Witherward

by Hannah Mathewson

  Eliot was stood in her path at the bottom of the stairs. As she reached the last step, they met eye to eye.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  Ilsa was sure she had put together a watertight argument concerning something Eliot had done wrong, but now she couldn’t retrieve any of it, nor was she sure it had been truly watertight in the first place.

  It appeared Eliot, on the other hand, had his argument all sewn up.

  “Hmm. It looks a little like you regret running into me,” he said with a sardonic tone and a frightening smile.

  Ilsa squared her shoulders – like that would help her hide the riot of feelings; nervousness, irritation, and still, worst of all, desire. “I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout.”

  The smile widened. “Don’t worry. Your sprint from the garden yesterday was a big enough hint.”

  It had been bold to think Eliot would let her get away with that, yet still, it was a little unfair. She had kissed him too, and at the time she hadn’t been shy about how much she wanted to. Short of a way of reminding him of that and still keeping her dignity, Ilsa said nothing.

  Eliot studied her, then his eyes fell away. He straightened his shirtsleeves like the conversation was boring him. “I was kidding myself, I know.” He was still trying for malice, but despite the ice in his tone, it wasn’t coming off. “Sooner or later you were going to see what everybody else does.”

  Somehow Eliot’s self-pity was even worse than his wrath. “Have you always got to think the worst ’bout everybody?” Ilsa snapped, throwing up her hands. “You really assume I wished I hadn’t, even after them other times I almost—”

  “Almost what?” His gaze snapped to hers, part thunderstorm, part wariness and hope. Ilsa so rarely struggled for what to say, but nothing felt adequate, or allowed.

  In the silence that fell between them, a carriage pulled up in the forecourt.

  Eliot broke their gaze. “I thought it might be about Fyfe,” he said.

  “Fyfe?” So he did know. That meant he also knew how awful she was for kissing him in the first place.

  “It’s difficult to miss how close you two are, and—”

  “Wait, what?”

  “—well, Fyfe’s a saint. And a gentleman.”

  And Eliot was neither of those things. He was also an idiot. And Ilsa needed to tell him.

  “Eliot—”

  The carriage door creaked on its hinges and they both turned at the sound of a familiar drawl. The front entrance had been left open to let the breeze in and cool the rooms, and through it, Aelius was disembarking from a carriage that was not the Zoo’s. He turned and tipped his hat to the man who had given him a ride; a man wearing a yellow tie, and a large gold pin on his lapel.

  “Who’s that?” Ilsa muttered.

  “The pin means he’s an enforcer,” said Eliot curtly. “Heart militia. Aelius has been trying to feel out Sam Lucius and find out if he’s an ally.” Eliot sank his hands into his pockets; the right one closed around his father’s watch. “We’re not sure yet what keeping our relationship with the Heart will cost us, but if we don’t find Gedeon… Aelius will be the one to negotiate it.”

  Ilsa took in the tight set of Eliot’s jaw, and his wary glower. “You think he bets too high.”

  Eliot’s gaze found hers again, and in it, Ilsa saw something that unsettled her deeply. Vulnerability. Perhaps even fear. Ilsa knew, as sure as she could read Eliot’s tells, that whatever he said next would be the truth. “I think he’s gambling without all the information,” he said quietly.

  Ilsa shook her head. “What do you—”

  “Ilsa, my darling.” Aelius shot her a smile as he crossed the hall towards them. “Whatever your reasons for hiding away indoors on a day as glorious as this, I’m sure they are spectacularly wise.”

  Ilsa was about to shake Aelius off – to drag Eliot somewhere private and make him tell her whatever he had been about to say – when a realisation hit her like a steam train.

  She had been going about this all wrong.

  “Aelius,” she said, blinking. “Aelius, you and I need to talk. ’Bout Gedeon.”

  Eliot shot her a warning look, but she ignored him, and led them both into the empty drawing room and closed the door.

  “So,” said Aelius, tossing his hat onto a nearby loveseat. He still gripped his cane. “What’s this about our errant alpha?”

  “We think Gedeon is looking for the seventh Seer’s amulet—”

  “Ilsa,” hissed Eliot.

