30. Chapter Thirty
Chapter thirty
O ur apartment feels tight with all of us in here. A small shiver runs over my bare arms as it sinks in what we’re about to do. Even if I don’t know all the details, I know enough to understand I am leaving whatever remains of ‘concierge Luka’ behind today.
Maybe more than that.
Nix is seated on the couch, one ankle propped on his knee, his checked shirt open to expose the top of his chest. The tension in his shoulders betrays the hesitation he’s trying hard to cover up. When his golden gaze finds mine, I know he’s just biding his time before he makes us all very aware of his thoughts.
I listen to the door close behind River, who held it open for Blossom and me. The sun is now completely in the sky above us, the sitting area bathed in light from the windows. My mind tugs at the memory of what happened in here last night, just to my left. It takes a lot of effort to stop the blush racing across my cheeks as I watch Quillian turn from where he was looking at the view and face us.
His gaze meets mine first and my heart skips. The softness I search for in his expression isn’t quite there but it’s somehow more comforting that it’s not. Today, my entire focus is how to get us off the island and if Quillian should come, too. With Cortane willing to help, our first port of call will need to be working out the wards – providing she’s not really planning to do anything to harm Quillian.
I don’t think about what either option means for him and me.
Nix gives Blossom a careful once over and she smiles gently back. A moment of something passing between them as we all watch on. Seeing her, sitting with us and engaging, as well as Nix’s now blood-free hands, eases another piece of tension in my heart. But the desperation for her to be safe, and away from Davorous, just moves further into its space.
The only way she will be that, is off this island.
‘Where should we start?’ River asks.
Quillian releases a wearied sigh. Like he knows this will be hard.
‘Traelen will be here to transfer you two tomorrow,’ he says. He glances at Blossom and me before looking back to Nix and River. ‘There are … things you can still achieve over there. But that is admittedly more of an end of the road situation.’
‘One we were going to take if needed,’ Nix says.
My mouth drops. ‘You mean you were expecting to go there?’
My question hangs for a long moment but it’s Nix I look at.
‘Not for sure, no. Claudius gave us the job of getting to Cortane and, at that time, we didn’t know you were also assigned as the contact for her. We also didn’t know if you were going to be successful in gaining her trust and getting her or us the information needed. Traelen transferring us was not the only risk if we failed up here, Lu.’
‘But you succeeded,’ River says to me.
I look at Quillian, but I know I have to be the one to tell them.
‘I didn’t, actually,’ I say. ‘I haven’t found anything on how to stop the wards.’
‘Well that puts a bit of a dampener on things, doesn’t it?’ a new voice interjects and I whirl back to the windows, where Cortane casually leans against the wall. The air rushes from my lungs and I hesitantly step between her and Quillian, giving him my back, with literally no idea how I can defend him against her – or if that’s what I need to be doing. Did I pass or fail that part of her assessment?
‘That’s cute,’ she says, her cool gaze running the length of my body. ‘It’s good to know my team has been effective.’
I’ve lost the ability to put my thoughts together, so all I can do is stare.
She takes a step towards us and I mirror her movements, not prepared to relinquish whatever position I have between her and the new Warden she wanted information on. Not until I know for sure what she intends to do. I wish I knew if River had his knife with him, the way she cocks her head makes me sure we might need it.
Her eyes narrow and she seems to take a second, deeper, look at me.
‘Are you going to step aside, or are we going to make a mess of your pretty dress, Princess?’
Her tone is not unlike when we first met, colder than the last time I saw her. When she agreed to help me.
‘Cort—’ Quillian starts.
‘That depends,’ I say. ‘Are you here to help, or hinder?’
A lethal smile slowly stretches across her face.
‘I think I sort of like you,’ she says and shrugs. ‘But I guess you should already know that. I definitely don’t make a habit of helping people I don’t like.’
Nix laughs. A real and open sound that bursts from him. Dragging my mind from the blankness, coating it in something crisper.
‘What is going on here?’ I grind out, not taking my focus from Cortane.
She stills, clasping her hands in front of her. She tilts her head to the other side and a shiver runs through me. ‘You’re not cleared to know that.’
‘Luka.’ I jump as Quillian appears at my side, his gentle fingers on my elbow. ‘Seeing us all together, knowing how we’re all connected … that’s a lot for us to be declaring. For now.’
