Heart of the Rebellion
Page 35
“Me, neither,” I admitted. “Speaking of hospital wards, is… does anyone know if Lucida is still in there?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. They examined her but released her. She’s in her old clan quarters here in the castle, with Catriona, at least, for now. They’re monitoring her for malnourishment and a possible infection.”
I watched Hannah for a moment, but she was determinedly keeping her face buried in a stack of papers. “How are you handling it?” I asked her.
“Handling what?” she asked stiffly.
“Come on, Hannah, you know what I mean,” I said softly.
Hannah sighed and dropped her pen. “I don’t know. I can’t decide how I feel about it. I need more time.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I don’t know how much time you’ll have, though. They’re going to bring her appeal in front of the Council before long.”
“I know,” Hannah said. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, I guess.”
The thought of Lucida back in the castle was a strange one. On the one hand, she had quite literally saved us all with her actions at the príosún. On the other hand… she was still Lucida. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be able to untangle the past from the present effectively enough to separate the two. Maybe I didn’t even want to. The thought of it made my head ache and my mind flood with unpleasant memories.
Hannah was right. We needed more time.
Finn slipped back in through the door and closed it behind him. There was a curious expression on his face, rather like someone had just hit him over the head.
“What’s up with Savvy,” I asked him as he slid back onto the bed beside me.
“She… well, she just wanted to run an idea by me,” Finn said cryptically.
“What idea?” I asked.
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone quite yet,” Finn said, smiling ruefully at me.
“Not even me?” I asked.
“Not even you,” Finn said. “I promised to let her tell you when she was ready. Let’s just say that my job at Fairhaven just got quite a bit more interesting.”
I pressed Finn for more hints, but he remained closed-lipped on the subject. Finally, I had to give up trying to wheedle the secret out of him so that I could get to the hospital ward for visiting hours.
§
Fiona was lying on her side in the far corner of the room, facing the wall. Her face was still heavily bandaged, and it was only the sound of my footsteps that alerted her to my presence.
“Hey there,” I said by way of greeting. I pulled up a chair and sat beside her.
“Hey, yourself,” Fiona said, not lifting her head from her pillow.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Bloody terrible,” she said, her voice slurred with exhaustion and heavy sedatives. “That morphine, though. That’s a bollocking miracle, isn’t it?” She raised her arm an inch or so up off her bedclothes, so that I could see the IV that was keeping her well-supplied.
“What about your mother?” I asked her.
“They sent her home with my sister Nan,” Fiona said. “They want her to… recover at home… where it’s familiar, like…”
Her voice faded, and for a moment I thought she had fallen asleep, but then she grunted and went on, “You’re alright, are you?” she murmured. “The drawing… what did the Council… how much trouble are we in…?”
“Don’t worry about any of that right now,” I told her. “It’s still a secret. For now, at least.”
Fiona breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s… that’s good.”
“I’m so sorry, Fiona,” I whispered, emotion reaching its fingers up my throat, restricting my airway, choking me with tears. “This is all my fault. I never should have asked you to go there.”
“Stop your bawling, girl,” Fiona slurred impatiently. “I was goin’ there anyway, whether you’d asked me or not. Had to… to get me mum out of there. That’s all that matters. Got her out… and I’d do it again… only…”
“Only what?” I prompted.
“I… my eyes… I’m not sure if I…” Fiona mumbled, and her own voice broke. “What if I… what if I can’t see? My work… my art…”
I swallowed back tears. “It’ll be okay. Mrs. Mistlemoore is amazing… I’m sure she… that she can…”
“She’s not a bloody miracle-worker,” Fiona said. “Either I’ve damaged my sight or I haven’t. Ain’t no Casting that can turn back the clock.”
“It’ll be okay, Fiona,” I whispered, knowing that the words were empty and that I had no power to make them true. “Somehow it will be okay.”
Fiona gave a dry sob, but said nothing.
“Hey,” I said, sharply enough that she shifted her weight on the bed to better hear me. “The first time I ever met you, you asked me if I wanted to do something real with my art. If I wanted to create something. And even though I was raw and undisciplined and untrained, you knew that I had the potential to do that. Because that’s what an artist does. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with your eyes, but I know one thing about you for damn sure. You are an artist, and an artist always finds a way to create, no matter what. And if I have to make it my new full-time job to sit in your studio and throw paint cans at your head until you realize that, then that’s what I’m damn well going to do!”
