Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (11 page)

“Come on!” Sophie panted and veered around the bend in the alley despite Hayden’s breathless, “Soph, wait!”

Hayden turned the corner and skidded to a gasping stop, heart flying into his throat. The alley was a dead-end. Nivy was gone, but the sentries, hard-faced men in grey uniforms, remained, and Sophie had run right into their midst before she’d pulled herself to a stop.

“What’s this now?” one of the sentries growled, frowning at Sophie. “You spying on us, girl?”

“I…no…just…that lady…” Opening and closing her mouth, Sophie took a step back and helplessly looked over her shoulder at Hayden, who hurried forward.

“No, she’s not,” he insisted quickly, still breathing hard. He put his arms around Sophie from behind, pulling her into him. “We were just playing a game. We didn’t mean to disrupt…er, whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Conducting a chase is what,” the sentry said gruffly. He glared out from under the black visor of his hat at Hayden. “You following that ‘lady’ too, boy? Care to tell me what for? Seen her before, have you?”

Lie
! Hayden felt himself going white in the face, and he gripped his hands together in front of Sophie to hide their fidgeting. “No, never. It was just…just a game.”

The sentry suspiciously pulled off his cap to reveal a receding yellow hairline and tucked it under his arm. He held out a flat palm to one of his companions, who dug into a pouch on his black utility belt and pulled out a tiny—and so all the more terrible—syringe. Sophie trembled under Hayden’s hands, and he tucked her behind him.

“Then you won’t mind if we administer a quick compulsor, do you?” Seeing Hayden’s expression, the sentry said sternly, “It’s perfectly legal, son, The Veritas use them all the time. It won’t hurt in the least. Just a prick in the arm. Of course, if you’re lying,” he flicked the liquid capsule with his forefinger, “we might have to change our methods.”

“I—” Hayden gulped. “I might have been—that is, if you’ll just let my sister go back and tell my parents, I’m sure they—”

“Alright,” the leader sentry allowed, waving a hand. Hayden felt his knees rattle together. He hadn’t expected that to be alright at all. “Have her go on then. Like I said,” another flick, “perfectly legal.”

Thinking frantically, Hayden turned and put his hands on Sophie’s shoulders. “Soph, go wait for me at the dairy stand. Everything will be alright.”

“Hayden,” she whispered, white-faced, “remember what Father always says about not crossing the city sentries? What if…what if they…”

Hayden forced a laugh and was afraid it sounded rather…hysterical. “Don’t be silly, Soph. I’m just going to speak with them. Go on, here, take some cogs and order for us, I’ll be there in no time.”

“Promise?”

“Sure. Absolutely. Just go.”

Hayden felt lightheaded as Sophie ran away, throwing uncertain glances over her shoulder as she went. He could feel the sentries moving in behind him, their hulking forms crowding him against the wall. What would they do to him when they found out he had lied?

“Go ahead and roll up your sleeve, son,” the head sentry said, smiling a hardly friendly smile.

He had mentioned The Veritas. When it came out out Hayden had lied, would he be given to a Vee for questioning? One of the sentries caught him under the arm as his knees buckled and held him in place as the head sentry aimed the serum over his forearm and then slid it into his largest vein. It was a second before the strange compulsion to talk struck him.

“Now,” the blond sentry leaned in close to Hayden, handing the empty syringe to one of his cohorts. Still smiling, he grabbed Hayden’s jaw and squeezed till Hayden could feel his teeth cutting into his cheeks. “Were you following us?”

“Yesh.” Hayden shook his head, tried to free his mouth.

“Why?”

“Nivy.”

“The girl?”

Hayden nodded, sighing with relief when the sentry released his face. Then the man grabbed a fistful of his shirt and slid him up the wall till his toes swayed over the ground, kicking but not touching. One of the other sentries looked on with amusement while the third stood at the bottom of the alley. Keeping watch, Hayden realized as he coughed. Because the compulsor might be legal, but this was something else entirely.

