Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (22 page)

‘I’ll talk to him.’ She sounded as if it would kill her. I could dream.

‘Don’t let him give you a hard time.’ Seth seized her hand and kissed it brusquely.

I had no intention of leaving Rory to a tongue-lashing from his father’s live-in slapper. Ignoring Seth’s growl of warning, I ran after them, but my dignity took a bit of a knock
when I almost fell over Finn, who had come to a dead halt in the stone alley.

‘I realise you two are joined at the hip,’ murmured Finn, ‘but I want to talk to Rory.’

‘I doubt he’ll want to talk to you. He hates you.’ I liked the effect that had on her face, so I followed it up. ‘What’s it like?’

‘What’s what like?’

‘Shagging a traitor.’

I was delighted to hear Finn’s breath catch in her throat. I was not quite so delighted when her lips thinned and the hand at her side balled into a fist. I hadn’t thought much of
Finn. I certainly hadn’t been afraid of her. Not till now, not till I saw the crackling silver spark in her eye. I slewed my gaze away, but that was even worse, since my eyes lit on her
knife-belt.

‘Don’t look so nervous,’ breathed Finn. ‘You’re a child.’

‘You wish. If I was eight, you might scare me.’ I didn’t even convince myself.

‘You scare
me
, you little gossip-swamp. You’ve got one side of a story in your head. That’s dangerous.’ The way she leaned in, all conspiratorial, was alarming.
‘Eili’s had a chat?’

‘She’s told me about Seth. What kind of a man he is.’

‘You have no idea.’ Finn’s lips thinned. ‘Let me state the obvious for you. If it sounds too bad to be true,
sweetie,
then it probably ain’t true. Go
figure.’

‘Seth killed Eili’s lover.’ I was seething at Finn’s sarcastic pity, but I didn’t want to provoke her too far. I hadn’t seen her in a mood like this.

‘No. No.’ Finn rubbed her temple with her knuckles. ‘Seth didn’t kill Conal, none of us did. Clever planning killed him. And his own temper, and loving Jed and me too
much to leave us to our own stupid devices. The woman who ordered him dead, and the man who gutted him. Kate NicNiven and Nils Laszlo killed him. Nobody else.’ She grinned fiercely, and I saw
tears in her eyes. ‘What would you care?’

I licked very dry lips. ‘I…’

‘I do care, you see. I knew him, you didn’t. I loved him like a father. I loved him like a brother. I loved him like
Seth loved him.
Conal wouldn’t want your pious
indignation,’ she spat. ‘And I think he would like our Eili to get a life.’

A fist of ice closed round my heart. In that moment I hated Finn like I hated Seth.
More
. Oh, I’d like to see her gone, all right; and Eili was wrong. I’d like to see Finn
dead.

I took three steps back from her, turned on my heel, and walked away; I wasn’t going to waste any more hate on amateur bitch-fests. I was better than that.

So was Eili.

I shut my eyes. A lump of self-loathing rose in my throat. Hannah had no right to hate Seth on Conal’s behalf; that was true, but I’d gone too far and I knew it.
And Rory was still in the armoury, waiting to have a go at me, and I’d been dreading it even before that scene with Hannah.

What did I know about children? What did I know about teenagers? I didn’t even know the ones I grew up with. I
didn’t
grow up with them. I stayed on my own, antisocial. I
spent all my emotional energy mourning Conal and my grandmother, and missing Jed and Seth. I grew up with Faramach, with horses, with the constant hungry longing to be back where I belonged.

If I didn’t watch myself, I’d turn into a misanthropic grouch like Seth. Conal would turn in his… in his… No, he didn’t have a grave. His gathered bones in a
hillside hollow, that was all, and teethmarks on the bones...

I shut my eyes, still unable to face what had become of him, tradition or no tradition. I never had come to terms with the images that haunted my imagination. Maybe I should have stayed on
Brokentor with Seth all those years ago, endured the awful weeks of Conal’s death-ceremony.

Or maybe I wasn’t cut out to be Sithe at all. Perhaps my mother had succeeded in severing me from them. Trouble was, I couldn’t go back to my mother’s preferred world, even if
I wanted to. I didn’t have a choice any more. I’d made my choice, and the point where my two paths had diverged was already in the past, irretrievable. I’d chosen a Sithe life,
and maybe a Sithe death, but most importantly I’d chosen Seth. And now I was stuck with him.

I smiled.

