Chapter 26 #2
He folded my hand between both of his, warm and comforting.
“Ottilie, it’s time you tell me everything,” he said.
I drank in his touch. It was an anchor I wanted to cling to desperately. It was a direct path to my innermost fears and I had never been more grateful for a gesture.
Perhaps it made me short-sighted. Perhaps it proved me fickle, even when Lewis’s shadow loomed. But Harden’s expression was one of patience and a protective kind of trepidation, and his grasp was firm.
“The day after you gave us the box, Mr. Stoke sent me home early,” I told him. “He informed me he would take a holiday, and would not need me for some time. But he would leave my pay from Stillwell in the safe.
“The next morning I came to retrieve it, but Mr. Wake was there. He said he was Stillwell’s man, and that Mr. Stoke had failed to deliver the artifact and vanished. He demanded that I help him find Mr. Stoke. So I started looking. That night we crossed paths? That’s what I was doing, out so late.”
Thoughts passed behind Harden’s eyes but he did not interrupt.
“I had no idea Mr. Stoke took the artifact with him,” I said, numb. “I thought someone else had and we were both under threat because of them.”
“Stoke didn’t strike me as that kind of man,” Harden murmured. He watched something transpire across the room, half-focused. “To off with the artifact and leave you high and dry.”
“Nor I,” I admitted. “But there are… other factors.”
He returned his attention to me. “Like Wake not being Stillwell’s man? Some shock I had, when I trailed him right to Baffin’s own house.”
The flow of my honesty slowed then, and I searched myself. Just how much could I disclose? How much did I trust Harden?
I was not sure of the answer, despite the way his touch calmed and steadied me.
So I did not tell him of Pretoria or my time at Golden House. Instead, I focused on my time with Baffin, recounting the trunk and the conversation I had overheard between Baffin and his aide, of allowing the Zealots to kill me in order to provoke the Guild.
“Baffin succeeded, in that,” I concluded. “The Guild did intervene.”
Harden nodded, noncommittal and distracted. “A box,” he muttered. “He put you in a fucking box.”
“I was not the first.” I recalled all the memories I had pulled off the wood. “Not by far.”
“How do you know that?”
I realized, nearly too late, that I had yet to confess what class of Entwined I was to Harden.
“Scratch marks,” I said with a soulless smile. “On the inside.”
His hands tightened on mine but, thankfully, he did not linger on the topic. No, he moved on to something far worse.
“How did you escape from the Guild?” He raised his eyebrows at my wince. “It’s in the papers, Ottilie. There are rumors, too, about who you are.”
I had forgotten about that. I pulled away from him.
I hated to lose his touch, but just then, I needed the space.
I leaned against the opposite bunk post, taking a moment to order my thoughts.
But there were too many voices in the Separatists’ den, too much happening, too many lies crying out from the table of propaganda in the corner of my eye.
“Who am I, then?” I asked, bracing myself.
“Ottilie Rushforth.”
I felt something inside me give way. “Do they know?” I asked, nodding to the Separatists all around.
Harden watched me for another breath, then appeared to come to a decision. “Yes.”
“Then am I a prisoner?”
His expression was wan. “What use would you be as a prisoner?”
“You might force me to fight with you. There are only twelve Eventide Entwined in Arrent. A hundred the world over.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very special. But you’re also useless, unless you’re willing to cooperate.”
“Then you will not try to convince me to fight with you?”
“I already did. You said no, and I said I’d speak no more of it. I keep my word.”
I met his gaze, gratitude and respect loosening my chest and allowing me to breathe a little easier. They were a balm, but they could do little against three, undeniable truths.
First, I was unmasked. The papers knew Ottilie Fleet had been rescued from prison by the Guild, and rumors that I was a Rushforth were swiftly turning to fact.
Second, Grand General Baffin had the artifact. His hopes of learning how to trans form human into Entwined could now be pursued, with Dr. Maddeson’s enthusiastic support.
Third, Lewis was in Harrow.
My worries began to… not peel away, but to dampen, to grow more distant. My plans were threatening to disassemble, as was the city itself. The waters were so muddied I felt I could no longer see through them, save for the fact that, once more, I faced a choice.
I could walk away. I could run to Pretoria—wherever she was now—and allow her to save me.
Or I could keep fighting, keep reaching for the future I wanted.
Perhaps if I reframed the recent, terrible developments, they would not seem quite so bad?
I now knew where the artifact was. Lewis was here, not in The Sarre.
If he could be extricated from the Guild’s clutches, we could flee together as soon as the artifact was turned in and Stillwell’s bounty paid.
Given the secrecy of Baffin’s plans, there was a chance Stillwell, semi-disgraced after his failure to hold The Sarre, remained ignorant of it all, and still simply wanted his artifact back.
If not, perhaps I could find another buyer.
Pretoria certainly could, if I was willing to let her in.
My plans were still in motion, and with them, Lewis, Pretoria and Perry, Dr. Maddeson and Lord Stillwell. It was time to rejoin them on the game board.
I looked at Harden. “How do you feel about helping me rescue Lewis from the Guild?”