Unraveled (24 page)

“That’s a shame,” Loricel says. “You must learn to open your heart again, Adelice.”

I think of Erik and Jost. I think of the little girl who might be dependent on me
one day, and of my own sister. “I do trust people,” I say.

“I made you believe once that love is a liability.” Her eyes flicker to Albert.

“It is,” I say softly. I feel like half of myself is outside this room, going off
on a dangerous mission I can’t control. I don’t allow myself to think about it for
long because the tears creep up my throat, shredding my will to do this. But even
as the fear grows in me, there is certainty. This is the right thing to do. Erik and
I both know that. We wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if we didn’t try.

“Perhaps,” she says, “but love also gives us the strength that we never knew we had.”

“I’m glad you’ll be together,” I tell her, looking over at Albert. “I wish you had
longer.”

“Who can count the minutes she spends with the person she loves and not feel lucky?”
she asks.

It’s easier to say that, knowing she’ll be with her love at the very end. Erik and
I … I don’t want to think about. “I want one more minute.”

“You have it,” she says firmly.

“How can you know that?” I ask.

“I know,” she says. “Look closely.”

Before I can ask her what this means, Albert’s hand settles on my shoulder. “A final
word?”

I nod, eyes stinging from the goodbyes. He leads me to a quiet corner and waits for
me to speak. “I still have questions.”

“And we have run out of time for answers. That is a sad fact about life, Miss Lewys.
If you’ll pardon the double entendre, not everything can be tied up in a neat bow.”
His soft eyes sink under the weight of his years.

“Why does everyone believe I’m the Whorl?” I ask. “Because I can weave
and
alter?”

“It’s not your skills that make you special, it’s that you chose to fight. The Kairos
Agenda called you the Whorl because they needed someone to believe in. All rebellions
have men of words, few have men of action,” he says as his lips curve into a small
smile.

“But they believe I was destined for this.”

“You know better,” he says. “We make our own destinies. Never forget that.” My mouth
opens, but the questions die on my lips, because I’m pulled away from him and into
the chair we’re using for the rebound.

This is unlike the other rebounds I’ve experienced. This time the bottom drops out
from under me and the room shifts so quickly that my stomach flips, as though I’m
falling. My hands fly to my sides as if my body is out of balance. They meet only
with air. The world around me is a riot of color and sound. A clash of metallic strings
shrieks through the space about me as though time is moving too quickly, throwing
reality out of joint.

And then I find myself in the vermilion corridor of the high tower where I once lived.
I race forward and knock on a door. No one answers and I rush to the stairs. I don’t
have time to wait for the ancient brass elevator.

I burst through the exit on the next floor and into the lounge of the high tower.
I skid on its marble floors, nearly tripping over a leather wingback. At the same
moment, the elevator doors
ding
and slide open to reveal Pryana. Her eyes widen at the sight of me.

“Adelice?”

“Where’s Amie?” I pant the question.

“In her room. It’s in the lower tower,” she says. “I can take you there.”

“There’s no time!” I cry. “You have to initiate evacuation procedures. Contact the
Agenda. Everyone needs to get out of Arras now!”

“What?” Pryana asks.

“You have to get the citizens out and to the surface,” I say, “or everyone will die.
Please. You have to get Amie out.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “I don’t understand. I haven’t received any intelligence
that Cormac is taking action.”

This stops me cold. If the information had filtered to Alix, how hadn’t it reached
other members of the Agenda?

“Adelice, who told you—” She cuts off as a figure sweeps into the room.

The woman’s eyes widen even as her mouth curls to reveal a toothy smile. Another Spinster
might be surprised to see me, but Maela only looks delighted.

“As I suspected.” She speaks in a low hiss, her words full of the venom she’s stored
up toward us.

I step forward, my fingers tingling at my side, as I plan my next move. All of Maela’s
weaknesses are psychological. I don’t have to raise a hand to her when I can destroy
her with a word. But before I can find the correct one, my body trembles and my stomach
drops. Loricel is moving me again.

I lunge forward, hoping to grab Maela and drag her along on the rebound. She can’t
prevent Pryana from warning the Coventry. I won’t let her. Pryana steps in front of
me, her fingers squeezed into tight balls.

