by C. L. Polk
Growths shrank under my will. I attacked the largest, making them smaller. The smaller growths I killed outright. I worked until my vision went dark at the edges and my head felt swollen and hot.
Father would rise from this bed. It would be a miracle, if not a complete one. I couldn’t cure him. But he had more than his fair share.
Grace watched, her lips pressed to white. She squinted as if she tried to see what I was doing, and her eyebrows rose in worry. I wished I had better news for her and tried to smile.
Grace’s look went from worry to horror. “Miles.”
She focused on the frail figure behind me.
The bed shifted.
Father snatched my hand quick as a snakebite. Power threatened to crush me small as it pressed on my skin, dug and burrowed its way into me.
I fought, but I was drained from pouring everything I had into the healing. His papery grip squeezed my fingers as tight as his power.
“Stop struggling.”
“Let me go!”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Christopher.”
I yanked on his grip, tried to tear the net of power away.
I didn’t give up even as the room spun and the blackness swam in front of my eyes.
* * *
I came to in a padded chair. My skin felt too tight. Something foul sullied the air under my nose—smelling salts.
“Miles.”
Grace’s voice, Grace’s hands on me. This was too much. I waved the foul smell away and struggled to stand up.
A wave of power held me down. How—
And then I knew. Father had me wound up in his power, and I was held as surely as he used rope. My heart beat against the cage of my ribs as his power squeezed my chest, forcing me to take shallow, rapid breaths. I fought to raise my arm, and the power squeezed the bones in my wrist. I struggled, nauseous, beating my wings against the bars of a cage.
I looked over my sister’s shoulder. “Release me.”
“No,” my father said. “It’s time for this nonsense to end. You’ve nearly destroyed this family with your selfishness, and you will do your duty.”
I couldn’t fight. I was so drained I’d fainted. “I won’t be your slave.”
“You’re for Grace, not me.”
“Shut up.” I gripped the arms of the chair tight. My wrist hurt, hot and throbbing. Father’s power encased me. If I could pierce it, I could tear it, I could break free.
Father confirmed what I suspected. “You’re not bound. Merely held. But I will bind you, if you won’t do what’s right.”
I lifted my weary head. Grace knelt in front of me, hands on my knees.
“Miles, he’ll do it,” she whispered. “Please. It’s the only way.”
“Did you plan this?”
“Idiots. You two were always indulgent. Grace told me what she did when I tried to give control to her. I should hold onto you just to make sure you fall into line.”
“I never meant for this to happen, Miles.”
“Consent,” my father said. “Consent to be bound to Grace, or I’ll take you.”
There was a weak spot. A wavering at the small of my back. I felt it, touched it, made my touch a knife—
Father flexed his hand. My throat squeezed shut. I struggled, the suffocation dragging me into a panic. I lost my hold on the power. Stupid. Stupid. I scrabbled for it again, feeling my prison for a weak spot while everything grew dark and my body cried out for air.
“Stop fighting.”
“Miles,” Grace begged. “He’ll bind you.”
I was looking through a tunnel and fading fast.
Father flexed his strength again. He wasn’t drained from a healing. He was on his feet, full of my power. I needed to touch him. I couldn’t fight him power to power.
I pushed out of the chair, but my knees wouldn’t hold me up. I dragged myself across the floor, but he stepped out of reach. I crawled a little farther, and all he had to do was move out of my grasp. I lifted my head, stretched out my hand, and everything went dark. I let go of my power, and Father granted me breath. My head swam, but I could breathe.
I dragged in two breaths, greedily took another and coughed. “I consent.”
“Say it outright.”
“I consent to you binding me, Grace.”
“Ask her to do it.”
“Father—”
The power crushed me again. “Ask.”
My life as a mouse was over, my freedom gone, and I still wasn’t brave enough to die.
I offered my hands to my sister, palms up, wrists together. “Please bind me, Grace.”
Grace wept, but she did it.