  “—because then he can make a bunch of them and use all six magics to protect Camden. We also figure it’s what the rebel Sorcerers are after with these attacks, and I reckon if anyone knows ’bout that, it’s you.”

  Aelius blinked, his wide, amiable smile frozen in place and slowly souring. Eventually, he laughed. “Is that so? Do tell.”

  “You were the one what said the rebels were searching for something, weren’t you?” A moment’s hesitation told Ilsa he’d been caught out. She didn’t need to decipher Aelius’s tell; she had caught him entirely off guard. Despite his myriad compliments, he had underestimated her this whole time. “The day I got here. You said Gedeon left of his own volition and took a dozen wolves. Then you showed me the letter what one of them left for his sweetheart. Then you said you reckoned Gedeon had discovered what the Sorcerers were after and gone looking for it himself. The first clue ’bout what Gedeon’s up to came from something you said. So tell us what gave you the idea.”

  The flush that had arisen when Ilsa began had leached away. Aelius narrowed his eyes at Eliot. “You can’t seriously be indulging this.”

  Eliot didn’t appear to know what he was doing. His gaze swung from Ilsa to Aelius and back again. “She’s right,” he said. “You did say something like that.”

  Aelius glared. Eliot opened his mouth to fill the crackling silence, but Ilsa put a hand on his arm and shook her head minutely. Let the silence linger. She wanted the other man to break it. Aelius’s knuckles were pale on the grip of his cane.

  Finally, he met her gaze. “Have you been interrogating the others this way?”

  “Din’t have to. Everyone else was forthcoming,” she lied, then softened her voice as she continued. “Please, Aelius. There’s something I should know, ain’t there?”

  “I tried, you understand?” he said abruptly, his voice cracking. “It was just a rumour, one of a dozen I hear every day, but I tried to prevent it nonetheless.”

  “Prevent what?” coaxed Ilsa.

  “Anybody getting hurt.”

  Eliot had gone very still beside her, but Aelius turned and paced to the empty fireplace.

  “There has been so much unrest in that starsforsaken faction since Fisk died,” he said, “it’s hard to move without brushing up against a Sorcerer with grand ideas of revolution. The foxes have had their ears to the ground. I’ve chased every whisper, including those of another raid.”

  Ilsa had never heard him speak with so little theatre, so little swagger. He took a shuddering breath before he went on.

  “A Sorcerer contact informed me that the rebels knew of this expedition to Millwater, and would use the opportunity—”

  He was cut off by a strangled noise from Eliot, whose face was a mask of horror. He looked like he was choking from poison, and Aelius had been the one to spike his drink. “You knew when they were planning to attack again,” he said in a voice like a blade. “You damned traitor, you knew.”

  Ilsa braced to spring between them if Eliot erupted into violence, but his posture was terrifyingly calm, like he would sway and fall if she nudged him.

  “You have no idea what I do for this family!” Aelius hissed, each word spilling into the next. “No idea of the sacrifices I make—”

  “That we all make,” said Eliot, his voice soft. “You make those sacrifices for all of us. Do you think the foxes are the only ones among the militia who can spy? Do you think we don’t know why you’re so secretive about y
our methods?”

  Aelius laughed uproariously. “So it all comes out! You’ve been gathering intelligence on your intelligence man, is that it?”

  “You serve up our secrets, our resources,” Eliot went on, as if the other man hadn’t spoken. “You siphon away a piece of every valuable innovation Fyfe has ever created – don’t you dare look surprised. Everyone knows why you take so much interest in him. You sell our safety to forge contacts, over and over, because at heart, you’re out for no one but yourself.” Aelius opened his mouth to retort and Eliot raised his voice. “You knew they were coming and you let it happen.”

  “I thought I knew!” Aelius boomed. One moment, his anger was like a fire engulfing the room. The next, it crumbled. He spared Eliot one last disdainful glare, sighed, and collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands. “I thought I knew. Thought that I could… but my information was bad. I lied and misled and pressed on the squad leaders to get twenty extra wolves here that day. This house was guarded to the nines, even after the trip was cancelled, so that I could be sure. And then – then they didn’t come. It wasn’t until after, when the wolves had all gone home and the place was quiet, that they…

  “My information was bad,” he repeated. “Do you understand, Quillon? Nothing I could have done, no one I could have told would have made a difference.”

