Authors: M.J. Scott
Shadow Kin (26 page)
Which I wasn’t about to do. Even now, when I’d chosen to come here, I was apprehensive about exactly what waited for me.
I wanted to trust Simon. The fact that he’d been honest about what he wanted from me, even if what he wanted was to use me, was both infuriating and oddly reassuring. I was still angry with him, but somehow, the presence of Simon and Guy at each side and Liam bringing up the rear, I found almost . . . comforting.
Which might just be the strangest thought I’d ever had.
Our route through the tunnels wasn’t exactly the same as the one Simon and I had taken earlier, but we still passed by the tunnel branch that smelled of iron.
As we came closer I watched both Simon and Guy closely. Neither of them so much as turned their heads in the direction of the entrance to the tunnel. But it was Simon who ignored it so studiously he might as well have held up a “Don’t look over there” sign.
I made sure I didn’t look either. Instead I sniffed softly, tasting the air, wondering what was down there. I couldn’t smell anything but iron and the same strange deadened air we were breathing. Which only spoke more strongly of there being something heavily warded at the other end.
“Do the tunnels go all the way to the Brother House?” I asked Guy. I wasn’t talking to Simon. Talking might lead to something foolish like wanting to kiss him again. Or punch him.
One of the two.
The need prowled restlessly as he walked beside me and I was trying not to pay any more attention to him than was strictly necessary.
“Yes. It’s useful for us to have a quick way to the hospital sometimes,” Guy said. He didn’t say any more, but I could only think of one reason for Templars to need access to St. Giles. To carry their wounded here for treatment. Treatment for injuries inflicted by the Night World. I hid my wince and Guy pretended not to notice. He moved as lightly as his brother, despite the half ton of chain mail he wore. I hoped I’d never have to fight him. Not in daylight anyway.
I was walking lightly myself. Nothing hurt, though I was beginning to feel as if I might fall down if I didn’t sleep soon. I had eaten and, thanks to Harriet and Simon, the wounds inflicted by the Beasts and Lucius had gone. The visible ones at least.
The other wounds were beyond help. With each step, the need clawed at me, fired by Simon’s kiss. It seemed any pleasure sparked its hunger for more. And I wasn’t so sure I could fight it into submission again. My whole body wanted. There was a constant whisper of Lucius’ name in my head. A treacherous voice telling me how easy it would be to leave in darkness. To go back. To get what I needed.
I was doing my best to shut it out, calling on years of practice. I was stronger than it. I had to be.
If I could last a few days until I could come up with a plan, then I . . . didn’t know what exactly. There was no cure for the need.
The humans wanted me to help them, to choose their side—a chance at something new—but that choice, even if I were willing to make it, didn’t offer a solution to my problem.
Don’t think about it.
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
Guy looked down at me. “The tunnels?”
“Yes. The Blood could move through them in daylight.”
“The entrances are well guarded. And the tunnels themselves are not without defenses.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t going to explain what those might be.
I didn’t blame him. Not giving away secrets is a good survival strategy. But it stymied my attempt at conversation. It wasn’t as if the tunnels had any features of interest to remark on. Just yard after yard of marble tiles and walls that were either wood-paneled or painted in a bland pale green with very little to distinguish one branch from another. Here and there wards glimmered over the walls, but it wasn’t as if wards were unexpected in such a place.
It would be very easy to get lost down here if you had a poor sense of direction. But I had no doubt I could retrace my steps if I needed to. Knowing which direction I traveled, being able to orient myself to the earth, was a gift from my Fae mother.
It had come in handy over the years.
The tunnel took another right turn and we were suddenly faced with a massive metal gate. It didn’t smell of iron. Probably bronze fortified by a metalmage, though it was painted black.
The Brother House lay behind those bleak black bars.
Ready to cage me.
The Brother House itself was much as I had expected. Sparsely decorated, its gray granite walls spoke of discipline and strength. The floors were stone too, worn smooth by the many feet that had walked the corridors over the centuries. The Templar Order was a very old one. The thought of exactly how many holy warriors had lived here—how many might live here now—gave me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The air no longer felt dead. Now it reeked of armor and leather. Of gunpowder and oil and a strange thread of woody incense. Mostly it smelled of men. Many, many men.
Which hardly helped my efforts to control the need.
As we passed by a door guarded by two knights, Guy showed Simon and me to two small chambers, side by side, in the guest quarters. Each held little more than a basic wooden bed and a small table and chair. The stone walls and floors were bare and the window coverings were thick white linen. More like a monk’s cell than a bedroom.
After explaining how to get to the bathrooms and dining hall and admonishing Simon to keep an eye on me and not let me wander around, Guy made his excuses and left us alone.
Or alone as we could be with guards posted at either end of the corridor.
“How long will we be staying?” I asked when it became clear that Simon wasn’t going to leave me to my own devices just yet. Keeping my eyes firmly away from the bed, I perched on the table, pressing my back into the stone wall beneath two slim glass windows. The sky outside was a darkening blue, though the sun still rode its depths, heating the late afternoon. It would stay there for quite some hours yet. The days were long this time of year. The light shining through the windows was sliced into patterns by the bars beyond the glass.
More bars.
I swallowed, ignoring the caged feeling tightening my neck. Then put my feet on the chair, so Simon couldn’t choose to sit there.
He merely raised an eyebrow, then leaned against the wall near the door. “Until Guy thinks it’s safe.”
“Or until his brother knights decide to chop off my head?”
“That’s not going to happen. I’ll speak to the Abbott General in the morning.” Simon seemed unworried by our change in accommodations. But his calm appearance hardly eased my fears.
