“Consider for a minute what happens if they catch you.”
Even though she’d thought the same thing, hearing it aloud was like a slap in the face. “They won’t.”
Honor’s snort was derisive. In the mirror, her expression was a contradiction of pain and worry, confusion and resignation, and Lu felt something shifting in her, a profound change swelling to the surface faster than Honor could contain it. Suddenly, her face was transfigured by misery.
“Don’t be so sure. Overconfidence is an excellent way to screw up. Because if you get too complacent and they do catch you, you’ll be spending the rest of eternity in a sealed cell!”
In one swift, smooth motion, Honor unsheathed a small knife she had hidden at her waist, pulled Lu’s braid taut, and sliced it cleanly off only an inch away from her exposed neck. Her shorn hair fell forward around her face in a short, perfect bob.
Lu leapt from the chair and whirled around, her hands lifting to her head, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Honor just stood there with her long, severed braid dangling from her hand like a beheaded snake. She was breathing hard, eyes glittering, hands trembling at her sides.
“Don’t get caught,” she said, the words ragged, harsh. “I only just found you. I can’t lose you again.”
Then she dropped both the knife and the severed braid, and pulled Lu into a hard hug, sobbing.
Lu couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.
She wrapped her arms around her crying sister and laughed. “You crazy, unstable, psycho witch!”
Honor sobbed harder, hugging Lu so tight she could hardly breathe.
Morgan’s voice, hesitant, came from behind the drawn entrance curtains. “Ducks? Everything all right?”
Honor pushed Lu away, angrily wiping tears from her face, and left Lu by the vanity while she began to pace like a caged animal in front of the smoldering fire in the sitting area in the adjacent room. “Fine!” she yelled. “Everything’s just peachy friggin’ keen!”
You really don’t deal with emotions well, sweetie, Lu thought. Honor’s answering shout reverberated inside her head.
SHUT! UP!
“Morgan, come in,” said Lu, hurrying to the other room. When Morgan stepped through the curtains and saw her, she clapped a hand over her mouth, staring.
“I know, right?” Lu fingered a lock of her hair. Without all the weight, her head felt as if it were floating above her shoulders, light as air. She had to admit she liked the feeling, though she felt unduly exposed, her neck bare to the cool air, her nape naked. She also had to admit she wanted to be angry with Honor for doing something so drastic, but wasn’t.
She got it now. She had her sister’s number. That hardcore, badass act wasn’t fooling her anymore. Beneath that icy façade was just a girl who felt everything a little too much, and didn’t know how to handle it.
Morgan’s gaze flicked to the floor in front of the vanity. She saw the knife and the braid, glanced over at Honor, then looked back at Lu. “Well,” she said, her composure recovered, “it suits you. Now you look like Princess Di.”
“Who?”
Morgan waved a hand, stepping into the room. “Never mind. Listen, I came to talk to you about something.” She hesitated, then amended, “Actually I came to offer you something.”
“Let’s sit,” suggested Lu, her curiosity piqued by the tone of Morgan’s voice. She gestured toward the sofa and chairs Honor still paced around, but Morgan shook her head.
“I’ll only stay a moment, I know you’re getting ready to leave. There’s just . . .”
Her lovely face clouded, and Lu’s heart rate spiked. “What? What’s wrong?”
“No,” she said gently, taking Lu’s hands. “Pet, there’s nothing wrong.” She laughed softly, shaking her head. “Besides everything, of course.” She glanced down at their joined hands, inhaled a deliberate breath, then quietly said, “I want you to have it.”
“Have what?” asked Lu, perplexed.
Morgan lifted her eyes and fixed Lu in her green, green stare. “My Gift.”
A beat of astonished silence followed this declaration as Lu and Honor stared at Morgan, processing what she’d said.
“No,” Lu said, but Morgan was already shaking her head.
“You don’t even know what it is yet. And believe me when I say it can come in incredibly handy.”
