Chapter 13
The sentry knocks twice, her long, slender arm making it look so graceful.
Immediately, I release the necklace, my pulse hammering, to watch what’s about to happen unfold.
Her sword rests at her hip, hanging from the leather belt around her waist. Her cloak and rich brown hair blow in the breeze that whistles through the alleyway.
The thick sound of her knuckles against the wood bounces back to me. Then she reaches for the knob without giving anyone inside more than a second to react before the door swings open, like Malcolm was already standing on the other side waiting.
When his face comes into view, his eyebrows knot into confusion.
“Good evening,” Malcolm says stiffly.
I don’t hear the female sentry’s reply, but Malcolm’s eyes flit over her shoulder and land on me when I reach up to brush the hair from my eyes.
Guardians.
The sentry notices instantaneously and pivots her neck to find me in the middle of my first step. Hopefully, it doesn’t look suspicious, like I’m not hurrying or had just been rooted in place half a second ago.
But I’m flustered, and I have the heart rate to prove it.
My legs want to match the tempo as she watches me approach, but I force myself to maintain a steady stroll. Her doe eyes, deceivingly innocent, never stray from my face, but she stands in a neutral manner with her shoulders relaxed.
When I reach her, I smile. “Good evening.”
She looks down at me from the second step, but I think I’d be taller than her if she stepped down. “Enjoying the sunset?”
Panic surges into my throat. Is she testing me? Hardly any light ever filters past the overhanging eaves of the complexes, so the strip of sunset that does make it through is as thin and sharp as the rapier at her side.
“Yes, it’s quite beautiful,” I reply, turning my face upward at the visible slice of sky. “On the way back from the Blood Moon Palace, I decided to take the long way to get some fresh air and exercise, and I ended up visiting a friend.”
“The perfect Sunday,” Malcolm adds.
I forgot he was there.
I blink through my nerves and plaster on another smile. “It was.” Turning to the sentry, I offer her what is my illusion of choice. “Please, come in.”
She steps across the threshold without bothering to wait for Malcolm to step back, so it becomes a weird shuffle of feet and Malcolm muttering “Sorry” multiple times.
I follow like she’s invited me into my own home, avoiding Malcolm’s concerned gaze as he closes the door behind me.
She walks confidently over to the chair on the opposite side of the room before sitting. Her hand sweeps over the remaining seats, and she encourages us to sit with a pleasant, “Please.”
I wonder if the Guardians sent a woman to make me feel less on edge, less threatened. Because she seems almost jovial.
Her wide, brown eyes sparkle in the low light, and her cheekbones are dusted with a naturally rosy hue. It’s a face you want to spill your secrets to—a face you want to like you.
But I don’t let my guard down as I sit, and Malcolm sits beside me like a dutiful partner before the sentry’s eyes bounce between us, waiting.
Waiting.
We’re all waiting.
The objects in my pocket feel like lead pressing down on my thigh. I resist the urge to look down to check if they’re bulging underneath my cloak. The Guardians can’t possibly know that I’ve taken them. Can they?
“Rosalyn,” she says finally. The sentry has a name.
Why does this keep shocking me? She must have a partner, children, a life of her own within the Wall.
Does Lucan have the same outside the Wall?
“Rosalyn,” Malcolm and I repeat in harmony, then my voice continues alone. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you.” She leans back against the chair and rests her forearms on both armrests. “I’m here because we had a healer report an argument between you and your fellow co-worker.”
My brain spins to catch on then tries to right itself. “Gaia?”
“Yes. Gaia. Can you tell me what your argument was about?”
Malcolm shifts, running his palms down his pants, as my own palms start to sweat.
It’s a trap question, one I don’t know if Gaia’s already given an answer to. All I know is that glaring man in the locker room definitely reported us for slightly raised voices.
A pain pulses in my temple, but if I take too long to answer, it will be even more suspicious.
“It was over a patient,” I start. No, it wasn’t.
It was over me begging her to access information about a traitor, one whose housing unit I just stole several illegal objects from.
I clear my throat. “We disagreed on whether the patient should be released or not.”
Rosalyn squints at me. “Did you raise your voice?”
“No,” I assure her. “It was a professional discussion, at most.”
“I see.” Leaning back, she nods. “The patient?”
“Odette, a young girl.”
“And are you feeling okay? Emotionally?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Taking care of unwell people can place a burden on you mentally, especially when it’s children and those you feel you cannot help or can’t determine what’s wrong. Did the stress cause you to lash out?”
