“Sleep?” Jan suggested, sounding tired as well. “Z had the right idea by turning in. We’ll put the body somewhere, and then we’ll use a good night’s sleep to figure out what to do.”
Jax noticed the split second where January’s gaze locked with Fey’s for a moment too long for it be purely coincidental, and how her eyes seemed to have nodded at him. They were making some sort of a plan, and something tugged at Jax’s gut, whispering possibilities of whatever this event could possibly be in his ear, but he willfully ignored it. If they were planning something, who was he to stop it? —besides, if they managed to work together, this close to their previous fiery argument, Jax considered it a success.
Jax snuck a look at Arleyene again, and he allowed his heart to clench just one more time for her before he prohibited himself for feeling anything for Arleyene Crawford. Because while Areya Carson may have held his hand when things were darker than he could have possibly imagined, they weren’t the same person. They might have looked identical, but they weren’t the same person. He would have to carry on, whether he was ready or not.
Hold fast and pray to any of the heaven’s goodwill.
But Jax didn’t voice any of his doubts or hope, instead settling on the biggest smile he could manage, considering all that had happened in that one day. “Sleep sounds divine.”
Thirty-Five
Z’S screams woke up the entire floor.
After the fury of events last night, everyone had retired to bed, and Celine wasn’t so sure about the others, but she didn’t catch a wink of blessed sleep despite her exhaustion. She had just sat on her bed for seemingly hours, staring at the gown that she was so excited to wear earlier that evening, laying crumpled on the ground where she threw it as soon as she wrangled herself out of it, the decorative sheath and tulle suffocating as she came to terms about what happened. There was a grass stain on the bottom of her dress, still damp from where she had huddled close to the ground in the cemetery, and she still felt a wave of nausea as she remembered what happened next.
She wasn’t sure what time it was, the early morning if the rosy sky was anything to go by, when she heard it. A bloodcurdling scream, straight from Z’s room, and she launched herself out of her room, sleep be damned, anxious to know what had happened.
Areya—Arleyene—had died last night, short minutes after she was been so alive, and the image of her pale skin, ruddy with past life was burned onto the backs of Celine’s eyelids. No matter if they had rooted out the spy, she wasn’t naïve enough to think that all danger from the palace was gone, and she couldn’t bear to think of Z, lifeless.
And now Celine was currently standing outside of his door, keen to know how he was feeling. Right now, it was only Jax and Fey in there; they were all taking turns going into the otherwise too small room. Well, everyone except for Jax—he had taken permanent residence by the mechanic’s side.
Z had protested weakly when they all came piling into his room, clothes rumpled from sleep and concern etched clearly in all of their faces. But as soon as Celine started to argue, Z decided that maybe he could allow being spoiled, just this once.
“How bad do you think it is?”
Celine looked up at Jan, who was leaning against the wall, an expressionless look on his face. His voice was different than usual, the deep tone concerned.
As Celine had taken some time to realize, he felt the same concern, the same pain as everyone else here. His way of dealing with it was just different; he preferred shutting everyone out and remaining at stoic as he could afford. “He’s a strong person,” she chose to say.
His slate grey eyes flickered up to meet hers. “That’s the point. He’s been quiet all this time, despite the literal hell he’s being dragged through every day—which itself is a lot—but if it’s gotten to the point when he’s yelling in his sleep…” he trailed off.
Celine didn’t need his words to fill in the gap. How bad is it? They all knew that Z had recently been getting more frequent flashbacks; had recently been getting glimpse of the past that he had forgotten. But then he waved it off with nonchalance, and no one suspected a thing. In fact, they were happy that he was finally able to remember his life. But they had failed to notice his recent decrease in spirits, the now more common weariness. Winces, and red eyes.
And now this.