In the armoury Rory was testing the string on a longbow, one eye shut as he drew it back taut. It was aimed right at me; I was glad it wasn’t loaded. ‘Um, Rory,’ I said.

He lowered the bow. ‘Well, if it isn’t half the new double act.’

‘That’s your father and me,’ I said. ‘Alone and Palely Loitering.’

He sighed out his contempt. ‘The unfunny half.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘You’re not.’

‘No. Course not.’ I shrugged. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I’m only sorry you’re upset.’

‘Too right. I’m not to be upset under any circumstances. I’m for keeping in the dark, so they can feed me shit.’ Grabbing a sword, he yanked it so carelessly out of its
sheath he almost cut himself.

My gut felt cold. ‘In the dark? How?’

‘Am I the only one in the dun who didn’t know?’ He turned the blade and ran his fingertip lightly over the edge. ‘Did people snigger at me, or did they shake their heads
and suck their teeth? You know, when I was little and smitten with her?’ His voice was conversational but it sent icy sensations up my spine.

‘Who – why would they do that?’

‘I always knew Eili didn’t like me much, but I was crazy about her.’ Rory had drawn a thin line of blood on his fingertip, and he sucked it thoughtfully. He looked exactly like
Seth, emotionless, as if it didn’t hurt at all. ‘I thought it was just the way she was. And now it turns out she hates me, and she hates my father enough to hurt him every night for the
whole of my life.’

It was like a hard jab in the belly. Gossip might be rife in the dun, but the business between Eili and Seth had been unspoken and unSeen for more than a decade. Whether they approved or whether
they didn’t, not one of the clann would have told Rory; I knew that as well as I knew anything about them. Who in God’s name would have been malevolent enough to tell him? For a long
moment I was breathless and speechless.

‘Rory…’

‘Do they think my father’s stupid or do they think he’s a masochist? I mean, why does he keep her with him? Just to pull the wool over my eyes?’ His eyes burned.
‘Or does he like it?’

‘Oh, you are your father’s son.’ I was suddenly angry with him and with Seth too. ‘All that passion, and you so like to pretend you’re dead inside. What is it with
you two?’

‘What makes you think it’s your business?’ Rory chewed his knuckle hard. ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re his bound lover and I have to put up with you and your stupid
questions for the rest of his life.’

I took the sword from his unresisting fingers and sheathed it. I would have liked to touch his shoulder but I didn’t dare. ‘You think I like Eili being around him? I didn’t
know about it either, Rory. If we’d known it would have made things worse.’ I rubbed my temples. ‘Look, when she’s with him, at least she’s in his Sight. Eili saved
his life, Rory. At least she didn’t leave him to die. I was there, and believe me, she wanted to.’

‘She saved his life at a price.’

‘But your father’s loyal to her because of Conal.’

‘Then he’s a fool,’ spat Rory.

I slapped him before I had time to stop myself. It was only a light stinging slap on his cheek but when he looked back at me his eyes burned bright and silver, sheened with tears.

I swallowed hard. ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare call your father a fool!’

Rory ground his knuckles into his scalp. ‘They keep me shut up in here and they can’t even tell me the truth.’

‘Yeah. They lied to me when I was your age. It’s wrong and stupid and it only leads to trouble. But keeping you in the dun, that’s to keep you safe. You know Conal died trying
to protect you. Your father nearly did too.’

‘It was my father handed me over to the other side,’ Rory said savagely. ‘He was a traitor, and don’t you dare hit me again. You think I don’t know that story? He
abandoned me before I was born and when he got me back, he gave me to Kate NicNiven.’ His voice faded as he finished his sentence, as if it was the first time he’d said it aloud and it
had done for him.

‘Your father thought he was doing the right thing. He was wrong but he didn’t mean to
d
o
wrong.’ I dug my nails into my palms. ‘And he’s paid for
it!’

‘Yes, and he won’t be finished paying till he’s dead!’ shouted Rory.

‘She could have demanded his execution after Conal died, but for your sake she didn’t–’

‘My sake? I don’t think so. She had her project. You never had to see it, did you?’ The hate in his eyes made me flinch
. ‘Want to See it, Finn?’

He flung his hand to my forehead, and I wasn’t fast enough to stop him. As he shoved his memory into my mind I felt his pain etching itself into my own face. He did it with an easy, casual
skill, the memory sharp as a honed blade.

Seth on all fours. His mouth open in a voiceless scream, his back impossibly twisted, the puncture marks glowing so red and angry they might be on fire. Propping himself up on
his hands as the pain faded, only to stare straight into his son’s eyes. His three-year-old son, wide awake and watching him.

