Chapter 40
I pounded on the door of Pretoria’s hotel room. There was no sound of movement beyond, but I sensed I was being watched through the peephole. I pounded again, desperate.
The door opened and Pretoria stood there, her expression aghast.
“Zealots,” I croaked with what little voice I had left.
I was immediately folded into a desperate embrace, and held my sister tightly in return. We clung to one another until my trembling slowed and the ferocity of her grip softened to a gentler, cradling hold.
Someone, meanwhile, closed the door behind us.
Through misty eyes, I saw Lewis. He supported himself with a walking stick for his bandaged leg, and his eyes had a haunted, near-maddened quality to them.
I saw no outright evidence of Thera’s work, but there was something hidden in the way he looked at me. A conversation yet to be had.
“Your Mr. Harden and Perry are searching the streets for you.” Pretoria stole my attention again. She was pawing at my cheeks, my throat, taking in my injuries. “Are these marks from—”
“Yes,” I rasped.
Lewis moved, and the next thing I knew, I had a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. His arms came with it, and Pretoria yielded to his larger frame.
Lewis held me, properly held me, with both arms and a gentleness I felt through my bones. When I pulled away and looked up at him, the expression on his face was cobbled from unanswered questions and battered stoicism.
A muffled sound came from the bathroom. I looked sharply to the side and saw Dr. Maddeson tied to a chair on the tiled floor, his hair mussed, and his cheeks puffed around a gag.
The sight was so unexpected that it shattered my fugue. “How did you manage to keep him?”
She sank down on the edge of the bed. Lewis, transitioning his hold to one arm, led me over and I sank down at her side. He hovered above us, weight on a cane.
“The professor swiftly realized that staying with Perry and I was safer than being alone on the streets. Until we got to the hotel, of course. Then he attempted to run.” She leaned forward to shoot the professor a long look. “You will not be doing that again, will you, sir?”
Maddeson shook his head defeatedly.
“What…” Lewis brought my gaze back to his face. He had one hand in his hair, raking it back as he fought an internal battle.
“Not yet,” I said. “I cannot explain… not yet.”
They accepted that. Pretoria found another blanket and some water, and as I sat under their ministrations, my hammering heart finally slowed.
Perry returned soon after, with Harden in company. Both wore immaculate soldiers’ uniforms and greeted me with obvious relief.
“You know how to worry a man,” Harden rebuked. He took me in in one sweep, seeming to see far more than the blankets and my pale face. He exchanged a glance with Lewis.
Too many unspoken things hung in the air. I gathered my courage, and my voice, and spoke. “I have decided on a course of action.”
“We can discuss what to do later—” Lewis started to say, but I cut him off with a shake of the head.
“No,” I said. “Let me speak.”
They let me.
“Baffin has made his move against the Zealots,” I stated. “That means either they broke from his control, or he no longer needs them. Either way, Baffin’s plans to cement his hold on the city and oust all Entwined are succeeding, and in their final stages.”
I looked at Harden, an apology in my eyes.
“We cannot save Harrow. We cannot. But we can prevent Baffin from pursuing his research into the artifacts. I know it seems like the least of our concerns, but if he succeeds, as I believe he will”—I did not say why, just then, but I shifted my gaze to Lewis—“his power will become absolute. He believes the artifacts can be used to grant humans the power of the Entwined. I think, perhaps, he is not far from the truth.”
Lewis and Harden stood side by side, their expressions varied arrangements of incredulous, irate, and guarded. Given the angle at which I sat, I could not see Perry’s face clearly just then.
Pretoria started to speak, but quietened as I took her hand. Neither of us wore gloves and the contact came with a whisper of memories, formless feelings, and glimpses of moments past. They came to me without effort, and stowed away in my mind.
In my pockets, the artifacts seemed to hum in response.
I went on, “I know you have questions. I will answer them. Simply understand—both Baffin and the Guild are after a truth, a power, that could unhinge and reshape our world. But we can stop them. Both of them. All we need do is retrieve all the items from the Landsdown Trove. We find them, and destroy them.”
There was a muffled cry from the bathroom.
“Oh fetch him, would you?” Pretoria asked Perry.
Perry complied and Maddeson joined the council, gaze flicking nervously from party to party.
“You cannot destroy them!” he raged as Perry pressed him into a chair.
“Aside from the Stele itself and unlocking the Old Arasi language—you would have to destroy the work and persons of multiple scholars the world over to truly erase this. You cannot do it. I will not let you. You are overreacting, Miss Fleet.”
“Rushforth,” I corrected.
He frowned in consternation and plowed on, “When I have finished my translations, when the world understands that Entwined and humans are one and the same, there will be peace.”
“He is an idealist,” I explained to the company, rubbing my face wearily. My skin was damp and sweat-slick, and I longed for a bath. For solitude, security, and fresh beginning.
