The Disappearance of Ember Crow (21 page)

“No,” I told him cheerfully, “we don’t. Now how about finishing that map?”

He sighed and went back to drawing. When he’d finished we all stared down at what was, I had to admit, a pretty good blueprint.

“How many of the minions are likely to be in the house?” Connor asked.

“Probably three,” Jules answered. “He generally keeps three with him.”

Connor ran a thoughtful gaze over the map. “It’s a big house. If we’re careful, if we’re lucky, we should be able to avoid all three.”

He and Jules got into a discussion about escape routes, while I kept staring at the drawing. There was something about the arrangement of the space that was bothering me.
The long room that fronts onto the internal courtyard … the upstairs room right above it, the one with the balcony … it couldn’t be
. She’d told me her house had been reassigned to another family after they’d left.

“Is there a fountain in that courtyard?” I demanded. “One with Hoffman quotes etched into it? And a tree right beside it, that has pink flowers in the spring?”

“Yeah,” Jules said. “How did you know?”

“It’s
Ember’s
house!”

Connor frowned. “This is where she lived before she came to the Firstwood?” He eyed Jules suspiciously. “And you didn’t know?”

“Hey, that house was empty the first time I saw it. I figured Terence picked it at random.”

“When did he start using it?” I asked.

“’Bout three and a half years ago. Before that … he never used to come to this city. Sent me a few times when there was something he wanted here.”

“Ember and her dad left over four years ago.” So it made sense that Jules didn’t know about the house. “He must have taken it over after they went.”

Jules grinned. “She’s done this.”

“What?”

“Think about it, darling. Out of all the places in the world Terence could have taken her, she’s here. Somewhere she knows. Somewhere she understands.”

Somewhere she has friends. All those reformer types her dad had been involved with, for a start
… I grinned back at Jules. He was right, Ember had to be responsible for Terence being here. It made me feel better that she was acting like her usual tricky self.

The three of us talked for a while longer, making plans until we ran out of things to discuss. Then we settled in to wait. Jules lounged on the bed. Connor sat with his back against a taffa crate, and I cuddled up against him with my head pressed to his chest. The afternoon wound slowly on, creeping towards evening. I measured the passage of time by the sound of Connor’s heart beating against my ear, and didn’t mind the wait at all.

I was starting to wonder if we’d hear from Leo today when there was a knock at the door.

Jules shimmered into Diego, and bounced over to open it. He spoke to someone outside – Elle, from the tent – and closed the door again, rippling into himself.

“Well?” I demanded.

“We’re on. We need to be at the back entrance of the house at seven tonight.”

Yes!
We had our way in.

“We should leave pretty soon, actually,” Jules said. “It’ll take the best part of an hour to get there.”

He bit his lip, seeming – nervous? It was hard to tell; I’d never seen him nervous.

“Jules? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. ’Course! It’s only … I mean, I’ll be seeing her again … I wonder what she’s …” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Can I talk to you? About Ember?”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s, um, kind of personal …”

I couldn’t be sure from this far away but I thought he was actually blushing. I exchanged an amused glance with Connor.

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and got to his feet. “I’ll wait outside for a few moments.”

Jules looked relieved. “Thanks.” He came over to drop to the ground in front of me as Connor left the pod, and leaned in to whisper, “You need to speak quiet, okay? He shouldn’t be able to overhear through the door, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Okaaaay.” I was starting to get a little worried about exactly how personal this conversation was going to be.

“I’ve got to tell you something. Something Ember left out of the memories.”

“Wait, what? I thought you were going to talk about–”

He grinned. “I know.”

I threw him an exasperated look. “You realise I’m one of the people who doesn’t find you at all charming, right?”

“Really?” He assumed an exaggerated expression of hurt. “Not even a little?”

“Jules,” I growled.

“Okay, okay. Now when I tell you this, I need you to stay calm. Because …” he jerked his head at the door, “… I know he can feel what you’re feeling when you get real upset.”

“Who told you that?”

