Holding aside the curtain on an already-opened door, he ushered us inside, where a fully set table with crisp linens stood between two high-backed chairs. I watched the waiter light the candles and open a bottle of wine that had been waiting for us, but then my eyes were drawn over the balcony, to the stage below, already lit up and with a live orchestra, albeit a small one. Most of the restaurant's dining area lived on the floor below the stage, which appeared to be on a slight slope for better visibility. Between that and the tables being spaced closely but precisely from one another, everyone on the ground level should also have an unobstructed view of the stage. I gripped the balcony with a gloved hand, looking at the virtual wall panel that morphed into various famous statues below a positively enormous but honest-to-goodness chandelier that looked to be about a hundred years old.
I noticed one of the clusters of the people at the tables and squinted through the dim light. One of the people sitting there looked almost like––
Revik clicked at me softly.
When I glanced back, the waiter no longer stood there, and Revik waited by my chair, one hand on the back as he motioned me towards him with the other.
"Giving the whole room a view of your face kind of defeats the purpose of the box, Allie," he said quietly.
Realizing he was right, that I was standing too close to the edge, I backed off at once, so that most of me hid in shadow again. Even so, I sighed a bit. I used to love people-watching, especially in places like this. That was one pastime I couldn't pull off at all these days, not without risking everyone in our group.
Taking a few more steps back to where he stood, I fought another smile when I realized he was waiting there to hold the chair out for me. I didn't bother to tell him that I was pretty sure no one did that anymore...but I also couldn't help wondering how long it had been since he'd been on this kind of date.
"Longer than I care to admit," he murmured in my ear, kissing my neck before he straightened. Walking back around the table, he sat across from me, pulling the napkin off his plate and out of it's swan-like shape with a snap of his wrist. "...Am I going to get old man jokes all night? After a day of young man jokes?"
Shaking my head, I took the glass of wine he poured for me.
"No," I said.
He gave me a sideways look, then glanced down at the stage, as if looking at the decorations, as I had been. The balcony cut off the view of most of the people downstairs, but gave us an unobstructed, eagle's eye view of the stage. His gaze also paused on the chandelier, which stood nearly level with us, and the same morphing VR wall that I had been looking at moments earlier, which we could see reasonably well from our table, as well. It struck me suddenly, looking at him, that he might be nervous, too.
I wondered why. He'd always been a lot more comfortable with this kind of thing than I had. Not the date part, per se, since we'd never done that before...more the being a couple type things. Before Revik, I'd only ever done that with slackers and musician types. He had a lot more practice doing it when it involved grown-up type settings...versus ridiculous quantities of beer and pizza and drunken groping.
He grunted. "Not the visual I was hoping for, wife."
"Are you going to read my mind all night?" I asked softly.
He smiled. "Usually you talk more."
"Does it bother you? That I'm not talking?"
"No." He shrugged. "No...I just wondered why."
I couldn't help thinking about that, too. Back at the hotel, we usually talked about work. Or else we cracked dumb jokes and teased one another. Lately, we'd been playing that tell-all game, trying to learn trivia about one another. We'd never gotten as far as live theater. The only things I could think of to say seemed too horribly mundane to me, or too close to work, or involved a bunch of pointless worry about things neither of us could control and that might just sour the mood. The truth was, I didn't have a lot of practice at the kind of conversation that would be appropriate for an outing like this.
"What kind of conversation would that be?" he asked.
Looking over at his slightly amused tone, I sighed.
"Oh, you know..." I said, adopting my best, fake highbrow voice. "The latest literary bestseller, where to summer in Staad, problems with the domestic help...my favorite private beaches in Greece..."
He smiled, clicking at me again. "You say I'm ridiculous."
I shrugged. "I was never a limo kind of girl until I met you."
"Is that why you usually jump me in limos?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
He was stalling though, I could feel it now.
Once I noticed him doing it, it was impossible not to notice. I found myself studying his eyes, closely enough that I nearly scanned him.
