Waging War

by April White

  I dropped into my favorite armchair and spooned bites of the Moroccan chicken and olive stew into my mouth while Mr. Shaw continued his conversation with Archer.

  “How did you know about the hidden room at Bletchley?”

  “I built the damn thing.”

  Mr. Shaw’s eyebrows rose. “You built it?”

  Archer nodded as though he realized how ridiculous that sounded. “When I first met her, Saira warned me about both world wars. I spent the Great War running intelligence operations, and when the second war broke out, it was clear that codebreaking would be the key to England’s survival. When Bletchley was chosen as the headquarters for the codebreakers, I made sure I was on the night crew doing the retrofitting before they moved everyone in. By that time I was an accomplished forger and was able to create identities for the people I needed to be, and the government’s need for secrecy guaranteed that none of the original builders came back to identify me when I returned to the park as an engineer.”

  Mr. Shaw stared at Archer. “That seems awfully fortuitous.”

  Archer’s expression was wry. “Occasionally, I am still a Seer.”

  The look on Mr. Shaw’s face was odd and I couldn’t read it. “Most people, when faced with the inevitability of war, would find a safe place to ride it out.”

  “That is not my nature.” There was a placid calmness to Archer’s tone, and I thought about how easily he had accepted my own inclination to go headfirst into things that needed fixing. Of course he did, because it’s what he’d been doing his whole life.

  I set my bowl down and looked over at Ringo, who was also done. “Shall we?” I started to rise, but was practically blown backward by Ava’s entrance into the library. It was like she arrived on a whirlwind that slammed the door open and dropped her in the middle of the room. Adam and Connor were on her heels.

  Ava looked straight at me. “You have to get ready. You’re going to war.”

  Going to War

  It was one of those announcements that would be greeted either by pin-drop silence or utter chaos. In this case, it was both. The complete absence of sound happened when all the breath was sucked out of the room, and lasted just until the first “no” left someone’s brain through their mouth. It might have been mine. It wasn’t even what I really wanted to say, but since I’d eliminated the more colorful expletives from my vocabulary, it was all I could grab onto in the mass of denials spinning through my head.

  Ava was still focused on me, and I realized that both Adam and Connor were pale and tense-looking next to her.

  “What did you See?” I managed to squeak out.

  “I Saw it too,” said Adam.

  That didn’t make me feel better. Because one Arman vision wasn’t bad enough? In fact, that they were still at Elian Manor was entirely upsetting, because whatever the Arman twins had Seen was important enough to defy their mother’s time limit on their visit. And no one defied Camille Arman.

  Ava’s voice was low and urgent, and everyone else halted their various denials to listen to her. “You’re leaving from Bletchley Park tonight. You—” she swiveled her eyes to include Ringo in her gaze. “—and you.”

  “Wait—” Archer started to speak, but Ava held up her hand to stop him.

  “You can’t go. We need you here to rescue the Mongers’ captives.”

  “Why do I need to leave tonight from Bletchley?” This time I was the one who cut Archer’s protest off before it could begin. He looked frustrated.

  “Because it’s where you’re going, and you have to direct your Clocking to a very specific time, so you can’t mess around with location.”

  “Saira’s not going without me.” Archer’s tone was low and fierce.

  Ava gazed directly at him, as if she needed to tattoo her words on his brain. “She won’t be without you, Archer. You’re already there.”

  Another stunned silence blanketed the room, and a wave of relief washed over me. Archer couldn’t go with me because he was already there, not because he was dead. But right on the heels of relief was a whirlpool of trepidation about too many things to contemplate. Ringo was the one who finally broke the silence when he moved toward the door. “I’m off to find Sanda. We’ll be needin’ the right kit.” His voice was entirely conversational, and it sounded odd in a room full of shocked expressions. He turned to me before he left. “Are ye going as a man or a woman this time, Saira?”

  My eyes were locked on Archer’s horrified ones, and somehow I was able to get the words out. “As myself.”

