by E. E. Holmes
Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t you understand what I’m getting at here? Agnes could have opened that second door into any time or any place, I’d bet, making it possible to meet almost anyone. But she wanted you to be standing on the other side of it. So, you need to ask yourself—what is it about you?”
“My winning personality? My edgy misfit fashion sense?”
“Be serious, Jess.”
“I am being serious. I am the last person who should be trusted with this task. No one’s going to listen to me. I can’t even get near Ileana without getting myself arrested. The rest of the Northern Clans are inherently suspicious of me because of the Prophecy. Why couldn’t Agnes have chosen Flavia? Or Hannah? Or literally any other Durupinen, for that matter? It shouldn’t be me!”
“But it is you! Now, answer the damn question! What is it about you that helped you escape death in that Traveler camp? What was it that allowed you to traverse right through that Geatgrima and into the Aether to prevent the Prophecy from coming to pass? And what was it that allowed both of us to save Irina from a fate worse than death at the hands of the very woman you need to deliver your message to?”
“You… wait, are you talking about Walking?” I asked with a sigh. “Annabelle, I’ve already thought of that. I can’t get over the border in Walker form. Their Castings were set up that way, to make sure that Irina couldn’t escape.”
“And yet, Irina Walked right out of the Traveler camp, if you’ll recall,” Annabelle pointed out, a smile slowly blooming on her face.
“She didn’t just Walk out,” I snapped. “She had to use your body, that was the only way to—”
And just like that, the answer that should have been obvious from the very beginning, the answer hiding behind my panic and exhaustion, finally revealed itself. I did need Annabelle, but not just because she was a Traveler. I needed her because she was a Walker. If Irina could get over the border in Annabelle’s body, then so could I.
“Are you really willing to do that?” I whispered.
Annabelle arched one incredulous eyebrow. “I was willing once before, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, but… ” I licked my lips which had suddenly gone dry, “that was different. You got Irina out of the camp without anyone ever learning that you were a Walker. If you do this, your cover is blown. Ileana will find out what you are. Are you really prepared to let her have that kind of information about you?”
Annabelle shrugged nonchalantly, as though we were discussing whether she wanted to order another cup of tea. “I’ve spent a long time on the outside looking in at what should be my own flesh and blood. I’m sick of them treating me as a mere Dormant who can be disregarded and cast aside. Let them see what I can do, and damn the consequences.”
“Ileana won’t let a true Walker slip through her fingers. She’ll want you—want to recruit you. To weaponize you,” I insisted.
“Let her try,” Annabelle said, the fire in her voice matching the fire in her eyes. “I am not her plaything. She could have had my allegiance once, but she turned her nose up at it. Let her come begging for it now.”
I felt a smile starting to blossom on my own face. “This is nuts, you know that, right? This plan is absolute madness.”
Annabelle raised her cup to me as though in a toast. “My very favorite kind of plan,” she said.
§
When I finally left the café an hour later, the knot of tension in my chest had loosened just enough for me to feel like I could take a deep breath for the first time since I’d come out of the Rift. I had a plan—well, I had half a plan, anyway. I had another ally in my corner. I was one step closer to doing what Agnes asked of me, one step closer to finding a way to help Savvy.
It was the weekend, and so the streets of Notting Hill were overflowing with crowds of tourists visiting the famous open market, apparently undeterred by the weather. I skirted the main drag, cutting down some side streets on the way to my flat. Not that it felt much like my flat anymore—we hadn’t lived in it for months. But the fact that it had lain vacant for so long had actually proven the perfect cover story for my trip to London. If anyone asked where I was, they were to be told that I was in London, meeting with a realtor about the possibility of listing the place to be sublet for a while. And since I didn’t want to risk the chance that any nosy Durupinen might check up on that story, I had actually contacted a realtor and set up an appointment. An appointment for which, I realized as I glanced down at my watch, I was running about five minutes late.