Z had never spoken to any of them about what he could remember, other than a few words about his old home when he let his guard down, and they all respected that. It was a lot to take in; something that has shaped you so profoundly, that you couldn’t remember. But Celine was now slowly starting to regret giving him so much space. Would he break? Would he-
“He’s a strong person,” she repeated, more to herself that anyone else, though Jan still gave her a small smile, a crack in his impenetrable shield. The thought made her manage a small smile too; at least something was going right today.
“Celine?” The mentioned girl turned her head to see Fey—distraught yet somewhat happy and satisfied Fey—calling her from the doorway of Z’s room. “You can go in.”
…
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Celine caught some movement of black that she knew was Jax out of the corner of her eye, but she chose to ignore it. Right now, she was scolding Z, no one else.
“Nice to see you too, Hollingsworth.”
It was a common greeting, but Celine could hear the hollowness, the false joviality covering up the shock and pain that she could so clearly see in his red-rimmed eyes. How did she not see this before? Hearing Z so unlike himself made her stop in her tracks, and try a safer, kinder approach. The last thing he needed was an over bearing Celine Hollingsworth on his hands.
She took in a deep breath and changed her words, “How are you?”
“I suppose the answer you want to hear is peachy-keen.”
“It’s not good,” Jax looked like he was struggling to find the right words while being diplomatic between the two eccentric personalities of Celine and Z. “But it’s gotten better.”
“Better?” Celine looked between the two boys disbelievingly. “You mean he was worse before?” The grim look on both of their faces confirmed it. She starting pacing, running her hand through her perfectly brushed blonde curls. “How did I not see it?”
“No one saw,” Jax explained, as if that would console Celine.
“But you did, didn’t you?”
“It’s my job to notice-” Jax attempted to explain, but Celine cut him off.
“It’s mine too, and whoop-di-do, I failed that one too. And don’t you dare laugh Z, you are supposed to tell me things; isn’t that what friendship is about?” Z, who had been chuckling softly at his friend’s outburst, immediately straightened, and instantly became more serious.
“Celine. I just figured all this out within this week. I told you about the flashbacks. About a city, with big bright lights and people laughing and activity everywhere, that was everything, but dead,” he said, kind and patient, as always.
“It wasn’t just that,” Celine guessed. Z nodded, a weak smile on his face.
Z hesitated, clearly trying to find the words to say. He kept looking down at his hand where a metal lighter lay, as if he were drawing power from the small object.
“I told you what I thought was it. But a little while ago, I remembered little bits. Important things. It started with fires, which I have always had nightmares about. But then it went to that entire dream city on fire. Destruction literally everywhere; and suddenly, that city that was so alive, was just a dead pile of ashes,” he finally said, his voice a little over a whisper. “I remembered something about trudging along a path, getting on board a plane with a blue crest on it, and coming to London.”
“I asked him about it. What was wrong, why he wasn’t being his usual self. He told me about the burning city, in hopes that I would be able to find what that place was. To piece his past together,” Jax supplied when Z faltered. “It turned out that the city was Dulhim, in Di’an. And
it was destroyed in 319 T.E. Z was 12 at the time.”
“I remembered a face; an Immortale,” Z picked up again. “Somehow, I knew her name, but I still don’t know why. I have a feeling I was once captured, but, again, no clue. Her name was Millinde, and I asked Jax to look into that too.”
“Turns out, she’s not Immortale. Millinde Flourish, and first, it seems like she has a clean record. But once you go into it, you find out, that she’s had some suspicious activity. I didn’t want to tell Z bu-”
“I’m fine.” Z resolutely stated, but Celine couldn’t force down that growing lump in her throat. “We found her, but that’s not why I had the nightmare. I just...” he trailed off, and Celine noticed the absence of his usual colour in his cheeks. She rushed forward to grab a glass to give him some water, but he waved her off, instead lighting his lighter.
There was something off about that motion, of how intently he was looking at the flame.
“What else?” she asked, not knowing if she wanted to know what the cause of his horror or not.
He looked up to meet her eyes, and there it was; a shattered life floating in pools of dark brown. Terror. Unsureness.