The horror in his face, and then the rictus grin. ‘It’s a game, Rory! Ha!’

Carefully Rory studied my eyes, each in turn, visibly enjoying my reaction. ‘He moved me out of his room after that. Only misjudged it by a couple of years. I’d been watching for so
long, since I began to have a memory. And let me tell you, Finn: I
never
mistook it for a game.’

He laughed out loud. And then his rage was gone. Just like that, with nothing to replace it. He was empty of everything, and I knew it, because our link was still there, tenuous and fraying. I
snapped it.

‘You listen to me, Rory. Of course he kept it from you,’ I hissed. ‘Don’t hold it against him. Not this, and not what he did when you were a baby.
Please
, and I
don’t care if I’m begging. If he lost you it would kill him.’

‘Gods’ sake, I don’t hold it against him. He won’t lose me because, inconvenient as it is,
I love him
.’ Rory raked his fingers across his scalp. ‘But
you think I can live up to those holes in his back? You think I can pay for Conal with my freedom? I’ll go mad. I can’t be a symbol any more. I can’t be the Bloodstone, Finn.
I’m too damn tired
.’

He staggered up straight and lunged at me. Expecting violence, I flinched, but when he fell against me his head slammed into my chest. Reflexively I held him, shocked, wondering what became of a
toddler who watched his father tortured. My gorge rose, realising the echo of pain I’d felt last night was a shadow of what Eili had inflicted when her grief was fresh and young, and her
victim unhardened. I sat against the wall and Rory slid down with me.

‘I don’t want a bloody sword. I don’t want to fight him because he thinks it’ll make me feel better, and I don’t want to learn how to slice my own father’s
head off. I’m Sithe and this
isn’t how its meant to be
.’

I shuddered. ‘It’s not about taking lives. It’s about keeping your own.’

‘Comes to the same thing. I wonder what my mum would have thought? I wish I remembered her. I wish I remembered Conal.’

‘I wish you did too,’ I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. ‘Conal adored you. You were crazy about him.’

‘He wouldn’t have let Eili hurt my father. I wish he hadn’t died. I wish nobody had.’ He shook his head at the hopelessness of wishes. ‘What’s wrong with
us?’

‘It’s no better on the other side, honestly. It isn’t. People die, Laochan. Trouble is, you wish you hadn’t found out about Eili.’

‘It’s changed everyth…’ He went still in my arms. ‘Did you just find my name?’

‘What?’ I pulled my arm away, panic rising. ‘Did I? No, I don’t have the right, Rory.’

‘It isn’t a question of the right.’ He stared at me.

‘Look. Ignore it. I don’t even know what happened.’ I scrambled to my feet. ‘It’ll be okay, Rory. I’ll protect your father somehow. I don’t know how. He
won’t let me hurt her.’

Rory laughed scornfully. ‘As if.’

‘Yeah, don’t say it. He already told me she’d slice me like a ham.’

‘She would, too. She’s amazing with a sword.’ There was reluctant hero-worship in his voice.

Indignant, I folded my arms. ‘So will I be, too. One of these days.’

‘About Dad.’ He hesitated and picked at a cobweb on the wall. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’

I gave him a stupid stunned smile, not unlike the one I’d given his father when he kissed me. ‘Thanks.’

‘Um, Finn. Don’t for Christ’s sake tell my father I’m such a bleeding-heart pacifist.’

‘Um, Rory. I have a feeling he knows.’

‘Gods.’ He put his face in his hands, then sat back, blowing out a sigh. ‘And another thing. I’m not going to be this nice to you when there’s witnesses.’

‘Okay. I won’t take it personally. I was fourteen once myself, you know.’

‘So was my father, believe it or not,’ said Rory. ‘Though he may be lying. He was probably born forty.’

‘On the contrary.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘He’s never stopped being twelve.’

‘Thank
you
,’ said Seth. He was propped against the door frame, silhouetted against the white sunlight of the courtyard, and neither of us could make out the expression on
his face.

‘You’d better have only just got there,’ said Rory.

‘Of course. I’m a lot of things but not an eavesdropper.’ He came inside and winked at me, then looked at his son. His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You have your
name.’

‘Yeah.’ Rory gave him a slow grin.

I bit hard on my thumb. ‘It isn’t. Not really.’

‘Yes it is.’ Seth took Rory’s head in his hand and kissed the top of it. ‘Laochan.’