I was shouting now. I was shouting at her like she shouted at me the first time I’d ever met her, even though I had no intention of doing so. And just when I thought that she might break down and sob, or scream at me to leave, Fiona threw back her bandaged head and laughed so hard and so long that she gasped and coughed trying to control the peals of it. I gaped at her in shock, waiting for it to pass.
“Well, one thing is for certain” she said at last, still sputtering. Her fingers scrabbled around the bed until they found my fingers and squeezed them tight. “It was a lucky day for old Fiona when she let you through that door rather than closing it in your face.”
§
I knew that Finn would be waiting for me outside the hospital ward doors. I did not realize that Catriona would be there, too.
“Hey, Catriona,” I said. “If you’re looking for someone to send to prison today, keep walking.”
Catriona smirked at me. “Not to worry. I think the jail cells are going to be rather more occupied than usual as it is.”
“It must be chaos over there,” Finn said gravely.
“Too right it is,” Catriona agreed. “It’s going to be a bloody disaster trying to sort through which of the Caomhnóir were subjugated and which ones joined up willingly. Luckily, that’s not my lookout. Here,” she said, handing a folder to me.
“What’s this?” I asked her, flipping it open.
“Your statement about the events at the príosún. I’ve taken the liberty of writing it for you,” she said.
“You wrote my statement?” I repeated, looking it over. “Isn’t that… illegal?”
Catriona waved an airy hand. “Legality is a relative term. Besides, you’ve spoken with Celeste, haven’t you? We need to stick to a very specific version of events if we’re going to keep your Seer abilities under wraps. This should do the trick. Read through it and commit it to memory. I’ve left the end of it blank, so that you can fill in the details of what happened once I left. Sign it and send it back over to me when you’ve finished.”
“Okay,” I said, tucking the folder under my arm. “Any word on the Necromancers that were involved?”
Catriona’s face twisted. “It looks as though some of them managed to escape before we could secure the perimeter.”
“Who?” I asked, my pulse beginning to race. “Do you know which ones?”
Catriona gave me a significant look that told me she knew exactly who I was thinking of. “Charlie Wright is among those still not accounted for.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“So that means we may have more work to do,” Catriona said, “Can I count on you?”
Catriona’s face broke into a wide smile. “That’s my girl.”
I allowed myself a moment of surprise at being addressed thus by a woman who always seemed on the cusp of hating me, and then asked, “What about Lucida?”
“She’s here… for now. That’s all we know for the moment,” she replied stiffly.
“Are you… how do you feel about that?” I asked, realizing that this question might be a bridge too far. “I mean, are you okay with it?”
A shiver of something dark passed over Catriona’s features, a shadow there and gone in the space of a second. “I believe I told you once before, Jess. I’m always okay. And I don’t much fancy repeating myself, that clear?”
“Sure, Catriona,” I said softly. “Whatever you say.”
“See to that statement,” Catriona said, settling once again into her safe and distant official capacity of Tracker. “I want it by tomorrow.” And then she turned and walked off down the hallway, the mantle of her golden mane wrapped protectively around her shoulders.
“Well,” Finn said, turning to me with a sigh. “I’d like to think that things are going to calm down around here, but I’m not at all confident that’s true.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “But I’m finding it difficult to be too worried about that right now.”
He smiled. I slid my hand into his, entwining our fingers together, reveling in the sense of peace and contentment that filled me at the very reality of his nearness. Then we turned and walked together down the hall, unsure of what challenges might face us just over the line of the horizon, but confident that, whatever they may be, we would face them side by side.
And in the meantime, I thought to myself, it was one hell of a proverbial sunset.
The story continues in Soul of the Sentinel: The Gateway Trackers Book 6!
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About the Author
E.E. Holmes is a writer, teacher, and actor living in central Massachusetts with her husband, two children, and a small, but surprisingly loud dog. When not writing, she enjoys performing, watching unhealthy amounts of British television, and reading with her children.
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