by Sarah Fine
“What?” Keenan’s voice was like a whip crack.
“He was trying to sense what was inside me. And then he was trying to take me with him.”
“Could he have just been trying to get you out of there?”
How I wanted to believe that. “I don’t think so,” I murmured.
Keenan’s body was alive with tension. “So Brindle might know you have it.” Our eyes met. “That makes you very valuable, Ms. Carver.”
“Only as long as I’m carrying the magic, you mean. And I suppose you want to download it.”
“No. For something this ancient, this fragile, it should only be transferred back into its original vessel. Doing otherwise would be a risk I won’t take.”
“Like the original relics.”
“If it were to shatter or leak, or if part of it were to be lost, we might never know what it could have told us.”
“How does this magic relate to the mosaic? Is the panel actually important, or is it just a shell—just a reliquary like me?”
“I don’t know yet. We won’t know until we have both.”
“I have something you desperately want, in other words.” I sat up a little straighter.
He arched one eyebrow. “Something tells me that your help now comes with strings attached.”
“Yours did. But now you can’t just disappear me. You need me.”
“I can force the magic out of you if I need to. Jack will help.”
“Sure—and risk damaging the magic? Because I’ll hold on to it until the bitter end. And I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. Strong enough to take on Jack.” I lifted my chin in defiance. “I also don’t care about the magic nearly as much as you do. I’m not invested in keeping it whole.”
He paled a little. “This is ancient, one-of-a-kind magic.”
I leaned forward. “I know.”
“And your conditions?”
“I’ll help you get this panel. And you’ll help me get Asa back from Brindle. No arresting either of us afterward, though. I’ll download the magic into the panel once I’m satisfied we have our escape hatch.”
“Mattie, even if you can get Asa back, you can’t know what state he’ll be in.”
I gritted my teeth. “Asa will be fine.” I sounded more confident than I was, because even as I said the words, I remembered the blank, heartless look in his honey-brown eyes. They’d done something terrible to him. They’d taken his will. “But you know he’ll never survive being a slave for long. It’ll kill him.” I thought back to the bandage on his wrist, the way he’d flinched when I grabbed his forearm. “Or he might kill himself.” Maybe he’d already tried.
Keenan winced. “If you’re going back out there as one of my agents, however temporarily, you’re going to have to conceal your emotions a little better than that.”
I groaned. “What do you suggest? Forget I love him?” That had been Theresa’s suggestion. “Use my motivation to save him to shield everything that lies underneath?” That wasn’t working either. My shield had cracked, broken by the cold look in Asa’s eyes, the way he’d kissed me just to get at what was inside.
He sat back, looking me over. “Neither. I suggest you learn some mental discipline. And I am prepared to offer you some training in that regard. Training only offered to our elite agents. Because if you’re going back to Volodya, you need to be in control of yourself.”
“I’m going back to Volodya?”
He smiled, but it was grim. “You have to convince him to be the wounded gazelle. He is anyway, really. Not that he’ll admit it.”
“Brindle will believe he’s weak because of what happened tonight.” I thought of the note in Pavel’s collar. Nice try. There was blood in the water.
“Volodya is known for his collection. He needed the panel to make any use of it, though. He was once believed to be the biggest threat: He had original pages from the Essentialis Magia. He had the original Sensilo relic. He had his own magic sensor. Her name was Theresa Harrison, and she was known to be as ruthless as he was, and just as powerful. He had the most powerful known Knedas in the world in Arkady, and a lethal Strikon in Lishka Bondarev. But one by one, the pieces fell. Now the king is unprotected, his kingdom in ruins.” He chuckled. “Brindle dealt him a terrible blow tonight. You have to convince Volodya to turn weakness into strength.”
“Assuming he doesn’t kill me for failing.”
“He won’t, if you tell him what he needs to hear.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know yet, Mattie.” Keenan’s eyes met mine, and there was a knowing glint there, one that spoke of millions of revealed secrets. “But something tells me you’re the person to figure it out.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“The trick is to hide only things you need to.”
