From what I could tell, the hotspot was likely underground.
Given Revik’s issues with claustrophobia, I hoped it wasn’t too far underground.
When we started getting close to landfall, I pulled out the new set of organic prosthetics I’d gotten from Atwar’s people, and began applying them to my face. I also wound my red- and brown-dyed hair into an elaborate system of braids, similar to what I’d seen on a few of the female seers from Croatia and Montenegro.
Finally, I stripped down to my underwear and donned the combat armor, throwing on clothes over it––again, clothes I’d gotten from one of Atwar’s female infiltrators.
When I was fully dressed, only my boots and the armor were my own.
I’d just finished lacing the last boot when Revik pinged me that it was okay to come up.
He’d been up there for hours by then.
They’d wanted him on deck as we hugged the western shores of Italy, mostly to help them do a deeper scan of the nearby Barrier environment, since he was the only one with fully functioning Elaerian structures.
Well, as far as the Croatian seers knew, he was.
We still didn’t want them knowing about Cass––or about Feigran.
Now that Revik completed those scans, they wanted me to leave the construct they’d built around the boat’s cabin. They wanted to see if I got picked up by Italian surveillance before they risked bringing me to shore.
More to the point, Revik wanted that.
Truthfully, I was nervous to go upstairs, but it wasn’t because of the constructs.
Unlike before, when I could barely handle being separated from Revik, now, after the night before, I found myself nervous to see him.
Come up here, he murmured in my mind. Come up here before I come down and get you.
I’m not avoiding you, I told him.
He laughed. I can hear you, wife. I know you’re avoiding me.
I just mean… I’m not avoiding you the way you think. Hesitating, I added, I’m having trouble being around you with the others there. I don’t know if I can do this, a whole operation where we’re just supposed to be work friends, when I feel like this.
I could almost hear him clicking at me under his breath.
We’re not work friends, he sent. We’re work spouses.
Pausing at my silence, he stripped his thoughts of emotion.
Allie, they know we’re going through something. They might grumble about it, but they get it. They know it’s something to do with our marriage.
When I didn’t speak, he added,
We promised to help each other with this, right? We need to focus on this not getting us killed. Don’t worry about what the others think. It’s fucking irrelevant. We have to stabilize around one another so we don’t put each other in danger when it really counts.
I swallowed, nodding.
Yeah. Okay. I get that. But we still don’t have to shove it in their face.
It’s in their face, he sent, his thoughts a touch harder. Like it or not, it’s in their face, Allie. There’s nothing we can do about that.
He paused, waiting through another of my silences.
When I didn’t break it, he sent, blunter, And I’m not reacting like you. I need your help. I’m having trouble being up here without you. So if that’s your real reason, we’re distracting them more like this. I am, anyway.
Feeling the pain he was showing me, I bit my lip.
Truthfully, I hated being separated from him, too.
The difference was, he was controlling himself a lot better than I was.
Whatever I told myself down here, I knew once I went upstairs, I was liable to act highly inappropriately with him. I was having enough trouble not being inappropriate with his light, even with the two of us being separated.
Gaos, he sent, frustrated. I’d hoped if we did this you’d trust me more. I’m beginning to think I’m making you trust me less.
No. I shook my head. No, that’s not true––
Then come up here, goddamn it! Before I freak the fuck out, and cause a scene!
After a pause, I’d sighed, conceding defeat.
Now that I was up here though, I didn’t see him.
I didn’t feel him, either.
Glancing around the deck in the dark, my eyes made out Atwar with his mate, Jusef. I saw one of his two bodyguards, a seer whose name I still didn’t know, working the sails––
“Esteemed Bridge?”
I turned, and found myself facing Balidor. His voice was polite, but I felt a faint amusement in his light, like he knew exactly what and who I’d been looking for.
“Your husband is with us,” he said, confirming my thought. “If you wouldn’t mind following me? You’re still inside the cabin’s construct where you are.”
Nodding, I stepped down from the entrance to the hold and followed him to the starboard side of the boat. For the first time, I noticed there was a small railing out there, where at least three jacketed figures crouched, bouncing lightly in the waves.
The wind whipped at my face and hair once we got out of the relatively protected area of the cabin, and it hit me again just how fast we were moving.
Revik didn’t look over as I climbed out to reach him.
He, Kalashi and the other guard of Atwar’s were crouched on the boat’s starboard hull, what still looked to me like a seagull’s wing.
I couldn’t help but scowl when I saw Kalashi looking at him, and not just his face, as he gazed out at the shore. She crouched right next to him, closer than necessary, gripping the rail right next to his hands. Her thigh brushed his in her waterproof fisherman’s pants.
I was near enough to Revik now, I was already fighting my light.
He was still avoiding looking at me, keeping his eyes on the shore as it passed to our right.
When Kalashi didn’t move away from him, I stepped around Revik on the white, fiberglas wing, sending her a pulse of light to move over.
