Sovereign Hope (22 page)

Aldan’s eyes
glittered. He took a deep swig of his champagne and gave us a
broad, knowing smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“
Of course not,” Farley answered, quicker than I could. Her
eyes flickered towards me, my skin burning under her gaze. I kept
my own eyes fixed on Aldan.

“
What brings you back here, old man?” My heart’s erratic pace
had slowed, but now it was almost too slow. I felt dizzy, a
sensation I hadn’t experienced in, well, longer than I could
remember.

“
Just checking in. I came to have a word with Farley. You
don’t mind if I cut in?”

A beat of relief was about all I felt before I noticed
something across the other side of the room that had my stomach
knotting all over again.
Freakin’
great.
My eyes had to be playing tricks on
me, but, no, when I looked back
he
was still standing there.

Kayden.

What the hell
was Kayden doing here? And he wasn’t even glamored. Farley could
look over any moment and see him standing there, staring me down
like I was some kind of devil.

“
By all means, old man. Be my guest.” I took a step back,
indicating that Farley was all his, and started my way across the
bustling room without looking back. If Aldan noticed the boy, he
didn’t let on, but of course he must have known Kayden was there.
It was one thing appearing in the hangar, but this was Aldan’s
mind. People couldn’t just bust their way in without so much as a
by your leave.
Maybe the Quorum have
finally found something
, I thought,
some loophole in the prophecy
. But there was another, more worrying voice that whispered
over the top of my blind hope, whispering that maybe they hadn’t
found anything at all. That maybe it was time. I shuddered, pulling
at my necktie. Kayden would just love delivering
that
news.

Studying his
fingernails, he gave off the impression he would rather be
somewhere else. He wore a tailored green button-down Oxford shirt
over a pair of washed-out black jeans, both of which looked
remarkably familiar. No one seemed to have noticed him where he had
propped himself against the wall by the refreshment stand, even
though he was completely out of place. He looked up at me as I
approached, feigning surprise. White-blond hair fell into his face,
all spun gold and sunlight. Kayden raked his hand through it,
brushing it out of his eyes.

“
Hey, bro,” he said in his lazy drawl.

I ignored his greeting. I was too busy trying to keep calm.
“Kayden
. Are you wearing my
clothes?!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Visions

“
You like the nineteen hundreds?” Aldan asked.

I knew I was
staring but I couldn’t help it. He just looked so…smart. The
disfigured scar at his throat was mostly covered by his starched,
crisp collar. For all intents and purposes he appeared like any of
the other gentleman that surrounded me: distinguished.

“
I guess it’s all right,” I admitted. It was kind of fun
wearing a huge dress and being treated like I was a fragile,
breakable thing. I would still be glad when I could slip back into
my own self, into my boots and jeans and tank top, and feel normal
again, though. My hair was starting to fall loose from its
elaborate twists and plaits, and I got the feeling I might not look
the part anymore, anyway.

Aldan smiled
down at me, shunting me mechanically around the dance floor. It
didn’t feel right, not like it had with Daniel. That had been
impossibly light, like I was floating. Now, I felt like I was
dragging half-set cement bags around instead of legs.

“
Aldan, do you mind if we, well, if we don’t dance? I know you
probably don’t get the chance very often, but—”

“
I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he interrupted. “Must
be in the blood. I’m as stiff as a wooden post on the dance floor,
always have been. That’s why I like rock music so much. It’s rather
uncouth, but you can just throw yourself around a dance floor and
not get into trouble. Plus you know it hasn’t been a good night if
you aren’t dragged into some kind of a row. Now
that’s
what I call
dancing.”

I laughed.
This really did feel like dancing with my grandfather. I wouldn’t
have minded standing on Aldan’s feet. He stopped, though, and we
made our way towards the far end of the room to a group of
blood-red velveteen chaise lounges. They were arranged around the
statue of a woman with tumbling stone locks of hair down to her
waist. In her arms she held a vase, out of which water splashed
musically down into a sweeping circular pool at her feet. A couple
stood at its edge, and the girl—she couldn’t be any older than
me—squealed loudly every time the silver of gleaming scales flashed
beneath the flat surface of the water.