“I knew that already,” I snapped, closing my eyes. I had been encased in the tube of the MRI machine for what felt like hours, my legs sticking out of the bottom. Laid out on a table. Living imaginary scenarios and trying to control my stupid brain—and my stupid heart.
“And to focus on completely emotion-neutral tasks. You have to concentrate. It’s like training a muscle.”
“I know.”
“You can do this, Mattie,” Jack said patiently. He was in the scanning room, staring at pictures of the blood flow in my brain. His deep voice filtered to me through a little speaker in my tubular prison.
“But right now, from what I’m sensing, I’d love to play poker against you,” Keenan said. He was standing next to the MRI machine, announcing my feelings as soon as they surfaced and triggering Jack to start a new scan. “Remember—focus on the details of the plan, on the words you’re saying, on each step toward your goal, no matter how small. If you do that, the stray thoughts and feelings will subside or fall away because your mind is so efficient. You’re a machine. Think like one. It’s all about mental discipline.”
I blew out a slow breath. “Let’s try again.”
“All right,” said Jack. “Imagine facing Volodya again. Picture the room you described to us, every detail. And then think about presenting the plan. You have to believe in it, or he won’t. So focus on each little piece of it and how each one is essential for building the whole.”
“A mosaic, basically,” I muttered.
“If that helps you hold it together, then yeah.”
As the MRI machine began to clank and thump, I thought of Volodya’s silhouette in his darkened nook, the glowing embers of his cigarette, the dusty side tables covered in artifacts, the crossed swords on the wall. Trying to ignore the annoying noise, I pictured his face, but as soon as I did, my heart skipped uncomfortably. Asa had looked more like him than ever the last time I’d seen him—now he had the same coldness in his eyes.
The machine fell silent.
“Longing,” Keenan announced.
“Makes sense based on what I’m seeing,” said Jack, at the same time I said, “No!”
“I call ’em as I sense ’em,” said Keenan. “Something you’re not telling us, Mattie? This isn’t the first time I’ve picked up that emotion with Volodya.”
“Ugh. Just . . . let’s just keep going, okay?” It was Asa. I couldn’t get him out of my head, couldn’t stop the hurt as I thought about what he’d done, what it meant for him.
This time I didn’t even notice the noise of the machine—until it went quiet again.
It took a few seconds for Jack to speak. “Her brain signature’s reflecting fear.”
“Perfectly natural way to feel if you’re hiding something,” Keenan said smoothly. “How do you think Volodya will respond to that, Mattie? I hear terror excites him. Your weakness might send him into a frenzy.”
The MRI machine banged and chugged for at least a minute while I tried—and failed—to refocus on my task. But a wish to kick Keenan in the shins kept creeping into my consciousness.
“Ooh. Anger,” Jack announced when the scan was complete.
Keenan laughed. “Mattie, you bur
n a little hot, which is not necessarily bad. But if you want to succeed, you have to control yourself. You must force your thoughts to lead, but you’re letting your emotions rule you. It’s an indulgence you can’t afford.”
A tear streaked from the corner of my eye, sliding down the side of my face and into my ear. This reminded me of all the times I’d been strapped to a table, how Asa would give me whatever I needed to endure whatever was coming. Sometimes he was fierce, sometimes tough, sometimes soft as a caress. But every time, he was there for me, focused on me as if I were the only thing that existed for him. Now all of that was gone. I was alone. The chasm inside me opened wide. In my whole life, I’d never really been on my own. I’d had my parents. I’d had Ben. I’d had Asa. Then Theresa. Some of them had faltered, but all of them had looked out for me.
Now I was in the den of the Headsmen, but they weren’t here for me. I was just a means to an end. The sob escaped my mouth before I could stifle it.
“Okay, Mattie,” said Jack. “It’s break time.”
“I need one, too,” I heard Keenan say.