"You want to talk about something," I pronounced after another minute. "What?"
He made a vague gesture, not meeting my eyes.
"What happened with Jon today?" he said, sidestepping my question. "Did you want to tell me about that?"
I felt myself growing uncomfortable again.
Jon and I hadn't even really talked about that yet. Not about what it meant, anyway. I had little doubt that Balidor and Wreg and the others were scanning the hell out of his light back at the hotel that very moment, trying to figure it out themselves. I knew his light felt different after whatever we did...and then there was that thing with his eyes changing color. I knew it felt like something passed through me when I had my hand on him, but I had no idea what, or what it might have done to him. I did know one thing; his light still felt human to me...which truthfully, was kind of a relief. At first I'd had the crazy thought that I'd somehow turned him into a seer. I knew that didn't really make sense, but given that whole 'crossover' thing and the way his eyes looked after that influx of golden light, I couldn't help wondering.
"I don't know," I said finally, realizing the pause had gone on too long. I shook my head. "Really. I don't...I was hoping you or 'Dori would be able to tell me."
Revik only looked at me for a minute. Briefly, a slight frown touched his forehead. Then he clicked again, softer that time, right before he looked away.
"Well," he said, quieter. "I don't know about Jon...but Balidor does have a theory about you."
"A theory about me?" I looked back from where my eyes had wandered back over the balcony. "...Do I even want to know?"
Revik shrugged with one hand. "He thinks you have new abilities."
"New abilities?" I laughed. "Like, what kind?"
He shrugged again, unsmiling. "He wasn't specific. He seems to think maybe this was triggered while you were being trained as an infiltrator under the Lao Hu...or maybe..." He hesitated, gesturing vaguely again. "...Maybe some combination of that and you and me."
"You and me?"
He shrugged again, not quite meeting my gaze.
I studied his eyes. "This isn't only 'Dori. You think this, too."
He averted his face, looking out over the balcony once more.
"Why, Revik?" I said. "Because of the Jon thing? I'm not even sure if that was me. I know this'll sound strange, but I felt Vash in that...and Jon himself..."
"Not only the Jon thing," Revik said, looking back at me.
"Then what?"
"My side," he said. When I gave him a blank look, he laid a hand on his back, where the shrapnel had been embedded. "When I got hurt, Allie. It healed fast. Too fast..." he added. "And then there was that thing with the imprints..."
"You told 'Dori about that?" I said.
He shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "It came up."
"So he thinks...what? That I can remove imprints? Heal shrapnel wounds?"
"Yes," Revik said, his gaze growing serious once more. "We both do."
I frowned a little, but didn't really have a good reply.
Seeing my expression, Revik added cautiously, "We think maybe you came back with healing abilities...or something along those lines. There are a number of structures in your light that none of us recognize...things we never saw
in you before you left for China." When my frown only deepened, he shrugged again. "'Dori and Wreg also think you and I are affecting one another. I had some of that, before as Syrimne...the healing thing, I mean..."
I found myself remembering the boy, Nenzi, in that organic cell under the White House in D.C. He'd done something to me with his light after Terian hurt me...something that helped me. I don't know what he did exactly, but I remember I felt like I was going to die...and when the boy finished putting his hands on me, I didn't. I'd been so grateful to him at the time. It was like being pulled from the brink of some nightmare of pain.
"So I learned this from you?" I said.
He gave me another sideways look. "I don't know..." he began. Pausing, he shook his head, amending his words. "...No. The truth is, while I don't know for sure, I don't think you got this from me, Allie. 'Dori thinks, and I agree, that it's more like parts of me have been waking up parts of you." He hesitated, making that 'more or less' gesture with his hand again. "...And vice versa. He's seen changes in my aleimi as well. Whatever those are just haven't manifested yet. I haven't used the healing thing in a very long time, Allie. I was never all that good at it, frankly..."
I thought about that, too.
