Heart of the Rebellion

by E. E. Holmes

  “Fine, then,” I said, endeavoring to keep my voice steady and fortified with the bravery I did not feel. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I turned to Hannah and Milo. “It’s going to be okay,” I told them, and the words rang hollow as they echoed around the entrance hall. “Everything is going to be fine. I didn’t do anything wrong. This will all blow over, okay? Go wake Karen up and tell her what’s happened. Evidently, I’m going to need a good lawyer.” Then, because the looks on both of their faces were going to cause me to lose it, I turned back to Catriona. “I concede that I don’t have a choice here. Let’s go.”

  Catriona nodded solemnly, not a spark of her usual sarcasm evident in her face, and turned on her heel to march toward the front doors. My two captors and I followed.

  I didn’t look back at Hannah or Milo, even though I could feel both sets of their eyes boring into the back of my head, even though I could hear Hannah’s barely stifled sobs echoing through the entrance hall. Even though I could feel both of them knocking hard against the connection for me to let them into my head, I couldn’t do it. Not now. If I tried to talk to either of them, their fear and anxiety would infect me, and then how could I ever do what I needed to do? No, I needed to keep them shut out, at least for the moment. There would be time to put their fear to rest later. There was plenty of time to sit around and chat when the only thing on your agenda was wasting away in a jail cell for the foreseeable future.

  Seamus opened the door of the car and stood there until I had slid into the backseat. Then he slammed the door shut, and walked around to the front of the car to speak with Catriona. Through the tint of the car window, I could see Ambrose still standing there looking at me. The expression on his face was undeniably smug. He gave me a nod of satisfaction, and then turned and walked back to the castle. I was fighting the impulse to roll the window down and shout after him, but a different raised voice caught my attention instead.

  “… really think you ought to let me find a Caomhnóir to drive you there,” Seamus was saying, his voice tense with badly suppressed anger.

  “Oh, Seamus, talk sense, would you? Who can you possibly spare at the moment?” Catriona asked. “Half a dozen of your men were injured in the Léarscáil incident, and you’re shorthanded as it is, just for regular security details on the castle grounds. You can’t safely spare anyone, and you know it. I know it irks you to admit it, but I am more than capable of making the drive and handling a prisoner on my own. You ought to know, you helped train me.”

  “I am not doubting your capabilities,” Seamus said through gritted teeth, “but it does not feel prudent for a single Tracker to undertake a prisoner transport without adequate support.”

  “I’m not carrying her through the wilderness on my back, Seamus,” Catriona cried. “I’m driving her twenty miles to an airport. Another Tracker and a Caomhnóir pilot will be meeting me there. I assure you, I have arranged for adequate support.”

  Seamus appeared to be chewing his tongue in an effort to bite back whatever it was he wanted to say. Finally, the tenseness in his shoulders seemed to relax. “I would be more comfortable,” he said evenly, “if you would allow me to put the handcuffs on her. You may feel it is an unnecessary precaution, but my experience has taught me otherwise. If you would indulge me in this small detail, I will let the rest of this go.”

  Catriona rolled her eyes and then threw up her hands in exasperation. “Fine. For heaven’s sake, just cuff her, then. Anything to get you off my back and me on the road. We’re on a tight schedule to beat an incoming storm. I don’t want to be stranded on the helipad for hours because you couldn’t stop mollycoddling me.”

  “Very well, then,” Seamus said. He walked around the side of the car, opened the door, and leaned in. “Hold out your hands,” he ordered.

  Recognizing a hopeless situation when I saw one, I did as I was told, and threw Catriona a filthy look while I was at it. I waited while Seamus secured the handcuffs a bit tighter than was absolutely necessary. He checked them several times, pulling on various parts of the cuffs to make sure that they were secure, and then stood up. I looked up at him and he caught my eye for the first time since he had pounded on my bedroom door. There was something very strange in his expression. Almost… triumphant.