  Ringo sighed. “So, a pain in my arse, then. Right. Any idea the exact season and year, Ava?”

  Ava’s eyes hadn’t left mine. “Season, no. You have to figure that out. But the year is 1944.”

  Whatever color was left in Archer’s face fled, and he finally tore his eyes away from mine to turn to Ava. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s in the notebook your professor friend brings. And it’s because of Tom.”

  Ringo slipped out of the library muttering to himself about clothes and weapons, and my eyes followed him just so I didn’t have to deal with whatever was going through Archer’s head.

  “I’m going with you.” Mr. Shaw’s sudden statement to me made me jump.

  Ava shot him a stern look that reminded me of something from her mother’s arsenal. “No, Mr. Shaw, you need to be here. You’re the one person standing between Logan and Connor and the Mongers who know they can be used against Saira.”

  My eyes found Connor’s across the room. He looked as sick as I felt, but he gave me a feeble smile anyway.

  My mom spoke in that tone of voice she used when she was being all badass Clocker Head. “Ava, have you discussed these visions with your mother or Jane Simpson?”

  “Ms. Simpson knows. She’s had every vision I’ve ever had since I first went to St. Brigid’s.”

  That was startling news, and I could see it register on everyone’s faces.

  “And your mother?” My mom wasn’t letting up, even though the revelation of a Seer secret had rocked her a little.

  “She’ll hear it better from Ms. Simpson than from her daughter.” The calm confidence with which Ava spoke made my mom’s eyes widen.

  “You’ve been tag-teaming her for years, haven’t you?”

  Adam spoke quietly. “We prefer to call it information flow management.”

  I could see respect for both Adam and Ava bloom in my mom’s eyes. She’d always liked them, but I thought she finally saw them as competent, politically inclined Descendants.

  Archer held his hand out to me. “I need to talk to you,” he said quietly.

  We slipped out of the library as Mom and Mr. Shaw continued their conversation about Family business. I gave Connor’s hand a squeeze as I went past him, and the look in his eyes was equal parts worried and grateful.

  Archer pulled me into a sitting room lit only by wall sconces that cast interesting shadows from the decorative plasterwork on the walls. He sat me down on a gilt chair and brought another one closer so he could take my hands. His expression was serious.

  “We were working with the SOE in 1944, and I spent a lot of time in France with one of their agents who was running the French resistance fighters at the time.”

  I met the worry in his eyes with confusion. “What’s the SOE, and why are you so serious?”

  “The Special Operations Executive was formed by the British government to run espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. Some of them trained in codebreaking at Bletchley Park, and I got to know Nancy when she was there.” Archer’s expression was wary, and it sent red flags waving in front of my eyes.

  “Who is Nancy?”

  “She was the agent I worked with in France.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Archer?”

  “Things were different during the war. I just didn’t want you to be surprised when you see me then.”

  I tried to say the words I was thinking, but they wouldn’t go past my r
apidly constricting throat. Why tell me about Nancy? What was she to you? Those words got hung up in my brain where I could see them floating in the air like unexploded bombs.

  Ringo knocked at the open door, and I was suddenly very glad for the interruption. His eyes met mine. “We’re ready,” he said quietly.

  I let go of Archer’s hands and stood up. “Okay, let me just run up to my room. I’ll be right back.” My voice was working again – kind of. Ringo looked at Archer oddly, as if to ask what he’d done to me, but I rushed out of the room and was down the hall before I could hear them say anything.

  My room was quiet and peaceful, but the silence was doing nothing to calm my pounding heart.

  What had Archer said before, when we sat on the roof and talked about marriage and sleeping together? That no matter what else had happened in his life, he had only ever loved me. Did that mean something else had happened. Something with Nancy, maybe?

