by Dave Rudden
The plan was to get up criminally early and find Vivian before anyone else woke. Denizen had spent yesterday planning exactly what he’d say, down to the last full stop, interspersed with horrified speculation as to what Greaves might do to him.
Kicked out of the Order.
Forced to go back to Crosscaper.
Incarceration in Retreat until the firing squad. With actual fire.
Forced to go back to Crosscaper.
No. Everything was going to be fine. Vivian had nearly been elected Palatine herself, wasn’t that what Darcie had said? Surely she’d have some plan, some favor to call in; all she had to do was forgive him herself first.
And there was a guard. Outside his door.
“Morning, Jack,” Denizen said haltingly.
“Morning,” the Knight replied. He leaned against the wall nonchalantly, as if being outside Denizen’s bedroom was exactly where he always was at seven in the morning.
“Umm ...”
Had he just been passing by? He couldn’t have been. There wasn’t anywhere he could have been on his way to. Had he been sent here to fetch Denizen for something?
“Sorry,” said Denizen. “Is there somewhere I’m supposed to be?”
“No.”
“Right,” Denizen said slowly. “Is there somewhere you’re supposed to be?”
“No,” Jack repeated.
Did he know? Had Vivian told him? Had Greaves found out? All sorts of small, important words rose up through the panicked mush of Denizen’s brain.
Words like security risk. Words like traitor. Words like—
“Breakfast?” Jack asked, beckoning him to follow.
He’d brought it from the Goshawk—of course he had, a fancy meal for a condemned man—sourdough bread topped with eggs from a species of bird Denizen had never heard of, with a single sprig of parsley balanced on top like a lady’s parasol. It tasted like ash.
There was no one else in the kitchen. Denizen knew this because he was studiously avoiding Jack’s gaze in order to not start a conversation. Though Jack probably wouldn’t speak to him anyway. You didn’t speak to prisoners. They might infect you with dangerous ideas.
Great. I’m going to go down in history as the first person to ever try and kiss a Tenebrous. There’ll be pictures of me in Seraphim Row. Denizen Hardwick—the Never-Knighted. They’ll name a chapter in the handbook after me. They’ll call it “Pulling a Denizen.” Except they won’t. Because no one in the history of the Order has ever been that stupid before, and no one ever will be again.
He stared morosely at his breakfast.
I didn’t even get to kiss her.
“How are you doing, lad?”
The table creaked under Jack’s massive forearms.
“Fine,” Denizen said sullenly.
“You sound it.”
Denizen was suddenly stuck in the difficult position of wanting to know how much Jack knew, without letting him know what he was supposed to know about.
I’ll just talk about normal things. The weather, or the Order’s preferred method of execution ...
“I know, by the way,” Jack said, tapping some sugar into his coffee. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Oh. Denizen jammed a bit of bread in his mouth so he’d have an excuse not to talk for a moment. He stared straight ahead, waiting for Jack to be disgusted, to call him a fool or worse—
“I understand, Denizen.”
Denizen gave him a sidelong look.
“Well,” Jack said, stirring his coffee, the spoon absurdly tiny in his massive hands, “I don’t, if I’m being honest. I understand ... bits of it. Not you liking her, obviously. That I don’t understand. No, I just ... no. I mean—”
“Right,” Denizen said. “I get it.”
Jack winced. “Sorry. But I know what it’s like to be young and in love with the wrong ... person. You’re probably feeling a little stupid.”
“I am,” Denizen said, poking his food round his plate.
“Like a bit of an idiot.”
“Yep.”
“A complete—”
“Yes,” Denizen said. “I get it. Thank you.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “But the Order are worried sick. None of us knew a Knight could be turned. Vivian didn’t know, and she’d fought the Three more than any Knight alive. What happened to Grey ...”
There was no anger in Jack’s voice when he said Grey’s name. It spoke of the kind of strength the Three would break their teeth on.
