Revolution (Chronicles of Charanthe #2)

by Rachel Cotterill

  *

  It was late afternoon by the time she made her way down to Daniel’s room. He was sitting on the bed, propped up by a dozen pillows and poring over the papers Ragal had given him.

  “What are you working on?” she asked, settling beside him and peering over his shoulder.

  “Locksure,” he said without looking up from the page.

  “Do you really think it’s important?” She leaned against his shoulder and kissed his neck. “You don’t think it could be that I’m just a bit weird?”

  “You are not unique.” He handed her a page from near the back of the sheaf. “There are a few cases in the archives where locksure failed to work, but it has always been assumed that the preparation was at fault.”

  “But this time it was the same preparation.”

  “Precisely. The others were paralysed, you were not. So you see I am on the edge of something important.”

  “Well, as long as you don’t want to try it out on me. It might not have worked properly but it wasn’t exactly fun.”

  “If I develop a new preparation, I may need to test it.”

  “Oh.” She handed the paper back to him, stretched out on the bed beside him and yawned. “Well, just tell me when you want me.”

  “I always want you.” He reached across with his spare hand and loosened the laces of her shirt, slipping his fingers between the strings to stroke her breast. “Just give me time to finish reading these records.”

  She moved his hand gently away. “As nice as this is, we should really work on our report for the palace.”

  “What is there to say? We can prove nothing.”

  “They can send someone else if they want proof. We figured it out – that’s all they actually asked for.”

  They were disturbed by a loud knock at the door. Daniel rolled from the bed and went to see who was there.

  “Looking for Eleanor,” Raf said, peering past him into the room. “Mikhail said she might be down here?”

  “I am.” She tightened the laces of her shirt, stepped into her boots, and pushed past Daniel into the corridor. “Come on, let’s go back to mine, it’s much more comfortable. This place is a lab.”

  “I went to your room first, but you weren’t there.”

  “You said you’d come round after dinner,” she said as they started to walk.

  “It is after dinner.” He cocked his head to one side and looked at her oddly. “Is there something going on with you and Daniel?”

  “Well...” She hesitated. Saying it made it so much more real, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. “We... I mean... sort of, but not really. Nothing official.”

  “I thought he annoyed you as much as he does me.”

  “I’ve always said he’s arrogant, and he is. But I can be like that too. And you. I think maybe it comes with the territory.”

  “I wouldn’t call it arrogance. Except...” – he laughed – “maybe in Daniel’s case.”

  “Will you try and be civil to him, for me?”

  “If he’ll be civil to me. But honestly, Ellie, why him? Of any man in the Association, why?”

  “We got very drunk in Faliska, and somehow... this happened. It’s not like it’s anything serious – though shhh, don’t tell anyone I said that, because I’m a bit afraid Daniel thinks it is.”

  “Ellie!”

  “I know, I know. I’m terrible. I’ll tell him eventually.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. Really, Ellie, somehow you always manage to surprise me.”

  “I don’t mean to.” She paused with her hand on the door to her building. “Do you want to come up, or shall we go out?”

  “I was out last night. Let’s just have a quiet evening in, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”