“I remembered my name.”
Thirty-Six
THEY were all gathered in the meeting room, waiting for Z to come in. After Z had confessed just what terrified him to the point of screaming in his sleep, Jax ushered Celine out, and left a minute or two afterwards, coming to an agreement with the mechanic, that they would all meet in the meeting room later that day to discuss what to do next, if the latter had a few moments to himself just to breathe. January had barely protested to the agreement, even though he still hadn’t seen Z yet, so it was all rather easy.
Celine was seated at her usual head of the table, absent-mindedly capping and uncapping her purple pen with her thumb and index finger, busy wondering about what was going to happen next. Fey was spinning herself on her red chair, her dark hair flying in a ring around her; and Jan was leaned down so close to the table, that Celine didn’t even know what he was doing. Jax, as per usual, was running late, but managed to snag his seat before Z entered, his dark hair mussed up, his blue eyes bright from activity, and panting from no doubt running across the palace in an extremely un-kingly like way.
And last, was the guest of honour himself, Z. He looked much better than before, the twinkle in his eye somewhat returned. But Celine could tell from the harshness of his jaw that he was still torn up and was hiding everything he felt beneath his usual armour of humour.
As soon as the mechanic stepped in the room all of The Strategists stopped their activities. Fey’s eyebrows automatically rose as she saw Z, pausing mid-spin. Jax ran a hand through his hair, trying to tame the untameable locks in hopes to look presentable. And Celine gently dropped her pen, focusing all of her attention on Z. For a moment, the room was silent.
That silence lasted to only be surprisingly broken by Jan, who looked up from whatever he was doing, noncommittedly. “Nice to see you. Dreams finally caught up to you, haven’t they, big guy?”
Z cracked a smile at Jan’s smirk and attempt at acting natural. And you should act natural too. He’s feeling, no doubt uncomfortable, with all these questioning glances that are wondering just what’s wrong with him. Realizing her mistake, Celine awkwardly grabbed her pen again, and resumed the clicking. Whether it was in effort to seem nonchalant or because of her nerves, she didn’t know.
Work, she reminded herself.
“Okay, so I have Millinde Flourish’s files pulled up. With less than a day’s work, we might be able to find her and bring her in for interrogation. Fey, you got that. But we can’t let that take away fully from what we’re perusing in finding out more about rebel alliances and just who we’re up against. So we should take a vote? —that way we’ll be able to make a decision that everyone approves,” Celine rambled on, but she knew that the look that she was getting from Jax meant that something was up. “What’s wrong?”
“While it’s great to see that you’ve got everything settled, we already have Millinde Flourish, and we already have interrogated her,” Jax said, and Celine blinked quickly.
She sat for a moment, her jaw left slightly open. All pen clicking had halted, her mind and body shell-shocked from this new information. Fey gave her a slight nod, confirming the fact. She had been the first to see Z. Had it been for this reason? And since when did the team make decisions without her?
Instead of dwelling on the thoughts of just what was happening to her leadership, she chose to push the self-doubting thoughts out and glare at Jax with all of her might.
“Sorry, Hollingsworth,” Z called out unapologetically. She shifted her glare to him, and he through his hands up in his typical way. “God, don’t kill me.”
Jan looked almost amused, though his grey eyes remained serious. “Seeing as our mismatched group is working in our dysfunctional way, why don’t we get this meeting started?”
“What is it with you guys and stealing my job and lines? First Jax and Z, and now you? Who’s next, Fey?” Celine said, internally wincing, wishing that she could take back those words. What she meant as friendly teasing had been a pretty low hit, but all of her team members took it in with stride; Celine could swear that Fey was silently laughing at the leader’s flustered response to her own words.
“Watch your back Celine; or else I’ll start ordering you around.”
“Oh, shut up, Downcley.”
