Aeralis (12 page)

I didn’t care about Korr’s temper tantrum. I was looking at Adam.

Instead of returning my stare, he squinted at the street through the dark glass of the steamcoach, his forehead knit with an unidentifiable emotion. I reached for his hand to get his attention, and he flinched. I drew mine away quickly.

The steamcoach stopped with a lurch and a hiss. Through the tinted glass of the coach windows, the moon glimmered amid the night mist that blanketed the streets. Streetlamps glowed like small fires in the distance. Korr leaned across Gabe and slid the window open to speak to the driver.

“Drive around back,” he ordered, and sat back with a longsuffering sigh. He looked at us all as if he were dealing with idiots. “We can’t be seen,” he said. “Especially not you two.” He waved his fingers at Gabe and me. “Cover your faces with your coats.”

The steamcoach stopped before a back entrance. Korr lifted the still-unconscious Dr. Terrade and climbed from the coach. I followed Korr, holding the lapels of my coat up to cover my profile. Structures of glass glittered to our left, and flowering trees drooped over a doorway. Gabe and Adam were behind me, and I heard Adam mutter something to Gabe under his breath. It didn’t sound friendly, but I didn’t catch what was said.

We entered a supply room. Shelves covered the walls. High windows let in strips of moonlight. Korr disappeared into another room, and I heard him barking orders at servants to fetch water. He returned without Terrade and lit a gas lamp beside the door with a flick of his finger. He paused for a moment, staring at the flame as if deciding who to shout at first, and then he turned on us. He pointed a gloved hand at Gabe and me.

“What shall we talk about first? Your utter stupidity, or how furious I am?”

“Korr—” Gabe started.

“Shut up. I want to hear what Weaver has to say.”

My heart stuttered at the cold fire burning in his eyes. I swallowed and didn’t speak.

“We’re going to talk about how to proceed from here,” Adam interjected calmly. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. Korr gave him a wrathful glance but didn’t argue. He crossed his arms and looked at us both expectantly.

Gabe sank onto a barrel. “It’s my fault. Don’t yell at her.”

“No, it’s my fault,” I said.

“It was my idea to go to Terrade. I thought he could help us.”

“I want to know what’s going on,” Korr said. “Why is Weaver in Astralux? What were you doing talking to Dr. Terrade? Start at the beginning.”

“My family business is none of yours,” I snapped.

“So it’s a Weaver affair,” he said, his eyes narrowing with contemplation.

I clamped my lips shut. How had I let that slip?

“You’re poking around my city and attracting attention with your escapades, and that makes it my affair,” he said. “So start talking.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t trust Korr with my least-favorite pair of snowshoes, and he wanted me to put my siblings’ lives in his hands? “I have absolutely no reason to offer that information to you.”

“I just saved your life,” he growled. “You owe me.”

“He did help us, Lia,” Gabe ventured.

I gave Gabe a look that silenced him and turned back to Korr.

“I owe you nothing,” I managed through clenched teeth. “You never do anything out of the goodness of your heart, so you must have some kind of ulterior motive for rescuing me.”

“I rescued my brother, too,” he pointed out. “Perhaps you are just exceptionally lucky to have been captured with him.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You always arrange it so there’s a benefit to you.”

His furious face softened into one of faint amusement. “Well,” he drawled, “I suppose I do.” His gaze cut to Gabe and then back to me. “I rather like you, Weaver, when I’m not hating you.”

Now there was a compliment I’d never wanted to receive. I scowled at him. “Well, I don’t like you, and I’m not telling you anything. I know you want something from me.”

A smile crawled across his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were dark and hard with determination. “Your father’s journals.”

“No,” I said. “I told you before.”

His eyes hardened. “That isn’t your final answer.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Do I need to remind you that I saved your life? That I am harboring you here in my house out of the goodness of my heart?”

“What goodness?” I countered.

Korr’s gloved fingers flexed. “Fine. I’ll throw you out if you don’t give them to me.”

Adam shifted. “Korr,” he said, and there was an undercurrent of something sharp lurking in his tone.