  I shuddered and turned my brain to the business of packing for war. What does someone bring to a war? Weapons, of course. I slipped the daggers Archer had given me out of their case and strapped them to my ankles. My new oxblood boots probably weren’t WWII regulation, but too bad - they were awesome and I wasn’t leaving them behind. The Shifter bone, because being a Cougar could be useful if I needed stealth … or teeth. A tin of green medicine and a mini Maglite, because I didn’t travel anywhere without either one. And clean underwear. Leopard print thongs with tiny pink bows, because they were the most unlikely undergarments for war ever invented.

  And because Archer knew someone named Nancy.

  I was making stuff up – I knew I was making stuff up. Archer hadn’t said anything about Nancy other than she was an SOE agent and he worked with her in France. But the fact that he pulled me out of the library to sit me down and tell me about her freaked me out. Why did I need to know that? What was he preparing me for?

  I shoved my meager supplies into a leather satchel I’d swiped from Archer a few months before, grabbed a black Sharpie from my art supply drawer, and closed my bedroom door behind me.

  Sanda met me in the hall. She was carrying a silver tray with a note on it, like something out of Downton Abbey, and her expression was unreadable as she held it out to me.

  “What’s this?” I picked the letter up off the tray.

  “There’s a young woman in the front parlor. She says she’d like to see you alone.”

  That got my attention. I slit open the envelope and pulled out a handwritten card on thick Italian paper. It read I need to talk to you. ~Raven

  The shock must have been obvious in my eyes when I looked at Sanda. “Seriously?”

  Sanda’s words were casual. “Do you know, Miss Millicent used to receive male callers in the front parlor when she was young. Her parents could sit in the back parlor and feel very confident that she was being chaperoned.”

  In other words, someone in the back parlor can hear every word that’s said in the front one.

  I said solemnly, “I think I left a book in the back parlor that I might need. Could you ask Archer if he would get it for me?”

  She spoke with an equally serious tone. “Of course, Miss.”

  She led the way downstairs, but I beat her to the bottom on the bannister. I didn’t get even a glimmer of disapproval. Just a clucking sound and, “Well, if I knew you were going to do that I could have saved myself the trouble of cleaning it.”

  I forgot to wipe the smile off my face when I entered the front parlor, a room I rarely used because it was full of spindly-legged furniture and lots of porcelain. It was one of the few rooms in this enormous house that made me feel too big.

  Raven, with her perfectly petite frame, and her perfectly made-up face, perfectly suited the gilt and silk Louis XVI chair she rose from when I came in. The smile died on my lips when the Monger-gut hit – always the pleasant side-effect of being in the same room with Raven’s Family.

  “How do you know Cole?” Raven’s tone was somewhere between an accusation and a demand, and it was exactly what I needed to give me back my confidence in the face of her perfection.

  “Hello, Raven. So nice of you to drop by.” I didn’t get close to her. The thought of another tracker being implanted on me made me shudder.

  She ignored the pleasant smile on my face, which was forced anyway, and asked again. “Cole said you were a friend of Melanie’s, but I want to know what he’s not saying.”

  Fascinating. What was Cole’s game? I watched her in silence while I decided how to answer, and my eyes dropped to her feet when she finally shifted uncomfortably. “Nice boots.” I actually meant it. They were boots I would wear if I had to dress fancy and still look like I could kick butt.

  “Thanks.” She said automatically. My eyes shot back up to her face. That’s what she had done. She wore her boots like armor because she was scared. It made me decide to tell her the truth and let her deal with it however she was going to.

  “Cole and Melanie are friends with one of the kids your uncle kidnapped a couple of weeks ago.” I could see the protest rise and stopped it before it could leave her mouth. “Right after I left them, your uncle tried to take me.”

  “You’re lying.” She really believed that.

  “No, I’m not. Seth Walters has kidnapped over forty people. I thought Cole might have informed him where I was the day he grabbed me, but he also helped my friends find me, so now I don’t know what to think, especially since he seems to be friends with you.”

  Raven shook her head. “Cole doesn’t know Uncle Seth.”

  “That’s probably a good thing, considering he and Melanie barely avoided the same fate as their friend.”

