by Rae Else
El crept into the living room but halted when she saw Alex sitting at the breakfast bar. He had a mug of coffee before him and wore the same clothes as yesterday. Judging by the deep shadows beneath his eyes he hadn’t slept a wink.
Dan was sprawled out, lightly snoring on the sofa. El scoured the room for her bag but had a suspicion that it was buried somewhere beneath him.
‘Going somewhere?’ Alex asked.
‘I thought it best,’ she said, her eyes still roaming the room before returning to the sleeping man. His face looked peaceful and gentle, but she imagined tugging at the cushions would be like poking the proverbial bear. More like waking a sleeping dragon she thought, remembering his accusation.
Alex set down a cup of tea next to him on the breakfast bar. Espresso cups were stacked up in the sink behind. The tea was milky again. A lump rose in El’s throat as she wondered if this was how her mum had taken her tea too.
‘I went to the catacombs last night,’ Alex said.
El stared. Did he have a death wish?
‘It’s fine – I just wanted to tell you that Anna’s … her body … is in the lab. It’s not the time to think about it … she’d understand. She wanted a cremation anyway. When things settle down we’ll hold a memorial.’
El nodded, her vision blurred and her throat tightened. She envisaged Alex, the man who’d loved her mum, collecting her body himself. She shook away the idea.
‘I need to tell you a couple of things too,’ she said thickly. She pictured her mum’s steely countenance and it seemed to fortify her. It was easier to talk than she expected. Sitting side by side, she didn’t have to watch Alex’s face for signs of blame. Resolving to share the facts she needed to, she spoke in a hushed voice and ended up telling him everything.
Occasionally she looked at him, but he looked surprisingly mild. She suspected he was still in shock. Perhaps he wasn’t taking much in. Finished, El sipped the remainder of her drink. It wasn’t yet dawn and the streetlights still shone outside along the embankment. Their illumination didn’t penetrate the river, which was still a wide, dark strip below.
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ Alex said finally. ‘Some of my work at the lab is for the Opposition. We knew Luke, with his father’s connection to the Order, was only doing work there in the hope of getting information. It was the first hint that your mum was under suspicion. Luke tried a couple of times to coax out information from me about her.’
A surge of anger swept through El as she remembered Luke’s claim to know Alex, to admire him.
‘But you really don’t need to worry about me,’ he said. ‘The Order will overlook me as having any active involvement – I’m an andreko.’
El remembered the rebel using the same word as he’d toyed with the man in the office yesterday. The arete guard at the catacombs had too, when he’d caught sight of Ingrid. She shook her head, hating the word.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘The disdain arete award humans offers a form of protection. If I was caught doing something for the Opposition, they would assume I was under an arete’s manipulation. Just like last night at the catacombs – I was treated as an intermediary. In their eyes, I was there because I’d been manipulated to be so.’
El thought about Ingrid. She’d chosen to erase herself from Ingrid’s memory because her friend was safer not knowing anything about her, but it also worked the other way around. If Ingrid was convinced she didn’t even know El, information about where El was or what she was doing couldn’t be coaxed from her. No doubt humans were a very useful tool to arete within the Order. They used them as go-betweens, scrubbing their memories to keep their whereabouts and actions hidden.
But that’s not what Alex was saying. He said that they’d assumed he had been manipulated to go to the catacombs. El recalled how her manipulation hadn’t worked on him in the lab. She’d thought it had been because of the serum in her blood, but it had had nothing to do with the serum. Regret flooded her. If she hadn’t jumped to conclusions, if she hadn’t run out of the lab … She stilled her mind. She needed to be level-headed. She needed to establish the facts, to be more like her mum.
‘You’ve created an antidote,’ she said, ‘against serpent manipulation, haven’t you?
Alex nodded. ‘Among others. If there’s enough arete blood in my system, I can withstand manipulation. Your mum and I used to joke about it. When she was distant, she could be sure of making it up to me with blood. She used to joke that blood went down better than chocolate.’
El smiled at her mum’s wry sense of humour. Another side she’d never get to see. She thought about the subterfuge they’d managed against the Order too. This was why they hadn’t removed Luke from the lab. They hadn’t needed to worry about Alex being compelled to spill facts on Anna or the Opposition.
El caught what he said about her mum being aloof too. It was nice that it wasn’t just her that she’d been reserved with. She remembered the interaction between her mum and Alex; she would never have guessed there was anything but business between them.
Alex sighed. ‘Your mum spent most her life keeping away from you to protect you. She thought that by maintaining that distance – even whilst you were here – that you’d go back home to your grandma, safe.’
El remembered how she’d barely had anything but monosyllabic answers from her mum; her matter-of-fact tone when she had explained things marginally to her; how she’d seemed to want to hurry away from her as quickly as possible. She felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t realised that this façade had been to protect her. She remembered Anna’s smile when she’d called her Mum last night. Had Anna missed her as much as she had over the years? Her mum had thought that by pushing her away she’d shield her from the Order and send her back to the safe life she’d lived so far. And perhaps she would have, had it not been for the vengeance Louisa was set on getting.