“I wouldn’t say either of us lashed out.”
She stares, a piercing brown look that could pin me to the wall. “Do you remember the Cardinal Rules, Saskia?”
I never told her my name, but she wields it as a threat.
“Yes,” I reply cooly, despite my tight throat.
I haven’t counted how many I’ve broken lately, but it’s more than one.
I try to keep the tally off my face as I list them in my head.
One glance at Malcolm, and my worry multiplies.
Based on his narrowed eyes, I wonder if he would turn me in for asking questions.
“I count them to myself every night before bed.” Like a prayer to the Guardians, but now I don’t know who I’ve been praying to.
I feel like I’m right back in a rigid metal desk, a yellow-badged eleven-year-old.
“Rule number three, Saskia!” my old teacher would shout—a pop quiz in the middle of history class.
I flick my eyes back to Malcolm, wondering if his style resembles Miss Dolores.
His eyes look gentle, though, a warmth that lives there like you’re stepping into the sunlight on a chilly day.
The suspicion lingers in them still, but I could never imagine him drilling twelve rules into someone until they cracked, and I don’t think he would turn me in.
“Rule number seven?” the sentry prods.
“Don’t engage in arguments,” I answer automatically
She raises her eyebrows. “Yet you argued with Gaia.”
“It won’t happen again. I was mistaken thinking I was doing best for my patient.”
Rosalyn stays silent but tips her chin to acknowledge that it most certainly will not happen again.
Malcolm turns his head to study me with an urging look. Are you telling the truth? he seems to say.
I’ve got this, I try to communicate with my eyes.
Rosalyn interrupts our moment. “How is your partnership going?”
Tearing my eyes off Malcolm, I slip my hand through his. My forearm lays across the pocket in my cloak, and from underneath the fabric, the mirror’s handle digs into my skin. A reminder of how much risk I’m taking. Lying. And it’s not just myself I’m gambling with, but Malcolm as well.
I turn back to her. “It’s going well.”
“It is Sunday,” she comments, leaning forward and clasping her hands in front of her. Her lips curl.
A look of sick satisfaction crosses her face like a hologram, and her eyes dart to the blinking camera involuntarily. A hollow, sinking feeling spreads outward from my stomach.
Someone is watching us. Recording this entire interaction. Did they hear Malcolm and me whispering the other night? Our voices were so low. But nevertheless, a new fear simmers in my chest—that they know about our forbidden agreement.
“I hope your spark is alive and well,” Rosalyn simpers. “We wouldn’t want it going out so soon.” Her neck cranes toward our joint bedroom door before her tone drops and slows, dripping with amusement. “Would we?”
Unmistakable fear hammers in my chest. She’s getting off on her power. I can see it in the creases around her eyes and lips, in the twitch of her fingertips. Like she’s happily pulling our strings.
I squeeze Malcolm’s hand. He squeezes back.
We both know what she wants. What she expects.
It’s not about the sex. It’s about the control.
Which we bend to like marionettes.
Malcolm smiles softly. “Rosalyn, thank you for your visit.” The slat in our door scrapes open, and I can hear those anonymous hands place a tray down with our dinner, but no one dares turn their head.
Instead, Malcolm rises to his feet, keeping his fingers laced with mine.
“We may just skip dinner tonight,” he comments to no one in particular, but his tone is one I’ve never heard before—almost sultry.
He tugs gently on my arm to pull me up. Without looking at her, he smiles seductively at me but directs his words at Rosalyn. “I trust you can see yourself out.”
“Good night,” she replies, still seated.
She’s still seated, from what I can tell from my peripheral vision, when I close our joint bedroom door behind us.
Is she still there? Malcolm mouths, all traces of his earlier act dissolving.
I press my ear to our bedroom door, listening for the sound of footsteps, the creak of the floor, or the squeak of hinges to indicate that the sentry is leaving.
Nothing. I can almost sense her held breath, though, the pause of expectation, and I swing my head back toward Malcolm to nod.
Yes, she’s still there.
A new emotion steals over his features. It’s not fear, exactly, but more like resignation.
His shoulders droop, and his mouth becomes a weak line of pressed lips as he realizes, no doubt, what this means: it’s our first Sunday as a secret non-couple, and we’re going to be forced into having sex by the very authority figures we thought we could dupe.