  He put his face in his shaking hands once more, and Ilsa’s gaze slid to Eliot.

  That icy reticence was as present as ever, but something else was going on underneath; something he couldn’t disguise. She stepped closer; perhaps now he might share something: with a glance, or even a word or two. But it was as if he had forgotten she was there. Aelius too. He stared into the middle distance, a haunted hollowness in his storm-blue eyes. Then, he dragged himself back to the present, and slipped from the room.

  Ilsa quelled the unease he had sparked in her belly and turned back to Aelius. “Why didn’t you tell no one?” she snapped.

  Aelius laughed derisively and raised his head. “That Gedeon’s confidential plans had reached the Heart? You can work that much out yourself, can’t you?”

  Ilsa bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to scream at him for never saying what he meant – that the rebels had a spy in Camden – but something stopped her. They were alike, she and Aelius. He had kept his information about the attack quiet so it wouldn’t leak back to the Heart and give him away, but valuing secrecy was second nature. He played his cards close to his chest, same as her. He had thought he had a strong hand – until he’d fallen for a bluff. How close was she to being in over her head? She had played on her own team for so long that she had learned to accept the risk as part of the game. But she had grown to trust Fyfe, hadn’t she? She didn’t have to play that way any longer.

  “You know of the amulet, don’t you?” she said.

  “I believe I’ve heard of it. It’s a children’s tale.”

  “Well them Heart rebels ain’t breaking in here every chance they get because of some children’s tale. We think they got information that it’s here at the Zoo.” She had edged closer as she spoke, so that she stood over him. “I think Hester’d probably cut your throat if she knew you din’t stop that raid, don’t you?”

  “And I suppose you’re going to tell her,” he said. There was fire behind his eyes, and it struck Ilsa that she would never want to make an enemy of this man.

  “’Course I ain’t gonna tell her. It’s done. She won’t never walk again. Never shift.” She let the words hang in the air until they weakened him again, and he sank back in his chair. “But you can find Gedeon and you can stop these bloody raids.”

  Aelius’s hand tightened on the top of his cane.

  “If anyone can find out what the rebels know ’bout this amulet, ’bout where it is, or where they think it is, it’s you. Whoever your contacts are, go back to them.”

  A flash of his usual condescension flickered across his face. “Do you think I haven’t considered it? There is more at stake here than some mythic relic, dear girl. If I don’t tread carefully along my channels in the Heart we may never make an ally of their new High Sorcerer. We may find ourselves at war on several fronts.” His fingers toyed with his cane in an uncharacteristically bashful way. “Besides, one can never be certain who one’s friends are. To pull the wrong string would not just be dangerous, it would be suicide.”

  Coward, was the word on Ilsa’s tongue, but she bit it back and sighed deeply. “Fine. If I can’t convince you to redeem yourself, least I can say I tried, right?” She made to leave, then turned back again. “Oh, by the way, Fyfe’s helping me now, so I should probably tell him everything you said, but I’ll make sure he don’t repeat it to Hester, promise. And Eliot knows, ’course, but who’s he gonna talk to?”

  She had her hand on the doorknob before a muttered for pity’s sake sounded from the hearth. “I’ll do what I can,” Aelius called morosely. When she turned he was rising from the chair, something like a smile playing on his lips.

  “ You’re only half as clever as you pretend to be, you know” he said, “but pretending is three-quarters of the game.”

  “By my count, that makes me pretty unstoppable.”

  He chucked her under the chin as he passed her. “Pretty unstoppable indeed.”

  29

  The metal clang of something awkward and heavy crashing against stone called Ilsa into the garden.

  It was late. The air was balmy and pleasant, and crickets were calling to one another. Someone had hung lanterns above the terrace, and their warm yellow light illuminated Eliot.

  He stood at the top of the steps to the lawn, a wrought-iron chair on its end at the bottom. All his uncanny calm had dissipated. He drew heaving breaths, and ran both hands through his hair.