“I don’t see why he would agree for me to stay here. Not when I’m not going to do what you want,” I said, not wanting Simon to see my concern. I didn’t need comfort. Particularly not the sort of comfort he was likely to offer.
“Don’t worry about that,” Simon said. “I’ll deal with it. You’re safe. They’ll be eating soon. Then there’ll be the evening services. Then they’ll be sleeping or patrolling.”
“Perfect,” I muttered. Holy warriors newly inspired by their observances. Just what I didn’t need. “In that case, maybe you’d be so kind as to leave me alone and let me sleep?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Lords of hell. More talking. I’d done more talking since meeting Simon than in the several months—if not years—prior to that. The Court not being a place full of people I wanted to talk to. Still, if he wasn’t going to leave, talking was better than silence and that hells-damned bed looming at us. “What now?”
“At the hospital you said that you didn’t know why Lucius wants you back so badly. Is that the truth?”
“Can’t Her Mighty Faeness tell you whether or not I was lying?”
“I didn’t ask Bryony. I’m asking you.”
Which didn’t answer my question, I realized. I scratched my side. I might have been healed faster than was natural, but apparently the newly healed flesh still itched like any other wound. “You should learn to use your available resources better.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I sighed. “Apart from the obvious, that I’m a useful tool to him, then no, I don’t know why he would risk breaking the treaty to get to me.” It was partly true. Blood hunger didn’t seem like a good reason to go to war to me. Not that I was going to mention the fact that Lucius had fed from me to Simon. I hadn’t completely lost my wits.
I studied him for a moment. “And anyway, what makes you so sure all of this is for me? Maybe he’s still trying to get to you.” I shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. “Why is he trying to kill you? Were you telling me the truth when you said you didn’t know?”
I watched him carefully, looking for any telltale sign he was lying.
His expression didn’t change, not even a little. “Other than the obvious, that I’m a sunmage and have a little power in the day world? No.”
If it hadn’t been for the iron in the tunnels, I might have believed him. But I didn’t, no matter how skillfully he lied. If there was a secret hidden down there, then Simon, by his own admission, one of the most powerful sunmages and one of the most powerful healers the humans had, knew about it. Something hidden so carefully had to be something that the Night World and the Fae wouldn’t necessarily like.
Something perhaps worth a broken treaty and a war.
“It seems we’re both mystified, then,” I said.
“Do you think Lucius is up to something?”
“Lucius is always up to something.”
His blue eyes darkened with annoyance. “Something big, I mean.”
“Something that could impact the treaties? Yes.” I held up a hand before he could ask. “But I don’t know what it is. I’m not privy to his political councils. And Lucius plays deep. He may be the only one who knows.”
If he was, he would wait, spring his ploy at the best—or worst—possible time. Either during the formal negotiations or in the backroom deals that went with them. The formal process dealt with grievances, proven offenses, and petitions for increased privileges. Which was why Simon wished me to testify against Lucius. But behind the scenes, the races and the factions within them made deals to vote together or to block others. And where alliances couldn’t be forged through goodwill or common interests, sometimes they were forged with good old-fashioned blackmail. With threats of making unknown misdeeds known or worse.
Not that such a tactic would work with Lucius. The Blood and the humans did not historically cooperate, and he would laugh off any attempt at blackmail and then most likely turn around and obliterate those who threatened him.
Which only made me even more certain that Simon was somehow doing just that. Proving a threat. I needed to know how. And unlike Simon, I believed in having as many resources available to me as possible, so if he wouldn’t tell me the truth, then I would seek it out myself.
I left a few hours after midnight. Simon had finally left me to sleep after we’d eaten and I’d dropped off for a few hours despite my good intentions. Then it had taken another few hours of listening to figure out the timing of the guards’ patrols down the corridor. Not because I was worried about avoiding them. That part was easy. No, I needed to know if they were going to check on me.
The door of my tiny room bolted from the inside, but it had a small flap in it at eye level that opened from the
outside
. Made me wonder exactly what the Templars used these rooms for. If they were for guesting knights, then why the spy holes? And if they were cells, then why the inner bolts?
outside
. Made me wonder exactly what the Templars used these rooms for. If they were for guesting knights, then why the spy holes? And if they were cells, then why the inner bolts?
A puzzle for another time.
The guards had made three patrols down the corridor, roughly an hour apart, but they’d made no move to open the flap. Still, I stuffed my pillow under the blanket, hoping it would look real enough in the dark of the room. With the linen curtains closed over the windows, there was little light. It wouldn’t work to fool anyone if they held a lantern up to look or something, but otherwise it should suffice.
I still wore the dark trousers and white shirt Simon had given me at the hospital. When Simon had suggested I might get cold during the night, Guy had given me a quilted linen tunic in what I was coming to think of as Templar gray. Probably what the brothers wore to practice in if the faint hints of male sweat under the laundry smells of soap and sunshine were anything to go by.
Gray and white weren’t as good for sneaking around at night as my black, but given that I intended to stay shadowed, it didn’t much matter what I wore.
I’d caught my hair in a single braid, pinned in a coil around my head. I’d undone it before sleeping, hoping it would help ease the ache in my head, but I wouldn’t go out with it loose.
I drifted through the walls, feeling relaxed for the first time in days as the world grayed around me. I found my way to the tunnels easily enough. It didn’t take long to reach the intersection with the iron stink.
I paused to listen but everything was silent. I hadn’t passed anyone at all in the tunnels, but, remembering Guy’s words about them being well defended, I’d stayed shadowed. Invisible to magic as well as any living beings.
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