I couldn’t
help but roll my eyes. “You’d think it was the first time she’d
seen a fish.”

“
Probably is.” Aldan sat down on the edge of a secluded chaise
longue, and I joined him, battling with my skirts until they lay as
flat as they were ever going to. “People didn’t really keep fish
tanks in these days. There are fish in the Thames, sure, but have
you seen that river? The only things you’ll catch sight of in that
water are dead bodies.”

“
Sounds lovely.”

Aldan considered me for a moment and then gave me a warm
smile. It really was weird seeing him with short hair. “You
look
lovely. I knew that
color would suit you.”

“
That’s funny. Daniel told me I looked
stupid.”

“
And since when have you started listening to anything that
came out of that lad’s mouth? I thought you were smarter than
that.”

I shrugged.
“Some things are just obvious.”

“
Have you considered the possibility that he doesn’t know how
to tell you he thinks you’re beautiful?”

A strangled noise broke free from my chest, more a wheeze
than actual laughter. “Now that
is
ridiculous.”
Annoying,
and potentially simple
, I thought,
but beautiful…

Falling into
his arms had been hideous; I knew I’d looked flushed, and my
cleavage had almost busted out of my ridiculously tight dress. That
had been bad, but not the truly horrible part. The horrible part
had been my inability to control my reaction to his arms around me,
whilst he stood there with that impassive, blank look on his face.
It had been humiliating, and Aldan had watched the whole
embarrassing scene for himself. I shuddered out of the memory.

“
You said you wanted to talk to me?” I hadn’t forgotten the
whole point of our trip into Aldan’s mind. The prospect of any new
information related to my hallucinations was welcome, especially if
he could tell me how to stop them.

The old man
scrubbed his hand over his bare head, apparently amused by his
short hair, too, and nodded. “Yes. I believe I have made some
headway. You might not like what I’ve discovered, though.”

Something hot
and oppressive pushed down on me, a wave of dizziness made worse by
my freakishly tight corset. What could he possibly tell me that was
worse than having the hallucinations in the first place? “Just tell
me.” There was no point beating around the bush. It would only draw
out the panic, and panic was something I could do without.

“
What you experience, Farley, I don’t think they’re
hallucinations. I think they’re visions.”

“
Visions?”

“
Yes. I’ve studied the prophecies. There’s nothing in them to
suggest you’d experience anything like this, but these things have
their quirks, you know? Your mind is sound. There’s nothing wrong
with you physically. That can only mean that you’re experiencing
something supernatural.”

A remote, sinking feeling pulled at me. The sounds of the
room—the music, the chatter, the laughter, the clink of glass—faded
into a distant buzz. How could something supernatural be happening
to
me
? Fair
enough, my father was an Immortal, but I was a girl. It was only
the males of the Reaver bloodline that had powers, or the potential
to become immortal. Despite that, a tiny voice echoed in the back
of my head even as I thought this. It was Agatha, the night at the
fair, telling me I was special.
They’ve
always had male children. That’s just the way it’s always
been.

How had I
never thought about this? If there hadn’t ever been a girl before,
then how could they know what I would be, what gifts or powers I
might possess? That was precisely why the Reavers wanted me dead,
after all. That, and the fact that they believed the stupid
prophecy where I was supposedly destined to kill them all. I
uncurled my clenched fists, which were still stinging like crazy
from my fall earlier.

“
It doesn’t really make much sense,” I said, “if they are
visions. I mean, what are they telling me? I had my first one when
I was eight. My mom was on fire. What does that
signify?”

“
Did you ever have a vision of your mother again?” Aldan
asked.

I nodded,
remembering a thousand different times when I’d seen my mom burn;
in the supermarket; in the car driving to summer camp; on the
beach; at Nana Jean’s funeral. “Yeah. It was the same every
time.”