“Ember. And you’re going to want to think about what I’ve got to say before you tell him anything.”

This didn’t sound good. “What’s this about?”

“You remember how I told you Terence goes by different identities, in different cities?”

“Yeah. I remember.” It was one of the things we’d talked about on the way to Spinifex City. “So what?”

“I gave you the impression he moved about a lot, which he does now. Only he didn’t used to. In fact, for as long as I’ve known him, he’s mostly stuck with one city. Gull City.”

“Terence is from Gull City? What does that have to do with Connor?”

“You’re concentrating on staying all serene and relaxed, right?”

I glared at him. “Would you just tell me what you’re trying to say?”

“He isn’t only ‘from’ Gull City. Until a bit over a year ago, Terence
ran
Gull City.”

I choked. “You can’t mean … Terence
Talbot
? Ember’s brother was the Gull City Prime?”

“Remember to stay calm!”

He was right, I had to control my reaction before Connor sensed it and came back in. I couldn’t tell Connor this, not until I’d had a chance to process it. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my head against them. Then I focused on breathing, slow and deep and steady.
Don’t feel. Think
.

Terence Talbot. The Prime responsible for the harshest enforcement of the Citizenship Accords in decades throughout Gull City and its associated towns.

The Assessor who’d scared a Rumbler into causing the quake that had killed Connor’s mother.

He was supposed to be dead. In fact, it was his unexpected demise that had changed the entire trajectory of Connor’s life, putting him on the path that had led him to the Firstwood, and me. Talbot had died of a stroke.

Aingls couldn’t die of a stroke.

I lifted my head. “Why did Terence fake his death?”

Jules shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I could think of was that he’d got tired of having the responsibility of running a government. He didn’t exactly share his reasons with me.”

And my best friend had always known that Prime Talbot couldn’t possibly be dead. I choked back a bitter laugh.
More secrets, Em?
“When did she talk to you about this?”

“She didn’t, exactly. She left me a memory. Contained in a can of soup, of all things.”

Of course she did. There had been a gap in the memories, between her leaving Jules in Fern City and meeting Delta. Even when Ember was telling me things, she wasn’t telling me everything. “I don’t understand why she’d leave out something so important!”

“She didn’t want you blurting it out to Connor without thinking about it. I was supposed to find a moment alone to tell you.”

“And you couldn’t have picked any
other
moment?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

“Hey, it hasn’t been easy to get you alone. Besides, I wasn’t going to tell you at all.”

“Why not?”

His expression was uncharacteristically serious. “Because I’m here to save Ember. And I didn’t want to take the chance that you and Connor would be here for something else.”

“You think I’d put her at risk for revenge?”

“I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t. Not when it involved him.” He shook his head. “You don’t even see the way you two are with each other. All tangled up together. Why do you think I was trying to get you to let me go into the house alone?”

“I would
never
put Ember at risk, and nor would he.”

“I’m not so sure about him, darling. You, though … When you said to the Lion that you weren’t leaving without her, you really meant that.” He sighed and added, “You know, if we do this right, we’ll get Red out without running into Terence. Except things might not go right.”

I would’ve liked to smack Jules’s head against the floor. And Ember should have told me this a very long time ago. But I didn’t have time to be mad at either of them, so I shoved my anger away and tried to think.

I’d told Jules that Connor wouldn’t put Ember at risk, but I actually wasn’t sure what he’d do if he had a shot at Terence. Because in a lot of ways he and I were alike, and I wasn’t sure what
I’d
do if I was confronted by any of the people involved in my sister’s death.
He could get himself killed
.

And I’d already watched him die once.

There was only one thing to be done. I didn’t know if it was the right thing. I was afraid it wasn’t. But it was the only thing. Because I could not lose him. Not ever again.

I stood up. “Go tell Connor to come back in here. And stay outside. I want to speak to him alone.”

Jules rose as well. “What are you–”

I snarled. “Get out and let me handle this, Jules!”