I rounded the last corner and found the man standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, snapping cell phone pictures and jotting some notes down in a legal pad he was carrying in a leather folder. He looked not much older than me, wearing an impeccable burgundy suit, a blue bowtie and a matching pocket square, and standing beneath an enormous plaid umbrella. He looked up when he heard me approaching and broke at once into the kind of smile usually only seen on game show hosts.
“Jessica, I presume? Smashing to meet you. I’m Basil Fenwick, we spoke on the phone?” he said, all the while still smiling in an almost manic way. I took the hand he thrust out toward me and shook it. He had the most perfect fingernails I’d ever seen on a man and he smelled like he’d just gone on a testing spree of men’s colognes in a department store.
“Uh, hi, Basil. It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said. “And thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice.”
“Not at all. Delighted, delighted, I assure you,” Basil replied with an affected little bow. “Shall we head in, then? This weather is absolutely frightful!”
I smiled. “Sure. Right this way.”
“Once more unto the breach, fearless leader!” Basil replied, giving me a salute and stepping dramatically aside for me to pass by him up the steps and swinging the umbrella up over my head to keep me dry as I fumbled around in my purse for my keys.
“I must say, the place looks brilliant from the outside, and from your description, it should get snapped up right away. This neighborhood is quite in demand, you know, and there aren’t many flats to let at the moment,” Basil prattled on as I finally dug my keys from where they’d buried themselves in the deepest corner of my bag.
“That’s good to hear, Basil,” I said. “I’d like to get someone in here quickly. I feel bad, just letting it sit empty. It’s a great space.”
Basil started on a lengthy monologue about “kitchen/diners” and “snugs” and “double aspects” but I had stopped listening. I’d just taken a closer look at the door and knew at once that something was very wrong. The once gleaming brass of the lock hardware was badly scratched up around the keyhole. As I leaned closer to examine it, I also noticed damage to the wood along the edge of the doorframe where the deadbolt was located. My heart began to pump forcefully. I reached out a shaking hand and tried the doorknob. It turned easily and the door swung open.
Basil, still monologuing enthusiastically like he was hosting House Hunters International, noticed none of this. I paused on the threshold as he crowded up behind me, clicking away with his camera phone and complimenting the moldings. This was one of those moments when what I decided to do could get someone killed. What if there were Necromancers upstairs right now, lurking around in my apartment, tearing it apart for—what? Information about me? Durupinen artifacts I might have left lying around unguarded? I tried to control my breathing. If they were looking for me—hoping to lie in wait and ambush me when I returned to the flat—they surely wouldn’t have been so careless leaving obvious signs of their forced entry? No, they were smarter than that. There was, of course, the chance that they were still here. If I surprised them mid-ransacking, there was every possibility that I could put both myself and poor Basil, still blathering behind me, in serious danger. On the other hand, what if Tia had been back to the apartment? What if she was up there now, being held hostage? Or worse, what if they’d…
I was halfway up the stairs before I realized I’d made a decision, ill-adv
ised or not. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew how profoundly stupid it was, but I couldn’t make myself care. If something had happened to Tia Vezga, I would never forgive myself for the danger I’d put her in just by being her friend.
There was no point in telling Basil to be quiet—he’d been effusing at the top of his lungs since we’d set foot in the entryway, so there was no chance we were actually sneaking up on anyone. I reached the top of the stairs and found the door to the flat hanging crookedly on its hinges, wide open and obviously forced. What I could see of the flat’s interior was in absolute shambles—furniture overturned, pillows sliced open, every drawer pulled out and the contents dumped all over the floor.
A sharp intake of breath meant that Basil had arrived on the top step behind me. “Good Lord!” he whispered. “You’ve been robbed, haven’t you!”
“Looks like it,” I replied, stepping into the room, listening intently for sounds of the intruders, but it was silent. Beyond the living room and kitchen, the open bedroom doors revealed the same chaos.
“I say, you’ve got to ring the police!” Basil exclaimed, staring around the place in horror. “I feel obliged to tell you that this will make the place much more difficult to let! I had no idea this neighborhood was prone to break-ins!”
