Chapter 24
twenty-four
George goes to town.
“What happened with the three of you?” George asked Hildy as their actuaria neared Nowosmont’s docks.
“Dunstan dumped me, permanently.” She didn’t sound sad.
“Permanently, permanently? Or ‘permanently’?”
“The former. It’s fine though, Burke uh...”
“Played legionary and saved the day?”
“That’s nicer phrasing than I was going to use. Yes, pretty much.”
George chuckled. It seemed her conversation with Dunstan actually made a difference. Astonishing. “How have things been with Burke?”
“Fine. He’s not as anxious this time around. Guess he also believes Dunstan’s done with me. Makes him less unbearable. You know?”
“Hil, you shouldn’t be with someone who feels unbearable.”
Hildy shrugged.
When George looked past her dear friend to the looming docks beyond, she spotted the subject of their conversation standing in the sun with his hand shielding his eyes. She furrowed her brow, prompting Hildy to take a look.
“Unbearable. See what I mean?” Hildy said with a huff. “He knows I hate that sort of thing.”
“Is he actually there to greet you?”
“Oh.”
“Then...” They were supposed to meet up at Villa Senone. Her pulse catapulted, tangible in the tips of her fingers and toes.
She fidgeted, and Hildy noticed her change in demeanor. “Georgie, breathe. We’ll be there in a minute. We’ll talk to Burke. He was probably by the water already and saw our boat coming in.”
“Why wouldn’t he be at the villa? The whole point of arriving in shifts was to avoid suspicion.”
Hildy didn’t have an answer for her.
“Why are you here?” George barked.
Burke’s greaves glimmered beneath the late-morning sun, giving him metallic legs from the knee down. There was no sign of his usual grin as the women approached. “We need to talk,” he said quietly. “This way.”
They followed him down a narrow, shadowy alley that stank of fish guts.
“Honestly, here?” Hildy snarked.
When he made no comment, only pushed out the soft scent of clean sea air, George saw spots. He was acting far too out of character. Something had gone horribly wrong.
“Something happened,” he said.
She knew it.
“Spit it out. We’re as suspicious as the fates on a fine day right now.”
They learned the awful truth. Gianis and Marinos, using Gianis’s vision magic, glamored themselves as a mother and son aboard the morning ferry. They’d attacked when Wynnie and Dunstan couldn’t retaliate without revealing they were illegally transporting Isahn.
“Wynnie says they were almost through the veil when it happened,” he finished.
George’s heart galloped ferociously, its heightened activity forcing a rush of blood to her ears.
“Is Wynnie all right?” Hildy checked as George asked the same about Isahn.
“Dunstan and Wynnie are all right.”
“What about Isahn?” Georgie asked again, this time grabbing Burke by the tunic with her touch magic and yanking him to attention.
“He’s alive,” he said somberly.
“What the fuck does that mean? Where is he? Take me to him.” She jostled Burke with every sentence. Her own composure rattled just as badly.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.” He remained calm despite being shaken like a rag doll.
“It wasn’t a godsdamn suggestion,” George bit out, dropping her magical grasp on Burke. She spun and rushed toward the alley entrance. “The villa, right? Let’s go.”
“We’re covered,” Hildy announced as she and Burke caught up.
With sound protection confirmed, George wondered, “What did Gianis and Marinos learn?”
“Not sure, but you know they don’t like to take anything to the king until they’re positive.”
“And now they’re positive of what?” Hildy tacked on.
George fought a quiver in her lower lip. Everything was crumbling around her.
Burke offered more details, explaining how Wynnie and Dunstan brought a very confused and slightly belligerent Isahn to Villa Senone. Then they’d left him and gone to take care of the problem.
“Take care of it? Successfully?” George asked, sure she hadn’t understood him correctly. Her mind was solidly focused on what she might find at the villa. Was the Isahn she knew and loved gone?
Burke nodded.
Hildy’s mouth fell open. “Wynnie killed someone?”
“No,” Burke clarified. “Adda and I were nearing Senone when they were leaving. Dunstan and I took care of the problem. Wynnie handled visuals. We were lucky. The fuckers got cocky, sat down for a drink, and were well in their cups when Dunstan and I found them. Thank the gods they had no scruples about drinking before midday.”
“Undeserved pride does funny things to people.” Hildy shook her head morosely.
“They’re strong mages and even stronger warriors. But we caught them off guard. Left the alley looking like them, and made sure we were seen around town before splitting up. Wynnie and Dunstan should be here with Adda and Isahn now.”