Slowly, I turn to face him. The depth of his dark green eyes seems suddenly as bottomless as the other side of the precipice he talked about.
I place a hand on his chest and he leans into it slightly. ‘She asked for information on you ...’ My voice is so quiet, even to me, as I process my thoughts out loud. I don’t know how he can possibly hear me.
‘And you didn’t give it,’ he says, just as quietly.
My fingers flex where they lie on him and he gently places his hand over mine.
‘So it was a test?’ I ask, ready for them to admit it out loud.
‘One Claudius demanded,’ Cortane says.
‘We can talk logistics about getting off the island with you, and enough to give you an idea of our intent, Lu,’ River cuts in. ‘But that’s all. It will be a strange conversation and there’ll be a lot of gaps we can’t fill in. Not one of us is going to try and push you in a particular direction.’ I hold Quillian’s stare as I listen to River, the room spinning slightly, but I don’t tell them how much Quillian has already shared. ‘But there’s a hard limit on what we can share – everything we are, have done, and are preparing to do, are hanging by a thread here.’
‘For the record,’ Nix says, leaning back and throwing an arm across the back of the couch. ‘Under no circumstances do I agree to Luka joining us.’
I slide my gaze to him. ‘I don’t think you get to decide that.’
Quillian gives my fingers a gentle squeeze where they still lie over his blue shirt before he lets go and I drop my hand.
‘I wish I did,’ Nix says. ‘But I can kill—’
A weight appears on my chest, surrounded by a hot, simmering anger that suddenly burns.
‘What?’ I ask. ‘Who—’
‘That’s not helpful, Nix,’ River cuts in, shaking his head slightly.
‘You’ll kill only the people I tell you to,’ Cortane says and my knees start to lose their strength.
Blossom murmurs something under her breath and River looks worriedly at her but I look at Cortane. Quillian is the brothers’ commanding officer … is Cortane his?
‘What I can tell you,’ Quillian says, ‘is that we are a group of people that have, for one reason or another, been exposed to the underside of the Nuntainian government. Been on that side, seen or experienced the horrors, and decided to take a stand. But, being in this group does two things. One, it allows access to highly sensitive information we will never share with anyone who is not sympathetic to our cause. And two, while those in the group will protect each other at all costs, an association with us will still expose you to the full might of Nuntainian law, including sentencing to Vana.’
Even though it’s merely confirmation of what I’ve come to know, a carousel of thoughts and questions spins in my mind as the room falls silent for long moments.
‘Right now,’ River says into the quiet, ‘my feeling is that the conversation around each of you joining us long term or not is too big. So let’s just focus on our immediate challenge.’
‘Which is that you failed on the wards,’ Cortane says, cocking her head at me.
I sigh, trying to drag my focus to the task at hand even though part of my mind is snagged on a conversation I’ve had before. Zale and Akira talked of a vigilante group. Could this be …
My skin prickles under the attention of the room. ‘I have no ideas other than you, Nix, and River being marked with the tracking on your way down. Any other suggestions?’ I ask.
‘I wish,’ she says, looking at Quillian. ‘Looks like we’ll get to experiment a little more.’
‘I want to know what the ground rules are here,’ Blossom says, fixing Cortane with a steely stare.
‘Ground rules,’ Cortane says slowly, leaning against the arm of the couch. ‘Quillian.’
Quillian rubs his forehead briefly before dropping his arm back to his side.
‘In an ideal world, you would swear allegiance to … us, before ever getting this far. Right now, I think the best we can do is take your word for it. But it means we will be careful with any details we give you. You need to appreciate the significant risk that we’re taking should you decide to expose us, and understand if we feel that risk is rising – and no longer worth the return – that you will be … taken care of.’
‘That’ll win them over,’ Nix says sarcastically.
But he didn’t see the depth of truth in Quillian’s face when he said he wanted to fight for me, too. Doesn’t know the relief I’ve felt when I’ve discovered the crimes of those who have died – not relief that those crimes existed to ease any grief, but relief they’d died. Doesn’t know how much I now want to see actual justice done, and how I feel I can no longer stay here and watch it be perverted.
I give Blossom a moment, wishing I could read her mind, but she just looks steadily back. Nix was so unlike himself when she first met him, and it took me too long to understand why. Too long to ask what was happening with him.