Lu withdrew her hands, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s kind of you to offer, really, but—”
“Take it,” Honor cut in suddenly. Lu turned, and found Honor staring at her with fierce, frozen intent, her cheeks still wet. “Morgan’s right: Her Gift is amazing. And much more subtle than ours. It’s perfect for what you’re about to do. Take it. Drain her.”
Drain her? Lu felt vaguely insulted. “I’m not some kind of vampire—”
“Yes,” Honor interrupted, her voice hard, “you are.”
Lu opened her mouth to protest, but then she thought of the pilot’s memory. She thought of Magnus’s mental shield. She thought of how she’d learned to play the piano, and fluently speak the several languages she’d never once studied.
She tucked her bare hands under her armpits, and turned away from Morgan, her cheeks heating in embarrassment. “I don’t want to be this weird . . . collector.”
“Her Gift of Suggestion is one of the best.” Honor’s voice still rang with that hard edge, but now also held a pleading undertone. “Anyone would kill to have it—”
“If it’s so special, you take it!”
“I can’t!”
It hung there in the air, throbbing with import, tapering away into silence while Lu and Honor stared at one another and Morgan waited in quiet stillness near the door.
“I don’t have that Gift,” said Honor, her voice soft. “Believe me, I’ve tested it. I’ve tried. I can’t do what you can do.”
“But . . . Caesar . . .” Morgan floundered, at a loss for words, staring at Honor, obviously struggling to understand.
Honor slowly shook her head. “That wasn’t me. That was Hope.”
Morgan’s eyes had gone wide. She whispered, “So Hope took Caesar’s Gift of Immortality . . .”
“And then we killed him,” finished Honor, her voice hollow.
A tingle of horror swept up Lu’s spine. “Killed him?” she repeated slowly.
Seeing her expression, Honor said, “You’ve never heard of Caesar?”
Lu shook her head.
Morgan came closer, her expression dark. “He was a murderer. He was one of us, but he wanted to rule the world, and he slaughtered a lot of high-profile humans in his quest for power. And he planned to kill your parents, and you, though you were just little babies—”
“Why would he want to kill us?” Lu looked back and forth between Morgan and Honor.
Morgan said, “Because your mother was the Queen.”
Lu just stared at her, speechless.
“She still is, in fact. But once Caesar found out he was Gifted with Immortality, he plotted to kill her, and take over the entire world, Ikati and human both. We’d lived in secrecy and silence for thousands of years, hidden in small colonies like this one, but Caesar decided he was done with all that. It was he who betrayed us to Sebastian Thorne. It was he who started the war between our two species. His insanity is the reason behind every terrible thing that’s befallen us in the last twenty-five years, and there’s not a day that’s gone by that I don’t give thanks that that son of a bitch is dead.”
A log settled lower in the grate. The fire sighed and released a knot of orange sparks. And inside of Lu, memory was knitting together with abrupt concrescence, like fingers interlacing, or a key fitting into a well-oiled lock.
She asked, “It was the day before the Flash, wasn’t it? When Caesar tried to kill us?”
Morgan looked startled. “How did you know?”
There were pictures in Lu’s mind, a series of images she’d carried with her for as long as she could remember. The images had always seemed nonsensical, a collage of unrelated items, like photos pasted into a scrapbook: a snapshot of a man with black hair and midnight eyes, standing atop the crenellated tower of a crumbling kasbah in the desert, staring up at the star-dusted sky; the same man clutching a tiny baby to his chest in a strangely elegant tree house in the darkest heart of a jungle, his face twisted with rage; a long, wavering line of pinprick lights that weren’t stars twinkling on the morning horizon; a soundless flight over a landscape of emerald green, bisected by the sinuous black twist of a sluggish river; a charming house surrounded by flowers on the edge of a small village, its front door painted yellow.
The sky a blazing pulse of color, flashing scarlet to orange to brilliant, blinding white.