‘The truth is,’ Alex said, ‘your mum was never very good at emotion. She was in a dangerous position, playing double agent to the Order for the last fifteen years. She got very good at hiding what she was feeling.’
El frowned. ‘Why did she join the Order?’
Alex swept his hands through his hair. ‘When she came to London at seventeen, like you, she knew nothing about arete. It wasn’t long before she met her own kind and started competing in the Olympia. And before she knew it, she was an Order member. She said that she realised too late the reality of the Order: the corruption of the ruling serpent class and the Triad’s tyranny.
‘She came to London resenting your grandma – for the way she’d kept her segregated from her own kind. Later, she realised that her secrecy was to keep her from this cut-throat world, where she was no more than a glorified weapon, keeping lesser arete down, and dominating them – and humans – for wealth and power.’
El recalled how he had accused Anna of lying to her. How he’d said it was what Helena had done. El’s mishaps were like the ones that had shaped her mum’s own life.
Alex took a sip of coffee. ‘It wasn’t until your mum became pregnant that she tried to get out. I met her when she was considering an abortion. She was convinced that she couldn’t bring a child into the arete world. She knew that if you were raised here, you would grow to think like other serpents, that the Order was a good thing, aspiring to be part of it.’
El thought about Luke’s warped view of the Order, how he thought they were upholding justice and defending both arete and humans.
‘I got her involved with the Opposition,’ he said. ‘With graeae blood she was able to disappear for a while. With my network of other doctors, it proved manageable to conceal her for the last three months of her pregnancy.
‘When she came back to London, she pretended she’d runaway, ashamed that she’d miscarried. She believed leaving you with your grandparents was the best life she could give you. An upbringing like she had, except stricter.
‘Your mum said at school and in the neighbour
hood she’d used her power, in spite of your grandma’s warnings that it was dangerous. She grew tired of your grandma’s objections, seeing her rules as overbearing. But of course, when she ran away and found out how valid her caution was, it was too late for her. With you, she made your grandma swear that there’d be no school, no outside world until you could be sure of controlling your power.’
El thought of her grandma’s rules. El remembered the broken rib from her horse riding accident. Her horse, Rika, was prone to nervousness and spooked easily. That day she’d bolted. El could have influenced her to stop, but even in that situation her grandma would have been furious. She’d taught her that it was better to break a few bones than to use her power.
‘When the Order was sent to pick up an unknown, female drakon,’ Alex said, ‘whom the Triad had seen near Colchester, she knew it was either a set-up, or that they had seen something powerful in you. Either way, she had to hide you.’
El thought of how her mum had arrived at the manor so quickly after the accident with the guest at Cobbold House. No doubt Louisa had informed Anna of the “unknown, female drakon” even before El had used her power. It had all been a set-up.
Alex’s fingertips tapped his cup, the ceramic beneath his nails rang faintly. ‘El … I’d like you to tell Dan everything you’ve told me.’
She clenched her teeth. She didn’t need to justify herself to him; she didn’t want his forgiveness.
‘I know you two argued,’ he said, ‘but whatever he said, he didn’t mean it.’
El looked shocked and wondered if Dan had told him what he’d said. Had they spoken about whether she was to blame during the small hours of the night?
‘It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. I come back this morning, you’re locked in the bathroom and Dan’s clutching his hundredth espresso, insisting he stay up. He had the distinct impression that if he didn’t you’d go running off to the Olympia.’
El shot him a look. Was he going to try to dissuade her from going to her grandma too?
‘Your grandma would be the first to want you to think of your own safety. And if you choose to go there, then she’d want you to be prepared.’
El cast her eyes into her cup.
‘You can barely walk, let alone fight just now,’ he continued. ‘And you’ve had no practise in using your elemental manipulation.’
She nodded. All his points were the same doubts weighing on her. She didn’t know what she’d do when she got to the Olympia. The Triad had spoken about training and then combat. She didn’t know if she’d be any good at it, but she couldn’t live with herself if she left her grandma to waste away in a cell. She didn’t want to think about what competing in the arena would mean either. Perhaps she was destined to become what she had always feared: a murderer. And an Order member to boot, like her grandma and mum before her.
Even after that, she wasn’t stupid enough to suppose that the Triad would just let her grandma go. Hadn’t they already said that her grandma’s life belonged to Louisa. Maybe El would get to see her again, speak to her, feel her arms around her. Perhaps, if she succeeded, she’d be awarded with time. Time with her grandma.
‘Take the day to think things through,’ Alex said. ‘There’s more you have to hear from Dan, then you can make an informed decision about what you want to do.’
She visualised Dan sitting up last night, brooding about how much he hated her. What more could he have to say to her that he hadn’t already? El preserved her silence. Alex hadn’t seen how angry Dan was. Or heard how apathetic he was to her grandma’s imprisonment – how quick he’d been to talk strategy as opposed to rescue. El knew he saw her as selfish and unprincipled, willing to do whatever the Order asked to save her grandma instead of fighting them.
‘He loved Anna too,’ Alex said quietly. ‘Admired her, looked up to her as a leader against the Order, but the truth is, she was the closest thing he ever had to a mother.’
