Rashid fell into step with Kel once they were underway. ‘What happened?’
‘The guy who ran you out of town has increased his hold over the people,’ Kel explained.
‘And Kel fought him!’ said Nixie, still not having got over the shock of the last hour. ‘He took François down because he was doing martial arts while the mayor was trying to take him out like a boxer.’
‘Didn’t the mayor know that you don’t take a knife to a gunfight? Well done, Karate Kid.’ Rashid grinned.
‘So I’m the gunfighter in that saying?’
‘Exactly. It’s a proud day for No-Homers when one of us beats one of them.’
Kel liked the idea that he was truly considered one of the band. ‘Thanks, Rashid. After all that troublemaking, I need to make a call. Would it be OK if I stopped off in the next town?’
‘As long as you don’t busk, I imagine it will be safe enough.’ Rashid’s eyes were twinkling.
The town of Villon twenty miles away was much quieter than François’ base of operations. Arriving late in the day, Kel entered warily but there were no claw badges, no henna-marked women or men among the civilians on the streets. He went to a mobile phone repair shop which also sold second-hand units. Reluctantly, he dug out the watch Meri had given him. It was his last personal possession of any value but he had no choice.
‘Can I trade this for a phone?’ he asked the surly woman behind the counter.
She puffed a lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘That’s junk.’
‘It works and has a gold-plated strap. We bought it for a hundred.’
‘Then you were robbed.’
Kel knew how to bargain. Never seem too eager to make a deal. ‘Fine. I’ll try in the next town.’
‘One moment.’ The woman’s hand shot out and snagged the watch from him. ‘Trade, you say, not cash?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve an old iPhone XC. Battery life isn’t good and the software is no longer supported, but the basics work.’
‘You mean I can phone people on it?’
‘Yes. It has a Sim and you can use the shop WiFi to make your call.’
‘OK.’
Kel made the unequal swap—the XC was a dinosaur of a model, but it would do the job. Taking a station at a counter as far from the woman as he could manage, he punched in one of the few numbers he knew by heart and let it ring.
‘Yep. Who’s this?’
‘Ade, it’s me.’
There was a long pause at both ends before Ade broke it. ‘Kel. Are you OK? Do you need help?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Come to your senses and want bringing home?’
‘It’s nothing like that.’
‘Still with her then?’
‘No, I’m not.’
Ade gave a hollow laugh. ‘Yeah, I thought the Teans might not be in your fan club. At least they left you alive. Where are you?’
‘In France. Look, that’s why I’m calling.’ Taking the risk, Kel proceeded to tell Ade about François’ use of his markings and how he was endangering all Perilous by being so overt about his special abilities. ‘He’s got away with it so far because he’s stayed in one town but how long will it be before the government get suspicious of this mafia-style thug who has taken over? His temperament means he won’t stay off camera for long.’
Ade sighed. ‘And you thought the best way was to challenge him?’
‘You had to be there. He needed cutting down to size.’
‘And in this fight, were you exposed too?’
‘No. It did cross my mind it might come to that but I went with a different plan. It would’ve raised more questions—unhelpful ones for us.’
‘So you’re still Perilous then?’
‘Of course I am. Just because I don’t agree with you, doesn’t change who I am.’ Though being run out of London had felt oddly similar to his treatment by the mayor. That wasn’t a helpful topic to embark on with Ade when Kel wanted his cooperation. ‘You’ll deal with François?’
‘I’ll tell the French branch to shut him down. They’ll sort out your mad mayor.’
‘He might not know there are more like him.’
‘Then he’s about to get a shock. I think I’ll send Lee to check it’s done properly. His leopard spots might give a wolf-man-step-forward a thing or two to think about.’
‘Thanks. I feel better knowing François won’t be out there for much longer.’
‘So you know how I feel. Frankly, Kel, that’s all a sideshow compared to having you on the loose in Europe, on your own. I’m glad this guy came up so you had a reason to contact me. I’m not alone in saying that I’d feel better if you’d come home to us.’