But more than that, I longed for action. I had found a purpose, a drive. A noose had cinched it into place. And the artifacts in my pockets were my ballast.
Maddeson’s face reddened. “Now, see here—”
From there, my monologue and Maddeson’s assertions gave way to a general discussion. I revealed more details, including Wake’s and Moran’s connection, though I did not mention Lewis’s or my potentially altered condition.
“The professor may have a point,” Lewis said cautiously, into a lull. “The Guild has succeeded in amplifying Entwined in the past. Documents burned may have redundancies. So we must even the field, as it were.”
Harden watched him, agreement in his eyes. I wondered, passingly, what the Separatists would do with the artifacts and their power.
“I agree with Illing,” Pretoria said. She looked to Maddeson. “You would, of course, come with us.”
“Pardon me?”
“You will come with us to collect every artifact in the Landsdown Trove. You will be our scholar,” she said. “We will carry you about in search of the relics, and you can decipher them.”
He blustered. “But that is impossible. Many pieces are in private collections. I have been refused them before, not to mention those in the Museum ju Palnicas, the paperwork and permissions alone… And those lost to the criminal underworld—”
“I will acquire them for you,” Pretoria said stoutly.
Maddeson had drawn breath to continue his rant, but at this he hesitated. “Pardon me?”
“Anything you need, you will have.”
“But the permissions?”
She gave him a level look. “I need no permissions. Nothing will stand in the way of your research.”
Maddeson sat back in his seat, looking suddenly contemplative.
“So you are proposing we gallivant about the world stealing antiquities?” Perry summarized, speaking to me. “With the aim to stop both the Grand General and the Guild? We are all to give ourselves to this, out of charity?”
“Out of self-preservation,” I corrected.
Perry did not look convinced, but turned to Pretoria. My sister was pensive, in a brooding sort of way.
I left them to their silent conversation.
“Details need not be ironed out now, not until we are safe,” I said, and turned to Harden. “Can you still get us out of the city?”
“Out of Arrent,” Pretoria added. She broke Perry’s gaze. “As I have wished to be all along.”
“I can get you out of the city,” Harden affirmed. There was something in his voice, something he was holding back, and he did not look at me. “Be ready, tonight.”
* * *
True to his word, Harden reappeared that night. We heard the rumble of an engine and looked down to see a canvas-backed military truck in the streets.
Soon after, we sat in the back of the transport.
It was long past twilight and the ringing of the curfew bells.
My threads had twined again, as extensively and powerfully as before, but I had endured it hidden in the bathroom.
I could not hide the change from my companions forever, but first, I had to find a chance to speak to Lewis privately.
The vehicle rumbled and bucked beneath us as Harden and Pretoria, seated in the front, plied the guards at the edge of the city with forged papers and impeccable bluffs.
“Have you felt… different?” I asked Lewis under the cover of the engine. We sat together, with Perry and Maddeson opposite. The professor looked startlingly convincing in his military uniform. “Since the cells?”
Lewis gave me an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“Your threads.”
“They have not twined since.”
I stared at him, aghast. “Are… are you saying your power is gone?”
“I am saying they have not twined since,” he repeated in an undertone. “But nor have I had a chance to test them.”
I would have said more, but just then Harden pulled the vehicle over. He appeared around the back with Pretoria and we disembarked, just out of sight of the city and its smoky skyline.
“Here is where I leave you,” Harden said, looking between us. He nodded to Pretoria. “It will not be easy to get word in or out of the city for some time, but if I hear from you, I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” Perry said, shaking his hand.
Harden took my hand and pulled me aside. I was all too aware of everyone looking after us, including Lewis’s obscure gaze. Then Harden and I were out of sight around the other side of the truck.
“I’ll not have you leave before I say this,” he said, still holding my hand. “They say war is no time for… these things, and I’d thought to let you go in peace, but—I wish we’d had time to see what we could become.”
My fingers twitched in his. I thought of Lewis, only just out of sight, but the longer Harden’s gaze held mine, the narrower my focus became.
My hand relaxed in his. Lewis could not see us, and what if he did?
The only affectionate words he had ever spoken to me were in delirium, and though he had shown me greater kindness in the last two days, that could not erase years of romantic disinterest.
“We would have enjoyed ourselves,” I admitted. “If that one kiss was any indication.”
His lips turned up at the memory and his eyes glinted. “Another, then? For our goodbye? A good kiss will keep.”
I surveyed his lips. There was a moment then, a brief impulse, when I almost consented. But he was right. War was no time for such things.
“Thank you, Mr. Harden,” I said at last. “For your help. Your friendship. And that kiss.”
He relented with a wry, but nonetheless disappointed smile. He raised his hand between us, and I took it in a firm, lingering shake.
“Be safe, Ottilie,” he charged. “Keep Lewis close. And when you’ve collected your Trove, when you uncover all those secrets? Remember me. Remember Harrow.”