Aldan’s face
fell, and he looked down at my hands. He tutted and took them into
his lap, dabbing at the grazes with his handkerchief. It was
spotted with bloody polka dots by the time he spoke again. “I can’t
be sure what that means, Farley. But you must remember, everything
in our world is tied in with the soul. I can only think that what
you’re seeing is some representation of the soul.”

A wall went up in my head before he finished speaking. There
was no way my mom’s soul looked like
that
. “The last time I saw you, you
told me that heaven and hell existed. If I see visions of my mom
and her soul is on fire, and you honestly believe that hell exists,
then you’re essentially telling me that my mom is in hell, right?
And she was destined to go there all along?”

It couldn’t be true. That was the only thing keeping the
horror out of my voice. My mom, the woman who couldn’t bear to kill
insects that found their way into the house, the woman who forced
me to spend every Christmas day afternoon in living memory in a
soup kitchen for the homeless, could
not
be in hell.

There was pain
in Aldan’s eyes. “I really don’t know. I’m probably wrong. There
could be some other explanation for what—” Aldan didn’t finish his
sentence. The sound of shattering glass broke through our
conversation, and he was on his feet in an instant. “Damn it!”

A flutter of
alarm beat its wings inside my chest. I stood, still feeling sick
and empty, only to find that Aldan had already charged off through
the crowd. The people in the dance hall were still milling around,
talking and dancing, completely unaware of the disruption to their
enjoyable evening. I could hear it, though: more breaking glass,
the sound of scuffling feet, and the undeniable sound of fists
flying. Someone was yelling obscenities that would definitely upset
a few of people in the hall, if only they could hear them.

Without Aldan
at my side, I felt suddenly very alone, like a ghost trapped in a
world where I’d never be seen or heard. I rushed after him, worried
if I lost sight of him I actually would cease to exist. I shoved my
way through the few remaining dancers, battling with my skirts
until I finally lost patience. I gathered them in my arms and
hitched them up the way that Daniel had expressly told me not to.
My familiar, battered sneakers greeted me beneath the swamp of
fabric. So that’s why my footwear felt so comfortable.

I was about to
look up again and search for Aldan when I noticed something dark
sliding across the floor towards me. The dancing couples stepped
over the obstruction mid-waltz without ever acknowledging its
presence, but I saw it. Daniel arrived at my sneakers, his arms and
legs sprawled in a very unbecoming manner. He paused a beat before
looking up at me. There was a dark fury on his face that he’d only
ever hinted at before. The force of it stole my breath clean out of
my lungs.

“
Daniel!” Aldan yelled, pushing his way towards us. The crowd
remained in motion, and he had to dodge and weave around countless,
oblivious
revelers
before he reached us.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

I’d never seen
Aldan annoyed before, and the tension in his voice was worrying.
Daniel scrabbled to his feet, his eyes still locked on mine. The
fury evaporated from him like smoke, and his eyes blazed with some
inner torment I couldn’t understand. I took a step forward, but as
I did so he buried both his hands in his hair and pulled. The
action, pure frustration, was startling. I froze, staring at him
with my mouth formed into a perfect O, wondering what could
possibly have made him act that way.

“
Daniel!”

It wasn’t
Aldan calling him this time. It was another voice, one I didn’t
recognize. Daniel pivoted on his heel, his necktie undone at his
throat, his knuckles scuffed with blood, and scowled.

“
Just go!” he yelled. It took a moment before the subject of
his anger walked into view. A boy, so blond his hair was hardly any
color at all, strolled through the crowd towards them. He didn’t
appear uncomfortable that he was wearing nothing but his boxer
shorts, and in fact he seemed quite pleased with himself as he
arrived in front of us. He was toned in the same way that Daniel
was, with a flat, muscled stomach and corded, strong arms. His skin
was tanned and glowed in an ethereal fashion. A kind of tattoo
wreathed his shoulders, chaining his collarbone—characters in a
language that I couldn’t read properly. It was almost as if my eyes
couldn’t focus on the angular, sweeping forms, which continuously
seemed to shift like wet ink.