When she looked up at me, incredulous, and borderline annoyed, I clenched my jaw.
Move your fucking ass, unless you want to end up in the goddamned ocean.
When she gaped at me, amusement mixed with incredulity in her face, I stared flatly back, making it crystal fucking clear I wasn’t kidding.
After a beat, her violet eyes widened. The amusement faded from her face and light, right before she slid over, pushing Atwar’s personal guard further down the white wing.
I crouched next to Revik, gripping the same railing.
He was looking at me now, quirking an eyebrow.
What? I snapped, angry. She was looking at you. Don’t pretend she wasn’t.
Hey, he sent, soft. Wife. Calm down. I’m sorry.
Don’t “wife” me. You wanted me up here. I fucking warned you, and you wanted me up here anyway. If you wanted to flirt with some older, hotter, model-looking bitch, you should have told me to stay downstairs.
His arm wrapped around my back, pulling me tightly against him.
Heat flooded into my chest, into my throat and belly.
He kissed my face, squeezing me tighter against him.
I’m sorry, his mind murmured. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy trying not to flip out because my wife was ignoring me.
I fought to calm down, to let his words and light coax me back into a less angry space.
I was still shaking though, adrenaline snaking through my limbs, making them taut.
I almost threw her off the boat, I told him, a minute later.
He held me tighter, sending more heat into my light.
She’s not hotter than you, he sent in a murmur. Not by a long, long fucking shot, wife.
Pain slid through his light as his fingers tightened on my ribs.
Gaos, Allie. I have to admit, I didn’t even fucking notice her until you threatened her. I’ve been a mess since I came out here. All I can think about is last night.
His pain worsened briefly, even as he pressed closer.
I want to talk to you about it more, he sent. But we probably shouldn’t out here.
Clicking under my breath, I nodded.
As I did, I glanced over and saw Balidor watching us, a faintly amused look back in his eyes. Even so, I could tell he’d heard me threaten Kalashi. He watched me warily, his eyes flickering over me in a way that told me he was scanning my light.
Then he glanced at her. From the look on his face, and the frown on hers, he and Kalashi had some kind of exchange in the Barrier, something I didn’t hear.
I suspect Balidor was telling her how close she’d come to having her neck broken.
Balidor let out a snort, glancing back at me.
“Pretty much,” he said, speaking loudly over the wind and spray.
Giving me a sideways smile, he shifted his gaze to Revik.
“I’m not feeling anything,” he said, still speaking loud. “Are you?”
Revik clicked under his breath, making a negative gesture with one hand.
Balidor nodded, once. “I don’t think they can pick her up. Not as long as we keep her inside the mobile construct, and maintain the illusions to cover the more prominent parts of her aleimic structure. We might still need to take precautions for the flyers.” He gave me another brief look, eyes taut. “The pregnancy is starting to show. In the Barrier, I mean.”
Revik nodded, glancing at me.
Remembering what I was doing out there, I gripped the rail tighter, leaning against Revik’s warmth. It dawned on me why they’d come out on the wing for this. They must have set this up as the staging point for the mobile construct, since it was about as far as they could get from the cabin while still being on the boat.
Feeling Balidor examining my light, I did my best to open it for him, letting them feel if I was being picked up by any of the security measures on the shore or the nearby Barrier space.
I didn’t feel anything either.
Not about that, anyway.
Balidor’s words had me noticing something else, though.
For the first time, I let myself acknowledge the extra presence I felt around me sometimes.
He was right. I could feel it. It came and went, and had been more noticeably for the last week or so. This was maybe the strongest I’d ever felt it, though.
Maybe it was the strongest I’d let myself feel it.
At my thought, Revik squeezed me tighter against his side.
I feel him, too, he sent, soft. I felt him last night.
Him?
He glanced at me. It feels like a him. Doesn’t it?
Biting my lip, I turned over his words.
After a few more seconds, I nodded reluctantly.
It did feel like a him.
It occurred to me that some part of me hadn’t wanted to acknowledge him fully, not yet at least. I didn’t know if it was because of how he’d been conceived, or because I’d spent the first few months of my pregnancy with my light enmeshed with Jem’s, or because of how I almost lost Lily.
Pausing on that last, it hit me that I was probably already a few weeks more pregnant now than I was when Cass kidnapped me off that hotel roof.
Revik’s arm tightened, the muscles of his forearm and bicep hardening to rock as his light encased mine in a protective cloak.
How soon will we be there? I sent to Balidor, conscious of the eyes of all three of the other seers on us now. We’re getting close, aren’t we? I can feel Rome from here.
Less than an hour, Balidor confirmed, looking out at the shore, as if realizing only from my thoughts that he’d been staring at the two of us.
I felt a whisper of nerves on him as he glanced at us again, though. From his expression and that flicker of nerves, it hit me that he didn’t trust us in the field right now, not together.
I couldn’t exactly blame him for that, so I didn’t comment.
It did make me fight harder to control my light, though.
We’ll be all right, Revik sent, softer still.