  Was the contempt amongst Caomhnóir for Durupinen so widespread that just the sight of a Durupinen humbled in this manner could make a Caomhnóir smile? Was something else at play here? I didn’t know. But one thing I was sure of: the deeper we dug into the situation, the clearer it was that the toxicity that had long poisoned Durupinen–Caomhnóir relationships was reaching a critical mass. With each passing day, with each successive interaction, I was less and less surprised that our system was falling apart at the seams.

  The slamming of the car door broke into my thoughts and made me jump. Catriona slid into the driver’s seat and pulled her seatbelt across her chest. She rolled down her window. “I’ll check in with you when we arrive at the helipad,” she told Seamus.

  Seamus did not reply, but merely inclined his head, stony-faced. Catriona threw the car into drive and peeled away with a screeching of tires.

  I watched her through the tinted glass of the partition as she raised her phone to her ear and mumbled a few incoherent sentences. Then she tossed the phone aside and drove in silence until we had safely passed through the gates of the outer grounds and onto the main road.

  “The car?” I asked quietly.

  “It’s clean,” Catriona said. “Searched it myself. No bugs, no cameras.”

  I let out a sigh of relief, allowing my body to relax for the first time since Seamus had pounded on my door. Then I looked up and glared at Catriona in the rearview mirror.

  “Seriously, though? At two o’clock in the morning? Was that really necessary? You scared the shit out of us.”

  “I meant to scare the shit out of you,” Catriona said pleasantly. “We’ve learned from your time as a Tracker that you’re absolute rubbish at acting. So is your sister. It was necessary to catch you both by surprise, so that you might have a chance at a genuine reaction that wouldn’t raise suspicion. And I’m pleased to say that we might have managed to pull it off.”

  “You could have warned me,” I grumbled.

  “That would have defeated the purpose,” Catriona said. “Even so, I’m impressed that your sister was able to whip up those tears.”

  “She wasn’t pretending,” I told her quietly. “She’s genuinely terrified. She hates this plan, and she’s angry at me for agreeing to it. I think she would’ve been a wreck no matter how or when I left.”

  “Well, regardless, her emotional outburst played into the scenario quite nicely.” Catriona caught sight of my disgusted glare in the rearview mirror and snorted. “Don’t be so naïve, Jessica. You know how important it was for us to sell this to the Fairhaven Caomhnóir. You know how crucial it was for them to really believe that you’re being arrested. Your sister’s fear was useful. It helped. And in the long run, it will be worth having put her through it.”

  I shook my head and looked out the window. There were some parts of this job Catriona and I were never going to agree on, and I just had to accept that.

  “So how much of that was actually true?” I asked after my anger had subsided. “The story you told Seamus and Ambrose, how much of it is true?”

  “What do you mean?” Catriona asked impatiently. She floored the gas pedal and zoomed around a small sputtering car that had been trundling along in front of us ten miles under the speed limit.

  “I mean, did you actually draw up a formal charge? Did you really talk to Flavia? What about Celeste? How many people are in on this?”

  “No. So far, we’re the only ones involved,” Catriona said. “Well, that’s not exactly true. The Trackers waiting for us at the helipad are also in on the plan. I’ve had to forge Celeste’s signature on the warrant, and I had to invent a few teensy pages of testimony from your friend Flavia, but I’m quite sure I’v
e done it all convincingly.”

  “Aren’t you going to get in a shitload of trouble for that?” I asked her. “Forging the High Priestess’s signature? Couldn’t that land you in the príosún yourself?”

  Catriona shrugged. “I don’t think Celeste will give a good goddamn what I’ve forged or what I’ve lied about when she realizes the enormity of what it is we’re trying to foil here. We had to get you in without the Caomhnóir knowing that you’re a plant. It’s that simple. Whatever measures we had to take in order to pull that off are therefore justified. I’ll have no problem defending myself, if anyone chooses to challenge me on this.”