The table I was lying on began to slide out of the tube, and by the time my head emerged, Jack was standing there instead of Keenan. He offered his hand. I took it and sat up, then wiped my face with my sleeve. “I guess I drove him away.”
“Even just looking at pictures of your brain, that was pretty intense. And Keenan feels every bit of it,” Jack said slowly, helping me hop off the table. “Come into the prep room.”
He led me into a small room with a few couches and chairs, a place to relax before being tested. All the elite Headsmen had to be able to conceal their intentions and feelings, and all had to make it past Keenan, to fool him while someone watched the brain scan to see the feelings that were actually occurring. Apparently science and magic didn’t converge in this case—you could have the feeling but conceal it. I just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet.
I sank down onto the couch, and Jack settled across from me in a chair. “I’m wasting your time,” I said. “I suck at this.”
“You have a lot on your mind,” he replied. “Not the same thing as sucking. I’m sorry about what happened to Ward, by the way. I never got to say it.”
“Are you really?”
He laughed quietly. “Yeah. Kind of wish I’d met him under different circumstances. The only time we worked together, we had competing agendas.” His gaze found mine. “All he cared about was keeping you safe, Mattie.”
“He talked to you?”
“Nope. But it was obvious. All of his priorities. All of his plans. Every move he was going to make. Every move he wanted me to make.” He grunted. “Dude was focused. He didn’t give a shit about the original magic, not really. Not if it came at your expense.”
I set my elbows on my knees and bowed my head. “I feel like I’ve lost him, Jack. He was such a different person when I saw him last night.”
“Kind of like you, when you had that splinter in you?”
“I was still—”
He waved his hand at me. “You were a shell, nothing like you are now. He said he wasn’t sure you’d ever recover.” He paused, then shook his head. “But he was determined to save whatever tiny piece of you was left—not for himself, but for you.”
“All I needed was fifteen pounds’ worth of french fries, though. Asa . . . I don’t know how to get him back if he doesn’t want to leave. It’s like they’ve turned him into someone else.”
“You spent five minutes with him last night, alarms screaming and bullets flying.”
“Yeah, and he tried to kidnap me!” But only after I’d fallen for his trick. I hadn’t even realized how different he was, but maybe that was because I hadn’t wanted to see it. And it was probably my fault that Kira was dead.
Jack put up his hands. “I didn’t say this was going to be easy, girl. I’m just telling you what I saw this past spring. And that was a man willing to go to hell to save the woman he loved, even if she didn’t love him back. So my question for you—are you willing to do the same for him? Not just halfway, but the whole thing? How far will you go?” He stood up. “You haven’t decided yet. But until you’re willing to go to hell and lay yourself down, until you just don’t give a fuck about your heart, your soul, your freedom, until it’s not about what you get but about what he needs—we might as well stop trying.” He strode to the door. “I’ll be in the booth if you want to pick this up again. Give me the signal, and I’ll slide you back into the tube. But stop wasting our time. Don’t come back unless you’re going to commit.”
I flinched as the door clicked shut.
He was so right. Ever since Asa had been taken, my focus had been on how I missed him, on how I wanted him back, on how I needed him. Yes, I’d been worried and enraged over what might be happening to him. I’d wanted to protect him. But in the end, it was about what I got out of it. Him.
I’d fooled myself into thinking I was on a rescue mission, but what I was really trying to save was us. And all that had become pathetically obvious last night. My emotional shield had cracked as soon as I’d realized Asa was no longer who he’d been, when I understood that he wouldn’t protect me.
But he shouldn’t have to protect me. As many times as he’d said it, as many times as I’d believed it, it wasn’t his job.
It was mine, dammit. And that was what Asa deserved—a woman who could take care of herself, who wasn’t just there to fight a battle for him. He needed someone to go to war.
So many times, I’d worried that I wasn’t enough for him. Now it was time to prove I was, in the only way that counted. I needed to let go of my fantasy of getting him back and focus on setting him free. Fists clenched in determination, I got to my feet and headed back to the testing room.
