“What’s the big—”
She stepped in and silenced my whisper with her hand, eyes focused somewhere distant like she was still listening.
I don’t know if it was the look on my face or that she only then realized she’d just dragged me down the hall and clamped a hand over my mouth, but she dropped the hand, and her face broke into a silent giggle.
Then we both tensed at the soft thump of heavy footsteps approaching on the carpet outside.
Definitely sounded like Phineas.
Only in the last few feet did he make any attempt to quiet his footsteps, but I still felt him pause outside the door.
I held my breath, pretty sure that Elise was doing the same.
We stayed there, faces only inches apart, unable to speak, nothing to do but stare at each other.
So I stared.
I couldn’t have looked away—couldn’t have even breathed if I’d wanted to.
My head was spinning. I was falling, my stomach informed me, even though my feet were decidedly still planted on the floor. I was going to explode with the raw energy burning through me.
And then she was letting out a deep breath. Stepping back.
I swallowed, trying to pull myself together.
Outside, Phineas’ footsteps were retreating down the hallway.
“Ta-da!” she whispered, waving her hands in a flourish.
“Not bad,” I whispered, smiling. “You normally sneak around your own house like special forces?”
She shrugged. “We’re big on secrets around here.”
“No kidding.” I looked around the room, taking in the details I’d been too distracted to register.
A darkwood bed sat across from the door, its rosewood red canopy in tune with the room’s carpeting. To the right, the room opened up to the sizable space where the flickering light was coming from. My gaze lingered on a few solid-looking staves propped in the far corner of the room, past a large work desk.
“Are you also big on professional staff-fighting in your spare time or something?”
“I don’t know if I’d say professional, but I wouldn’t wanna meet me in a dark alley.”
“Hey, a dark hallway didn’t seem so bad.”
Her lip quirked. “Night’s not over yet. You still have to make it back past the hallway watch.”
I frowned in Phineas’ general direction. “Yeah, what’s up with that? Are you under house arrest or something? Are we meeting under peril of death right now?”
“Eh.” She pretended to think about it. “Maybe half of us. The old bear’s pretty protective. Hates cocky pretty boys, especially.”
I followed her around the corner and saw that the flickering light was coming from her holodisplay, which was dancing with the imitation of an ancient wood fireplace—crackles and all—in front of a long white couch.
“Are you calling me cocky?”
She looked me up and down. “No. I don’t think I am.”
And with that, she plopped down on the couch in front of the crackling facsimile of a fire, legs up, and gestured to the end of the couch, where she’d left just enough room for me to fit between her feet and the couch arm. To the consternation of the small Carlisle-voice in my head, I sank to the soft white cushions.
“So,” she said, “how’d you get into the business of creepily lurking about strangers’ houses?”
I told her it had just sort of crept up on me, and we ran from there.
We talked well into the night, steering clear of anything personal—even as basic as our names—by some unspoken agreement, electing instead to joke and debate about matters of little consequence.
It was the best I’d felt since the attack, by far. I hadn’t realized just how starved I’d been to talk to another human being like the world wasn’t in danger of ending.
Watching the would-be firelight dancing across her slender features, I completely forgot how tired I’d been. I was just happy to listen to her talk. To see her face glow whenever I cracked a particularly competent joke.
Eventually, though, the blur of fatigue returned. Elise was curled into a ball at her end of the couch by that point, looking as if she’d nod off at any minute. My palmlight display informed me we’d been at it for four hours.
“Sweet Alpha,” I murmured. “I better get some sleep.”
Whatever tomorrow had in store, it looked like I might be facing it without much rest.
“Mmm,” Elise purred back, partially asleep already.
I stood to leave and paused in front of her curled form, uncertain what to do.
“Hey,” I whispered, patting her on the shoulder, “do you want a ride to bed?”
She made no response.
Down for the night.
I pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and was preparing to drape it over her when she went full plank—legs out, arms to her sides, head lulled, and tongue out as if feigning death.
I laughed at the silly spurt. “Is that plank-speak for yes?”
“No, I think this one means pass the plank salt, actually.”
“Okay,” I said, moving to scoop her up. “Come on, you.”
Before I could, she arched her back nimbly over the couch arm, reached down to the ground with her hands, and deftly sprang from the couch into a backward handspring.
She landed on her feet and shook her head at me, clearly amused by my wide-eyed surprise. “Cocky pretty boys, I’m tellin’ ya.”
Damn. Maybe she could kick my ass with one of those staves.
She reached a hand toward me. “Walk me to the bed, my heroic goodfellow?”
“Who me?” I asked, circling the couch to offer her my arm, which she took with an exaggerated curtsy. “See, I was actually hoping you might escort me past the perils of the hallway. Rumor has it there’s a bear roaming around out there.”
“Hmmm,” she purred. We reached the bed, and she gave me a grin and an affectionate pat on the arm before falling to the soft-looking blankets. “Sorry, I think you’re all on your own this time. Best of luck out there.”
