“I mean no more trying to disrupt one another’s efforts,” I say. “I mean no more random arrests, or attacks from the shadows. No more fruit thrown at us.”
Alaric smirks at that, but nods.
“You both have plenty of followers. Between the two of you, you probably control more of the city than anyone else. So use that, together, to stop Selene.”
They both nod, and if they still look wary, well, that’s better than open conflict at least. For now, I’m the glue holding them together. I just hope it will be enough to save the city.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I worry as I return to the palace about whether I’ll be able to balance Marcus and Alaric. The two don’t like one another, and it’s obvious now they’re both jealous of one another when it comes to me. Those are both factors that could potentially explode if I don’t handle them carefully.
Marcus isn’t with me as I head back. He heads off into the city, presumably to contact his people and start to get them to work more closely with the resistance. I hope Alaric will stophispeople from targeting Marcus’ dealings in turn. This alliance between the two feels like a soap bubble floating on the breeze, far too easy to burst when Alaric hates the games and Marcus is still the one behind underground matches in the city.
I need to keep them focused, need to make sure they remember Selene is the bigger threat. And maybe, once we stop her, they’ll have spent so much time working together that I’ll be able to broker a more permanent peace between them.
How, though, when they both wantmeas much as power within the city? I could feel how much each of them cares about me, and choosing one over the other is likely to create more tension. Alaric clearly hates my engagement to Marcus, even if he now knows it’s a convenient fallacy to rally support. Marcus clearly hates that a part of my heart is still Alaric’s. What am I meant to do when this is over? Keep them both as lovers? Somehow, I doubt they’d stand for it, or that it would make any of this simpler.
Still, it’s a distracting thought as I make my way back to the palace and my rooms. I’m surprised to find a servant waiting for me when I get there, looking as though he’s been waiting for a while.
“Senator, you have a visitor,” the servant says.
I look around my quarters. “They didn’t want to wait here?”
“She said she would meet you in one of the receiving rooms. I can show you to her, if you’d like.”
“She?” I say, with a slight frown.
“Selene Ravenscroft,” the servant replies.
Shock runs through me, both at the thought that Selene might want to speak with me, and that she might have come here to do it. She has the freedom to move through the city now, but to come to me here in the palace is a bold move. It suggests she feels her position is too strong for me to do anything about her, even here. That boldness catches me off guard, but not as much as the thought that she would want to speak to me. When I tried to attend one of her gatherings, she addressed me only to mock me and force me to leave.
Should I turn her away in the same way? No, that’s a petty thought, an attempt to demonstrate power over her when the truth is that I’m intrigued now. I follow the servant through the palace, and he leads me to a grand receiving room with guards on the doors. It takes me a second to realize that they’re guards from Ironhold, rather than palace guards. They’re the ones who have supposedly escorted Selene as she’s come down into the city, although they look more like they’re there to protect her from any intrusion now.
They open the doors to the receiving room as I approach, revealing Selene sitting within, reading what appears to be a collection of the statutes of the new Republic. She’s dressed in the same elegant white and gold dress she was wearing at her gathering. She looks up at me and smiles as I approach her couch.
“Ah, Lyra, there you are. Were you busy training with the beast whisperers?”
It shouldn’t come as a shock that she knows about my training, or about my movements, but it is. It’s a reminder thatshe isn’t just dangerous because of her powers. She has support throughout the city, and people who are clearly feeding her information.
“Does that worry you?” I counter. “You’ve been killing enough of them. Is it so I can’t learn from them?”
Selene’s smile broadens. “You understand I’m not going to admit to something like that. Although I suppose I could. I have so many friends on the senate now that I’m sure they would protect me even if Iwereto kill your kind here.”
“Because you’re using psychomancy to control people,” I snap.
Selene doesn’t reply at first, but carefully replaces the book of statutes she’s been reading.
“This place used to be one of my offices,” Selene says, with a gesture to the room around her. “When Tiberius wanted me close by to deal with legal matters, I would meet with people here.”
“It isn’t your office now,” I point out. “You aren’t the arch magistrate anymore.”
“Oh, I think I can achieve rather better than that. And you could help me, Lyra. You could be by my side, and serve me.”
I feel the push of magic and quickly put in place the shields Elanar has been teaching me to use.
“You’re trying to control me the way you control the others?” I say, trying to hold my anger in check.
Selene shakes her head. “I mostly just wanted to see how strong you’d become. Strong enough that you have shields against psychomancy. It seems we’ve both learned a great deal.”