"Maybe it's catching," I said finally. "Maybe that's what I did to Jon, too. Maybe I helped wake up some part of him, like we've been doing to one another..."
Revik gave me a level look. I couldn't tell if he was reading me or not, but when he spoke, his words surprised me.
"Why are you waiting for me and 'Dori and Yumi and Wreg to check him out?" he said finally. "Allie...you must know you can see as well as any of us now."
When I rolled my eyes a little, he sharpened his voice.
"That thing with Surli," he said. "Even being connected to the Lao Hu, you shouldn't have been able to feel that it was about California, and about your friends...it shocked the hell out of Balidor, even more when Surli confirmed that you'd been right."
I shook my head. "I probably remembered Voi Pai threatening me with that, and put it together..."
He shook his head, adamant. "No. Even deductively, you shouldn't have gone there so quickly. You were scared," he added, giving me a more direct look. "I could feel it on you. I didn't know why until you mentioned San Francisco, but that's a pretty visceral reaction to a 'guess'...and not overly likely in my experience."
I shrugged again, looking over the balcony once more.
"Allie." He reached over the table, taking my hand where I'd been toying with the stem of the wine glass. He clutched my fingers, and the emotion behind his touch startled me, drawing my eyes back to his. "You can't keep doing this...relying on all of us for this kind of thing. You're still hiding, pretending you don't have an opinion about things that are too important for you to stay out of. There is no longer an 'infiltrators only' group that doesn't include you. Don't you understand that?" When I didn't answer, he gripped my fingers tighter. "I'm telling you, you can't afford to do it anymore. We need you."
Feeling the seriousness on him, I forced myself to turn over his words, to really hear them. Almost before I had, I knew he was right. Exhaling a held breath, I nodded again.
"Okay," I said.
As I said it, the curtain slid back to our private balcony and two waiters came in, both of them wearing dark suits and ties. I was surprised to see that the waiters carried trays with them already, piled with enough food to be intimidating. I wondered if Revik had ordered for us in advance of our being here, or if there was some kind of set menu to go with the play.
"There is no play, Allie," Revik said, his voice low.
I stared at him, confused.
Before I could ask, waiters were placing dishes between us, making me hesitant to speak until they'd finished. They covered every blank square of white linen, pretty much everywhere not already taken up by a wine glass or a plate or a candle. Revik leaned back, watching me cautiously as they arranged the different-sized plates and bowls. I noticed that most of them contained only small portions, maybe only a few bites for each of us. Glancing around, the types of food made no sense, either. I saw a small bowl of what smelled like canned human soup next to what had to be seer food on two of the center plates. One of those looked like some kind of white noodles that only tipped me off as seer food because of the unusual smell of the spices and the reactions of my light. Another had mango and spices that I almost recognized...another was a kind of dark green wrap that seers ate during training exercises and long hikes, a kind of seer quick food that Jon called a seaweed burrito.
I couldn't help laughing once I'd scanned most of the dishes laying before us.
"Isn't that what we ate in Vancouver?" I said, pointing at the burrito. "And what we ate that first night in the cabin...and on the bed that one night?" I said, pointing at the mango thing, then the noodles. "And is that curry?" I said, laughing again. "What is this? Seer tapas? Or did you have them bring us some of each of your favorite foods?"
He smiled, shrugging with one hand. "Something like that."
"Which one?" I said, meeting his gaze with a grin.
He surprised me though, catching hold of my wrist and looking at me seriously.
"Allie," he said. "It's a ritual."
I continued smiling, not sure if he was serious. "What kind of ritual?"
Releasing my wrist, he sat back in the chair, looking uncomfortable again. "I probably should have just told you," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I asked them to do this...it's supposed to symbolize different phases of our relationship so far." He motioned towards the one dish that was covered. "All except that one. That was chosen by our family and friends. It's supposed to be where we are now, in their eyes. Afterwards, we'll have something chosen by the eldest seer. It's supposed to be where we are going...the future...along with a kind of blessing for the whole gathering."