“She can’t,” Gabe said. “They burned.”

Korr looked at his brother. His face transformed into something terrifying. He turned back to me.

“Is this true?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes. They’re gone.”

Korr swore. He looked at me. “Right now you need to disappear from my sight while I figure out how to fix this.” He locked eyes with Adam, and something unspoken passed between them, some communication.

Even Korr had more rapport with Adam right now than I did.

“Upstairs,” Korr snapped, turning his attention back to me as if I were some errant child.

I was too exhausted to argue further.

~

Korr showed me to a guest room to sleep. I was surprised at first that he didn’t ask a servant to do it, but then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be here.

The guest room had striped wallpaper and a velvet canopy bed. The scent of roses hung in the air, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the bureau. My face was wild and dirty, my hair a snarl. I looked half-dead with fatigue.

“Is there a story yet to explain my presence if anyone sees me?” I asked, turning to where Korr lounged in the doorway.

“My mistress,” he said with a rude smile.

“Absolutely not.”

“Believe me when I say I’m joking,” he said. “You can pose as a servant for now.”

I spread my hands to indicate the lavish decorations. “Would a servant stay in a room like this?”

“Not any servant,” he said, arching his eyebrow with an angry smile. “My personal assistant. That way you’ll be close enough to keep an eye on at all times.”

He shut the door with a slam before I could say anything else, leaving me to deal with that unpleasant declaration in addition to everything else that had gone wrong that day. I went to the bed and sank onto it. I tugged off my boots and shrugged out of my dirty coat. My muscles throbbed. My mind reeled. I fell back against the mattress and put my hands over my eyes.

I needed to bathe and sleep before I tried to come up with any plans about what I’d do to get out of this situation.

A quiet knock came at the door, and I raised my head with a growl of annoyance. I had no more patience for Korr’s games tonight.

The knob turned, and Gabe stepped inside. He shut the door and leaned against it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have taken you to Terrade. I was stupid.”

“Don’t. It’s happened; it’s done.” I sat up and rubbed the space between my eyes. Worry was already gnawing at my gut like a rat. Right before the soldiers had burst through the door, Terrade had said Borde had been arrested. Any hope I’d been harboring was rapidly dwindling to nothing.

Gabe shook his head at my words. “No. I acted foolishly. I should have known better than to return to that part of the city. Of course they were watching his house. He was a friend of my family, and the Dictator is notoriously suspicious of his nobles. And if I’d been recognized, we would have probably been shot on sight.” He stared at the floor. “I’m sorry about your being forced to stay here with my brother. I know you despise him.”

“Never mind Korr,” I said. “What are we going to do about Borde?”

A wrinkle of comprehension crossed Gabe’s face. “Dr. Terrade gave me that paper just before we were arrested. If I still have it...” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his vest and pants, searching. He fished out a wadded scrap of white and held it to the light. “Yes, this is it.”

“What does it say?” I demanded.

“It says, ‘Meridus Falcon, arrested on charges of treason on the anniversary of His Eminence’s rise to power and sentenced to a life’s internment in one of the work camps.’” He closed his fingers into a fist around the paper.

“Work camps?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

“The people call them death camps. They’re mostly located outside the city. The Dictator sends prisoners there to, well, die.”

Despair flooded me. I sucked in a breath and tried to make a plan, but my thoughts stuck together.

Gabe shifted his feet. “If I asked Korr—”

“No,” I snapped. “I don’t want him involved. He can’t help us. He’ll only try to use this to manipulate me further.”

Gabe looked like he wanted to argue, so I told him I was tired. After he left, I shut my eyes and dropped back onto the bed. I was filthy; I needed to wash. But at the moment, I didn’t care. I pushed back the coverlet and crawled beneath it. As I shut my eyes, I heard a knock at the door.

Gabe again?

This time, it was Adam who stepped inside. His dark eyes held mine, and fire burned inside me. Part of me was aching to run to him, but another part of me was furious. I did not rise from the bed. I stared at him, he stared at me, and neither of us spoke. A desire for comfort did battle with my anger, and my anger won.

