Chapter Thirty-Three
Milo
There was a riot on the Deck this morning.
I dispatched every available cousin, aunt, or uncle willing to assist the Guardians with calming the rabble and arresting those responsible.
Apparently, our presence hadn’t been well received and had only served to heighten the rage boiling within the veins of the lower ringers.
Things in the city were reaching a tipping point, I could feel it.
We were on the precipice of something huge I wasn’t certain we’d be able to bounce back from.
So the meeting Olympia had managed to set up between the leaders of the rebellion and myself this evening was more important than ever.
I was pleasantly surprised by my cousin’s initiative, I had to say. When Pax had come to deliver her message and inform me of the meeting, I was surprised. Not so much that she’d made contact with the rebels but that she’d left any of them alive to meet with at all.
Olympia hadn't been the same since that mark on Harrison Fletcher’s back was revealed.
I knew it bothered her more than she would ever let on but she refused to talk about it and I knew better than to pry.
As it was, I hardly saw her at all. I only received reports of her whereabouts from Pax when she managed to hunt him down to give them.
She was always after Wolf or Bade or watching for rebel activity or checking on the Bexleys, not to mention whatever tasks grandmother was assigning her as well.
Olympia was doing precisely what she always did when something occurred which she did not wish to face.
She was making herself as busy as she could to avoid dealing with it at all.
So maybe I should. Regardless of how my cousin felt about it, Harrison did have the mark of the rebellion tattooed on his back.
If he didn’t truly have any intention of joining them, perhaps he could serve as a valuable source of information.
There was no indication Wolf knew about the boy’s involvement with a First Ringer.
In fact, knowing Olympia, no one but the three of us knew anything about it at all.
Maybe the rebels would believe him if he asked to join them and if they let him sit in on some of their meetings, if he could give us a heads up the next time a bombing was planned or some other violent act plotted, that could make all the difference when it came to protecting our people and saving lives.
“Sir,” Pax interrupted my thoughts on his way into my study.
The door swung shut behind him, giving me only a moment’s glance at Cleo standing in the hall beyond.
Then he was in front of me, dropping another stack of papers on the corner of my desk.
I didn’t have to look to know what they were.
We’d been recovering correspondences between rebel hideouts since Olympia tracked down Wolf and found his partner hiding up on the Second.
If there was anything of note within them, Pax would have already read it and come to inform me himself.
“Olympia said Bade was trying to find a way into Harlowe too,” he said instead.
I sat forward at once, intrigued and careful not to touch the necklace now sitting on the edge of my desk where it had rested ever since my wife had ripped it off her neck and refused to wear it another second.
Apparently, having some ancient deity living in a locket hanging around your chest was not an experience my wife was interested in.
“That’s interesting,” I replied. “I wonder what the Viper wants from Jude’s libraries. Where is Olympia now?”
Pax’s lip curled and I knew the answer before he spoke it.
“We don’t know,” he said.
I nodded and sat back in my chair once more, swivelling slightly to the left and looking out at the courtyard below my window. If my cousin didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t. That was the problem with having a spy. You could almost never find them when you needed them.
“How are things on the Deck?” I asked without looking back at my cousin.
“Much better,” he answered. “The Guardians have cleared out everyone who was involved. There were a few injuries to innocent bystanders which the priests are attending to but no casualties. Tempers flared but it wasn’t any sort of plot like before.”
I nodded slowly, not entirely convinced that was the truth.
“They’re sowing discord,” I muttered quietly.
“Sir?” Paxon asked.
“Give everyone who went down to help a pat on the back and some extra wine tonight, Pax,” I said instead. “Send Nick and Cleo to find Olympia. I need her by my side for the meeting tonight.”
Pax nodded once before turning and disappearing to do as he was told.
I glanced down at the necklace on the corner of my desk, ran a hand through my hair, and sighed.
We were on the brink of a civil war and my family still advised me not to descend past the First Ring to attend to any incidents myself.
I was the Heir. I was important. But what would my title mean if the masses rose up and tore our House down brick by brick without hearing a word of what we had to say for ourselves?