Lu had always assumed these pictures were things she’d conjured from the imaginary worlds she visited in books, or perhaps remnants of long-ago dreams, or random snippets of forgotten songs, her mind creating images from read or spoken words. But now she saw the pictures for what they really were: memories.
Only not her own. Her mother’s. She’d stolen them from her.
Lu crossed slowly to the white duvet, sank into its plump, welcome cushions, and stared into the fire.
“Pet? Are you all right?”
Numb with recognition, Lu whispered, “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? Seeing as how I just realized that the first time I killed a man, I was barely more than one year old.”
“We,” said Honor. She sat beside her on the sofa, took her hand, and squeezed it. “We did it. Together. And Morgan is right: He deserved it. I’d kill him again if I could.”
A sound worked its way from Lu’s throat. It was part laugh, part choke, part cry of disbelief. She thought of the helicopter pilot, that red bubble at the corner of his mouth, and had to close her eyes to contain the tears that pricked beneath her lids.
How many more people will I kill in my lifetime? Is that what I am? A murderer, like Caesar?
No, came Honor’s firm reply. You’re a warrior. Like me. And sometimes warriors get their hands bloody, but the difference is that a murderer kills because he wants to. A warrior only kills when he has to, to protect himself, or the ones he loves.
Lu opened her eyes and gazed at her sister, whose mouth had curved into a smile.
Or, in our case, to protect the ones she loves.
Morgan sat on Lu’s other side. She took Lu’s chin firmly in hand and forced her to meet her eyes. “You will not feel guilty for what you did. I won’t allow it. Guilt and shame are wasted emotions, only ever useful for what they can teach us. Learn what you can, then let the rest go, because if you allow guilt to sink its claws in you, you’ll never be free of it.”
“The only people who don’t feel guilt when they’ve done something wrong are bad people,” Lu countered.
“That’s correct. And you do feel bad, which proves you’re not one of those people. But I’m telling you now that guilt is only a half step away from fear, and if you allow yourself to wallow in guilt, fear will follow on its heels and eventually you’ll find yourself paralyzed. Don’t let either one dictate how you’ll live your life.” She smiled, releasing Lu’s chin. “I never have, and Lord knows there are a million reasons I could’ve.”
Lu sat for a moment in silence, absorbing Morgan’s words, until Honor spoke again.
“You need to get your head straight about this.”
Lu looked at her sister, and found her staring back at her with her usual freezing intensity. Her tears had dried. Her armor had been donned.
“There’s always a price to be paid for freedom. That price is blood. It’s ugly, it’s tragic, but it’s reality. We didn’t start this fight, but we have to be willing to engage, and fight back. We have to do what it takes to protect ourselves, or we all die. The strong either protect the weak, or devour them. You and I are strong. So was Caesar. He chose the second path, and we chose the first. Can you see the difference?”
With her fierce sister on one side, and her fiery godmother on the other, Lu experienced a moment of profound calm, like the breathless stillness in the eye of a storm. She’d never felt so centered, or so suddenly sure of what she had to do. She thought perhaps it was the kindness of denial—ignorance was definitely bliss, in her experience—or maybe mass hysteria on a smaller scale, the effective mindwashing of two talented salespeople, but their words touched a chord deep inside her, and her shame was unexpectedly replaced by . . . well, if not pride then at least satisfaction.
Honor was right. If they wanted to, she and her sister could wreak the kind of havoc on the planet that would be nothing short of biblical. And who could stop them?
But they didn’t want that. For all their differences, they wanted the same thing.
Peace. Freedom. And most of all . . .
“I want you to promise me something.” Lu leaned in close to Honor, staring her deep in the eyes.
She seemed slightly taken aback by Lu’s sudden change of demeanor. “Which is?”
“Tell Beckett how you feel about him.”
Honor and Morgan both said, “What?” at the same time, only Honor’s voice was an octave higher. And much louder.
