by Natalie Grey
I didn’t remember where I had met Philip, but I did know that the Doge’s palace was there.
The years of the plague had, in some ways, been Venice’s first heyday. The Council of Ten and the office of the Doge had been established, and the rich of Venice had begun to measure themselves against the nobles of the other city states.
I didn’t know where Venice’s richest lived now, but then, they had all crowded around the Doge’s palace, seeking his favor. If Philip and I had lived in the style I remembered, with velvets and silks, we would have spent time around there.
Of course, I was dreading walking into a room I remembered and seeing Philip there, but it seemed like that part of the plan couldn’t be avoided.
Daiman brought us out of the domhan fior on the edge of a little canal, grime-streaked and with the stains of acqua alta on the walls around us. The sound of a gondola made its way through the mist a few moments before the boat appeared, and the oarsman nodded his head to us. I could vaguely make out the lines of a bridge not too far away.
The familiarity of the place was almost dizzying.
We stood together for a very long moment, neither of us keen to pull away and leave the other’s warmth.
“I will follow you,” Daiman said finally.
“Is that safe?” I wanted him to be nearby, but the thought of Philip finding him, chasing him….
“I can make myself very, very small.” Daiman tried to smile. “Who notices a ladybug?”
“A good point.” I considered, and all of a sudden, a new idea came to me. “Or….”
“Or?” He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Oh, come on, at least try to sell me on the idea.” He gave a grin that made my heart flip. “You can be very persuasive, you know.”
“Uh-huh.” I let my head tip back as his lips found my throat. “You’re not making it very easy to think, you know.”
“I’m not trying to.” I could hear a laugh building in his throat.
“Mmm. I’ll get you for that.” I bit my lip and tried to collect my thoughts. “Um. Right. Well, you’d get to stay close by and keep an eye on me if we went with this plan.”
“A good start,” he murmured against my skin.
My fingers clenched against his back. “And, uh, you’d help me prove my loyalty to them.”
I could feel the realization hit him. He pulled his head up and gave me an aggrieved look. “You’re going to bring me in as a fake captive, aren’t you?”
“So, it’s agreed?”
“No! I don’t want to go in there in chains!”
“Magical chains,” I pointed out. “That I could undo whenever I wanted.”
“A druid of the Acadamh would never—”
“Exactly.” I put a finger over his lips. “So maybe they’re wondering, am I still the Nicola they knew? Can I sweet talk someone? Can I still use my magic? I come in there with Daiman Bradach as my captive, and there’s the answer to their questions.”
Daiman frowned.
“Hopefully, all of them will be there,” I explained. “Together, we can take them down more easily. I’ve seen the way you fight. You’d be quite a valuable ally.”
He pulled away from me and went to stand out, looking over the water.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“This … would cement everything.” He didn’t look back at me. “Up until now, everything I’ve done has been by the book.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the laugh out of my voice. “Taking me away from the Acadamh?”
“After Terric lied?” He turned to look at me, and I could see that he was utterly serious. “After I found out all the lies he’d told everyone? I brought you to Eshe—who no one could say was a Monarchist. I protected you. I brought you here so you could face Philip and I told the Chief Druid about the threat. All by the book. All … permissible.”
Understanding crashed in on me. “But if you work with me on this, you’re a traitor, too.”
His face might have been carved of stone. “Something like that.”
He’d come all this way, still telling himself there was a way out. He’d told himself that nothing he’d done could truly be held against him, that he wasn’t really my ally.
I told myself that was unfair—that he’d come with me because he truly believed Terric was untrustworthy, and that it was necessary to give me a chance to redeem myself. But it still hurt. It hurt like hell to know that he’d hoped to go back to the Acadamh, after everything, when I knew in my heart that they would never accept me.
I could see now that even when he knew the truth—that they would never forgive me, that they would never forgive him for helping me—he had still clung to a vision of the world where he wouldn’t have to choose between us.
I stepped back and let myself rest against the wall—as if pretending to be at ease might make me less tense. I felt like a bowstring, every muscle taut. I couldn’t let myself push him on this.
“No grand speech?” Daiman asked. It was only half a joke. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to make one or not.
“No.” I shook my head. “It has to be your choice.”
I was too good at persuading people. I’d shown that when I brought so many allies to my cause seven centuries before.
If he was going to leave, I’d rather he leave. I didn’t want him to stay, only for both of us to spend the rest of our lives wondering if his choice had been real.
He hung his head. “I know what I have to do,” he said, his voice broken. “I just … never thought it would be this hard.”
I forced myself to say nothing. I wasn’t even sure what he meant by that right now, and I was too afraid to say anything about it.
He turned to look at me, and I could see the pain in his eyes. “They’re good people,” he said passionately. “They believed what they were doing was right.”
So did I. But I didn’t say it. I looked down at the ground.
“And they built something good,” Daiman said, almost to himself. “The Acadamh shielded people.”