He lifted his phone up as though about to take more photos, but I reached out and lowered his arm. “I don’t think these are the kind of photos I want in the listing, so maybe cool it with the photoshoot, okay, Basil?”
I took a few more tentative steps into the living room. I tried to call out for Tia, but it took several attempts before my voice would cooperate. “Tia? Tia, are you here?”
No answer. This did not alleviate my mounting panic.
For the next several minutes, I searched every room, pulling back the shower curtain, lifting the blankets and sheets, opening closet doors. At last, I was forced to conclude, that, wherever Tia was, she definitely wasn’t in the apartment.
“What… what are you going to do?” Basil asked, after watching my search of the place while carrying on a steady stream of concerned exclamations under his breath. “I must confess, I don’t feel quite right, trying to let the place if this is the sort of—that is to say, I think I’d rather not—”
“You can go, Basil. Thanks for your time,” I snapped.
“Right-o, cheers,” Basil breathed gratefully and practically ran from the room.
All of a sudden my knees felt like they were going to buckle beneath me, and I quickly sank down onto the tattered sofa. She’s not here because she’s not supposed to be here, I reminded myself. She hasn’t been living here. There’s no reason to think anything’s wrong.
But my fingers felt numb as I pulled the phone from my back pocket and clumsily dialed Tia’s cell phone number. I held my breath as I waited, my pulse quickening with each ring that went by unanswered.
If she wasn’t there… if she didn’t answer…
“There you are, stranger!”
I couldn’t help it. I burst into hysterical sobs at the very sound of her voice. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, God!” It took nearly a minute for me to calm down enough to start making any sense whatsoever, by which time Tia was starting to get hysterical herself.
“Jess, just tell me where you are and I’ll come and g—”
“NO!” I gasped. I took a shuddering breath and mastered myself. “I’m so sorry, I did not mean to lose it like that. I’m just so relieved to hear your voice. I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“But why wouldn’t I be okay?” Tia asked. “Jess, please tell me what’s going on, you’re really scaring me!”
“I… well, I came back to the apartment to… to get some stuff I left here and I found the door unlocked downstairs, and upstairs the place has been trashed.”
“Trashed?” Tia cried, her voice going up about two octaves. “What do you mean, trashed?”
“I mean someone ransacked the place. I don’t know if they took anything, or what they were looking for, but it’s a total mess in here.”
Tia took several deep breaths, and when she spoke again, she was back in a normal register. “Do you think it was them, Jess? Do you think it was the Necromancers?”
I almost lied to her. I almost did it, just to protect her from sharing the fear that was pumping like poison through my veins. But I talked myself out of it. I couldn’t do that to her, not after all Charlie had put her through. She deserved the truth.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’d stake my life on it.”
Tia made a sound halfway between a sob and a squeak. “What should we do?”
“You don’t need to do anything except stay away from here,” I told her at once. “When’s the last time you were here?”
“I haven’t been back since I moved over to med school housing,” Tia said. “When I came to pack up my stuff, the Trackers were still there doing their investigation about Charlie. That woman Catriona made me turn over everything I had that Charlie had ever used or given me, and asked me a ton of questions. That was the last time I saw it. So that was… what, three months ago now?”
“And when the Trackers were here, I don’t suppose they tore the place to shreds in their quest to figure out where Charlie was?” I asked half-heartedly.
“No, of course not,” Tia said. “They were being very meticulous—they were even wearing gloves and putting things in plastic bags.”
“Okay, then. Well, I’m going to call Catriona and let her know what happened. I need you to promise me that you’re going to stay away from the apartment until I tell you it’s okay to come back. Is there anything you need from here that I can have sent over to the school for you?”
“Uh…” Tia sounded flustered at being put on the spot in this way. “I… I’m not sure… I… no, I think I have everything I need, honestly. There’s not much of my stuff left there, anyway.”
“Good. And I… I might have the Caomhnóir or the Trackers assign a security patrol to you,” I said. “Not, like, a bodyguard or anything,” I added quickly, as Tia began to protest. “Just… just someone to cruise the area around the school.”