  “If you say so,” I muttered. Personally, I could see a lot of people on the Council disapproving of what Catriona had done. Then again, Catriona had never been a person who cared what people disapproved of. It was probably one of the reasons why she was so good at her job. Then again, it was also one of the reasons that it took me so long to trust her.

  “I was afraid Seamus wasn’t going to let us leave without an escort,” I said.

  Catriona pressed her lips together into a thin line. “So was I,” she said at last. “For all the benefits of their protection, trying to get anything done with Caomhnóir around can be nearly bloody impossible.”

  “Both of them seemed kind of… well, glad to see me in cuffs, actually,” I admitted.

  “That did not escape my notice,” Catriona said, nodding thoughtfully with her eyes trained on the dark road ahead. “I’ve launched an internal investigation of the Caomhnóir, trying to uncover if there might be a connection between what’s happening at the príosún and the Caomhnóir population at Fairhaven. It made the most sense to start at the top, given Seamus’s close ties with the príosún. As the head of the Caomhnóir here, he’s responsible for any and all assignments—and reassignments—in and out of the príosún. Communications to and from the príosún are handled through his office, and only a small number of Caomhnóir working directly beneath him are authorized to see such communications.”

  “Do you really think that Seamus is in on it?” I asked her quietly.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Catriona said. “If you’d asked me a week ago, I would’ve said not a chance in hell. But a week ago I also would’ve bet my life that nobody could infiltrate the protections of the príosún, and here we are. I will say that Seamus has only shown unwavering loyalty to the Council. But he’s not immune to the disdain that has spread through the Durupinen ranks. You saw it just now. He can’t stand it when a Durupinen takes control of any situation that he considers to be Caomhnóir territory.”

  “He looked a little too happy to see me wearing handcuffs, if you ask me,” I grumbled.

  Catriona chuckled. “You’re a special case,” she said.

  “A special case?” I repeated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Jessica, I’m not quite sure how this could have escaped your notice, but you’ve got a reputation for being a right pain in the ass around here,” Catriona said. “You spit on tradition. You don’t follow rules. Your relationship with one of Seamus’s best Caomhnóir reflected poorly on Seamus’s ability to judge the behavior of his own Novitiate. And, as recently as two days ago, you patently ignored every single order that Seamus gave you, putting yourself and many Caomhnóir in danger when you tried to rescue Moira from the Léarscáil. In a great many ways, you are a Caomhnóir’s worst nightmare.”

  “I… oh. Right.” I mean seriously, what was there even to argue with there?

  “So,” Catriona went on, smirking at the resigned look on my face, “what I’m getting at is, Seamus might just be happy to have you out of his hair. It’s not necessarily a reflection on his commitment to protecting the Durupinen. He probably just can’t bloody stand you.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, shrugging.

  “Anyway, we’ll find out one way or the other,” Catriona said confidently. “To my knowledge, the Trackers have never launched an investigation into the Caomhnóir as a whole. It won’t be easy, but it should certainly be interesting, and one thing is for sure: the Caomhnóir will not be expecting it. I anticipate it will raise some hackles, but we don’t have a choice. We’ve got to find out how widespread this conspiracy is.”

  “Okay, well, speaking of the conspiracy, can we talk a little more about what’s happening when we get to the príosún?” I asked, feeling a renewed gnawing of fear in the pit of my stomach.

  “Yes,” Catriona said, adopting a businesslike tone. “Yes, we need to be sure that you’re prepared. Well, at least, as prepared as you can be given that we have very little idea of what it is you’ll be facing once you’re inside.”

  “Maybe we could talk about it without simultaneously trying to scare the living daylights out of me?” I requested. “Seriously, Catriona, this is hard enough as it is.”

  “Right,” Catriona said, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “Sorry. Just the facts.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “When we arrive, I’ll escort you in and bring you to your cell. Don’t look at me like that,” Catriona said. “They’re not going to chain you to the wall or anything like that. Your bonds will be Castings, not chains. And, as I will be the one overseeing and double-checking all of your Castings, I’ll be able to tamper with the most important one.”