‘Why, Nix?’ I ask gently. ‘Why don’t you want us to be part of this? Do you not believe in what you’re doing?’ I ask, and everyone else turns to him as well.
Nix’s brows lower as if he wishes I hadn’t asked him that question. ‘Of course I do. But I’m here – River is here – we can fight the corruption in our government on behalf of the three of us. Listen, Lu’—he shifts in his seat—‘there is no guarantee we will succeed in having any impact on the government and the skewed choices they make. But, if you join us, I can guarantee your life will never be the same. Outside of this room, of this prison , you can live the life I know you’ve always wanted.’ He glances sideways at Quillian. ‘Think about what we used to write about – you can live alongside Akira and Zale, your children could grow up together. You could study. You could … contact your father. You could have a life. ’ A lump forms in my throat and he tries to smile at me. ‘You could track down Hugo and have a boring husband to help you make as many of those children as you like.’
Quillian seems particularly still in the periphery of my vision but I don’t dare look at him.
My throat thickens with tears for the life I did think I would have, the one I wanted – minus the ‘boring Hugo’ bit perhaps. But Akira and Zale don’t need me to have children alongside them, they’ve already done that. And this prison doesn’t need me to keep up its pretense. Not to mention I don’t think I could keep up a false life of my own now, knowing what I do. How would I genuinely ‘live hard’, as Bloss said to me the day I was supposed to be collected, when I know what lies underneath?
But more than that, I’m not sure I am that person who only wanted all of those things anymore. Now, I’m someone who has seen more of what’s beneath the surface. Who knows there is a decision-making trail that leads back to someone, or multiple someones, back in Parliament House. Who understands that this prison is a symptom of something running much deeper in Nuntainia.
I am someone who feels on a precipice and I’m ready to find out what’s on the other side.
‘Outside of this room, Nix, I have nowhere else to be.’ The honesty in my words cracks something in me. It’s both true and not true – Akira or Zale would have me, so would my father if pressed. But in all of those places, at some point I would be just another guest. Another complication they have to work around. The thing they have to accommodate. The ‘almost’ that pulls them up short from those perfect lives. The thought of my father reminds me how desperately he wanted social equity in Nuntainia, how hard he worked with the government to achieve that. Perhaps this is a way I can help him with that?
Nix grips the back of his head before dropping his arm back to his side. He rests a fist on his knee and a small patch of jasmine on the balcony outside fizzes, turning black as it withers under his earth-wielding Clayti magic.
‘Then it’s done, and you’ve been warned,’ Cortane says. ‘Luka, you will take your collection as planned and get into the House.’
I press down on the objection that I don’t want to go to Parliament House, the want to ask if there is literally anything else I can do that will keep me with them. But I know that’s my role. If I am going to get to the bottom of what’s happening and help them put an end to it, that’s where I need to be.
‘Blossom,’ Cortane continues, ‘you will remain until I change your collection date in the system. At worst, you’ve got a little under a year until the next one.’
I can feel the blood drain from my face. ‘No—’
‘It’s the only way to keep her from being tracked,’ Quillian says gently, ‘that doesn’t put her at risk of being found by Hunters and sent to Vana.’
‘But—’ I look at Blossom, who also seems a little pale.
‘Finn will stay with her,’ he says, and I have to close my eyes for a moment. ‘And I will be here.’
‘No,’ I say again. ‘Tracking or no tracking, Bloss will only be safe when Davorous is dead.’ My heart slams in my chest at the conviction in my voice. Conviction that’s pounding in my veins. ‘Given we can’t do that yet, the next best thing is for her to leave.’
River shifts in his seat. ‘I agree.’
‘Bloss?’ I ask – plead.
Her gaze is watery when she looks up at me from where she sits next to River. ‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘I want to go.’
I blow out a breath and look back to Cortane, giving her a curt nod.
‘We go on dusk tonight,’ Cortane says, without missing a beat. ‘Right as the sun is setting – it will make it harder to see. Do what you need today, make any final attempts for information on the wards, and meet me on the other side of the gardens here.’ She jerks her thumb towards our window. ‘But we go today without fail. If you boys get transferred tomorrow, it will be almost impossible to get you out. The magic suppression in Vana isn’t a game – I don’t know how much longer I can work with what they gave me when I arrived, even with the lack of ongoing treatment thanks to Claudius. It’s certainly impacting the size of the portals I can create already.’
