The Others 03 Vision in Silver (42 page)

“I have a theory, but no proof.”

Montgomery shook his head slowly. “Someone must have thought Elayne knew more than she did. Or thought she had actual proof. I could see her making such a claim in a moment of anger, and then realizing afterward that she had put herself and Lizzy in real danger.”

“I agree with your assessment, Agent O’Sullivan,” Stavros said. “This writing would have no value in a human court of law.”

“But this isn’t about human law,” Simon said quietly. He had let the humans
talk about things that no longer mattered because they thought those things were still important. Now it was time to deliver the message.

“We wondered why the human pack was so concerned about having enough food this year when nothing on
terra indigene
or Intuit farms indicated a reason for such concern. So we asked, and the question traveled throughout Thaisia. We have the answer.
All
the
terra indigene
have the answer. This?” He gestured to the folders and diary. “This is for you. These words, written by a human, confirm the betrayal of humans by humans.” He leaned forward. “You may not know the name of the farming association that sold food to Cel-Romano and then lied about why there wouldn’t be enough to feed the humans in Thaisia. But we know. You may not know the owners of the railroad line that shipped the food to the port at Toland, but we know. We know the names of the ships that traveled on the Great Lakes with cargo that shouldn’t have left Thaisia if there was truly a shortage of materials. We know humans betrayed their own kind and tried to blame us. All the
terra indigene
know these things.”

O’Sullivan quietly cleared his throat. “Governor Hannigan should know about this.”

“He will. All of Thaisia will know by tomorrow. That’s why you and Stavros should leave tonight.” Simon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d never had to deliver a sanction of this magnitude. “The
terra indigene
who live in the Courtyards make decisions about the cities we watch. But we don’t make decisions about the rest of Thaisia. The earth natives who live in and guard the wild country make those decisions. Because the humans’ act of betraying their own kind has turned into a threat to us, those earth natives have declared a breach of trust.”

Burke paled but said nothing.

“This is the most serious offense humans can make against the
terra indigene
. Any, and every, agreement made with the humans living in Thaisia can be rescinded because of a breach of trust.”

“Mr. Wolfgard,” Montgomery began.

Simon shook his head. “It’s already done, Lieutenant. The breach of trust was declared before the news reached this far east. I am just the messenger.”

“What is going to happen now?” Burke asked.

“Human-owned ships traveling on the Great Lakes cannot carry any cargo that humans said was in short supply. The Five Sisters will retaliate against any ship that tries to defy that decree.”

“Five Sisters?”

“Superior, Tala, Honon, Etu, and Tahki.”

Burke frowned. “Those are the names of the Great Lakes.”

Simon nodded.

“Are you saying the
lakes
are Elementals?”

“No, but an Elemental controls each lake, and she takes its name as her own.”

“They’ll sink the ships?”

“Yes. However, ships from human settlements that belong to the
terra indigene
or
terra indigene
ships
can
travel on the Great Lakes and sell food to other parts of Thaisia. But no food grown in Thaisia will leave Thaisia until there is no longer a shortage.”

Burke, O’Sullivan, and Montgomery looked stunned.

“There are other human places besides Cel-Romano that buy food from Thaisia,” Burke said. “Will those agreements be honored?”

“I don’t know,” Simon replied. “It will depend on what the
terra indigene
say about the place. By tomorrow, all the governors will know why there was a breach of trust and the consequences of human actions. By tomorrow, the right-of-way through the wild country will be restricted, and
no one
who belongs to the Humans First and Last movement will be allowed to leave the land that is still leased to humans. In other words, they can continue to live in the cities where they are currently located, but they can’t leave. Not by car, train, or ship. The moment they step outside the boundaries of a city, they will be hunted down.”

Montgomery stirred. “How can they tell if a person belongs to the HFL movement? And if someone from the HFL
does
try to board a bus or train, how many other people might be hurt?”

“Possibly many. Possibly all. If a human is suspected of being an enemy and is outside the boundaries of a human-controlled city or town, that human will die.” Before Montgomery could protest, Simon told him the one thing that wouldn’t be told to any other humans outside of that room. “Lieutenant, the
terra indigene
in the wild country are very angry. You’re no longer just a troublesome species; now you’ve shown you’re a real threat to earth natives and to the world.”

“Keeping humans penned in cities isn’t the solution,” Montgomery said.

“No,” Simon snapped. “Extinction is the solution.”

Stunned silence.

He took a moment to regain control. “Do you know why those earth natives are waiting to make that decision, Lieutenant? Because we changed things. Because Officer MacDonald died trying to save a Crow. Because you have helped us. Because this Courtyard, unlike any other, has a human pack. Because Steve Ferryman and the residents of Great Island want more of a partnership with the
terra indigene
.” He looked at Burke. “This Courtyard. Your police officers. The humans in Ferryman’s Landing. We are all that’s preventing the extinction of humans in Thaisia. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Burke said. “I understand.”

“There has to be something the rest of us can do.” O’Sullivan’s voice shook. “Governor Hannigan is willing to work with the
terra indigene
to build a prosperous life for everyone.”