  “The one that would prevent me from Walking out of the cell,” I said at once.

  “Yes,” Catriona said, nodding her head. “With that Casting disabled, you should be able to move about the fortress freely. You will still need to be extremely cautious. If at all possible, you must restrict your Walking to nighttime hours, so that the sight of your body lying still in your cell will not arouse suspicion. The security is slightly lessened on the living floors at night, but not by much. There will still be plenty of Caomhnóir around, and so it will be crucial for you to keep yourself as hidden as possible.”

  “But,” I reminded her, “the Caomhnóir shouldn’t be able to see me, should they? Finn couldn’t see me or hear me, when I first Walked in the Traveler camp. The Necromancers couldn’t see me, either.”

  “No, but there are Durupinen locked in the cells of the príosún, and they will be able to see you, as will the many spirits who inhabit the place. It’s likely that most of them will not recognize you for what you are. Hardly anyone, living or dead, has ever been exposed to a Walker before.”

  This was certainly true. I remembered when I used my Walking abilities to enter Fairhaven, when it was under siege from the Necromancers. I had found Finvarra imprisoned in a cell, and when she laid eyes on me, she immediately assumed that I had been killed, and was now a ghost. And her Caomhnóir Carrick, who happened to be both a ghost and also my father, had jumped to the very same conclusion, breaking down at the sight of me, convinced that he had failed in his efforts to protect me, and that the Necromancers had killed me. It took a good deal of convincing before he believed that I was, in fact, still alive.

  I rarely used my Walking ability to leave my body behind, to stretch the bonds that tethered body to soul, and walk free of my physical form. But it was this unique skill, above all else, that made Catriona sure I was the right Tracker for this job. There were dozens of Trackers more experienced and more skilled than I was, but I was the only one with a prayer of slipping through the halls of the príosún unnoticed.

  “Even so,” Catriona said, breaking into my thoughts, “we cannot assume that one or more of them will not recognize you for what you are if they spot you. So, when you are Walking, you will need to conceal yourself when possible, and move quickly. Do you have the soul catchers?” she added sharply.

  Awkwardly, because my hands were cuffed in front of me, I lifted the great curly mass of my hair to reveal a row of thin braids along the nape of my neck. Flavia had taught me how to make them, back when I was first learning how to Walk in the Traveler camp. In order for my soul to part company with my body safely, I had to say an incantation, and then slice thro
ugh one of the soul catchers while it was tied around my wrist. Cutting through the soul catcher was like cutting through the bonds between my body and my soul, and enabled the Walking to begin. Without them, I was trapped inside my own body like any other normal person. In the days since Catriona and I had formulated this plan, Hannah and I had been working to create as many as possible to bring with me to the príosún. Knowing I would never be allowed to bring them with me in bracelet form, Hannah had braided them into my hair instead as a way to conceal them.

  “Let’s hope I don’t have to Walk more than fifteen times,” I said, lowering my hair again. “Otherwise, I’ll be out of soul catchers, and out of luck.”

  “We won’t let it come to that,” Catriona said firmly. “In and out as quickly as possible, that’s the plan.”

  I didn’t bother to voice aloud my concern about how frequently the plans that I was involved in rapidly went to hell in a handbasket. There was no need to. We both knew it.

  “And you’re sure that I’ll be able to communicate with Hannah and Milo?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Catriona said. “There’s not a Casting in that fortress that could contend with the bond that you and your sister and your Spirit Guide possess. The only way that you wouldn’t be able to communicate with them is if one of you purposely closed the connection, and Hannah and Milo know the importance of keeping it wide open at all times, in case of emergencies. Use the connection to get instructions from me, and to relay any and all information that you can find out about what’s happening at the príosún.”

  “It’s like I’m going undercover to spy on the mob or something, wearing a wire, and reporting back to a bunch of guys crouched in a surveillance van,” I said, with a slightly hysterical chuckle. The chuckle died quickly. “You’d think that I would feel more excited, but I’d say the dominant feeling is nausea at this point.”