I clenched my hands behind my back. If he was going to leave, I wanted him to go now. Every moment I saw him would only hurt more in the long run.
He looked over his shoulder at me and his eyes were haunted. “What do I do?” he whispered.
“Daiman.” My chest was aching. “We’re immortal. You’re going to have to live with what you choose for the rest of a very, very long life. If you make the wrong choice, you can fix that. But if you make the choice that compromises who you are—you won’t ever forget that.” I shook my head. “I can’t choose for you.”
To my surprise, the tension seemed to drain out of him. He was smiling.
“What?” I felt a traitorous squirm of hope in my chest.
“You’re right.” Dawn was burning the mist away and he looked out over the water with a smile. “Thank you.”
“So you’ve made a choice?”
“I have.”
“As simple as that?”
He smiled at me. “Yes.”
And so it was that about an hour later, I slammed open the door of a back room and leaned against the lintel, an unimpressed sneer on my face.
“Nicola?” Philip turned from the table where he’d been poring over a map.
I swept my eyes over the others in the room. Some, I vaguely recognized. Some, I did not.
“I got your message.” I kept my voice dry.
“And?” Philip looked wary—as well he might, I supposed.
“And what they hell was that?” I let my annoyance show. “’My love’? Your heart aches?”
Philip was beginning to smile. It was a smile that reminded me of too much that had passed between us—but it told me that I’d hit the right note.
“So they didn’t take everything from you, then.” He strolled towards me, his accomplices falling out of his way. “And you came here to…?”
“Make sure you’re doing t
his right.” I hauled Daiman out from behind the door and shoved him into the room so he sprawled on his knees. “And bring you a present.”
30
Philip threw back his head and laughed. He planted his foot on Daiman’s shoulder and kicked him over onto his back.
Daiman might not be a good liar, but thankfully, didn’t have to fake anything right now. His eyes burned with hatred over the gag. He’d been twisting his hands against the bonds. I could see what it cost him not to lash out at Philip with his magic.
“Daiman Bradach.” Philip’s voice dripped condescension. He looked over at me. “So, tell me. How did you get him like this?”
I didn’t look down at him. I couldn’t bear to. Daiman, I’m sorry for everything I’m about to say.
“He let his guard down,” I said carelessly. I held Philip’s eyes with a smile. “He made such a good escort that I let him believe what he wanted … and then I thought, ‘Philip’s been working so hard. He deserves something nice.’” I kept my voice light and amused, but part of me wanted to scream. I hated the person I was playing.
And it was so, so easy to pretend to be her.
There was a round of nervous laughter from the assembled sorcerers.
“A good escort?” Philip was pulling off his gloves, one finger at a time. He looked down at me with an arched brow.
“He was so horrified by what you said about Terric, he was willing to protect me from him.” I let the hint of a purr into my voice. “He got me to Eshe to take the block off my magic—that Coimeail made that little inconvenience—and then … well, I didn’t need him anymore.”
Philip laughed. Before I had time to react, his fingers were twisted in my hair and he’d dragged me close for a kiss.
I’d planned for this, but it still took everything I had not to recoil. I dug the nails of one hand into his neck and, when he jerked his head back at the pain, pushed him away lightly.
“First things first.” I was having to work very hard not to wipe my mouth off and spit, but I kept a smile on my lips. “Show me the plan.”
This, clearly, was exactly the Nicola he remembered. His smile widened and he gave an elaborate bow, gesturing at the table. As I swept past him, however, he stooped to whisper in my ear.
“Later.” The word was a breath, but hunger trembled in it.
I had a sudden, vivid memory of firelight and moss and the feel of Daiman’s skin against mine, and I didn’t dare look at where he lay on the floor. My true feelings would be far too clear if I did that.
But I wanted to. I wanted to remind myself that who I had been with Philip wasn’t who I had to be now.
I steadied myself and stared down at the table with what I hoped was a look of haughty condescension.
“We’ll be starting here,” Philip told me. He moved close as he pointed at the edge of the sea wall, and he laid his hand in the small of my back.
It took everything I had not to move away. “The airport?”
“Airports are where we need to focus now, not cities.” Philip’s smile was smug. “The virus would be in most cities before they knew there was anything wrong.”
It was a good plan. That was chilling.
“What’s the ratio?” I crossed my arms and didn’t look at Daiman.
“Hmm?”
“How many does it kill, per hundred?”
“Ah. Five in a thousand will survive.” He looked up to smile at everyone now crowded around the table, and they smiled in answer. “We fine-tuned it in your absence. Of course, there’s more of them now. It leaves 35 million. More than we wanted.”
More than we wanted. I was actually going to be sick, right here at this table.
Whether Daiman saw me struggling, I wasn’t sure, but he bought me time anyway. He was on his feet a moment later with a muffled sound of pure fury bursting out of him.
Philip’s blast of lightning caught him in the chest and I had to fight not to scream. When Philip raised his hands again, I batted them away.