“I think we should create some kind of identification for humans like Agent O’Sullivan who need to travel in order to help maintain the peace,” Stavros said. “I will devise something.”

“Identification can be forged,” Vlad said.

“The ITF only has six agents at the moment,” O’Sullivan said. “If you know who we are, then you’ll know if anyone else is trying to travel using forged documents.”

“Then it can be done.”

“We have much to think about and things to discuss with our own people,” Burke said. “Unless there is something else you need to convey, I think we should leave now.” He stood but made no other move. “Thank you for your honesty.”

Simon also stood. “From now on, human survival in Thaisia is going to depend on honesty.”

Burke left the room, followed by O’Sullivan and Montgomery. Before Montgomery left the room, Stavros said, “Lieutenant? Your Lizzy will be safe now.”

Montgomery didn’t respond. Simon wasn’t sure he even heard—or understood what it meant that Stavros had said those words.

Moonsday, Maius 28

“S
weetwater,” the girl said as soon as Jackson entered the room with her next meal.

He set the plate and the glass of milk on the desk before turning to give her his attention. “What about it?”

She could barely sit still with wanting to know, but now that he was here, did she dare ask? “You’ve seen it.”

“Yes. It’s outside.”

“I know it’s outside.
Everything
is outside. But you’ve seen this place. You took pictures of it.” Something about the place pulled at her, settled her, lifted her. She wanted,
needed
, confirmation that this wasn’t a made-up place, that the photographs weren’t some kind of trick, because she could live in that place. Truly live beyond the four walls of a room. He said she could ask for anything she wanted, but she wasn’t sure she could ask for that much.

She felt her courage wilting under his stare.

He moved until he stood by the bed and could see the photos that she’d put in order so that the land flowed properly. Then he crouched so she didn’t have to look up at him.

“Sweet blood,” he said gently. “We live in the
terra indigene
settlement at Sweetwater. This”—he touched one photograph, then raised his other hand and pointed at her covered window—“is outside.”

She trembled.

“Do you want to see it?” Jackson asked.

She nodded.

He stood, walked to the door, and opened it. “Come on.”

She hesitated in the bedroom doorway, then rushed to follow him, barely noticing the big room that might have been the main living area if it had had any furniture.

Another door. Sunlight beyond an open, roofed area. Porch. Steps. And then . . .

She stood in one of the photographs. Grass and trees and the mountains rising as a natural barrier. The glint of sunlight on water. She wanted to touch it all, smell it all.

“That’s far enough,” Jackson said.

She turned to look at him, feeling crushed. Then she noticed the distance between them. Not that far, not really, but he still stood on the bottom step and she didn’t remember moving away from him. “But . . .” A weak protest.

“A pup doesn’t stray far from the den on her first outing. There’s a lot to learn, so she explores a little more each day.” When she didn’t move, he added, “Come back now.”

She obeyed because she didn’t know what else to do.

“Sit there.” He pointed to the top step.

She sat—and Jackson sat beside her.

He allowed her to sit on the step in the sunlight for a little while. He didn’t say much. He couldn’t tell her the names of the different trees. Wolves didn’t care about such things, but the Intuit village down the road had a bookstore and might have books that named such things if she wanted to learn about them.

She wanted to learn.

When he’d decided she’d had enough sun for her first day out of the den, he didn’t make her go back to her room. She sat on the porch, and he brought her the meal she’d forgotten about. She watched how the little bit of the world that she could see stayed the same and yet kept changing, just as she had to change position on the porch to remain in the shade.

Jackson stayed with her the whole time, fending off the young Wolves who wanted to give her a thorough sniff and might accidentally scrape her skin with a nail as they jostled one another.

Finally tired of looking, seeing,
feeling
, she agreed to go back to her room—
especially when she saw Jackson remove the white paper that had kept her from seeing out the window.

“You can see more tomorrow,” he said when she hesitated in the bedroom doorway.

“Hope,” she said, hearing a truth in the word.

He cocked his head. “What?”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “My name is Hope.”

Elayne Borden’s Diary

“What’s a man like him doing with someone like her?”

“I don’t know what he sees in her.”

Sometimes I hear those words as Nicholas and I walk past the audience who have come to hear him speak, me on his arm, trying not to show too much how thrilled I am to be the one he’s chosen.

I felt so ashamed after Monty left. To everyone who mattered, I was the lover of the cop who had killed a human in order to save a Wolf. How could I live with that? And Lizzy, with the other children slapping her and calling her hurtful names for something that wasn’t her fault.

Then Nicholas came into my life—a man from a wealthy, distinguished family in Cel-Romano. He dazzled me just by wanting me. He said he knew from the moment he met me that I was different from any other woman he’d ever met, and that coming to Toland and meeting me was fate.

I was with him when he made his speeches promoting the Humans First and Last movement. I was with him when he attended banquets hosted by the crème of Toland’s society. He took me to parties that even Mother couldn’t wangle an invitation to attend—which impressed her greatly.