“My hero,” I murmured.
I must’ve hesitated a moment too long, because she rolled over and met my eyes with a curious look. I thought to move to the door, suddenly feeling quite embarrassed and awkward, but something about the look in her eyes held me there. Something serious. Tender.
Something that dropped my stomach into free fall and put wild thoughts in my head.
I dropped her gaze, my heart thudding so heavily that I was sure she’d hear it.
“Goodnight, Elise.”
Ah, scud.
“Someone’s been doing some digging, hmm?”
I looked up to meet her inquisitive stare. “I’m certain I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She smiled. “Right. Of course not. Well, you’d best be on your way, then, stranger.”
I tipped an imaginary hat, decided it was the stupidest, least smooth gesture ever, and turned hurriedly for the door.
“Goodnight, Haldin Raish.”
I froze.
She knew. But how much? My face had been plastered all across the newsreels not so long ago. If she knew my name, did she know about my parents? Did she know I was supposed to be dead?
How could she not? She was Franco’s daughter.
I turned to find her watching me with… was it concern? Sympathy?
“I recognized you the moment you showed up in my hallway,” she said, dropping my gaze. “Even with those shaders on. I just thought maybe you’d rather not, you know, feel like a victim or whatever. It’s, uh”—she looked back up—“nice to meet you, for what it’s worth.”
Emotions flashed through me, too quick and turbulent to make sense of. Shame. Anger. Sadness. As she held my eyes, though, the negativity began to burn away, and I was left with gratitude.
“I…”
I was glad she knew, I realized. And even more glad that she’d elected to treat me like a person instead of an injured puppy.
“… Thanks, Elise.”
“Any time, Haldin. Blessed dreams.”
We shared one last smile, then I stepped into the dark hallway, closed the door behind me, and padded back to my guest room, feeling lighter than I had in cycles.
17
Boiling Point
He knew, I decided as I smashed to the padded floor of Franco’s impressively-equipped training room with an undignified thump and felt Carlisle’s knee press into my back.
He had to know.
Carlisle had woken me in the early hours of the morning—maybe two hours after I’d finally made it to bed—and insisted we train while the rest of the house slept. I’d groggily dragged myself out of bed and followed him across the house to the training room, where I’d promptly wondered if Franco really needed such a big room to work out.
Now, though, all I could think about was the mat pressing into my face and Carlisle’s knee digging into the back of my shoulder.
“You’re slow today,” he said, his voice maddeningly calm as I struggled uselessly against his superior leverage.
“New environment,” I grunted. “Very distracting.”
I heard a small sigh, and I swear I could feel him shaking his head in exasperation. “Why do I worry your distraction lies elsewhere in the house?”
Embarrassment filled me at my failure to heed his warnings. Anger that he wanted me to stay away from Elise at all. Or maybe, at the heart of it, it was just that some part of me knew he might be right.
But I sure as hell wasn’t about to prove his point for him.
With my free hand, I dialed my cloak out. Then, with stubborn focus, I extended my senses, telekinetically grabbed for a weighted training ball on the nearby rack, and did my best to fling it at Carlisle’s head.
I think I surprised myself more than Carlisle.
He twisted deftly out of the ball’s path. I stifled my surprise and took advantage of the distraction to likewise twist out of his hold and throw a sweeping kick, which he in turn dodged with an aerial cartwheel. I rolled out of the kick and popped back to my feet with a few feet of breathing room.
“Better,” he said. “Much better.”
The adrenaline helped clear the hazy exhaustion from my head, and I held my own for the next several bouts after that.
It was still early when Carlisle ended our match and left me alone in the room. He returned a minute later carrying a wooden cutting board and a shiny metal pot filled with water.
“What, time for cooking lessons already?”
He dropped the cutting board on the matted floor and placed the pot gently on top of it, apparently in no mood to be joked with at the moment. “Time to learn thermal conversions. I want you to boil the water.”
With that, he turned to leave.
“Just like that?” I thought after him.
He paused but didn’t turn. “Better you find your own path. You know that.”
I did. But I also didn’t want him to leave. I just wasn’t really sure why that was yet.
“Carlisle?”
He turned to regard me, waiting.
I hesitated, not sure which I should ask of the two questions that surfaced. Not really sure I even wanted to hear the answers.
“Not that I want to be the naysayer after I kind of started it, but are we really sure we’re best off risking our necks on Vantage?”
Carlisle glanced at the open doorway and back to me. “Not so loud.”
“Right. Sorry. I just mean, with Kublich controlling the Legion, they wouldn’t really need to be that clever to get what they want, right?”
“Perhaps not. But it’s impossible to say without first knowing what it is they want.”
There was something there. Some flicker of a painful memory.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
With a resigned look, he crossed the mat back to me and sat cross-legged close enough that we could talk quietly. I sat opposite him, waiting.