What had this separation ever gained for us before?
It couldn't go on like this. More people were going to die in the rebels' pursuit of equality, in Cosmo’s pursuit of power. I wasn’t going to sit in this godsdamned study and watch it all burn around me. Not anymore.
“When are they coming?” a voice asked from the doorway. I looked up to find my wife standing in the threshold.
Her copper hair was plaited and bound in a ring around her head that formed a crown.
Her chocolate eyes glowed in the dim light of the candles illuminating the study.
Her azure gown with sparkling sleeves hugged her thin form and pooled on the smooth floor below.
She was magnificent, a beautiful creature I could hardly believe wanted anything to do with me.
Milo, she spoke in my mind when I didn’t answer.
I blinked, realizing I’d been staring at her like a gobsmacked fool.
“After dinner,” I answered. “Late.”
She closed the door with a soft click and strode into the room.
Her eyes dropped for a moment to the necklace on my desk and I saw her stiffen even as she folded her hands in front of her to hide it.
It all made her uncomfortable. The necklace, the voice, the ancient book that named other gods.
Isla, like the rest of us, had been brought up in the faith.
Unlike a lot of us, she actually seemed to believe it.
At least, she had before Nascha had cornered us both within her room and showed us names and places no one had spoken of in thousands of years.
Now, I wasn’t sure what Isla was thinking.
We didn’t speak of religion. She knew enough about me to know I wasn’t the most open minded on the subject, especially where the Geist were concerned.
If she was having a crisis of conscience, she hid it well.
The only indication of her discomfort was her reaction to that necklace.
“Do you wish for me to attend?” she asked, holding her chin high with authority the way she always did when we were discussing business that might impact both Houses.
“As the Heir of House Lynx, it would be your prerogative,” I said. “As my wife, I wouldn’t wish to expose you to the danger.”
That was the most political answer I could muster. Isla noticed. Her lips flattened with disappointment but she rolled her eyes as if to say she’d expected nothing less. I grinned back.
“I won’t attend,” she decided. “They set the meeting with you, the Heir of Avus, not me. Though you may inform them you don’t speak for both of us, not on this.”
“I will ensure they’re aware.”
She nodded once, firmly, and the matter was settled. The authoritative stance fell away to reveal the tired expression of a concerned wife.
“Milo,” she spoke more gently and I knew which role she bore now even without reading her body language. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I will,” I promised.
“These people bombed the twelfth. They’re spreading slanderous misinformation about you and your House, about all of us up here on the First. They’re inciting a mob mentality that has already proven quite dangerous to the peace of the city.
I shudder to think what they might be capable of in an enclosed room only a few feet away from you. ”
“Pax will be here,” I reminded her. “And Olympia.”
She relaxed a bit at that. As much as Isla declared she didn’t like my cousin or her more brutal tactics, I could tell it eased her mind to know Olympia would be nearby to defend me from the rebels should they come with violence on their minds.
“Don’t let her–”
“I know,” I replied, amused.
At the smile on my face, her brow furrowed.
“This isn’t funny, Milo,” she snapped, annoyed.
“I think it’s cute,” I told her.
“Cute?”
“How worried you get about me.”
I stood from my desk and rounded it to face her. She was glaring at me now, brow furrowed so deeply the lines in her forehead were humorously pronounced. It only made my smile broaden.
“What else am I supposed to do but worry when you insist on defying all tradition and inviting danger into our very House?” she asked.
“Our House is it?” I teased, placing a finger under her chin and tipping her face up toward mine.
She rolled her eyes again but didn’t get a chance to answer before my lips brushed hers in a claiming kiss. She was all soft and velvet and intoxicating in a way that had me wondering why I’d spent so many of my days locked in a library when I could have spent them kissing her.
Is this your way of easing my mind? She chided me mentally so she wouldn’t have to pull her lips from mine.
I smiled against her as I replied, is it working?
It always does.
She sighed and my arm came up to wrap around her waist.