  Before Ilsa had a chance to speak, he turned and saw her. Fury swathed him like mist, and echoed in the tempest of his eyes.

  “Enough,” he growled. “Enough of this damned game.”

  Ilsa folded her arms. “This ain’t a game, Eliot.”

  “But it is to you! You have nothing to lose, nothing to grieve. You think you can win if you find your brother, like he’s some kind of prize.” He was pacing, his voice rising with every acid word. “You have no idea what you’re meddling in.”

  Their eyes met; Ilsa’s flaming with indignation, Eliot’s desperate and angry and afraid.

  She took a step forward. “Then tell me,” she said, her voice breaking.

  He shook his head. His fist closed around the back of another chair, and Ilsa braced herself for him to throw it too. “We can’t find Gedeon. We can’t go back to before. The family you think you’re looking for is already torn apart.”

  “And I’m telling you no. I don’t need your help if you’ve given up, but I ain’t gonna.” Ilsa felt tears well up. She took a breath to try and rein them in, but it was little use. “How can you say this is a game to me? A family what’s torn apart is still damn better than anything I ever had.”

  He turned on her, disgusted and shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ilsa brushed her tears away calmly, as if pretending she hardly noticed she was crying would stop Eliot from noticing too. It didn’t. His iciness cracked, and he took a tentative step towards her.

  “P’raps,” she said. “P’raps you know better. I still want to know for myself. I can’t help it.”

  “Ilsa…” Eliot came closer – too close – until Ilsa felt that tug that had pulled them together in the rose garden. But he was shaking his head. Whatever war he was fighting inside, he was losing. “I can’t… Gedeon’s gone, Ilsa. Please listen to me—”

  “He’s not.” She knew she sounded petulant and stubborn, but she didn’t care. Eliot was wrong. She would keep fighting him until he understood. “This ain’t over. I told Aelius everything we know. He’s gonna go back to the Heart and—”

  “You did what?” Eliot’s tone was ringing with danger, hard and resonating and utterly merci
less, and Ilsa swallowed.

  “You heard,” she said. “I think you’re right, in a way. We ain’t gonna find Gedeon like this, without trusting no one. We need his help, and Fyfe’s, and probably everyone else’s too.”

  He stepped back slowly, his chest rising and falling with laboured breaths. “You’re a fool,” he hissed. “You’re a stupid, naïve fool.”

  Ilsa snapped. “And you’re a hateful bastard but everyone else seems to know that already.”

  The blow landed. Eliot reeled back, hurt flickering across his face before vanishing again.

  “You hate me too, then.”

  Ilsa opened her mouth to deny it, but backtracking in the middle of a fight felt like weakness. In the end, nothing came out.

  Eliot drank in her silence with diamond-hard indifference. Then that vicious, dazzling smile fell into place. “Gedeon is never coming back. The sooner you realise he wants as little to do with you as he does the rest of us, the better.”

  The words stung like a blade missing its mark; searing one moment as they grazed her flesh, and gone the next, leaving her stunned, but still on her feet.

  Eliot was storming back towards the house, and she swung around. “P’raps I should just go back to my London, then.”

  “Perhaps you should,” he said without missing a beat.

  Then he was gone, and despite the crickets chattering and the breeze tickling the leaves, the garden was suddenly far too quiet.

  30

  Aelius wasted no time.

  When Ilsa went down to breakfast the next morning, the carriage was already gone, bearing him south to the Heart. It was little surprise that Eliot was absent too, but she’d be damned if she’d ask after him, and when Fyfe did as much, she shrugged and crammed another slice of toast into her mouth.

  She’d fought with Bill Blume dozens of times, and when he was drunk, he sometimes said vicious things. She had hardened herself to the point of not caring – from the theatre that had told her once when she overheard, it wasn’t about her.

  And as she had lain in her bed for several long hours, unable to sleep, she had reasoned that the same was probably true of Eliot. It did nothing to cool her anger, or stop her rehearsing all the comebacks she wished she had thought of at the time, but it did make her wonder.