“All I really know,” he finally said, “is that Alton Parker is most certainly a raknoth, that he’s building a factory for some unknown purpose, and that there’s been a precipitous rise in disappearances around Divinity in the past year.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“I wonder why that would be.”
I frowned. “Why do you think the disappearances are connected? What would they want with a bunch of kidnapped humans?”
His gaze had gone distant. “The same thing I imagine they want with the rest of us. I think this factory is only the first step. I think they want to take this world for their own, enslave every last one of us, and use us like cattle.”
Where was he getting this from?
Not that I had any great reason to doubt him. The raknoth were ruthless, evil bastards from where I sat.
But something about the way he said it…
“How do you know?”
His eyes focused back on me. “Because Cassius told me.”
“What? I thought Cassius was… I mean, I thought the raknoth got him.”
A pained expression crossed his face. “I don’t know that he died. Not for sure. He used to come to me sometimes. In my dreams.”
“After the attack?”
He nodded. “A couple cycles later, when I thought it was safe, I went back to look. For Cassius, for any of the others. I never found anything. I’d been looking for seasons when the dreams started. I never found out if it was actually Cassius or if they were just particularly lucid nightmares. All I know is there was something horribly wrong about those dreams. I began to fear that, even if it truly was Cassius somehow reaching out to me, the raknoth must have done something to him. I worried they were using him to find me.”
Carlisle’s breathing was slightly ragged now, his arms crossed protectively. I’d never seen him this rattled.
“I began to sleep less and less,” he continued. “I figured out ways to get by without it for days at a time. I… I ran away from him. Abandoned him for years.”
I sat in silence, unsure what I could possibly say to ease his pain. Finally, I reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. It felt woefully inadequate, but it was all I could think to do.
His slumped head raised at my touch. He regarded my hand for several seconds, then finally looked up at me. “I’m sorry. It’s still quite troubling to me, even after all this time.”
I removed my hand from his shoulder, suddenly feeling awkward about the contact. “He must’ve been like a father to you after everything. I can appreciate what it would feel like to try to shut that out. But maybe those dreams really were just nightmares, like you said. You’d obviously been through a traumatic experience.”
“It’s possible, yes. But I don’t really believe it. It’s why I’ve never stopped searching for Cassius. Years ago, once I’d confronted my fears and come up with contingency plans, I began allowing myself to dream from time to time. He never came back to me. Perhaps he truly is gone now.”
I didn’t know what to say.
If Cassius had been alive and free, I assumed he would have found Carlisle. If he wasn’t dead, the only other likely possibility was that the raknoth had had him prisoner somewhere all this time. Either way, it seemed a safe bet that Cassius was lost.
“I’m sorry, Carlisle.”
He gave me a wan smile. “Thank you, Haldin. I can only hope we’ll find some of the answers we seek at the labs.”
I nodded.
He started to rise and paused. “Was there something else?”
I thought of Elise for all of a half second before shaking my head. Carlisle was right. We needed to focus on the mission, and we needed to figure out what those red-eyed bastards were up to.
“Good,” he said, his usual tranquility returning. “Try to boil the water. We can talk more later.”
With that he headed for the door.
“Oh, and I’d recommend against channeling your own body heat for this challenge,” he added telepathical
ly as he disappeared into the hallway.
“What the hell do I use then?” I muttered to the empty room.
I bent down to inspect the pot, still churning through the details of Carlisle’s story.
Cassius, still alive.
Was it possible?
Probably not.
Weren’t we just two of a kind, though? Gifted orphans, fighting for something we could never have again.
I dipped my fingers into the pot. The water was icy cold to the touch.
Great. Couldn’t let it be too easy, right?
I scanned the room for energy sources to channel.
There was the heat of the air and everything else in the room. There were the lights and the electric lines that ran through the walls to power them. What else?
I was surrounded by free weights and other exercise equipment, but that stuff was for expending energy, not collecting it.
Except where did that expended energy go?
The weights.
Perhaps I could put gravity to work for me and channel the kinetic energy of a falling weight to heat the water?
It felt like a real breakthrough moment for all of two seconds. Then I remembered how damn hard it’d been to channel energy from a moving object the day before. The mental image of me tipping over one of Franco’s pristine weight racks and watching a few hundred pounds of hardsteel crash to the floor killed the idea outright.
I heaved a sigh and decided to try the least complicated option first.
Carlisle had advised me not to use my own body heat, but it wouldn’t hurt to test the waters, so to speak.
So, I dipped my fingers back into the water, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the reservoir of heat at my core. Slowly, carefully, I willed it to flow down my arm, through my fingertips, and into the water.
It worked.
The water in the pot grew less icy around my fingers. Soon enough, though, a visceral chill touched my insides. It wasn’t unbearable. Actually, I was pretty sure I had enough in me to boil a lot more than a pot of water before I’d be in serious trouble. But I also didn’t feel like flirting with hypothermia, so I released the link with a shiver and moved on to my next option—the air.
Shadows of Divinity Page 16