‘Ade, I don’t have a home with you any longer.’
‘That’s your choice.’
‘I know.’ Kel couldn’t admit to the home sickness he felt just hearing his friend’s voice. It was a hard road he had chosen.
‘And ask yourself: who did you turn to first when you were in trouble? Not her, not the Teans, but to us.’
He had to end the call before he did something stupid, like choke up. ‘Thanks, Ade. I’ve gotta go.’
‘Hey, Kel, keep in touch, OK?’
‘I’ll try.’
13
Meri swam back from her first scuba dive at sea exhilarated. Raymond had waited for a calm spring morning and taken the novices to a shallow part of old Cadiz that was judged not too hazardous to newbies. Sliding under the water had been like slipping into an old skin that fitted perfectly. The water supported her, lightening the load she carried. All the frustrations and arguments of dealing with her council seemed to drop away, drifting to the bottom to mingle with the crabs, sea anemones and barnacled rocks. She could be just Meri, not this figurehead that they were trying to create; she was still the same girl who had gone to school in London, enjoyed painting and fallen in love with Kel.
With Lula, her buddy from the swimming class, Meri had eeled her way through abandoned buildings and the wreck of a trawler, touched granite blocks of the old sea defences, and wiped the sand from an old sign that had once told visitors there was No Parking to be had on the front. No lives had been lost when Cadiz vanished because the government had had time to evacuate. It did not feel a place of ghosts but, rather, a monument to human stupidity. Earlier action could’ve prevented this.
But even that thought was soothed away by the whisper of a current over Meri’s bare fingers and neck. Perhaps the sea was a better guardian of the Earth than humanity.
As she swam back to the boat she could feel the pull of the ancient Atlantis behind her, miles away, very deep, but still calling her. In her mind or something real, she wondered? The vibration in her bones to what felt like a whale song seemed real enough.
‘You OK?’ asked Lula as they stowed their gear.
‘Yes.’ Meri remembered to smile though it was like waking up from an enchantment.
‘Beautiful down there, isn’t it?’
‘Out of this world.’ Meri caught Rio eavesdropping. She met his eyes and he was the first to look away.
Hugging to herself the mood that had stolen over her underwater, Meri spent a long time combing her hair in her bathroom, continuing past the point when she had removed all the tangles. She hadn’t moved to the royal apartments, partly because she liked where she was well enough, but also because their ostentation did not suit her. Rio had been annoyed that he couldn’t be annoyed about being evicted, so point to her.
Whatever Rio’s look in the boat had meant, she had no doubt that he also loved the sea. That was one aspect of his character that Meri could approve. The rest of the time he was a major pain in the butt. He’d attempted to block her training as an underwater archeologist but for once the council had stood by her, saying that it was fitting that the heir to the throne should have the skill required to visit the ancestral home. There was even talk of making a documentary about it for circulation to Tean Sympathizers only, but Meri had
scotched that early on. She felt hemmed in enough as it was by the traditions surrounding her role without being chased under the waves to the space in which she had found some freedom.
Leah knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Ma’am, are you all right in there?’
Even the bathroom was not sacrosanct. ‘I’m fine.’
‘When you have a moment, Daro wants to speak to you.’
The little Perilous boy—or not so little since he had hit a growth spurt with better food and more comfort since he joined her household. ‘I’ll be right out.’
Meri scrambled into her clean clothes, left her hair down as it was still damp, and walked out into her bedroom. Daro waited for her in the sitting room, perched on the edge of her sofa. He leapt up as soon as he saw her. Meri had seen him about the palace with Leah and stopped to check he was doing well at least once a week, as well as practice her improved Spanish skills on him, but she hadn’t looked at him properly for a while. The boy was fast becoming a man, which fitted with the fact that he had flared out relatively early for a Perilous. Kel had had to wait until he was eighteen, much to his chagrin.