* * *
I was too weak to walk on my own, but I was only dimly aware of Grace carrying me along the corridor. I was far away, in a place where nothing mattered enough to fuss over.
“Not like this, never like this. Miles, I’m sorry. I never wanted this.”
The grip of Grace’s power crawled over my skin, but it happened to someone else. Someone else’s wrist throbbed, warm and bruised. Someone else felt sickness and pain. Someone else struggled and beat paper-thin wings trying to escape the pin that impaled him.
I simply watched, calm and separate.
Depersonalization was a trick of the psyche, a separating of the sense of self-in-body to cushion against horror. I knew perfectly well what it was, and knowing didn’t change it. I was an observer. So I observed as Grace carried me down the geometric carpet, past the glass figures. I swept out one arm, and Grandpa Miles smashed on the boards.
“So, so sorry, Miles. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
She pushed a door open with a toe.
My bedroom didn’t have a speck of dust. The bedding smelled of verbena, the linens fresh and laundered. Everything I’d left behind was exactly where I had left it, even the phonograph horn pointed to the bed. I sank into the featherbed, and Grace drew a brocaded spread over me. She sat on the side of the bed, smoothed one hand over my forehead.
“Say something, Miles. Anything. Hate me. I deserve it.”
I closed my eyes. And my voice, my own cool, unruffled voice whispered to the sick hollow feeling inside me: I don’t know this woman. I knew the girl, the loyal and talented girl who couldn’t bear the burden of a secret. Could the woman? Did she plan this, or had she simply been unable to keep a secret from Father?
“Say something.”
I kept my eyes closed. “Go away, Grace. Leave me alone.”
“Do you want anything?”
“My freedom. Release me.”
“It won’t be so bad, Miles.”
That didn’t deserve an answer.
She put her hand on my shoulder. “I want you to practice medicine. I want you to be independent. It’s vital people see what a Secondary makes of himself, given free rein.”
“Free rein, but not free, Grace.”
“I need you, Miles. If I’m to become the Voice, I need you. I wanted to convince you. I didn’t want this.”
“But you won’t release me.”
Silence.
I rolled away from her hand, turned my back to her. “Go away.”
The bed shifted. The floor still creaked just by the door. It shut, and the scrape of a key turning made the calm, distant part of me nod once.
I’d given all this away, thrown it all aside to be who I wanted to be. A doctor. A healer, not some subservient battery bound to a real person. Thirteen years, I’d been free.
No. Thirteen years I’d been in hiding, folding myself up small in fear of this moment—when they would find me and stick me back in my place.
Here I was. Everything exactly as I left it, every book and record in place. Those years didn’t matter here. They didn’t even exist.
My life was over. My career gone to dust. All the skill I’d worked for would go to waste. I was returned to the family cage, nothing more than Grace’s Secondary, expected to defer to her, obey her, my only worth the power she could take fro
m me whenever she wished.
I had come so far, even if I had had to hide my power behind the practice of medicine. I’d cure Grace’s colds, now. Shrink the cancer in my father’s body. Tend to people who already had the best of everything.
I wanted to sleep. I wanted to forget. Many Secondaries never went a day without drinking, trailing behind their Storm-Singer in an alcoholic haze. Some of them smelled of the flowery-sweet perfume of the opium pipe, their gazes unfocused, barely able to walk.
Some of them took enough to make them dream until they never woke up.
So many things can kill you. I knew a hundred without pausing for breath. For the first time since Camp Paradise, I listed the means within reach. I was mentally measuring the cords that tied the silver-gray silk curtains back—strangling to death wasn’t pleasant, but it would work.
Another thought poured ice water into my veins—if I died, my soul wouldn’t travel to the Solace. Tristan still hadn’t found where they were really going.
We had to find out the truth. I couldn’t die. I had to fight.