Boxes rustled in the back of Denizen’s head. The kind of strength I wish I had.
Jack thumbed a coil of iron on his neck. “Vivian was trying to protect you. She knew Greaves would be working hard, trying to find out what happened: not because he’s a bad guy—because he’s not—but because he has people to protect. We need to know what Tenebrous are capable of so we can defend against it.”
Something about the way Jack defended both Greaves and Vivian made realization dawn.
“Precautions were taken,” Denizen breathed. “That’s what Vivian said. She meant you.”
“The Order likes to move Knights around a lot,” Jack said. “It helps us share experience.” A guilty look flashed across his face. “So there’s nothing strange about me wanting to relocate away from this garrison after…what happened. And of course Greaves would jump at the chance to take me on as part of his staff, considering I was right on scene when everything happened. To be honest, I don’t think he can figure out why anyone would want to work with your mother in the first place.”
“So all this time,” Denizen said slowly, “Vivian’s had you watching him?”
The ingenuity of it astonished him. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Vivian was smart, but it was completely at odds with the way she presented herself as, well, a blunt instrument. It was ... it was ...
It was very Edifice Greaves.
“You were watching the house,” Denizen said. “So Vivian could control what Greaves actually knew.”
“No, no,” Jack said. “Not me. Greaves isn’t an idiot. But I put together the surveillance detail for him. Who better to ask than someone who knows some of Vivian’s tricks? And you’d be amazed how many owe Vivian Hardwick a favor. Had those Knights seen anything, it wouldn’t have been Greaves they went to. Not that they did see anything, but, then again, who’d expect a thirteen-year-old to know the Art of Apertura? Or be stupid enough to use it?”
Denizen flushed, and not just because of Jack’s expression. The sheer amount of effort Vivian—no, everyone—had gone to in order to protect Denizen was starting to weigh on his sense of being the wronged party.
“I’m not a thrall,” Denizen said.
“How would you know?”
Yesterday had been a long twenty-four hours, and a good portion of it had been spent staring into the mirror, asking himself the same question. It had taken even longer to find an answer that wasn’t: Because I don’t feel like one.
“Because Grey was coming apart,” Denizen said, and there was shameful pride in how he was able to say that sentence without his voice breaking. “The pressure of them in his head was killing him. And I feel fine.”
Mortified, stressed, and angry, but fine.
“But, Denizen, that’s—”
“I trust her,” Denizen interrupted, and Jack fell silent. “That’s all. I trust that she wouldn’t do that to me. I trust that she has a sense of honor. And there’s no point in talking about peace at all if we don’t start by trusting just one of them.”
Jack blinked. “You…actually have a point.” He sighed. “You really do, at that. But you’ve only been in this war for six months. And hatred and fear build like rust, Denizen, and they don’t just disappear. We’ve had people taken from us. That’s a debt that can’t easily be paid.”
D’Aubigny. Grey. My … my father.
“Look,” Jack said, “we’ll handle Greaves. You didn’t do anything suspicious—that he knows about anyway. It might take a while, and
you’re always going to have to be careful, but eventually something else is going to come along to take his attention. Let’s get through this Concilium first.”
“Do you think he’d try and ambush Mercy?”
Jack frowned. “I know him a little now, and I don’t think he has anything other than the safety of his Knights at heart. A war wouldn’t do anything for anybody. But that’s not what you should be thinking about.”
“No?”
“No,” Jack said firmly. “You need to fix things with Vivian. She’s been the way she is for a long time. I don’t know if she can meet you halfway, and I know that’s hard to accept, but in the end it doesn’t matter.”
A trace of surliness entered Denizen’s voice. “Why?”
Jack looked old then, for the first time since Denizen had known him.
“Because we live in a world of loss. You go through life thinking you’ll be able to say everything you want to say…but sometimes there are no second chances and no last words. None of us know how much time we’re given, but I do know it’s never, ever enough….”