He hurried to the door. I darted over to where my pack lay on the ground and rifled through the contents until my fingers closed over a cold, metallic object. I’d barely got it into my pocket when Connor came back in.

At the sight of him feelings rushed over me like a wave; I concentrated on rising above them. I obviously wasn’t successful, because he took one look at my face and demanded, “What did he–”

“It isn’t Jules. It’s you.”

“Me?”

I’d learned, from the way Ember had talked to her sister, that it was possible to say things that were true without being quite the truth. “Connor, I … Hearing Jules talk about how he feels about Ember made me think about how I feel about you. Going into that house will be dangerous.”

“Ashala. I’ll be fine. Anyway, Jules will be with me.”

He was teasing me, throwing back the same words I’d said to him in the Lion’s tent. I discovered it was possible to smile, even when you wanted to cry. He smiled back.

I let myself drink in his expression, just for a second, the curve of his lips and sparkle in his eyes. Then I stepped closer, bowing my head to rest it against his chest and reaching my hand into my pocket. He put his arms around me and whispered, “You won’t lose me.”

I answered miserably, “I know.” And fired the stunner.

He let out an odd, shocked gasp, then was silent. I grabbed his body as he slumped, lowering him to the floor as gently as I could.

Jules stuck his head round the door. “Hey, don’t mean to interrupt, but I thought I heard …” His eyes widened and he came in, slamming the door behind him. “What happened?”

There was a wolf howling in my head, only this time the wolf was me. “I shot him.”

“You did
what
?”

I ignored Jules, grabbing one of the packs and using it to cushion Connor’s head. Then I retrieved a blanket and laid it over him. It would get cold later. After that I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I sat on a crate and shook.

Jules took a step towards me, eyeing the stunner in my hand. “Ah, why don’t you give me that?”

I pointed it at him. “Why don’t you try to take it?”

He backed off. “Just a suggestion, darling.”

I let the weapon drop. Jules looked from me to Connor and shook his head. “I can’t believe you shot him.”

“That is because you don’t know me at all,” I hissed. “You think spending a few days with Ember means you understand her, or me, or the Tribe? You don’t.”

“Yeah. Listen, I can see you’re upset–”

“Shut
up
, Jules.” I lurched to my feet. “You should have told me about Terence the moment you came to the Firstwood. If you had, we could’ve found another way to handle this. You didn’t, and now …” I paused, took in a painful breath, and gestured at Connor. “Now it’s come to this. So. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

I waved the weapon in his direction. “Don’t lie to me!”

He held up his hands. “I swear to you, there’s nothing.”

He seemed to be telling the truth. I sat back down. Jules did too – cautiously, and about as far away from me as he could get.

The shaking in my limbs got slowly better. The churning in my stomach didn’t, and nor did the tightness in my chest. After a while Jules cleared his throat, and said, “Ah – we need to leave now.”

I nodded, and rose. Spent a moment gazing down at Connor, before bending to tuck the blanket more securely around his body.
He’s never going to forgive me. Not for this
. Then I took everything I was feeling, and locked it away.

I was the Leader of the Tribe, and I had one of my own to save.

Forty-five minutes later Jules and I were lurking in an alleyway. He’d been Diego for most of the journey here, but had shimmered back into himself now that we were hidden in the gloom of the alley. The two of us peered out in the rapidly fading daylight, watching a square two-storey house. It looked the same as all the others in the row: made of white composite stained red with dust, with a thin strip of land running along the outside, enclosed by a high wall.

What distinguished it were the two guards standing either side of the back gate.

The first was a mousy, thin boy; the second a heavy-set older woman. Both were dressed in yellow robes; both were watchful. I couldn’t see any weapons. That didn’t mean they didn’t have some concealed, or that they weren’t armed in other ways.

I whispered to Jules, “Minions?”

“The boy is,” he whispered back. “The other one … don’t think so. All the minions are young, at least the ones I’ve seen.”

“What’s his ability?”

“Dunno, I only met him once. Whatever it is, I guarantee he’ll be able to do a lot of damage with it.”