How can you say that? I sent back frustrated. Look at us, for crying out loud. They all expect us to get them killed out there. And I can’t even reassure them that we won’t.
We won’t, he sent, his mind hard. We’ll be all right. We have to be, so we will.
I didn’t answer him, but clenched my jaw, staring out over the white wing of the boat.
I know you, wife, he sent, quieter. So get your fucking game face on. Now.
He was right.
We would be all right.
We had to be, or all of this was for nothing.
28
CLAUSTROPHOBIA
I SAT ON top of the folded up wing of the trimaran, a paddle in my hand.
All of us had paddles in our hands, including Cass and Feigran, who were on the same side of the boat as me, Revik and Balidor.
Despite Feigran’s tendency to paddle a little too enthusiastically at times, and splash a little too much until Revik warned him to be silent, we managed to balance our strokes reasonably well with Atwar’s people, who paddled on the other side of the boat.
We’d split our team once we reached the coast just west of Rome.
The rest of our group went to a private dock about a hundred miles up the northern shore. The occupants of those boats, including the other half of our team, should be on their way to the city by now, via a train that left from the oceanfront every three hours.
If they’d timed things right, they should have reached the docks and the station with time to spare for the first train of the day.
As for our boat, and the three boats with us, we were in an underground tunnel connected to a massive cargo and sanitation dock located about fourteen miles west of the city wall.
Frankly, it felt a bit close for comfort, given everything.
Following a map drawn by Atwar’s people and verified by Dante, we’d entered the man-made tributary just north of the River Tiber––a river that cut the city of Rome more or less in half, and passed right by the edges of Vatican City.
According to Atwar, the Tiber formed the main trade artery for the city a few hundred years earlier, back when Vatican City was more of a political capital than a religious one, and Rome formed more of a center for the civilized human world.
Atwar explained the Tiber still formed an important shipping and cargo channel, more so with the advent of the human virus quarantines.
For the same reason, attempting to enter the city openly that way, by taking Atwar’s fleet of sailboats down the river to the gates, would definitely land all of us in a holding cell. Even attempting to breach the city that way with a single boat would likely get us arrested without formal invitation papers.
The river gates were subject to the highest level of security measures used by the military forces guarding Rome, in part because it was the only way in and out for external trade.
Croatia still did such trade with Rome, Atwar informed us.
They sold wine, cheeses, goat meat and beef, chickens, grain crops and lumber.
For the same reason, he had connections in the shipping docks, and understood the security protocols we’d be operating under intimately.
To fit into the underground tunnel, we’d retracted the side wings of the trimaran sailboat, converting it into single-hulled vessel.
Atwar explained to us that the tunnels predated the institute of the quarantine, and had existed since the time of World War I, when they’d been used as bomb shelters and a means of escape during the purges under the Germans and Syrimne following the battle at Caporetto in Slovenia. I didn’t know my World War I history well enough to comment on that last part, but I saw the grim look that crossed Revik’s face.
He clearly remembered exactly what Atwar meant.
While the cargo bays fell under the direct purview of the Roman military, the tunnels were known primarily to locals, particularly those who worked at the docks.
Everyone else entered the cargo bay via the main entrance, which was where the vast bulk of the security m
easures were in place. Although the tunnels did have a security gate at the other end, one fortified by a number of military flyers, it had no where near the security of the cargo bay’s main entrance––much less what we would find at the gates to Rome itself.
Some of that was practical.
The tunnels were so narrow, they didn’t constitute much of a breach threat, in that the size of the boats that could fit inside were too small to carry large numbers of seers or humans. Moreover, the cargo bay could shut down its main entrance and the entrances to the tunnels on the coastal side, effectively trapping any invading seers or humans inside the bay until they were found by flyers or one of the infiltration teams overseeing the installation.
From what Atwar said, their only real concern was losing cargo from terrorist attacks, which generally meant explosives. Therefore, their military flyers were set to hair-trigger when it came to scans for any substances classified as combustible or unstable.
Unless those substances were registered in advance and verified as intended for Rome, any vessels carrying such materials were likely to be confiscated and their crews killed prior to them being boarded and searched by military personnel.
Luckily for us, we didn’t carry any explosives.
We didn’t even carry guns, for the same reason.
Also, Atwar informed us he had connections via this entrance, if somewhat limited ones. He seemed confident they would be enough to usher us through, and––more to the point––grant us access to the long barges that moved in and out of the Roman gates.
During our planning sessions, Atwar already informed us he couldn’t get me or Revik through any of the main gates or their security, not without us being ID’d.
He could, however, bring us in via a sanitation or cargo barge, if we were willing to be deeply uncomfortable for a few hours.
I could feel from Revik that he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about this approach.
He particularly didn’t like it for me.
He didn’t say it outright, but I distinctly got the impression that the pregnancy had a lot to do with that, but it was difficult to tell, truthfully, given how volatile both of our lights had been in general when it came to one another.
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