  The sneer was back in her voice. “You’re not making any sense. On one hand you wondered if Cole was working with Uncle Seth, and on the other, you say he was supposed to be kidnapped by him? Pick one, although they both sound ridiculous.”

  “Okay, I’ll pick the second one, but only because Cole’s probably a mixed-blood, which puts him on your uncle’s hit list.”

  She scoffed angrily. “Cole’s not—” her voice trailed off uncertainly.

  Oh … poop. She hadn’t suspected, and I might have just outed Cole and Melanie to a Monger. I didn’t like the guilt that prickled at my stomach and I tried to backpedal. “I don’t actually know for sure. It’s just that everyone else he’s kidnapped is …” I trailed off lamely.

  Raven’s eyes finally met mine again, and this time, hers were inexplicably filled with fear. “Who else knows?”

  I stared at her. “About Cole? I have no idea who knows. And it’s really only a guess.”

  “No one can.” She whispered. She was genuinely terrified.

  I didn’t like the fear in her eyes. “Raven, what have you heard about Seth’s plans?”

  She shook her head and picked up her purse to leave. Then she turned to face me, pushing the fear away and pulling on a cloak of arrogance. “Stay away from my uncle.”

  “I didn’t ask him to kidnap me.” I didn’t like the defensiveness in my tone.

  “He hates you, Saira. He blames you for … everything.”

  She swept past me and out the door of the room. I ran to the door and called after her. “Why aren’t you going back to school?”

  She turned angrily. “So we can’t be held as leverage.”

  A moment later she was gone, and finally the Monger-gut left too. Guilt still pricked at my stomach for having outed Cole to her, though, and not even Archer’s voice next to my ear when he found me in the hall could erase it.

  “Are you alright?” He murmured.

  “Leverage?” I asked.

  “In war, treacherous people assume their opponents to be equally so.”

  I exhaled the sigh that had been squeezing my chest. “I don’t like that I ratted Cole out to her.”

  He touched my shoulder. “Well, let’s see what she does with it.”

  I wished he would have said its okay, or you did the right thing, but it was
n’t okay, and we both knew it. So I shoved the guilt down around my knees, pulled up my own confidence, and squared my shoulders.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Bletchley Park

  After some very emphatic hugs and lots of last minute advice from pretty much everyone, Archer, Ringo, and I left Elian Manor with Jeeves to get Professor Singh at the Tower of London and take him to Bletchley Park.

  The minute Ravi was in the Range Rover, he pulled a small book from his coat pocket. “I found my journal from the war.” Archer took it from him and carefully opened the bookmarked page and read from crackling paper, yellow with age.

  He read, “June, 1944. Devereux working SOE. Going on wolf hunt. Colossus lonely without him.” Archer looked up at Ravi. “A wolf hunt? I don’t remember—” He caught himself in time and finished the sentence. “—my grandfather having mentioned anything about this.”

  What he meant was he didn’t remember having worked on this, because it wouldn’t happen until I could get back there to tell him about Tom’s involvement with Hitler’s Werwolves.

  Ravi’s voice was strong even as his hand shook when Archer handed the journal back to him. “Frankly, I don’t remember having written it. At my age, however, I’m lucky to remember if I’ve taken my medicine today.”

  “But I bet if I asked you something about Tudor England you could still write a dissertation on it.” I genuinely admired my former boss, and it bothered me that he felt like he was slipping.

  Ravi smiled. “Thank you, my dear. I daresay you might be right.”

  We chatted about the various marriage proposals Elizabeth Tudor had received throughout her reign, and the likelihood she would have married Robert Dudley if he hadn’t already been married to Amy Robsart at seventeen, and worse, if Mrs. Dudley hadn’t mysteriously died from a fall down some stairs in 1560. Dudley’s infidelity with Elizabeth in the Tower reminded me of my unfinished conversation with Archer about Nancy, and I had a hard time holding Archer’s gaze when his eyes searched mine during a diatribe by Professor Singh on sixteenth century morals. A discussion about morals was the last thing I needed to be engaging in at that moment.