“Will Ceadda and Isahn ever have a normal, official, first meeting?” George’s question was innocent enough, would be funny even, in the right circumstance. But her voice quivered the slightest bit when she spoke, belying the fragility of her emotional state.
“Georgie...” Hildy squeezed her hand.
“I know it’s scary right now. But it’ll be all right, we’ll figure this out.” Burke slung a protective arm across George’s slumped shoulders, and the trio turned up the drive to Villa Senone.
“Where is he?”
Dunstan looked stoic with his arms crossed over his chest, the effect lessened slightly by the flapping of his tunic in the spring breeze. Wynnie stood beside Adda, defeat writ plain on both their faces.
“Where is he? Why are you all out here?” George questioned her friends again, voice tight with panic.
“He’s inside. He’s safe and alert. We’re out here so he can’t listen to us,” Wynnie explained.
“He’s wily, even in his current state,” Dunstan added.
She clenched her teeth. “How bad is it?” They all knew she meant the memory loss.
Wynnie looked across the patio at George, eyes sad. “Extensive. He doesn’t know who we are. He’s not sure where he is or how long he’s been here. I don’t think he even remembers traveling north to Sorhaven. He was going on about being farther south in Gramenia.”
“Fuck.” George and Hildy swore simultaneously. It wasn’t just Isahn’s memories of Hepikoru that were gone. It was everything. The whole mission. Her.
The veil erased recent memories—anything connected to the secrets of the city it held inside. He must’ve been putting the pieces together since Sorhaven if it was wiped from his mind.
“Where inside? You said he’s inside. Where?” Nerves were even beginning to get the best of ever-composed Hildy.
“The basement,” Dunstan offered through a cough.
“What?” George’s voice was steel. She’d heard him just fine.
All six feet-whatever of Dunstan cowered under her unyielding glare.
“Explain right now. Take me to see him.”
“When we got Isahn off the boat, he was confused and out of it.” Wynnie glanced over at Dunstan before she said, “He started to take in his surroundings and got... overwhelmed.”
Dunstan uncrossed his arms. “He was downright belligerent, Georgie. Tried to run off a few times, tried to shank me with his damn ice-knife more than a few times.”
“What did you do?” A palm of her touch magic clung to Dunstan’s forearm, gripping him with panicked intensity, though, physically, she appeared placid, if slightly morose.
Dunstan fidgeted. “I had to subdue him and restrain him in the cellar.”
“Deiwa nekami. This is fucking insane!” she shouted, composure fleeing the premises.
“Georgie, I’m so sorry.” Wynnie’s arms spread wide as she offered a hug.
“Nope! No! Not right now.” George threw up a hand and stepped back from her circle of friends.
Only one person was allowed to embrace her at the moment, and he was chained in the fucking basement without a clue in his pretty blond head as to who the fates she was.
“He was only supposed to lose elements. Not everything!” The obvious burst from her mouth before she burst into tears.
She let her friends hug her, all of them at once, as her breaths came in ragged, heaving sobs.
After several minutes, when the deluge slowed to a trickle and she didn’t sound like a fat man having an apoplexy, they stepped back and attempted to devise a plan.
“There has to be a way to undo this. There has to be, George. We will figure it out. For now, know he’s safe,” Wynnie said earnestly.
“We could go back to the original plan? Give him memories to try to fix this?” Burke suggested halfheartedly.
“No! I don’t want him to have false memories. I want him to have his memories. He needs to be him. I need him. I don’t— We’ve never rewritten memories lost to the veil. We can’t try now. The risk? No. I love him.” George’s voice cracked at the end of her plea, and she found herself sobbing again.
A few-hour separation had turned into an absolute nightmare for her—for Isahn too—in a different sort of way. Her heart broke for him, restrained, confused, enduring wholly unjust torture, all because of her father’s idiotic, meddling spies.
They’re dead, they’re gone, she reminded herself, jaw shivering as she drew in a ragged breath.
Isahn was gone, too.
Her knees gave out, but Hildy was there on her right and Dunstan on her left, supporting George while she gasped for air. Hil patted her back, attempting to offer some semblance of comfort in an impossible situation.
George did not want to see him in his current state; it would be too difficult to bear.
She needed to see him, if only to confirm he was as gone as they said.
“Deiwa hathemi,” she keened, begging for support from a goddess who clearly didn’t care.
They were supposed to meet up in Nowosmont. They were supposed to have the day together before his journey. They were supposed to be back together soon. This was only supposed to be temporary.
Probably sensing George’s spiraling thoughts, Hildy spoke up, “I have a plan, potentially.”
“To fix the issue?” Burke asked.