Mother no longer snubs me in public, no longer gives the impression when I visit her that I am as much of an embarrassment as something smelly that’s smeared on the bottom of her shoe. Now that Nicholas is living with me, she’s even encouraged my brother, Leo, to watch Lizzy on the evenings when Nicholas and I have an event.

I am vindicated. I have shed the disgrace of my middle-class police officer lover, shed the doubts that I would be welcomed again in the level of society my family enjoys. Being Nicholas’s lover puts me several rungs up the social ladder, and now it is Mother who has to ride my coattails to attend the poshest parties.

Nicholas talks about taking me and Lizzy to Cel-Romano to
stay at his family’s estate. He wants them to meet me, wants them to get to know me. And Lizzy too. He always includes Lizzy in our plans.

He is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

He came back from a meeting reeking of that skanky slut who had been hanging on him after his last speaking engagement. And what did he say when I accused him of sleeping with her? “Don’t be so provincial, Elayne. A man of my background is entitled to diversions outside the comforts of home.”

Is that what I am? A comfort? Someone to screw if a diversion isn’t available?

Did he give her that ugly ring made of white gold and diamonds that she was flashing around? Is that why she was giving me sly looks, because Nicholas hadn’t given me anything with sparkle? Gods, he doesn’t even offer to help pay for the food he eats—and the man has expensive tastes. Nothing but the best for Nicholas.

But Mother smiles at me. She smiles and smiles, so pleased to see me with a man like Nicholas Scratch. But her eyes don’t smile. They never have; not like they smile when she looks at Leo.

She doesn’t like me. She tries to hide it, and for so many years, I believed the reason she didn’t like me was because there was something lacking in me. I thought if I could just be what she wanted, do what she wanted, she would approve of me the same way she approves of Leo. But she won’t because she doesn’t like me, and she doesn’t love me. I’m not sure she ever did.

Sometimes I think her chest is made of ice, and she has to stay emotionally cold in order to hide the smell of a rotting heart.

“What’s a man like him doing with someone like her?”

“I don’t know what he sees in her.”

When did I begin to ask myself those same questions?

I heard Nicholas talking on the phone. I didn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but what he said was enough.

Thaisia will experience food shortages—grains, flour, I don’t what else. Why? Because a farming association is selling their harvest to Nicholas, who is shipping it to Cel-Romano, because food equals victory, whatever that means. But here, some families won’t be able to afford a loaf of bread, assuming there is any to buy.

How can there not be something as basic as bread?

Humans first and last. I think I’ve figured out which humans will come first.

I always wanted my mother’s love and approval. I never got either one, but she made sure she kept me under her thumb enough that I kept trying to get them. The only time I acted for myself, the only choice she hadn’t managed to control, was when I fell in love with Monty and we moved in together. My mother didn’t speak to me for several months as a punishment. Those were the happiest months of my life.

Gods! I found a bag of jewels inside Boo Bear. Lizzy had mentioned playing hospital and Boo Bear needing an operation, but Leo had shrugged it off, and I’d had too much to drink after a quarrel with Nicholas—who had sent me home early because, he said, I was causing a scene. But the way that skanky bitch was looking at me as he escorted me out, I knew he was planning to sleep with her tonight.

Then there’s Lizzy using up all the adhesive bandages on that damn bear . . .

Jewels. I wanted to believe they were glass, something Lizzy had picked up somewhere. I wanted to believe she’d hidden them inside Boo Bear after Leo told her a story about how he used to hide things in his toys when we were kids so that Mother wouldn’t find what he wanted to keep secret.

But that ugly white gold and diamond ring is in the bag.

And I remembered that Leo would hide things in my toys,
especially things that would get him into real trouble if anyone knew he had them.

Has he done the same thing to Lizzy?

Leo and Nicholas. Are they stealing during the benefits people were holding for the HFL movement? Are they working together, or is Nicholas unaware that Leo is using him?

Is Leo using Nicholas? Or is Nicholas using all of us?

I tossed Nicholas Scratch out on his sorry ass. I packed his bags and had them sitting outside the apartment door. He’s too aware of his reputation to indulge in a shouting match through the door. That’s probably why Leo showed up a little while later “to talk some sense into me.”

Leo was sweating, and he was trying to look around without being obvious about it.

Three guesses why he really wanted to see Lizzy.

Mother called. I shouldn’t have answered, not when I was so angry and scared. She started in on me, with her cold criticism, and I lashed out, screaming that I knew everything about the underhanded deals and I was going to tell the whole fucking world that Nicholas Scratch was a liar and a thief and I could prove it.

Then I hung up and realized what I’d done. She would tell Leo. Of course she would. And Leo would have to make the problem go away in order to stay in Nicholas’s trusted circle.

And he would need to make the problem go away in order to get his hands on Lizzy and retrieve the jewels he’s hidden in Boo Bear.

I won’t let that happen because he’ll hand her over to Mother. Let Mother raise Lizzy? Never.

Can’t trust the police. I’ve seen too many of them at Nicholas’s speeches and events. Can’t trust anyone. Except Monty. Have to get to Monty. He’ll know what to do.