‘Ma’am.’ Daro bobbed what was suspiciously like a bow.
‘Please, no need to do that,’ said Meri in Spanish.
That made him look even more worried. ‘I did it wrong?’
Where to start? ‘No, no, you did it fine. Please, just sit. What’s on your mind, Daro?’
‘Well, ma’am, miss, I…’ He looked to Leah.
‘Go on: you can tell her. She’ll understand,’ said the maid soothingly.
‘It’s just that something odd is happening to me.’
The blood rushed to Meri’s cheeks. No prizes for guessing where this was heading. Daro was an orphan but she was too young to explain to a Perilous what changes his body was going through in his teens. If only Kel had been here. From what she remembered, the flare-out was a cause for celebration in Perilous circles. ‘OK. What kind of things?’
‘I think my skin is changing. I keep seeing things—patterns—on my arms when I’m angry or…’
‘You don’t need to explain that part.’
He swallowed, too scared to be embarrassed. ‘I saw it once before when I was on the street but I thought it was because I had a fever. Am I seeing things? Am I going mad?’
Meri mentally slapped herself. OK, she wasn’t equipped to have THAT talk but who else was there? She should think of Daro like her younger brother. She shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. Roll up your sleeve.’
He did as she told him. Taking her index finger, she traced the cobweb pattern up his wrist. ‘I can see it too.’
‘But it isn’t there now.’ His brow furrowed. He was getting angry—thought she was humouring him.
‘It is. Will you allow me to show you?’
He nodded.
She pushed a tiny current of her power into him so that the markings began to glow. ‘That’s what I did the first time we met. I’m sorry I pretended otherwise. You are what they call a Perilous.’
Daro’s jaw dropped. ‘But the Perilous are killers! Everyone in the palace says so. I can’t be.’
‘Everyone in the palace is wrong. Some Perilous kill, some don’t; just as some Teans kill and some don’t. It’s not the label that makes you a killer, but how you act.’
Daro thought about that for a second, then nodded. Meri wished her council was as easily persuaded. ‘So why am I here? No one likes Perilous here.’
‘Except me—and at the moment I only like two of you.’
He looked puzzled.
‘Never mind. You asked why are you here? You remember how you were scooped off the street? I’m afraid you were used in a test to prove who I am—nothing personal, though I bet it doesn’t feel that way. I demanded they kept you afterward.’
‘Her Highness stopped you being thrown back on the streets, Daro. She faced up to all those grown ups on the council and said “You make sure the boy is looked after and educated!”’ Leah flourished her index finger in emphasis. ‘She had your best interests at heart.’
Meri thought that was probably too generous. She had known that she was merely staving off a day like today when Daro began questioning but she had not been able to come up with a better solution to the issue of what to do about him. She couldn’t send him to join the nearest Perilous community because he knew far too much. The council would demand he be silenced permanently if she suggested such a thing.
‘But…but aren’t we enemies?’ Daro gestured between the two of them.
Meri folded her hands in her lap. ‘Are we, Daro? I was trying to be your friend.’
Daro bit his lip. ‘But you’re important, the most important person in the palace; I’m nothing.’
‘Who has been telling you that?’
He refused to speak any more on that subject.
Leah rolled her eyes and spoke rapidly to Meri in English. ‘The other servants, ma’am. I protected him as best I could, and they all knew not to mention his origin, but that didn’t stop them treating him like dirt when they thought they could get away with it. Some of them are scared of him even though he’s no more dangerous than a grass snake. They just see him and think of adders.’
‘I understand.’ Meri turned back to Daro. Odd to find herself giving a pep talk to a boy just a few years younger than her, but it appeared the job fell to her. ‘You are not nothing, Daro. You are very important—unique in fact. Not because you have lovely patterns on your skin—though they are great too—but because you are kind despite the rough start you had in life and have tried your hardest to live here without complaints. I think, though, it is time for a change.’