“I understand,” Denizen said softly.
“Good,” said Jack. “So do it.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
Denizen swallowed. “Is it my fault?”
The huge man looked surprised. “What?”
“Everything,” Denizen said. “What happened with the Three. D’Aubigny. Grey. Is it my fault? Mine and Vivian’s for drawing them to all of you?”
Jack sighed. “I was never much of a Knight, Denizen. I like making things. I’m not afraid of a fight, never have been, but I didn’t cleave to the war the way Corinne did. She was a force of nature, my wife. And she knew the risks of what she did. Grey too. That’s what being part of the Order means. You didn’t bring doom down on our heads. We were already facing the darkness. It’s just ... sometimes it wins.”
He sounded so calm.
“Do you not want ... I don’t know ... revenge?”
Jack shrugged. “There’s no point to revenge. You either don’t get it, in which case the want grows until it collapses your world around you, or you do get it. And then you have it. Great. Show me something you can build from revenge that you can’t build from acceptance.”
“And have you? Accepted what happened?”
“I’m trying,” he said. “And you and Vivian should try too. Now finish your breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Denizen said, and gave him an awkward smile. “I didn’t know pep talks were part of your guard duties.”
“Guard duties?” Jack repeated. “Hang on—did you think I was, what, keeping an eye on you so you couldn’t sneak off?”
Denizen flushed. “Weren’t you?”
“No, you fool,” Jack said with a touch of exasperation. “I wanted to see if you were all right. You thought I was a jailer, did you?”
He shook his head ruefully.
“You Hardwicks are all alike.”
SO THAT WAS IT, then. Denizen was going to lay his vault bare. He was going to tell Vivian that they needed to talk, that all they had was each other. She’d stare at him for the longest moment and then her lip would tremble, just a fraction, and her scarred arms would open wide.
They’d hug. Actually hug. The apologies would come thick and fast, hers to him and his to her, and they would step into the light of a new day together, mother and son united, their dark past behind them.
All they had to do was survive this Concilium first.
Denizen shrugged on a loose shirt to hide the scabbard of his stone knife. Jack had rigged up a harness for him with buckles for a scabbard on each side, reasoning that, since Denizen had so far displayed absolutely no proficiency with any class of weapon, it couldn’t hurt to double up.
Now the hilt of his stone blade protruded from under one armpit, the hilt of a long knife from the other. Denizen had practiced drawing both at the same time and surprisingly managed not to handcapitate himself, so he was actually feeling a little optimistic.
Providing Greaves had only been trying to test whether he’d been compromised and wasn’t actually planning a surgical strike against the Tenebrae’s nobility. And providing the Court weren’t planning their own ambush against the Order. And providing his mother actually showed up so he could be the bigger person and apologize.
“Where’s Vivian?” he asked.
She hadn’t been at dinner the night before and she hadn’t been at breakfast that morning.
I’m trying to forgive you. Show up so I can forgive you.
“Don’t know,” Jack said. “She’s probably already at Retreat. The Mallei have been working day and night to sort out some kind of terms.”
“And?” said Abigail, leaning forward interestedly in her chair. They had gathered in the foyer to see Denizen and Jack off, the dawn bright and crisp outside.
“I think they’ve gotten as far as Stop eating us,” Jack said wryly. “But I’m not a politician.”
“It’s a good enough place to start,” Darcie said.
She and the other Neophytes were dressed in running gear. Vivian had left the same instructions she always did when she went on one of her unannounced jaunts—keep training. Denizen understood the sentiment, though. The world didn’t stop just because this meeting was happening.
Unless it does.
Darcie gave Denizen a searching glance. “How are you feeling?”
“Me?” Denizen said. “What? I’m fine, I—”
He and Simon had tacitly agreed that there was absolutely no sense in telling the girls what had happened—or almost happened; Denizen was never going to get over that—as there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance and it would do nobody any good if Denizen died of embarrassment.