The teeth of Tristan’s key pressed into my thigh. I shifted and drew it out of my pocket, turning it in my fingers, touching the scratches and dents. Tristan would wonder what had happened to me. He would look for me. He might know how to undo the binding, and if he didn’t, he’d help me fight back.
I slipped it back into my pocket.
I sat up, throwing the spread off my legs. Grace had locked the door. I moved through the narrow corridor connecting bedchamber, dressing room, and bathroom to the sitting room. It was precisely as I’d left it, even the desk sitting before the window with an elm tree a few feet away from the sill.
I hadn’t climbed out this window since I was a boy. I was sick. There wasn’t anywhere I could run where Grace couldn’t eventually find me.
I opened the window, crawled over my old desk and ignored my wrist as I shinnied my way along the rough-barked branch. It dipped under my weight, and brilliant golden leaves shivered and fell at my disturbance. I climbed down, hanging by my hands off the lowest branch to make the drop to the lawn.
It wasn’t the best landing. I favored my left ankle as I hobbled to the carriage house, darting inside. The landau was parked, and I stared dumbstruck at the vehicle beside it, long-nosed, sleek, and gleaming.
An automobile. There weren’t more than a handful of Sadie Lancer’s inventions in the city, being worth more than what a common man could make in a dozen years. They were fabulous objects of spectacle, capable of racing at speeds beyond the fastest horses or the strongest riders.
Grace could catch me in a minute, driving this.
I turned my back on it and found what I wanted. The black painted bicycle I was stealing might have belonged to a servant. I shoved the guilt in the same corner where I ignored my shaking limbs and pedaled over the picturesque, teeth-clattering driveway to the smooth black street.
How long would I have before Grace realized I was gone? She might know already. My spine crawled, but I kept pedaling. I turned the bicycle into Halston Park, riding along its hypotenuse to the opposite side and out of the still-drowsing district.
* * *
Wellston Triangle was awake and open for business. I passed bookshops, milliners, tailors, and tea shops, riding into a headwind. A wave of dizziness and darkening vision convinced me to dismount and walk. I had no lock, but Tristan’s home wasn’t far.
I would have vomited in the street if I’d had anything left to expel. A light sheen of sweat chilled me. But I pushed on to Tristan’s front door.
The key fit in the lock. I turned it and let myself in, dragging the bicycle along with me. My reflections were pale, hollow-eyed with shadows. The stairs loomed, steep and narrow. The kitchen seemed a mile away.
But I’d already bicycled for three.
I walked with heavy steps, ignoring the twinge in my ankle, the throb of my wrist. I stumbled along the short corridor to the kitchen.
Tristan sat there in a yellow silk dressing gown, nursing a cup of coffee. “Miles.” He stood and helped me to a seat. “You’re three-quarters dead, from the look of you. What happened?”
I put my good hand against the table and fought my heaving, empty stomach. “They bound me, Tristan.”
“Your family?”
“Yes. I escaped.”
“Good for you. Are you well?”
“I’m starving. And it’s dark—”
It stayed dark for a while.
SEVENTEEN
The Greater Good
The acid and sugar tang of an orange wet my tongue, and I bit. Juice burst bright as sunshine, grains of sugar melting in my mouth. Deerskin stretched smooth and warm under my skin.
I opened my eyes.
Tristan sat on the edge of the fainting couch, another sugar-sprinkled wedge of orange in his hand. He lifted it to my mouth, and I bit again.
Piece by patient piece, he fed me wedges of orange while the scent of burping coffee and simmering oats carried into the parlor. I tried to sit up, but he pushed my shoulder.
“Relax. You literally fell swooning into my arms. You’re not getting up for a while.”
“I do not swoon.”
“You passed out, drained to your limit. I’m amazed you made it here on your own.”
“I had to.”
“I suppose your family lives on the Western Point.”
“We have a view of the Ayers Inlet, next to the park.”
“I tried to explore the point, once. I was politely escorted out of the neighborhood. Your family is powerful.”
“Yes. We’re all mages, you know. Every one of the Royal Knights.”