She walks to Quillian and embraces him, hard. ‘See you in a few, Warden .’
Until now, I hadn’t really let myself think about what it might be like to say goodbye to Quillian as well. Even if I can’t think how we can see each other while he’s here and I’m on the mainland, I know I’m not ready to give him up. Blossom takes my hand and I don’t stop her. Instead, I thread my fingers in hers and squeeze them tight. To hell with trying to show my strength to Cortane. Right now, as I prepare to send three of my best friends to likely be hunted for the rest of their lives, and say goodbye to Quillian when I am collected, I need Bloss’s strength.
I make myself look at Quillian to find him already looking at me.
‘Shall we take one last look?’ he asks.
We spend the next half an hour searching the office for anything that talks of the wards, only to keep coming up empty-handed. The office is quiet, only the sound of rustling papers and books being opened and closed filling my ears. An increasingly sinking feeling spreads through my body. Every page I turn shows nothing useful. Nothing.
I pick up the pencil drawing of the prison again, trailing a finger along the glass. It almost winks at me in return, mocking my inability to see how to break through the simple line framing the bottom of the island, almost the shape of a tea cup. If only I could smash it like a cup. Quillian joins me at the bookshelf and I turn to him, resisting the temptation to press myself into him.
‘It was special to him,’ I say, gesturing with the small frame. ‘But I don’t know why. If only it could talk to us, right?’
‘We’ll figure it out,’ he says.
He tips my chin up with the side of his knuckle and I inhale deeply, trying to keep my eyes dry. But my lip trembles when I meet his gaze and take in the gentleness in his expression.
‘I need you to promise me this isn’t just about Nix and River,’ he says softly.
The band that feels like it’s squeezing my chest winds tighter.
‘It’s not just about them.’
He presses a soft kiss to my lips and I press into it slightly, a tear running down my cheek.
‘I know you want to save them – us – and that’s … more incredible than I can explain. But it also needs to be about you and your—’
The door knob rattles and we break apart abruptly. Blinking, I look back to the door to find Traelen. Dressed in a charcoal suit today with an inky black trim. Two Hunters on either side.
‘Traelen,’ Quillian says without missing a beat. ‘What brings you back today?’
Traelen remains silent but jerks his head in Quillian’s direction. The two Hunters move to flank him and Quillian doesn’t even look at them. Just keeps his eyes on Traelen.
‘Quillian O’Daire,’ Traelen finally says. ‘You’re charged with treason and will be transferred to Vana Prison immediately.’
My gasp is audible and I flounder for words.
‘Luka,’ he says, ‘I trust you can keep things running up here until I find you another Warden. I have someone in mind – the transition shouldn’t take long.’
My throat starts to thicken and Traelen’s brows twitch downwards.
‘O–of course,’ I say.
The Hunters march Quillian towards the door and I grip my hands to stop from reaching out for him.
‘Keep the prisoners inside today, I have another team of Hunters sweeping the premises for the brothers as we speak.’
It’s all I can do to keep breathing.
‘You’re taking them all today?’ I ask.
Traelen nods, taking a step away.
‘What should I tell everyone about …’ I try not to look at Quillian. I fear if I do, everything will be given away on my face. But I need to keep them here for a little longer. To try and—
‘That the Warden was a traitor, a murderer, and perpetrator of war crimes.’ Quillian’s shoulders tense at the last words. ‘Tell them Nuntainia doesn’t abide traitors and their lives will be better without him.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I say dully.
‘It’s a shock, I know,’ Traelen continues and I want to scream at him to stop. ‘You’ve been an exceptional concierge, Luka,’ he says. ‘I’ll re-write your recommendation personally. It would be best not to have Quillian’s name on it where you’re going. Hale will come for you this week – just after I’ve transferred the Kilroy brothers so a Warden can have a fresh start. Janly will take over from you then until I appoint the new Warden.’
The edges of my vision start to blur with the effort of keeping my face neutral. I see the breadth of Quillian’s shoulders drop where he’s held just outside the doorway, his back still to me. His arms are twisted behind him, wrists bound so tightly a rivulet of blood drips into his right palm.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I breathe, and I watch them walk away.