“No matter what happens after I leave, whether I make it back or not, I want to know that you’re not going to go on like this for the rest of your life. I want you to tell Beckett how you feel about him, because I think there might be something there. If I have to be courageous, you do, too.”
Morgan’s eyes were wide as she searched Honor’s face. “You and Beckett?”
Honor ignored Morgan, concentrating instead on stabbing Lu with daggers of withering fury using her eyes. “I am so going to kill you,” she said, her voice dangerously low.
Lu smiled. “Yeah. Let me know how that works out for you. Besides,” she said, tugging on a strand of her sister’s long mane, “you deserved it. And Morgan, thanks for the offer, but I’m not taking your Gift. I think it’s time I learned how to use all of mine.”
She rose, fluffed her shorn hair, crossed the room to the pair of large dressers where she suspected Honor kept all her clothes, and began to dig through the drawers for something to wear on her perilous, ill-planned, and possibly ill-fated return to New Vienna.
PART THREE
TWENTY
They left with the last of the light. As the helicopter rose into the sky and the crowd that had gathered on the moors to see them off grew smaller and smaller, the emerald valley darkened to sapphire and smoke-purple shadows, gloomy twilight colors that perfectly reflected Lumina’s mood.
She watched the sun sink behind the jagged peaks of the mountains in the west, wondering if she’d ever see that particular sight again. Shaking off her sense of doom, she turned to Magnus in the pilot’s seat beside her.
“How long will it take to cross the Channel?”
“Not long,” he replied without glancing in her direction. He offered nothing more.
She waited, hoping her silence would prompt something from him—anything—but he acted as if he were alone on the flight, flicking switches and checking readouts, adjusting his headphones, taking up most of the space in the small cockpit with his oversized frame. Lu felt small and insignificant beside him, but most of all, worst of all, ignored.
He hadn’t wanted her help on this trip. She’d insisted, and they both knew her powers would be a significant asset, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Judging by his body language, the way he kept his gaze averted, and the tension rolling off him in waves, he didn’t like it at all.
Or maybe what he really hadn’t liked was that kiss.
She dropped her gaze to her hands, turned her wrists over and inspected her empty birdcage and starling tattoos. It had been stupid, taking that kiss.
A rash impulse better ignored. But every time she looked at him she saw a million fevered dreams, and the echo of longing eating its way through her chest grew larger with every passing minute. The longing had a new companion in humiliation; everyone saw how he’d begun avoiding her. She felt the speculation that surrounded them, the curiosity, and understood those were two of the last things on Earth a man like Magnus would want.
Evidently his way of dealing with unwanted attention was to become even more closed and tightly wound than before. If that was even possible.
His withdrawal left her feeling off-balance, like something familiar and right had been pulled askew, two planets yanked out of their proper orbits. She wouldn’t speak to him in his thoughts again—he’d made it perfectly clear how he felt about that—and he obviously had little inclination to speak to her aloud, so all she could do was stew, wonder, and try to blot out the memory of the exotic, night-spice taste of the man who was, quite literally, the man of her dreams.
Lu stifled her sigh, and turned her attention to the view.
Mile after mile of rolling moors and wild peat land, a range of craggy mountains and the unexpected surprise of a lake nestled between two peaks, its surface black and mirror smooth, reflecting back the rising moon. Abandoned villages one after another, connected by arteries of roads upon which nothing moved. The villages grew larger, closer together, until all at once Lu realized that they were no longer villages, but suburbs.
London loomed large and black in the distance.
Fascinated, she pressed her face to the window, her breath frosting the glass. In minutes they’d reached it. The city sprawled vast and eerie as a dream beneath them, cloaked in a restless, low-lying fog that crept in whorls and eddies around the edges of everything. There was the Thames and the Tower Bridge, Westminster palace and Big Ben, the huge, unmoving wheel of the London Eye, all familiar sights from her father’s history lessons. In the moonlight, it was beautiful, a ghost city in a landscape of haze and starlight, utterly unmoving and dark.
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