Daro looked alarmed.
‘Don’t worry—nothing bad. How’s school?’
‘Good, thank you, ma’am. I was a little slow to start with, but I’m catching up.’
‘I know what that’s like.’ She smiled, remembering her own peripatetic early life. ‘Then perhaps it’s time you concentrated on your studies and went to live with a good friend of mine rather than stay in the palace itself. If you are less visible, you’ll be less of a target. Leah, can you call Big Ben for me?’ Big Ben, Francis and Mabel had all stayed with her but opted to keep out of Tean politics by lodging in one of the palace cottages. Ben had been talking about setting up a new café in the floating community of Cadiz but not yet got round to it. He said he wouldn’t leave until he was satisfied she was secure. He said he owed it to Kel, though quite when they had made that bargain, Meri didn’t know.
While they waited for Ben’s arrival, Meri looked over some papers. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see that Daro spent the time gazing at his skin. The marks had faded to his sight but he still traced the lines. Puberty was a bizarre experience. It reminded Meri of the day she got her first training bra, the wonder that her body was doing something so odd and grown up without her conscious participation. Being human is a ride in a car that you don’t quite control, she thought.
‘Lil’chick, what can I do for you?’ boomed Ben as soon as he was through the door. She had threatened to exile him if he started calling her ‘ma’am’ like everyone else so he now used his nickname for her like a title.
‘Hey, Ben, I need a favour.’
‘Is it going to hurt?’
‘Probably,’ she answered honestly. ‘Have you met Daro?’ She gestured to the boy, who had retreated to the window. Only way out of there was over the balcony and a drop down into the garden but he looked like he was contemplating it. Big Ben was a formidable sight.
‘Hola, Daro!’ Ben held out his hand.
‘You don’t need to be afraid of him,’ Meri said patiently.
Daro slid forward and quickly shook Ben’s hand.
‘Do you know what Daro is?’ She spoke in English so she could be frank without Daro following.
‘Yeah. Crying shame, dragging him into this.’
‘Well, we’ve had a few months grace but Daro has now also cottoned on to the fact
that he is different and being in the palace is…’ she paused.
‘Hell?’ offered Ben.
‘I was going to say “tricky” but you might be nearer the mark. I’m guessing Leah and Daro have soft-soaped the real situation down in the servants’ hall.’ They had, hadn’t they? Meri could see Leah’s closed expression as she folded the laundry, which was as good as a confession. Meri couldn’t legislate for people’s hearts.
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Ben. ‘I can’t take him away. That would put you in danger.’
‘I know. I wondered if you would look after him for me? He’s going to school now and just needs a stable home, someone he wants to come back to.’ She dropped her voice so Leah wouldn’t hear. ‘If we stay like this, I’m guessing he’ll try and run when he gets up the courage to give it a go. Then the council will order him hunted down and I will refuse and—before you know it—constitutional crisis.’
‘Put it like that then I can’t refuse.’ Ben rubbed his chin, the bristles from his close-clipped beard rasping. ‘I spent my life avoiding Perilous and now you keep making me responsible for them.’
She patted his arm. ‘I think you’re big enough to take the strain.’
‘The pressure is all in here.’ He pointed to his chest. ‘I get to like them. That’s when it really hurts.’
‘I know.’
Ben took Daro away, chatting in a mixture of his poor Spanish and English that Daro didn’t understand. They’d manage though. Anyone who spent more than five minutes with Ben would know that his heart was in the right place.
An hour later, Meri had moved on from official papers to her own homework when she had another interruption. Putting her Spanish translation to one side, she got up with a sigh. She was going to fail her class if they didn’t give her more study time.
‘Yes?’
One of the palace footmen entered and bowed. ‘Ma’am, the council requests your presence in the small meeting room.’
‘What? Now? We aren’t scheduled to meet until next Tuesday.’
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