Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Cáel.
Cáel Valera.
I repeat the name as I pull the broken door shut and wedge the scrap of wood back into place so it will not swing open again.
“I have no idea who he is,” I mumble.
There is nothing down here to tell me, and I stopped following what happens up there years ago. It hurts to remember the life I was meant to have.
Only at the bottom do you see what people are truly made of.
What you are made of.
I glance at Mina as she pads beside me. She shows no sign of ill effects from today’s adventure; her eyes sweep every shadow.
People should not walk these streets alone at night, but tonight, I almost hope someone tries.
Nobody does.
By the time Mina and I reach the car park, my bruises have stiffened again. Rather than head for the car, I slip into the Depot.
Mina huffs, a small, weary sigh that says, “Not this place again.”
Before searching the records room, I head to the break room because Mina has not eaten since this began. I keep a sealed pouch of imported tripe at the back of the Depot fridge for nights like this. I drop it into warm water to take off the chill, then fill her water bowl.
She drains it at once.
The smell of raw tripe may be one of the worst in existence. I stir it and set the meal on the floor.
She sits and waits, saliva threading from her jaw, patient as a saint.
I step back. “Eat.”
She descends on it like a small natural disaster.
We have an arrangement: I do not interrupt dinner, and she does not snap when the bowl goes down. When she finishes, I wash both bowls. I consider opening a window, then eye the warped frame and think better of it.
The building remains quiet, though a strip of light glows beneath the Depot manager’s office door. The platinum operation must be keeping him late.
I ought to leave Sarah’s report until morning. Sleep for a week. Acquire a new body. Perhaps even develop some common sense.
Instead, I knock.
“Come.”
He looks up, then pauses when he sees my bruised face. “What happened to you?”
“Target’s family.”
His eyebrows rise. “You let a fifteen-year-old girl’s family do that?”
“There were a great many of them.”
He leans back. His gaze lingers on the bruising. “Don’t look at me for a potion. We don’t waste healing stock on failures who walk into family ambushes.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Of course you weren’t.” He pushes aside his paperwork. “Sarah Summers?”
“Gone. The house was empty. Her relatives had gathered at the uncle’s house, waiting for whoever took the chit.”
“Did they say where she went?”
I hesitate for a single breath. “They claimed she’d already crossed out of Elyrion. Eastern route, possibly the coastal border.”
I have no idea which direction Sarah travelled. East is simply far from wherever I hope she is.
He reaches for a report form. “Descriptions of the people who attacked you?”
“Family members. A dozen men and women. One hit me in the head with a bat. After that, I was too busy rolling around on the ground to collect details.”
Not quite a lie. Merely an absence of useful information.
“The mother was there,” I add.
He checks the original record and frowns. “No mother listed.”
“The records are incomplete.”
“That’s a polite word for useless.” He scribbles a note in the margin. “I’ll pass the escape report to border control. Until they confirm she’s outside our jurisdiction, the bounty remains open but suspended.”
“Who keeps the file?”
“You do. You found the lead, and I’m not wasting another hunter on a child who may already be beyond reach.” He pushes the chit towards me. “If she resurfaces, she remains your problem.”
Relief loosens something beneath my still-sore ribs. I take the chit. “Understood.”
He will send border control in the wrong direction, has suspended the active hunt and left Sarah exactly where I need her: assigned to me.
It is not safety, but it is the closest I can give her tonight.
The coffee shop is closed, so the aircraft will wait until morning. Before Cáel collects me, I shall order a coffee with hazelnut syrup and lay the exact coins on the counter. Nobody down here orders syrup. That order means abort: pick-up cancelled.
One problem contained.
For now.
I leave the manager to his paperwork and head for the records room.
I bypass the District sections and go straight to the shelves I always avoid: prominent Immortal families, first local, then national.
Valera is nowhere near Morris.
Thank goodness. I have no desire to open my own family’s drawer tonight.
I search.
Nothing.
His accent is refined—Immortal-precise, without a dropped consonant—yet it is not from here. I widen the search to the nearest city, then the next, and the next.
Hours pass. Dust coats my fingertips, and the weak lights hum above me.
Just as I convince myself I am chasing nothing, I find it.
A neighbouring country. A prominent family.
I slide the folder free.
An embossed crest marks the cover: a slender gold crown. I saw the same insignia on his collar at the checkpoint.
Velmoran.
The badge was not a government security emblem. It marked him as a representative of a foreign throne.
Cáel Valera is no mere bodyguard.
He is not part of our government at all.
I turn the pages to the current entries, and there it is in a clerk’s careful hand: a notice of marriage negotiation lodged with a house in Elyrion. The particulars are filed under the Elyrion name, as they always are.
These registries cross-reference. Every match is written twice, once under each house.
I stand very still for a moment.
Then I walk to the shelf I have avoided all night and open the Morris drawer.
A laugh escapes me, low and slightly unhinged in the empty records room.
He is engaged to my sister, Vivian.
Or almost engaged.
The details are not yet formalised, but once the paperwork catches up with the agreement, he will marry her.
I sit with that for a moment.
I do not know why it makes my chest ache.
Exhaustion, I tell myself. It has been a catastrophic day and night. I am running on fumes, and my entire body throbs.
That is all.
It is not because he saw me.
Really saw me.
Not through me, or past me, or only as the failure I represent. He made me feel visible, which almost never happens.
It does not matter.
Whatever this ache is, it stops here. She is my sister, and she has lost enough on my account already.
I lock the thought of Vivian away before it can fully form.
She is happy. She is negotiating a marriage with Cáel Valera. Her life has unfolded precisely as planned.
That is good.
That is what I wanted for her.
I doubt I will make the guest list.
If I were him and preparing to marry Vivian, I would inspect every skeleton in her family cupboard.
The largest skeleton is me.
It would not take much to find footage of the Games. After watching that, any sensible man would want to know what threat I still pose.
So he protected me, and drove me home, and asked careful questions the whole way.
I obligingly gave him everything: that I would break into an Overseer’s estate to reclaim my dog, and that I hold an unhinged, wholly unprovable theory about magic being drained out of an entire city.
Marvellous.
Very restrained of me.
Rather than dispose of me quietly, he has chosen to see where this leads. I suspect that is the only reason I am still alive.
I need to convince him I am not a threat.
Even while I plan to burn the whole thing down.
My sister will marry him, return to his country and lead an elegant life. Nothing that happens in this city will touch either of them.
I read the remaining family records. Between the lines, the Valeras appear decent—land, businesses and communities seemingly well maintained—but these documents are subjective.
A generous pinch of salt is required throughout.
I close the folder, slide it back into place, ease the drawer shut and step away.
I need sleep.
Mina follows me to the car, and we drive home. I sit for a moment in the darkness outside the tower block, then force myself inside.
The stairs are as long as ever.
Once through the door, I do not shower, wash my face or brush my teeth. I remove my coat with care, stow the weapons, pull off my boots and collapse onto the mattress.
I shall be up again in a few hours and have to walk back across the district to stand outside a broken door by nine.
There is no point changing.
It is not as though I have anyone to look good for.