The sentry began, “Where did she—”, but stopped and dropped Hayden in a gagging heap when the man standing guard let out a strangled cry.

Hayden massaged his throat and pushed his eyes open even though they wanted to stay closed. Even that took him so long that by the time he’d managed it, two of the sentries were already sprawled on their stomachs, and the third, the leader, was fighting not to be shoved stomach-first up against the brick wall by a very put-out looking Gideon.

“Total breech of conduct! Interference with the law! Assaulting a sentry!” the man roared and then grunted when Gideon flattened his face against the wall.

“Don’t rightly care,” Gideon growled and drew back a fist.

“I’ll have you incarcerated in the deepest brigs in the city, Pan! On the planet!”

Managing to get to his feet, however unsteady, Hayden stumbled across the alley. “Wait, you can’t!”

Gideon looked over his shoulder, fist still pulled up to his ear. “Ain’t a time to be forgivin’, Aitch. These dimridge got no right to be pummelin’ anybody, and dirt if I’m gonna let them pummel on you. Now get goin’. Sophie’s waitin’ for you on the road.”

Hayden froze, examining Gideon’s grim face. “What…what are you going to do?”

Gideon smirked, but the smirk turned into a snarl when the sentry squirmed and called him a filthy name. “I’m gonna make them forget.”

A zap of a gunshot echoed through the alley, and Hayden ducked what would have been a second too late to cover his head with a shout. Even Gideon jumped, shoving his hand behind his belt for his revolver. As for the sentry…he was slumping down the brick wall, leaving a paint stroke of blood behind him. Dead.

“What the—” Gideon started, swinging around with his revolver lifted.

Zap, zap
, two more shots burrowed into the bodies of the downed sentries. Hayden dove for them, turning them over, but they were already dead, shot through the heart.

Gideon’s revolver clicked as he found the shooter and set his sights on her. Hayden watched the exchange in a daze, unknowingly clutching the bloody front of one of the dead men’s uniforms, perhaps trying to wring some life out of it. Gideon with his revolver and Nivy with her stolen ALP stared at one another, Nivy looking down at him from the roof of the building at the head of the alley. She looked resigned. Gideon looked thoughtful.

“Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot!” Hayden pleaded. “No one else should die here!”

Not even a murderer. Nivy had
killed
these men. Shot them when they couldn’t defend themselves!

Gideon’s gun stayed level. “I wasn’t goin’ to,” he said in a low voice.

Nivy must have heard him, because in one swift motion, she let the gun swing down on her finger and then dropped it into the alley, where it shattered. Then she was gone. Just a blur of black clothing.

IX

Babysitter for Hire, Must be Good with Guns

Reece sat stiffly across from Scarlet Ashdown, who stared at him with a smile that would’ve frightened a Freherian boar. This was the price he paid for leaving Honora before the duke arrived. He couldn’t use the family’s Dryad to get back to Atlas, not if he wasn’t willing to wait around to greet his father when he landed. But even in her fury at his “gall” (her word, not his), Abigail still didn’t want Reece riding the bus-ship back to The Owl, not after Liem’s disappearance. So here he was. Hitching a ride with the graceful, breathtaking, totally unattainable ship of the Ashdown’s, Pegasus class.

“Why am I not surprised at this, Reece? You running away before you have to face the duke,” Scarlet said, crossing her legs. Her golden hair was bright against her red dress.

Reece frowned and looked out
Galatia’s
window and into the soft blackness of space. His fingers toyed restlessly with the cufflinks in the bottom of his coat pocket. Liem’s. “It’s not running away. It’s avoiding.”

“He’s not all that bad, you know. He has quite the sense of humor.”

“Thank you. I love hearing about how other people know him better than I do.”

“And yet you run from him.”

“
Avoid
, Scarlet, avoid him.”