“And you’re bound. To…”
“My sister.”
“Ah.” Tristan gathered up the rinds in one hand. “She’ll be looking for you. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He left the room, and I let my head fall back on the cushions. I felt a little better, but I had starved. I couldn’t eat a mountain of food and be ready to fight again. I had to refuel slowly. I would be sitting still for Grace to find. She would find me before I recovered.
The air grew heavier, fuzzy with power. It pulsed, passing over my skin, seeping into the walls with each beat. When Tristan returned, I couldn’t hear the noise from the street.
“What did you do?”
“I veiled the house. She can’t sense you.”
I was safe. “Perfect.”
“That depends.” Tristan returned with a tray and two bowls—a hearty helping of oats for him, and a smaller portion for me. He handed it over. “I don’t have to tell you to eat slowly, but eat slowly.”
“I will. What does it depend on?”
“How smart is your sister?”
“Smart. Patient. She will find me eventually.” I peered up at him. “You can’t … Is there a way to sever it? The bond?”
“I can’t,” Tristan said. “You might, when you’ve recovered. You’re stronger than your sister.”
I swallowed warm cereal and nearly choked. “How do you know?”
“You’ve two soul-stars. She’d have to be a massive talent to match you.”
I was stronger than her. All this time, all these years, I’d been second to Grace, less important, less valuable … and I had possessed the strength to resist the whole time. I didn’t know whether I should feel angry, or foolish.
No. I had no part in the subtle mutilation of my sense of self-worth. And now it didn’t matter. I was stronger than Grace. I had Tristan’s word on that.
I had the power my mother hadn’t. She had made sure that I was strong enough to do this, and I would.
“How do I free myself?”
“If she won’t let you go? Drain her until she can’t hold the bond anymore.”
I set my spoon down. “What happens if I try and I’m not strong enough?”
“You might die, as your mother did.” Tristan said it straight out, no hedging or murmuring. “It’s not up to me, but I’d rather y
ou didn’t.”
“But I’m more powerful than her, you think.”
“With two souls bound to you? Yes. But you’ll hurt her before she gives up and lets go.”
“She’ll hate me for it.”
“Do you wish to remain her thrall so she’ll still like you?”
“I’ll hate her for it.” I ate my oats. They were rich with aromatic spices, studded with chunks of baked apple. “So I stay here until I’m ready to face her.”
Tristan drank coffee. “You can stay here as long as you need to. I’ll keep renewing the veil. Whom did you heal?”
“I didn’t heal him,” I said. “I bought him some time, but he’s going to die.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“Chancellor Hensley?”
“More than that. He’s the Voice of the Invisibles,” I said. “He’s … My father is a spider in an enormous web, and he’s dying. My sister would be the one to take over, but there’s been a shift in power.”
I scraped the bottom of my bowl by the time I finished explaining, the last bite of my oats gluey and cold. Tristan listened, nodding thoughtfully.
“Your return would help improve your sister’s chance of taking over. And if she fails, life for the … Secondaries wouldn’t improve. But your sister wants reform. Do I have it right?”
“Yes,” I said. “She wants me to be the example of what a properly valued Secondary can do. She wants them to be more useful.”
Tristan tilted his head. “Why do you value Storm-Singers above all?”
I blinked. “The Invisibles control Aeland’s weather.”
Tristan stared at me. “They control the weather across the country? How?”
“They link,” I said. “Hundreds of them work together. Without it, this whole area’s natural weather is ruled by terrible storms. It’s something to do with water currents, the cold air coming down from the north. … The Storm-Singers came to Aeland and turned back the worst of it; then they tamed it; then they calmed seasonal changes to make an ideal growing season. Aeland feeds millions on its measure of land.”
Tristan looked astounded. “They link. More than two of them together.”
“Amaranthines don’t link?”
“Not to such a scale. We link up to three, but it gets hard to control after that. Hundreds?”