Chapter 8 Ember
EMBER
The sound of my molars grinding against one another was sickening.
I had to stop this or I’d be forced to grow new teeth and that was annoying and painful.
But Lara’s attitude was just that grating.
It was impossible, sometimes, to understand how I could love her so fucking much and also want to punch her face so, so badly.
But then, that was the gist of spending an eternal life together. Not that any of my cursed cohort showed signs of comprehending that kind of nuanced perspective. From what I could tell, they preferred to cut and run.
Rhiannon Bronte hadn’t just left me. She’d gone to work for the Consulate itself. After what happened with Lara and Sera, she’d very calmly stated that she’d had a better offer and would leave. Two very long lifetimes of friendship, and she’d just up and left.
The audacity of these women never ceased to amaze me. Though I was tempted to argue with Lara, she was right about calling Rhi. “Fine. I’ll call her.”
Lara sighed. “Do whatever you want.”
I closed my eyes, searching for some semblance of patience. “It would be nice if you could at least pretend like this matters.”
Lara stood up. “I don’t need this shit from you. It’s not like we have a way to get the swords, anyway. We’d need a lot more talent than you’ve got access to.”
I just about lost it, pushing my chair back so hard as I stood that it flew across the room. “And why is that, Lara? Whose fucking fault is it that the five of us split up?”
She stepped to me, glaring. “Go ahead and say it, Verona. You know you want to. You’re just itching to blame me for the fact that we lost the swords to begin with.”
“No,” I breathed, all the vim and vigor gone out of me. Having this argument again was infuriating. Why couldn’t any of them ever focus on what and who our real enemies were? “No. I am not. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. What happened is on all of us.”
We stared at each other for a long moment. She shook her head, her dark hair falling into her eyes. “I need to take a walk. Blow off some steam.”
At least she wasn’t threatening to disappear again. Blowing off steam was probably a healthy choice. It was one I never felt as though I got to make, but I was happy for her to. “Yeah,” I agreed. “There’s key cards by the door. Grab one before you go. I’ll get your DNA coded in tomorrow.”
“Fine.” She sighed. “Okay if I bring the rest of my stuff back from storage?”
So, she had a storage unit somewhere. That’s how she’d gotten her Saint’s-charms and my jacket back. At least that was one mystery cleared up. Just twenty-three thousand left to unravel, but I had all the time in the world.
“Of course,” I murmured, worried that I might scare her off entirely if I so much as spoke too loud.
“Get a grip while I’m gone, Verona,” Lara said as she stalked out the door.
I stifled the urge to snap back at her. If we stood here scrapping over the last word, I’d never get a call into Rhi.
I retrieved my errant chair and sat back down at my desk, to the sound of the front door opening and closing.
I pulled up the security footage on the floor, watching Lara go for the elevator.
I don’t know what made me do it, but I accessed the CCTV for the whole block through the Consulate feed, and watched Lara leave.
She headed back downtown, towards where the old storage units were.
I had no reason not to believe Lara, but it had been twenty years.
It wasn’t long in the scheme of things, but there was a lot I still didn’t know.
There was nothing more in the world I wanted than to trust my sistren.
The trouble was, not a single one of them was actually trustworthy by any standard.
Perseverating over the fact wasn’t going to make it any better, or any less true.
I picked up the heavy receiver of the black phone on my desk and dialed.
It took forever to hammer out the numbers individually, a massive pain in the ass.
I rarely used this phone, but it was a completely secure line.
It barely rang before she picked up.
“You’ve seen the swords,” a low, breathy voice said by way of hello. Same old Rhiannon. Right to the point.
“Hello to you too, Rhi,” I said, mocking a tone of cheery friendliness that I certainly didn’t feel. “How are you? What’s life like in Aradios? Still have that dog?”
“I had a cat,” Rhiannon replied, her tone curt. “And I don’t relish catching up. I don’t know who the seller is, and yes, I’ve already used all the leverage I have to find out.”
I noticed she didn’t tell me what happened to the cat.
That made me sad for about a second. Before I remembered how irritated I was with her, anyway.
“But you didn’t call me,” I said, unable to keep the edge of resentment out of my voice.
“Ares Fucking Necroline told me about this shit. Do you have any idea how bad that makes me look?”
Rhiannon was quiet for a moment before asking, “Is Lara with you?”
I glanced at the CCTV. She’d disappeared from my immediate sight. “Yes. Well, not right this second. She’s gone to her storage unit.”
Rhi made a noncommittal sound. This whole call was annoying, but now I was getting angry.
I’d never sanctioned any of them for leaving.
I could have filed complaints with the Consulate, with the Authority—and worse.
For Rhiannon, Sera and Max, at least. I could have had them raked across whatever coals I liked for abandoning their posts, and no one in this godsforsaken world would have batted an eye.
But I didn’t. I’d asked nicely. I’d begged. I’d made an ass of myself for twenty years for the whole lot of them, and I was beyond exhausted. Yes, I’d made my fair share of mistakes. We all had. But this was unacceptable.
“What do you know?” I asked.
I stared at my nails while I waited for whatever bullshit Rhiannon came up with next. I needed to re-paint them, maybe oxblood this time to emphasize my ragey interior landscape. Something that screamed “slaughter” might be nice.
“Nothing,” she replied.
My lip curled in response. She was lying. I could tell because I knew the way Rhiannon Bronte spoke, and the little lilt up in the way she said “nothing” was a tell.