El’s insides twisted. She looked at the sleeping man on the sofa, perhaps more boy beneath the wide jaw and stubble. Deep down she knew why she’d been so angry at him. She’d seen the pain in his eyes all too clearly – pain at losing someone he loved. She was jealous that he’d got to know her mum in a way she never would. That she’d been denied.
‘Did he … live with you and Anna when you rescued him from the Order?’ She hated herself for needing to know, but her eyes held Alex intensely.
He shook his head. ‘We would have taken him in then, but he had to be on the move. Dan spent most of his childhood and teenage years with other rebels – across Europe. The lack of graeae willing to help in the cause back then meant that those on the run from the Order had no choice but to be on the move, constantly. When he was sixteen, he settled with us here.’
A picture of Alex, Anna and Dan blossomed in her mind. A happy family in the last few years. But there was a much more uncomfortable truth El needed to know, once and for all. She struggled but forced herself to ask.
‘Did my mum know I’d be at that meeting?’
Alex frowned.
‘Did she know?’
He looked over at Dan and then back at El. ‘Dan saw you with Luke when you ran. He came to tell us that you left with him. Anna put two and two together. She was due to be at that meeting anyway, and she had seen Luke at trials in the past. She knew that after what you’d seen with the rebels, you might be talked into going.’
Her mum had known that she was likely walking into a trap and yet she’d come anyway – come to save her.
‘Remember,’ he said, ‘it’s the Order and Louisa who are culpable.’
A wave of guilt swept through her, quickly followed by anger. And Luke – he’d lied to her. Even if he believed any of what he’d said, he’d been duped by everything his father and society had spoon-fed him. If he hadn’t been around, filling her head with lies, her mum might still be alive. She hated Louisa, hated the Order, and hated him.
She got up and went outside onto the terrace. The cool air drifted over her as the day broke and she fought to keep the tears at bay.
- Chapter Seventeen -
Foresight
El spent the morning outside on the terrace, watching the embankment spring to life. First the odd pedestrian, car or bike passed, then there were hundreds of people milling along the banks and crossing the Millennium Bridge. Ever since El was a kid, the sleek bridge had been the London landmark to stick in her head. Her granddad had shown her pictures of the capital’s monuments as part of her early education: Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London. But the Millennium Bridge was her favourite.
It was because of the story he’d attached to it: when it first opened it swayed as people crossed it, earning the nickname the Wobbly Bridge. Her granddad elaborated that its movement was because of the music playing that day, and that when the first people walked across it, their steps had synchronised, pushing the bridge from side-to-side. Even then, hearing the story, El’s power had coloured her point of view. She’d been unconvinced that music could be responsible and told her granddad that a serpent had manipulated the people to walk in time. Her grandma had reiterated that it couldn’t have been a serpent because it was only herself, El and Anna who had the power to do that. El recalled her granddad’s laughter as he tried to explain that music had a mysterious power all of its own.
She smiled to herself, remembering why she’d treasured that story – secretly taking it as confirmation that her mum was in London. How funny it was to think her younger self had got one thing right. Her mum had been here. Perhaps she’d even been in this spot, looking out on the opening ceremony and listening to the revellers’ footfalls.
Alex broke her musings when he brought out some toast. She didn’t have any appetite but took a couple of bites when he wouldn’t budge until he’d seen her eat.
‘Can I light the fire?’ she asked, gesturing to the firepit in the middle of the seating
area on the terrace.
‘You cold?’
She shook her head. He looked bemused but nodded and went inside.
There was a canopied area on the other side of the terrace with a basket of wood. A few grasses and shrubs sat in containers along the decking; all were pruned.
El carried some logs over and fitted them into the fire. She caught the sound of Alex’s raised voice from within,
‘Sometimes you are so like Anna!’
El wondered what had happened to anger him like this. Even in grief, Alex seemed so understanding. She suspected he and Dan were arguing about her and hoped that Dan would simply leave her alone if he hated her so much. She couldn’t take more of his resentment.
She turned her attention back to the firepit and attempted to set the logs alight with the electric lighter. A spark sputtered into existence and then instantly went out.
‘May I?’ Dan asked, appearing in the doorway and pointing to the firepit, his expression sheepish.
She nodded and returned to the wicker couch. He took the lighter from El, and with no theatricality, grew the small spark into a hungry flame. Within a few seconds, orange fire licked along the dry wood. The rich aroma hovered in the air and seemed to seep into El. Fire made her think of home. But even as it soothed her, it evoked the memory of the catacombs. On the edge of consciousness, when the inky blackness behind her eyelids had pulled her down, the fragrance from the torches had permeated her thoughts. Although coloured by home, they’d also been tinged with thoughts of Dan.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry for everything that I said yesterday.’
El felt the sting of tears threatening as pain seared through her. She was, in part, responsible for her mum’s death. There was no repairing that, but perhaps he could forgive her when he knew everything. Her gaze remained on the fire as if trying to draw upon its strength to say what she needed to.
‘I need to tell you something–’ she said.