The thing was, Denizen hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that there was very little that Knights, even Neophytes, didn’t notice, especially when it came to their comrades.
And Darcie was his friend.
“I’m OK,” Denizen said. “A bit nervous. I’m not sure what I’m actually supposed to be doing.”
“Nothing,” Jack and Simon said together. Abigail and Darcie exchanged confused glances.
“Ahem,” said Simon.
“Er,” said Jack. “I mean ... you’re to keep quiet and be formally thanked. Then we get you out of there and see if we can hash out some sort of peace deal.”
“Get thanked. Go home. Fine.” Denizen hated his voice when it sounded like that. As nerve-racking as the thoughts of the Concilium and patching things up with Vivian were, they were failing to distract him from the fact this might be the last time he ever saw Mercy.
It can’t be. It just can’t. It was an occupational hazard of being a bookworm. You stopped thinking in terms of reality and started thinking of nick-of-time rescues and the power of a dramatic speech. It couldn’t be over because it shouldn’t be over.
The universe was many things—including a multiverse, apparently—but surely…surely it couldn’t be that unfair?
“All right,” Jack said. “Time to go.”
Simon gave Denizen a hug, conveying a wealth of instructions in a one-nanosecond glare. Abigail gave him a rib-creaking squeeze that sent a thrill of shame through him. He felt extremely bad about not telling the girls. There was a chance—a small chance—that Darcie might hear him out, but Falxes went back as far as Hardwicks when it came to killing Tenebrous, and Abigail’s dad had been hurt last year, when the King’s Pursuivants had been searching for Mercy, so Denizen honestly didn’t know how she’d react.
Maybe today will be the last time I ever see her, and I’ll never have to tell Abigail at all.
Running away again. Ironically, it seemed to be what Hardwicks did best.
“Be careful,” she said, and punched him lightly on the arm.
“Ow,” Denizen said. “And thanks.”
“Ready?” Jack said, shrugging a battered old duffel bag onto his shoulder with a muted clatter of weaponry.
; “Sure.”
Darcie gave him a quick hug, but not before he noticed the tiredness in her eyes. “Are you OK?” he asked, concerned—and annoyed that he’d been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn’t noticed.
“Yes,” she said. “Just ... bad dreams. That’s all.”
—
IT WAS A LOVELY morning for a walk, which annoyed Denizen no end because it would have been the perfect time to have a lot of emotions at Vivian, had she bothered to show up.
Was it some sort of special power? One possessed not by Knights but by mothers—the ability to be exactly where you didn’t want them to be but absent when you did? It very well might have been. Denizen had never had a mother before so he had no idea.
I should just try to kiss Mercy again, and then Vivian would magically materialize.
It was a full minute before he realized what he’d just thought.
No. Bad Denizen.
Avoiding confrontation—except the violent kind—was a particular skill of the Hardwick family. Jack had given Denizen a fervent desire to speak to Vivian, but as they approached Trinity College it felt like that fire was starving from lack of fuel.
They pushed their way past a meandering group of language students and crossed the cobbled main square, Denizen trying to get used to the motion of the knives in their scabbards. He kept checking his shirt buttons to make sure they didn’t accidentally open and announce his stabby intentions to the entire populace.
A little part of him wondered again whether bringing the stone knife broke the Concilium rules, but they had said no hammers, hadn’t they? And in the grand scheme of things, surely it was excusable compared to a surprise bunch of antipersonnel mines.
Well, it was too late now, and he needed all the points with Vivian he could get. People got annoyed if you acted ungrateful about their presents, and this wasn’t an ill-fitting sweater or a book you’d already read: it was a one-of-a-kind magical knife with the power to—possibly—slay the unslayable. Besides, Denizen had an orphan’s natural thrift: gifts were rare, and you kept them close.
A group of Knights was waiting outside the Long Room’s entrance, and there was Vivian, a few meters away from everyone else, rigidly glaring off into space.