A tell that she knew full well that I knew. We had dozens of such tricks. Having multiple and various ways to communicate indirectly had kept us on top of things for a very long time. Until, of course, it hadn’t. But still. Perhaps this line wasn’t as secure as I’d thought.
“Damn,” I said, drawing the word out a little as I worked through what to say next. “Well, that’s a shame. It’s my birthday next week. Did you remember?”
“Of course,” she breathed, her interest obviously piqued.
Good, good. We were back on the same page.
We didn’t celebrate birthdays. Ever. It wasn’t a Maere thing; it was an us thing. We’d always celebrated other milestones, but none of us wanted to remember our mundane lives before ascension and our birthdays were ugly reminders of those lives.
“Are you coming to my brunch?” I asked, sure to inject a heavy dose of irritation into my voice for whoever might be listening in. Was it the Consulate, or… No. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of the island’s involvement—that would be the cherry on top of this shit sundae.
“Are you finally inviting me?” she snapped back. Now I was sure she knew the line wasn’t secure. When Rhiannon was actually angry, she never got snappy. She got infuriatingly calm.
This was a ruse. She knew more than she was letting on and she wanted me to know. We were in trouble. “Yes,” I replied, keeping my voice full of barely leashed irritation. “Maybe it’s been long enough.”
“Fine,” she said. “But you’ll never get Max and Sera to come. They’re well and truly done with us.”
“I don’t know,” I mused, thinking my words over carefully. “I think there's still something real there.”
“There isn’t,” she said. “They’re out.”
So they already knew about the swords, knew theirs weren’t among this lot, and had already refused to help retrieve them. It pissed me off that no one had thought to call and tell me anything, but I was going to have to keep trucking right on past that point. “Fine, I’ll skip a call, then.”
“Probably wise,” she said, without a hint of a lie. “Sera’s trying another treatment. I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up before we could set a time or location.
Just as well—she could surprise me. The crafty little minx loved to sneak up on people, and I loved how much easier she was to get along with when she got her way.
I stood up and walked into the living room, crossing my arms tightly around me as I watched the afternoon light change.
A storm was rolling in, and it was dark as twilight, clouds descending over the city as rain spattered the streets below.
I watched the ads on all the digiscreens change, flashing garish lights that rivaled the neon that dared to peek through the gloom.
In the distance, lightning flashed over the Erydanos River that cut through the city, lighting it up for the briefest of moments, thunder rolling across the city.
My heart beat in a low, slow thump as the little information I had about what was going on spun round and round in my mind.
Rhiannon had never felt the need to make it clear to me why she took the Consulate job after we split up. But I’d known there was something she wasn’t saying. Something more than trying to get better help for Sera, though that was part of it, of course. And I was grateful as fuck for that.
Sera was years ahead in her recovery because of Rhi’s Consulate connections. But there had to have been another reason for Rhi to go so far into the belly of the beast. She hated the way the Consulate was run. Hated the Trinity and the way the Consulate had made puppets of us all.
Whatever she thought she could gain by going so deep in had to be pretty important.
I wracked my brain through the weeks before Lara was taken.
I couldn’t remember anything particularly special that was going on.
The days after she’d gone to the Asylum had been hard, especially with the Necrolines setting fire to the house and Sera being so injured.
Anger lit a fire in my gut—same as the day Sera got hurt.
The lingering shock of those events made it difficult to remember much about what had happened.
Rain pelted the windows, blowing sideways now.
I tilted my head to match the angle, squinting a little so that my view of Orphium turned to nothing more than a blur of gray clouds and neon lights.
Ares Necroline had never bothered to explain to me why his people burned our house down. Just that he hadn’t meant to hurt Sera.
All that had sounded hollow at the time.
But it felt odd now. We hadn’t had issues with the Necrolines before that.
As far as their dynasty went, Ares kept his house clean as a whistle—he was a breath of fresh air after his horror show of an uncle.
Roman Necroline had been a piece of work, heavy-handed, but noble in many ways.
His younger brother was a monster. Rumor had it that Magnus killed Roman and Ares killed Magnus.
When Ares took over, it had been a relief.
Until the fire, anyway. The more I turned the events over, the stranger they seemed.
I’d held a grudge against Ares for the better part of two decades, but when Sera had been hurt, Ares left a trail of bodies and fear that had reminded Orphium not to fuck with him.
Magnus had been cruel, and for that, people had feared him, but showed him very little real respect. By contrast, Ares was more like Roman. Terrifyingly smug and violent with the kind of horrific precision that made people cross the street to avoid pissing him off.
The way he’d whispered that information in my ear at the ThunderBowl had sent shivers through me. When everything went down with the fire, he’d been angry that Sera had been hurt, not defensive. Which meant burning our house down hadn’t been some petty vendetta.
My heart raced at the thought. This was huge, and I’d missed it. If someone had betrayed Ares to fuck with us, did he know why? And why hadn’t I gotten more curious about this sooner?
Shame filled me as I blew out a long sigh.
Because I’d been reeling for years after those few short months when everything fell apart.
And when everyone scattered, I shut down.
I stopped being me. I stopped caring about anything except keeping the bare minimum going.
Having a shitty attitude covered up the disgraceful mess that I’d become.
I let resentment get the better of me for far too long.
Eternal life was far, far too long, but I’d been in an especially deep rut.
It was long past time to get out of it. I hunted down my phone and shot off a message to Ares Necroline.
Might as well start now. If he wanted to pass tips along about the swords, then maybe he’d answer my questions about the fire as well.