“I… well, I guess that’ll be okay,” Tia said, though she still sounded wary.
“I’ll find out who they’re sending, and text you a photo, so you’ll know their face if you see them hanging around, okay?” I added.
“That would be great, thanks,” Tia said, sounding relieved. “I didn’t want to make myself paranoid if I saw some random guy just lurking around the campus.”
“It won’t be like that, I promise,” I told her.
“Jess… is… I know you can’t always tell me everything about Durupinen stuff, but… there’s something kind of big going on, isn’t there?”
I hesitated only a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I think there is.”
“You have to stay safe, too, okay?” she said, in a tone that was almost scolding.
“Don’t worry, I am,” I replied.
“Don’t you dare patronize me, Jessica Ballard!” Tia snapped, sounding quite suddenly a lot less like my best friend and much more like my mother. “Don’t you dare tell me not to worry! Have you met me? I have a post-graduate degree in anxiety! I will never not worry about you. And I am not telling you to ‘try’ to stay safe, or to ‘do your best’ to stay safe. I am telling you to STAY. SAFE. Do you understand me? I will not be okay if you are not okay. My okayness depends on your okayness, got it?”
“I… I think so?” I said, half-laughing before getting control of myself again. “I promise, Tia.”
“Right. That’s more like it.” She heaved a deep breath, and when she spoke again, she had regained her composure. “So… so in the grand scheme of whatever big thing is going down in the Durupinen world… are you okay?”
Was I okay? My entire existence as a Durupinen was based on a lie. One of my best friends was at the center of some cosmic struggle for the soul of the spirit world, and I had no idea if she was going to survive it. I was ab
out to risk my freedom sneaking into a place I was banished from to deliver a message from a centuries dead Seer. And there was a very good chance that, even if I managed to deliver the message, everyone who heard it would think I’d lost my mind.
“Of course, I’m fine,” I said, repeating the lie I’d heard on more than one occasion from Catriona’s lips. “I’m always fine.”
7
Who We Are
ON THE RIDE HOME from London, I called in to the Tracker office and filed a report about the break-in at our flat, as well as the request for Tia’s security detail. I gave all the details to Elin, Catriona’s second-in-command, because Catriona wasn’t available.
“Well, can you just have her call me back?” I asked. “No offense, but I’d really prefer to speak directly with her.”
“She’s not reachable at present,” Elin snapped, clearly taking offense anyway. “She’s gone back to Skye Príosún.”
“Skye? Really? When is she going to be back?” I asked.
“Who am I, her mum? I don’t know, do I? Do you want to leave a message for her, or not?” Elin grumbled.
After giving her all the details, I hung up with Elin and was preparing to open the connection with Hannah when I thought better of it. She was already so on edge—we all were. I didn’t want to unload the news about our ransacked apartment unless I knew she was in a good place, mentally. If I opened the connection, the colors of my mood would flood her at once, and there would be no softening the blow, let alone hiding what happened. No, I would wait to see her in person and use the rest of the drive to figure out how to tell her the truth about what had happened in the least alarming way possible.
When I returned to Fairhaven, however, I couldn’t deliver the news to Hannah right away—she was locked up in committee with the rest of the Council, no doubt trying to figure out their next steps in handling the Geatgrima situation. The tension within the castle was palpable. Classes continued, but with a strange, hushed air, as though the Apprentices felt they weren’t supposed to be studying at all while a fellow Durupinen was locked in a struggle with the Geatgrima right outside their windows. The Caomhnóir all looked worn out—everyone was pulling longer shifts, and the duties were more onerous. Even the spirits that generally haunted Fairhaven were rarely to be seen within the castle walls. Though it seemed none of them could explain what was happening outside, they were nonetheless drawn to it, and there was a constant ghostly audience hovering over the courtyard like low-hanging cloud cover. One particular member of that spirit cloud detached himself immediately upon realizing I had returned to the castle, and despite the solemn, quiet atmosphere of the castle, his response to my news from London was loud and dramatic enough to require frantic shushing.