“So,” I finally said, and the word was a challenge.

“I know you are angry—”

“How dare you tail me like I’m some suspect your organization wants to spy upon? Who ordered you to do it?”

“I didn’t do it as a Thorns operative,” he said. “I did it as someone who was worried about your safety.”

“Don’t make decisions for me, Brewer.”

He winced.

I ran a hand over the coverlet. “You should go. I doubt it’s proper for you to be here.”

“Actually,” he said. “I only came to bring someone else.”

Ann stepped around the door, and I inhaled sharply as a burning filled my eyes. I shoved back the covers and stumbled toward her. She met me halfway and fell into my arms, and I clutched at her hair and the sleeves of her clothing to assure myself she was real. She put her head on my shoulder and squeezed me tight. When I looked over her head at the door, Adam was gone.

“He told me what happened,” Ann said when she’d released me. “What are you going to do?”

I went to the bed and sank onto it. My legs were too tired to support me any longer. “I don’t know,” I admitted, and saying the words punctured a hole in the last bit of bravado I had left.

“Lia,” she said gently.

“I came to find Borde,” I said. “Did Adam tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“Gabe and I went to a man who knew something. He said a man named Meridus Falcon had been arrested for treason weeks ago. He’s in a work camp. A
death
camp, Ann. What am I going to do? Jonn and Ivy are going to die.”

“We’ll figure something out,” she whispered, and hugged me tighter.

THIRTEEN

WHEN I OPENED my eyes the next morning, I found a girl in a gray servant’s uniform standing beside the bed, watching me with a fixed expression of total disinterest and holding a stack of fabric in her arms. There was something familiar about her, but my sleep-fogged mind couldn’t make the connection.

“Good morning,” she said when I sat up. “Here are your linens and extra uniforms. Lord Korr had them sent up. He said you’d need them right away.”

I groaned at the memory that he’d made me his personal assistant. “Put them on the bed, please.”

She set the clothes and other things down at the foot of the bed and crossed the room to open the curtains. “Servants usually rise at six,” she said, and a smirk tinged her tone.

Raven
.

I pushed back the blankets and slid out of bed. The carpet was warm beneath my bare feet.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m posing as a servant in service to the Thorns. Or maybe I just think the uniforms here are rather fetching on me. What do you think?” She turned and put her hands on her hips.

“You’re working with Adam?”

She smirked and didn’t reply. She went to the door and shut it behind her, leaving me alone with the unsettling feeling of jealousy.

I put on one of the uniforms she’d brought. There was a pair of black, wide-legged trousers and a white linen blouse with ruffles at the throat, the only thing that marked it as feminine. A vest studded with brass buttons went over the blouse. I was buttoning it when a knock came at the door. My eyes widened slightly as a thin, red-haired young woman slipped inside. She paused at the sight of me. “They didn’t tell me it was
you
.”

“Claire.” Her name came out through gritted teeth. She was not as thin as she’d been the last time we’d seen each other, but her eyes still had a skittish, hungry look in them.

She kept her expression blank. “I go by Clara here.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by her appearance. It was only sensible for her to be here. She’d left the Frost with Gabe months ago, and they were close friends. Of course she’d joined the Restorationists.

Still, I hadn’t expected her to walk through my door.

“Lord Korr said his new assistant was staying here.”

“That’s what they’re calling me,” I said stiffly.

“I came to inform you that breakfast will be served in the glass hall today.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, and left the room.

~

The rain hadn’t abated, so I couldn’t go outside to think. I ached for the windswept skies and stark beauty of the Frost. Something about the clean white blankness of snow always cleared my mind. Instead, I wandered until I found a door that led to a glass room filled with plants. A greenhouse? Rain splattered on the transparent roof and dripped down the walls. I pushed through the flowering branches that hung over the path and found a bench. I sank onto the cool stone and dropped my head in my hands.

I froze as I heard voices. Footsteps crunched on a path behind me. I turned, but I couldn’t see who was coming through the trees.