Chapter Thirty-Two #4
She looked Isolde over from boots to coat, then reached automatically for the green scarf where one edge had folded beneath the collar.
Her fingers straightened the silk with the same practical care she brought to everything at Northglass, and the familiarity of the gesture nearly broke Isolde more effectively than a dramatic farewell could have.
“You packed,” Elettra said.
“Yes.”
“I saw the box outside your room.”
“I don't know if I'm coming back.”
Elettra's hands paused against the scarf. “Neither do I.”
The honesty hurt.
Isolde hugged her before either of them could ruin the moment by becoming reasonable.
Elettra stiffened briefly, then wrapped both arms around her with surprising strength. “Do not die,” she murmured near Isolde's hair. “It creates paperwork, and Marco becomes unbearable about paperwork.”
A shaky laugh escaped Isolde. “I'll do my best to protect you from administrative inconvenience.”
“I appreciate that.”
When they separated, Elettra touched her cheek once and looked at her with none of the false reassurance Isolde had come to hate. “Whatever happens after tonight, make sure the decision belongs to you.”
The greenhouse conversation returned immediately.
Eventually he should have to open the gate.
Isolde nodded. “I intend to.”
Taddeo waited near the front entrance with Marco and Luca.
He had changed into black tactical clothing beneath a long dark coat, the weapon at his side concealed enough that a stranger might miss it and obvious enough that Isolde no longer did.
Marco looked as though sleep had been abandoned several days earlier as a concept, while Luca moved between the first vehicle and the equipment cases with the efficient concentration of someone who preferred cars to conversations.
Taddeo's eyes found Isolde immediately.
His attention moved over her from boots to scarf, checking for practical problems rather than lingering anywhere intimate. When he noticed the coat, Isolde touched one lapel and said, “Your weather recommendation was sound.”
“Good.”
Neither mentioned what he had told her upstairs.
Not here.
Not surrounded by men preparing for an ambush.
Taddeo turned and opened the front door.
Cold predawn air entered Northglass, bringing salt from the cliffs and enough wind to lift a strand of Isolde's hair from beneath her scarf.
For a moment, she did not move.
The threshold looked almost offensively ordinary.
She had crossed it under guard before, passed through it on the way to the museum while security determined every stage of the journey, and stared toward it during days when simply walking outside required permission.
Beyond the vehicle court, the long drive curved through trees toward the main gate, the same gate she had spent the storm trying to reach by any route except the obvious one.
Tonight nobody touched her.
Nobody told her to move.
Taddeo stepped outside first and waited several feet away.
Isolde followed because she had decided to go to Terminal Fourteen.
She descended the front steps with the map in her pocket, crossed the vehicle court, and climbed into the armored sedan without anyone guiding a hand to her back or closing fingers around her arm.
She was still leaving Northglass inside Bellandi security.
The terminal was still dangerous. Cesare and Corwin had still built an exchange in which her presence appeared among the terms.
None of those facts changed why she entered the car.
She chose to.
Before Luca pulled away, Isolde opened the terminal map beneath the muted interior light one final time.
Western service road. Loading apron. Concrete wall.
North warehouse. Rail side. Quay. She traced each feature until the geography existed clearly enough in her mind that she no longer needed labels, then folded the paper and tucked it away to leave behind before they entered the terminal.
Taddeo sat beside her without speaking.
His hand rested on the seat between them.
Close enough that she could take it.
Far enough that he had not offered it as another decision she needed to make.
Isolde left the distance where it was.
The sedan moved down the drive.
As Northglass receded behind them, she turned toward the rear window.
The estate stood pale against the dark coastal sky, most of the upper windows unlit except for the lamp still burning in the room where her packed suitcase waited beside the bed.
The gardens she had once mapped for escape disappeared behind trees, and ahead, the black security gates began opening before the vehicles reached them.
Isolde watched the iron barriers move apart.
The first night she came to Northglass, those gates had closed behind her because Taddeo Malfatti had decided where she belonged.
Tonight they opened.
She did not know whether she would come back through them.
She did not know whether she would leave Terminal Fourteen with Corwin, return alone to Mercer Street, come back to Northglass, or discover by morning that every choice she imagined had been replaced by something none of them could predict.
For once, uncertainty did not feel like another form of captivity.
The sedan passed through the open gates and turned toward Crownport.
Isolde faced forward.
Whatever waited at Terminal Fourteen, she was going because she had chosen to be there.
And whatever came afterward would have to begin with the same thing.