I felt things happening in his light, just out of my reach, but intense enough that I couldn't pretend not to notice. I also felt him shielding me, enough to make me nervous.
"Revik," I said. "After what?"
"Are you okay with doing this tonight?" he said, studying my eyes. "I should have asked, but we'd already put things in motion..."
"Doing what?" I said.
"I was starting to feel like we didn't have a lot of time..."
"Doing what?" I said again, still studying his face in some bewilderment, trying to understand all of the conflicting feelings I could see there. Even though I had some idea where this might be going, when he said the words, they still jolted me.
"Marrying me," he said, still watching me with that taut expression. "In a ceremony, I mean...like we talked about."
When I only looked at him, trying to decide how to react, he cleared his throat.
"Now," he added, as if to clarify.
18
RITUAL
JON WANDERED INTO the restaurant unnoticed, along with ten or twelve others from the hotel, most of them ex-rebels. He'd had to dress in a hurry when Allie dragged him along for the dress-shopping excursion and then down to wait for Revik, but it ended up not being a big deal, and Wreg and the others arranged for him to come in one of the later cars while Balidor and a lot of the Adhipan coordinated shuttling over the rest of the guests.
Anyway, as Wreg pointed out, they'd only been planning this party for two months, give or take...the last month dealing with security protocols alone.
Being a few minutes late didn't mean a lot, in the bigger scale of things.
Wreg waited for him, which Jon found both reassuring and a bother, which was pretty much how he felt about Wreg's shadowing of him for the past few weeks, in general.
His days of traveling among the seers incognito appeared to be over.
He rode over in the same car with Wreg, Jorag, Neela and Jax from the security team, but they all pretty much scattered as soon as they got inside.
The construct shield supposedly would keep Allie from recognizing anyone from their balcony perch
, but it was still unnerving, being in the middle of a surprise party and never knowing when the trigger would be pulled.
Wreg disappeared the second they entered the hall together...first distracted by the bar, then by some of Allie's friends from art school, the few that Jon had been able to get here without causing some sort of security breach. The few that didn't live in San Francisco, in other words.
Watching Wreg start to flirt with a few of them, Jon rolled his eyes, irritated in spite of himself. Rather than watch, he wandered off, too, and managed to find a drink without having to wait in line when a waiter visited the table where Jon sat alone.
The fact that Revik managed to pull this off without Allie figuring it out had pretty much blown Jon's mind. It also seemed to be a testament of sorts to how distracted everyone was, Allie included. Of course, at the time Revik proposed the date, he'd planned on waiting on the sex and whatever else between them...including their moving in together...so some of that got blown out of the water when they robbed that bank together and got cuddly afterwards.
But from what Revik told him, and from what Jon had observed between the two of them in the time since, the spirit of the thing remained intact.
Of course, half of the guests hadn't been able to make it, despite their purchased plane tickets and whatever else. They'd been stuck behind the quarantine line in San Francisco. The four seers who'd gone looking for them, including Garensche, wouldn't be in attendance either, obviously, which Jon knew would probably bug the big pirate-looking seer more than he'd let on during their last communication.
Cass wouldn't be here either...or Chandre...but Jon tried not to think about either of them.
He tried to think even less about the absence of Dorje and Vash, who each had specific roles in the original ceremony they'd planned, too.
Tarsi had flown out for it, though, which was no mean feat.
So had the remaining members of the Council.
More significantly for Jon, and for Allie herself, their Aunt Carol had made it from Arizona, along with four of their cousins...the cooler ones from that branch of their mother's family. One of whom, Kara, also happened to be on the list, although Jon hadn't talked to Allie about that yet. He'd avoided giving Revik the names of any family friends or relatives who might potentially turn them in to SCARB, which unfortunately meant most of their father's side of the family. He had risked inviting Uncle James, their father's favorite brother, and his son, Marcus, who was a few years younger than Jon.
Allie's War Season Three Page 48