. I found, some, would let concepts of right and wrong cloud their better judgement – and some simply didn’t understand the process and chose the gun, thinking that is what they were required to do. These people all had to be weeded.”
He looks at me slanted.
“And now we have you. You understand Integration, and what I have been trying to do, unknown to my officers. You have no love for Hevalla and its regime of supposed equality. You were loyal to Rhavna, once. Yet still, you chose the gun.”
“And what a predicament that must be for you,” I say, with a wave of my hand. “Seeing as – unlike anyone else who failed – you can’t just go ahead and kill me.”
He sways in his chair. “The Queen requires you. It was believed you would be the female to fulfil The Soulmates fortune. But, perhaps…”
“Perhaps, what?”
“You, personally, are not valuable, Ara. You were trained to be a queen, yes, but many women could be – and of course, would long to be. What makes you valuable is the blood magic that was given to you. If you truly have no interest in supporting the Crown Prince, and you truly are as opposed to the Queen as you appear to be, then the best way forwards may simply be…” He trails off with a smile.
“Tell me.”
“For the Queen to begin again.”
I scoff, leaning over his desk. “What? She should start putting Drake’s magic into someone else?”
Dezeeves sits back in his chair. Comfortably. Contently. Like I am the entertainment that has been brought in specially for him.
“In a way, yes. But I believe you didn’t quite understand my meaning. Drake’s magic was already split once. It wouldn’t be split again. What has already been split would be used.”
Leisurely, he takes the drawing compass from his desk. Stabs the metal point, hard, into the binding of a book.
It leaves a tiny hole.
His meaning couldn’t be clearer.
The magic wouldn’t be bled from Drake.
It would be bled from me.
“It’s a good thing we’re not in Rhavna, then, isn’t it?” I ask, trying to gain the upper hand again, despite the pounding of my heart. “You couldn’t just bleed me here.”
“Let me correct you again. We are not in Rhavna yet.”
Yet. He said yet. Because –
I go cold.
Mother is waiting for her guests.
I’m backing away from him – but the sound of the door opening behind me distracts me. Someone tall and bony is striding through it, white robes flowing. His pale, dry-looking face seems to shine as brightly as his bald head.
“Superb timing, Vikemy,” Dezeeves says. “Good flight?"
Vikemy sweeps past me. He takes the seat I was just in, dropping a hefty book stamped with the crest of The Assembly onto the table.
I’m stunned to see him.
But then it makes sense.
Chapp’s State Craftsman had come on board The Emperor for the trial, and to deliver the verdict. And Vikemy, State Craftsman of our village, would be Cosmer’s.
“Alone with unshackled prisoners again, Dezeeves?” he drawls, opening the book. “Anyone would think you had a death wish.”
“That is often exactly what I have,” Dezeeves says, perfectly monotone.
“What a pity Ara threw her opportunity.” His flask has found his hand again.
“Ara, before you go – I do agree with you that spending any longer in Integration would not be fruitful for you or Drake at this stage. I will change your statuses to Fully Integrated. I will let the Laundry know you will be collecting standard uniform shortly.”
I go straight to the door. Grasp the handle.
“And I would urge you,” he continues behind me, “to think very carefully, these next couple of days, about what it is that you are hoping to achieve in this lifetime. I promise you it will be very little, if you continue to make the wrong choices.”
I walk out of the room with my head high, hoping that gives me back at least some of the dignity I just lost.
And I should go straight up to the airlock. There is no other option. I can’t stay on this ship a minute longer. Can’t stay alive a minute longer. Not if my choices are to marry Drake and let my magic combine properly with his, or be bled until there is nothing left in me.
But even as I think it, I know in my soul I’m not going to do that. Not when I still have people who love me and need me.
The grate to the deck is open. I head out of it, towards the stairs.
But they’re blocked.
Riss is sitting hunched at the bottom of them.
She’s crying.
And I understand.
I run over to her. Wrap my arms around her small frame. She hugs me back fully.
“You heard every word,” I whisper.
Through sobs, she says, “We all liked Dezeeves. We all trusted him.” She loosens from me. “I wish you had managed to kill him.”
“So do I.”
She wipes her face on her sleeve. “We need to tell Ephraine Dezeeves is a traitor. He can tell the Assembly.”
I ponder that. Maybe she’s right. The Assembly can investigate Dezeeves as a traitor – maybe even investigate Vikemy. It will still end with Dezeeves’ death, which needs to happen, knowing everything I know now. The tainted person he really is, the deaths over his head.
It’s ironic. If I’d known Dezeeves was a traitor before I knew what the Queen’s reign is really like, I’d have been thrilled. Maybe this would have ended differently.
“What about the FIs?” I ask her. “I wouldn’t want them to be killed.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t be. They might just be made prisoners of war. Actual prisoners of war. I’m sure they can think of somewhere to keep them. They could even be traded to the Queen, if she had any of our own hostages.”
She has a point. I can’t imagine Ephraine would murder so many people who have already been captured and have, in some cases, actively been fighting for Hevalla, regardless of their true loyalties.
“Let’s go now,” I say.
We don’t need to go into The Bridge. Ephraine and Meg are just leaving it when we arrive.
“Back again?” Ephraine smirks, sweeping back his blonde hair. He would be a handsome man. If he didn’t seem so advanced as a human with his metal eye and threateningly well-built body.
“Can we speak with you?” Riss asks. With a glance at Meg, she adds, “Alone?”
“Why?”
“It’s important,” she says. “It’s about the ship.”
“Then I should be involved in the conversation, too,” Meg inputs.
I face her. She looks completely innocent.
But we can’t trust her. Even forgetting the fact she was encouraging Drake, she’s FI’d.
That would mean she knows about Dezeeves, and knows the truth about our country, if she didn’t already.
But I don’t see her doing anything to try to help.
For all I know, she’s just as loyal to the Queen as Dezeeves is.
“No,” I say, answering for Riss. “This matter concerns Ephraine only.”
I can tell Meg hates that. Her scowl is instant and fossilising.
“All right,” Ephraine grunts. “But this had better be quick.”
“We’ll talk in the garden,” Riss says.
He makes to follow us. But I could have sworn, just for a second, he touched the gun at his side.
The Sky Deck’s humidity gets under my skin as I tell Ephraine everything – apart from the truth about Integration. I want to at least try to protect the FIs.
And I can’t shake it. This feeling that we’re doing the wrong thing.
I wish I had Cosmer to talk it all through with. He would know exactly what the right thing to do would be, with the least loss of life.
But he isn’t here.
My only ally – friend – left is Riss, and since she thinks this is the right thing to do…
I end by telling Ephraine how Dezeeves believes, for some reason, we will be in Rhavna soon.
“Is that the plan?” I ask him. “To fly certain crew members to Rhavna?”
“There has never been such a plan,” Ephraine replies.
“I have no idea how Dezeeves believes he could enact that.” His metal eye twitches over me, but his real eye remains settled.
“These are incredibly serious allegations. Do you have any proof of what you’ve told me?
As ‘Dezeeves told me’ and ‘I heard the conversation from across the hall’ just won’t cut it for The Assembly. ”
Riss looks panicked.
But I’m calm.