Reece kept his gaze strained on the window and the streaking stars in the very far distance. If Gideon hadn’t been able to pick up Nivy’s trail from the alley in Caldonia, he certainly wouldn’t be able to, but he still felt like he should be there, trying to keep his promise to Liem. Trying to get some answers. Nivy had killed sentries to keep her secrets. Doing so had confirmed her deep involvement in Reece’s budding conspiracy theory.

At this rate, he’d be as numpty as paranoid old Mordecai before long.

“Something is going on, isn’t it?”

Reece looked up. Scarlet had removed her sequined hat so that her hazel eyes could probe without obstruction. Her face was solemn.

“What makes you think that?”

Pausing, Scarlet stood, crossed the aisle, and sat next to Reece on the long leather seat so that their elbows brushed. Reece pushed himself closer to the window, but there was no escaping the smell of her, like roses.

“I’m a politician,” Scarlet reminded him, playful but grave at the same time. “I feel the waves that humans make on the order of Parliament very distinctly. And there
are
waves.”

“With who?”

“Everyone. Something is going to happen.”

“You’re sounding a smidgen superstitious, Ms. Ashdown.” Finally looking away from the window, Reece faced Scarlet in the seat. “What do you know about Eldritch?”

“The headmaster? Well, he’s very involved in Parliament.”

“Well, he’s employed by them, right? So—”

“This is different. He has…a presence. I’ve seen it in my clinicals in The Guild House. He is a powerful man, there can be no doubt there. Why?”

Shaking his head, Reece looked back out the window. The white fog of Atlas was parting over the Pegasus, lighting their tiny cabin with misty light. Scarlet made a displeased noise and returned to her seat to replace her hat on her head.

“Reece, you know you can trust me, don’t you?” she said softly as she rearranged the delicate netting on the front of her hat. “I hope eight years have given our relationship some semblance of a friendship.”

Arching an eyebrow, Reece took his turn studying Scarlet—in a completely platonic way, of course. She seemed sincere enough, holding her golden clutch in both hands and frowning worriedly at him. It made him smile, because if there was one thing that could be said about Scarlet Ashdown, it was that she didn’t beg anyone’s approval that wasn’t a superior. So he guessed he was that. Very satisfying.

“I trust you,” he reassured her, and she smiled back, thankfully not in that feminine wiles kind of way. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then if I asked you to keep an eye on Eldritch?”

“You would have to tell me what for, of course,” Scarlet reasoned, gesturing, and paused as the captain of
Galatia
announced their forthcoming landing on The Owl’s aerodome. They had passed from the black of space through the atmospheric fog and were now drifting down through fair blue skies. “In a show of good faith.”

Reece took his time stretching, standing, and gathering his bags and Scarlet’s from the compartment nets overhead. He felt her condition hanging in the air between them, and her growing curiosity, helped on by his hesitance.

“The less you know, the safer you’ll be.” His answer seemed to amuse her, because she laughed and drew out her tassled fan, sweeping it before her face in full renewal of her flirtatious ways. Reece dropped her suitcase with a scowl. “I’m serious, Scarlet!”

“Oh, I know. It’s just so dear, how protective you are of your friends. I’m quite flattered.”

Reece stared after her as she glided from the cabin. The girl was totally numptified. With a sigh, he caught up the handle of her suitcase and trundled along after her.

“This is a terrible idea,” Hayden moaned, sitting with his elbows on his knees on the pedestrian walkway in front of the Handcraft Center. Reece looked up from lacing his boots. “We’re going to get expelled. I can’t get expelled, I just can’t!”

“Get a grip, Hayden. You’re our resident genius; we need you to get us into the museum without setting off any pesky alarms.”

Hayden didn’t reply, but kept up a steady stream of anxious mutters.

The campus was otherwise quiet. Classes resumed tomorrow, which meant students were either tucking in early or spending their last night of freedom carousing in Praxis. Not that it could be called exactly early anymore, Reece thought as he flipped open his pocket watch and counted the numerals on its pearly face. It was almost fog hour, so the lampposts and their orange halos of light were muted and misty. The perfect night for a caper.