“Let me—” I start.

“I’ll finish her,” Pryana promises me as Maela’s head falls back in laughter. The
sound races through my body and I try to push past Pryana as the world sparks and
cracks around me. I’m moving again, and my last glimpse of the Western Coventry is
Pryana charging toward Maela. If she wins, there’s hope for the Coventry, but if not,
there’s no promise of help for my sister.

This time I land in a crumple next to Dante.

“That’s why we sit down,” Dante grumbles, getting to his feet and brushing off his
pants.

“Are we in?” I ask him. I spring to my feet.

“I think so,” he says, pivoting to check out our surroundings.

“Wait,” I say, “this is it. I was here a few weeks ago. But where are the others?”

“I’m sure Loricel can only move so many of us at once,” he says, but his eyes dart
around as we wait for Jax and Falon to join us.

After a moment, a figure rips into the room, crashing onto the floor. Jax rolls over
with a groan. “That was not pleasant.”

We wait a few more minutes before I start to realize no one else is coming. “Dante,”
I say softly, “Falon will chew you out if she shows up and we’re waiting around.”

Jax takes my lead. “Yeah, man. We can’t wait.”

“You’re right,” Dante says, but his eyes never meet mine. He keeps searching the air,
waiting for her to appear.

Jax distributes a number of devices that look like digifiles to me, but they’re smaller.

“What are these?” I ask him.

“PTDs. Portable telecommunications devices,” he says.

“Like a walking companel?” I ask.

“It’s more like a complant, but I don’t have to embed this one in your brain. They’re
given to lower-level officers in the Guild. We’ll be able to communicate with one
another through them,” he explains. “But if you get caught, smash it.”

“Smash it?”

“Heel of boot and floor,” he says. “Otherwise it will lead security straight to the
other two … three of us.”

If Falon joins us. There’s still no sign of her.

“What first?” I ask.

“I need to get to the mainframe and dive in while you get Cormac to say that pass
code.”

“How will we know when you’ve initiated the protocol?” Dante asks.

“You’ll know,” he says. “This whole building is wired to alert everyone of the impending
protocol.”

“Are you telling me an alarm will go off?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says with a sheepish grin.

“There goes our low profile,” I say with a grimace. Now that we’re here, my bravado
is evaporating quickly. I might have been able to guess Cormac’s code or find it somewhere
in his office. I already knew all his favorite things—cigar boxes and decanters. If
it was hidden somewhere, I could find it. But talking it out of him was another story,
especially if I would have to wait for an alarm to signal me that it was time for
him to say it.

“Nothing about this mission was going to stay secret for long,” Dante reminds me.
We race through the halls, following the blueprints Jax has uploaded to his digifile.

“I’m down here,” Jax says, motioning to a door on his right.

“Good luck,” I say, and without thinking I lunge forward and hug him.

“No time for that,” Dante says, but the two shake hands with a meaningful nod to each
other.

“Cormac’s office is on the third floor,” Jax says.

“I know.” Despite my claim that I can get Cormac to talk, as we maneuver the halls
of the Ministry dread builds in me, overflowing into a frantic energy that spills
through my body. It’s quiet here, so quiet our footsteps echo off the white tiled
floors. Every door we pass is shut, and we haven’t encountered a soul yet.

“You okay?” Dante asks.

I nod, but I can’t hide the tremors rolling through my body. Everything depends on
getting Cormac to do one thing for me. And Cormac has never done anything for me before.
I don’t know why I expect he will now. As we round the corridor that leads directly
to Cormac’s office, a pair of thick hands grab me from behind.

“Look what I found,” a gruff voice teases in my ear. Hannox. Of course. I kick back
against my captor, but between being out of breath from running and a little wobbly
from the rebound, my feet meet with air. And the man laughs.

“Cormac is expecting you,” Hannox says. He pushes me forward and I stumble up on my
feet.

“I wouldn’t drop by unannounced,” I say, trying to keep the situation light even though
my pulse is racing. I glance around, finally catching sight of Dante. He’s been pinned
by another security guard, who’s holding a gun to Dante’s head.

“Yet you’re using a veil,” Hannox says.