I approached the door of the hotel room carefully, waiting for the trap to spring. Already, there was a seed of pain at the base of my skull, and I knew it could very well get a lot worse.
I had to do this, though. If anyone could get me back in with Volodya—without me ending up being his chew toy—it was the guy Volodya had practically claimed as his adoptive son.
According to one of the hotel maids, whose tongue I’d loosened with a Knedas oil–infused handshake, Daniil had been holed up in his room for three days. The staff was scared to bother him and scared to leave him alone, because his sobs had been so loud at one point that the folks in the room next door had called the front desk to complain. But when a desk clerk had tried to check on him, he had promised to bring down unimaginable pain on anyone who tried to open his door. Volodya had paid through until Friday, so they were putting off disturbing him again until then.
I couldn’t afford the same luxury. Bracing for agony, I knocked twice, quick and not too hard. “Daniil? It’s Mattie.”
No answer, but there was a muffled thump, maybe a footfall.
“Please let me in. I don’t want to be out here in the hallway for long. I don’t feel safe.” I stared at the peephole as my headache intensified. “Please.” I touched the door and let out a shaky breath. “I’ve been so scared. It took all the courage I had to come find you.”
“Where have you been?” A raspy, broken voice.
I winced as a shard of pain lanced through my brain. “I was arrested, but the police let me go for lack of evidence.” Keenan had made sure of it. “I got on a subway and ended up in Brooklyn. I’ve been in some crappy hotel there, praying no one was after me. But I had to find you.”
“Why?”
I glanced around. “Please, Daniil. Can we talk about this in your room?”
There was a long pause, but then the sound of the lock sliding. The door opened, and I stepped inside. The blackout shades were drawn and the lights were off, but I could see the chaos and disarray in the glow from the hallway. I turned to see Daniil, his hair disheveled and greasy, wearing just his tuxedo pants. No shirt. He hadn’t shaved in days. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot as he regarded me. I gave him a sad smile. “I’m sorry.”
“She’s gone,” he whispered, his face crumpling with grief.
Preparing myself, I opened my arms, and he collapsed onto me, a little boy in need of comfort. Except . . . the agony shot up my arms as soon as his hands touched my skin, intensifying as his forehead pressed to my shoulder. It was a heavy, hard kind of pain, like the worst hangover headache I’d ever had, but throughout my entire body. I groaned. “Daniil. You’re hurting me.”
“She’s gone,” he sobbed, his body heaving.
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth as my stomach pitched. I pushed against him, needing space before I hurled all over him.
After I recovered, he allowed me to guide him to his bed, where he sank down and curled onto his side, pulling his knees to his chest. The pain faded just a bit, but I still ended up on my knees on the floor next to him, happy to have a shorter distance to fall if it came to that. “We have to get back to Russia,” I said quietly. “We’re not safe here.”
“I don’t care. Let them come find me. I’ll make them hurt. Like she did.”
Knowing I’d probably regret it, I touched Daniil’s shoulder, but somehow he managed to control his power, and the pain didn’t get any worse. “I was there when it happened,” I said. “It was over so quickly that I don’t think she had time to suffer.” Although I wasn’t exactly comforting Daniil for selfless reasons, my heart squeezed with sympathy as I remembered each awful second, and as I considered that Asa was the cause. “I know that doesn’t help and won’t bring her back, but I swear, it was fast.”
“The news programs say she ran at the police. That she charged them.”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“It makes no sense.” He sounded calm, but through the point of connection, my fingertips on his shoulder, I felt the hurt coming, like melted steel running along my bones. Daniil might be young, but he clearly had some serious juice, perhaps like his mother. “Kira would never have done such a thing.” His eyes opened and settled on me. “If she were in her right mind.”
I pulled my hand from his body. I had a decision to make, one that might determine whether I made it back to Russia with Daniil or not. And I needed him. Needed his trust. “She wasn’t. One of Brindle’s agents dosed her with Knedas juice. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep it from happening.”