…
“Celine, wait up!” She immediately stopped in her tracks, waiting for the young king. She had no idea why she still automatically obeyed his every command, seeing as they were now out of that a-ruler-interacting-with-his-civilian-just-out-of-civility stage. She didn’t dare look beside her—she was still trying to forget a few days ago when she took home base and opened up completely to Jax, still trying to cope with all that she saw yesterday, still trying to give him space and give herself some as well—so as soon as she saw a flash of his somehow still pressed shite shirt and his unruly hair out of the corner of her eye, she restarted her attempt to get away.
“God, why are you always so determined to get me out of your way? You must have realized by now, that I don’t go away that easily,” he said, eyebrow arched.
“Unfortunately,” she muttered under her breath. The intentions of her words had been just for her to hear, but apparently, he did as well, because he let out an unrestrained belt of laughter. Gradually, as he grew louder and his reaction to her statement echoed off the empty hallways to attract attention of servants and guards running around the castle, she stopped in her tracks to face him. “You have a way of attracting attention.”
“And you are just as driven to diverting as much of it away from you as possible.” His glinting eyes turned a bit more serious, “If laughing like that makes you face me, I might be forced to do it more often.”
She let out a sharp exhale through her nose, clenching his fists by her side, picking up her pace again. He will not affect me; he will no-
“Celine!” She stopped again, irritation shadowing her every movement. Maybe she secretly liked the companionship. Then she saw his small sheepish smirk. Yeah, maybe not.
“What is it, Jax?”
“What, no king?”
“Wasn’t it you who wanted me to remove that prefix from my list of formalities?”
“Yeah; rather contradicting of me, isn’t it?” he asked, looking off to the side casually.
She just sighed and continued her way on to her room. His hand gripped her shoulder, and effortlessly turned her around. “Hey, I’m being serious now. Back at the meeting; what happened-”
“Was the right thing for you to do,” she finished for him, eyes flickering up to meet his. She shrugged, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t a big deal and that she was just blowing things out of proportion.
“You are in charge of The Strategists, and it was wrong of me to make such a big decision without your input or consent,” Jax argued bac
k, his words just as fueled as hers.
“But if it turned out alright, like how it has, does it really matter?”
He sighed, brows creased. “I’m trying to redeem myself here.”
“And I’m trying to get over myself,” she shot back, a slow smile working on her face.
“So are we good, or do we both still have besetting problems?”
“In this line of work, we’ll always have besetting problems. But, for ceremonial sake, I’ll go with we’re good.”
Celine referencing the conversation that they had the night before, made Jax grin as brightly as someone with his loss could, and she almost grinned back at him, when he piped up again. “You’re position of leader is not threatened in any way, just so we’re clear.”
Any hint of Celine’s smile dropped immediately. “And as I said before, I don’t feel that it is,”
“And I’m the best king NNR has ever seen; we can both play at the game of lies.”
“You know I can’t agree that you’re the best king,” she muttered, and he gave her that look; the one that had I told you so, etched all over it. “Okay, maybe I feel threatened. But that’s something that I’ll have to fix; it’s not a problem that actually exists. I have to find a way to push my own paranoia out of my head. I appreciate the fact that you want to help, but this is my own to do,” she added, as a sort of peace maker.
He nodded understandingly. “Of course.”
And with a wry grin that was surprisingly genuine, she spun on her heel and left.
Thirty-Seven
FEY gave Celine a quick brief on Millinde Flourish before their group met again.
Apparently, Z, after Dulhim had been burned down by rebels, was taken in by the rebels in effort to teach him their ways, and later recruit him as he grew older, but 19 months in, he escaped. He had then taken a route to London, and the rebels had let him go, thinking that it wouldn’t change anything in their plans. Millinde herself, was the lead of training young kids into becoming rebels, and although their group used to be anti-Immortale she actually made the group work for the Immortales when she rose to power in the group and was able to make decisions. That was when they all found out how deep this treachery was.
The Reformation Page 26