“Leave it,” I ordered icily. “He knows things we need.”
“What information does he have that I don’t?” Philip asked carelessly. “I was Terric’s confidant for two hundred years. Oh, Nicola, the secrets that man has—he really is such a hypocrite.”
I gave him a small smile. It wasn’t entirely feigned—I had to admit, after hearing of Terric’s lies, I wasn’t entirely sad to see him exposed as a fraud.
But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him hurt Daiman.
“And did he know all the secrets of the Hunters?” I asked pointedly.
“Ah.” Philip raised an eyebrow. “No. No, he didn’t. You make a good point.” He gestured to the map. “So what do you think?”
I sank my chin onto one hand, trying desperately to come up with something to say. All of my questions were too obvious: When will it begin? Are people ready in other airports yet?
Inspiration came to me in a flash.
“I think five in a thousand is too many,” I said. I looked around at all of them, and then over at Philip. “Unless you’ve come up with a good way to corral 35 million people.”
He swallowed uncomfortably. Clearly, they had not come up with a way.
He tried to recover. “Their infrastructure will be gone,” he told me brutally. “They’ll be easy to break.”
“Yes.” I kept my voice dry. “If history has taught us anything, it’s that resistance movements are easily found and crushed.”
His smile died, and though I wondered if I had gone too far, this felt good. You wanted me back, Philip? You wanted the mass-murdering bitch back? Well, she’s here, and she’s not someone to let you walk all over her.
“What do you recommend?” he asked stiffly. I could see him fighting not to get into it with me.
That was good. It told me exactly what I needed to know. Philip might have run this show in my absence, but he didn’t believe he had enough control for them to back him against me.
I didn’t feel bad for him. It was his own fault. He’d built an entire cult around my name. He could hardly toss me away now that I was back.
Plus, it was convenient for me. I tried not to let my face betray just how pleased I was by this development.
“I think we should go for less than ten million left. So … make it one in a thousand.” I looked around. “Where are the orbs?”
They looked at one another, and I realized I’d pushed too far, too fast.
They didn’t know if they could trust me yet. I’d disappeared from the Acadamh with a druid. I’d rejected Philip twice. And now here I was, trying to take control of their plan. They knew enough to be wary, at least.
“We’ll worry about the rest of them later,” Philip assured me, but there was a distance behind his eyes.
I had to bluff, and bluff hard.
“So, you didn’t really want me back.” I took comfort from the fact that this was true, and I let my very real condescension drip through every word.
Philip’s hand clenched. “What did you say?”
The room was suddenly completely silent. Everyone looked away, eager not to be noticed.
“You wanted to stay in charge,” I accused him. “Me being here now … well, it’s inconvenient, isn’t it? You had to come search me out when word broke that I was still alive, you’d made too big of a deal about me not to. But you didn’t really want me back. You didn’t want anyone showing you up.”
In fact, I wondered if anyone here knew that Philip had been there when I was rediscovered … or if he’d kept it a secret until someone else broke the news.
I took a step forward and gave a poisonous little smile. “You didn’t want anyone to remember that I was the one who was good at this, not you. You’re a man with a talent for lightning—not all that useful for ruling the world.”
There was a murmur around the room. A very interested murmur.
Well, I’d wanted to bluff and I’d done it. The group wasn’t entirely prepared to back him.
&nbs
p; So I’d better come up with the rest of the plan quickly, because either Philip or I wasn’t walking out of this room alive. The look on his face made that much clear.
“Who were you before I came along?” He spat the words at me. “No one. Just like Terric.”
“No one. Really.” I looked around the room at them. The shadow of a plan was coming to me now. “Tell me, all of you—how many of you had heard of Nicola Beaumont before you joined Philip? And how many knew what my power was?”
They didn’t bother to put up their hands, but I saw some nods.
“And how many of you joined this cause because you believed in what I had done?” I stressed the word subtly.
“Nicola.” Philip gritted the word out.
I gave him a look.
“Well, I’m back now,” I told them. “Me. The one who could give you a better rate than 995 in a thousand. Why settle for a half solution? Those of you who back me … may swear fealty to me now.”
They came to me, one by one, murmuring their names and giving me offers of loyalty. I shook their hands, aware of Philip’s furious presence at my back, and when they were done, and every single person there had sworn their loyalty to me, I turned and put out my hand to him.
“I have done more for them than you ever did,” he said quietly, venomously. “You may have had the magic, but I kept this alive through everything. You ruled them for a century—I’ve done it for more than 6. I am the one who should lead.”
“Very well.” I turned away and gave them all a look. “You. Where are the orbs?”
“In there.” A woman with fiery red hair nodded to a chest in the corner. “We did the best we could,” she added apologetically.
“I know,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to do this, but every one of them in this room had just shown me what they were. “That’s the problem.”
And I activated the seed of death I’d slipped into each one of them as they shook my hand.
They crumpled to the floor and I swayed. The spell had taken almost everything from me, and the sight of them dead….