I bite my lip and stare him down. I have no idea how he can guess that.

“We found your friend. She put up quite a fight,” Hannox says. “It shouldn’t be long
until they’ve locked in on all the veiled sequences in the pattern.”

“What did you do to her?” Dante demands. Another guard is holding him steady, his
arms locked behind his back.

“What we do to traitors,” Hannox spits back at him. He gets up next to Dante’s face.
“We ripped that little girl. And now we’ll rip her, too.” He jerks a thumb at me.

Dante’s jaw tenses, but before I can say anything to distract him, he smashes his
forehead into Hannox’s nose, sending a fountain of blood spurting into the air and
the guard fumbling to control his gun.

“You bastard,” Hannox says, grabbing his nose. His hand flies up.

“Stop!” Cormac commands. “This is no way to treat our guests.”

“He broke my bloody nose,” Hannox shrieks.

“Thanks for the status update,” Cormac says. “Bring them into my office.”

Hannox grabs me roughly and drags me toward the open door at the end of the hall.
I consider the injuries I could inflict on him and for a moment my fingers itch and
tingle, urging me to attack. But if I unwind Cormac’s right-hand man, I’ll never get
Cormac to give me the pass code.

So I let them lead me down the narrow corridor and into the den of my enemy.

TWENTY-FIVE

“
I
’M SURPRISED TO SEE YOU CAN CONTROL
yourself,” Cormac says to me when Hannox shoves me into his office. Hannox and his
men force us into chairs and tie our hands behind our backs. I don’t even struggle.
All I need is for Cormac to talk, and maybe he will if he thinks I’m incapacitated.
Cormac shares a few quiet words with his right-hand man as one of the officers finishes
tying us to our chairs. Hannox casts one long look at me before he orders his men
to follow him out of the room.

We have Cormac alone. This should feel like a victory.

“I didn’t try to escape this time,” I remind him now that Hannox is gone. “I was taken.”

“And yet I notice you aren’t wearing my ring,” he snarls. “And there is a glow about
you. Spending time with young Erik? Or is it Jost? I can’t keep up with you.”

“We took Adelice,” Dante says. “She convinced us to bring her back.”

“Sell your lies elsewhere,” Cormac says, tugging at his bow tie. “I was heartbroken
to learn young Alixandra is a traitor. I can’t wait to get my hands on her—now that
I’m through with her.”

Through with her?
I glance at Dante to see if he caught it, but his eyes are distant. Plotting.

“You came in veiled after rebounding into every remaining sector in Arras,” Cormac
continues. “You have someone very talented working with your group.”

I keep my face stony. I’m not sure what harm it would do to admit Cormac is right,
but I also know he hoards information, keeping it to twist for his own purposes later.

“Tell Loricel I said hello,” Cormac says. “Unless…” He leaves the unspoken words in
the air, niggling at me like an itch.

“Unless?” I can’t help prompting him.

“Unless you came from the Eastern Sector.”

“And if we did?” Dante asks.

“Then I’ll be offering condolences soon.”

I bite back a cocky smile. Cormac doesn’t know that we know about his plan. He doesn’t
know that there was time to evacuate.

“Don’t hide your smile, Adelice. I’ve always loved that
smug
grin,” Cormac says. He strides over to his desk and pours himself a drink. “I especially
love the moments when I get to wipe it off your
smug
face.”

“Not this time, Cormac,” I say.

“Do you think I didn’t know Alixandra was going to betray me?” he asks.

He succeeds at wiping the amusement from me.

“You didn’t set the Eastern Sector to self-destruct,” I say in a flat voice.

“Of course not,” Cormac says, “but by now your people will have herded themselves
into a nice flock of sheep ready for the slaughter.”

Erik. Jost. Sebrina. The list of people currently evacuating flashes through my mind.
“Don’t. I will do anything you want.”

“But you’ve already done everything I wanted,” Cormac says. “You rid me of a troublesome
sector, put the rest of Arras into a panic, and managed to hand deliver the leaders
of the Kairos Agenda. Do you think citizens will listen to strangers screaming that
the sky is falling? Arras will look to me now and I am more prepared than anyone expected
for the tragic events of today.”