Marcus sighs.“You know the truth now, and that puts both of us in danger.Selene has spies throughout the city, and if she gets close enough, she might be able to force you to reveal anything you know, using her magic.”
“You think I won’t be able to fight back?”I counter.
Marcus looks pointedly at the dampener on my wrist.“With that in place?I don’t know if you’d have the magic to do so.”
It’s a tricky problem.I’ve learned how to counter psychomancy using my abilities, drawing on animal instincts to overwhelm mind magic, but if I don’t have access to my magic, how can I hope to defend against Selene’s powers?
“Can you tamper with the dampener?”I suggest.
Marcus shakes his head.“I don’t have the skills to do it and trying to seek out someone who does would only make it clear that we’re plotting something.We can’t let Selene know anything before we’re ready to move, or she’ll find a way to neutralize me, and you… she’ll either kill you or see you thrown back into thatplace.”
Back in the prison, without anything to protect me from the worst the guards might do.I shudder at the thought.
“So, what is it you’re asking me to do?”I ask.
“I’m asking you to play a part,” Marcus says.“The servants all think you’re my reluctant prisoner, and that I’m still sufficiently infatuated with you that I won’t command you like you’re mine.They think I’m trying to show you kindness to wear you down and get you to come back to me willingly.”
“I wondered if that might be what you were doing, before,” I say.If that is Marcus’ act, he’s playing his part well.But then, he was always good at disguising what he really felt.It’s what keeps me a little worried even now.There’s a part of me that wonders if all of this isn’t some elaborate ruse to bring me back to him, but I push that thought aside.I can’t afford to give in to my doubts when the fate of the whole city is on the line.
“We can play that part with them,” Marcus says, “and mostly, you’ll be confined here, but if we go beyond the walls, you’ll have to play the part of my loyal servant.Someone who’s realized that her continued freedom only comes from obeying me.”
I swallow at that prospect, thinking of the way Selene had me kneel by Marcus’ side in the senate box.Can I really pretend to be no more than an obedient plaything, doing all Marcus commands?
“I’ll do what I need to do,” I tell him.I pause for a moment.“Which is why youalsoneed to do what’s necessary.”
“And that is?”Marcus asks, sounding confused.
“You need to contact Alaric and the resistance.”
“No,” Marcus says, shaking his head sharply.“How can you even ask me to do that?”
“I know you don’t get along with Alaric-”
“He wants me dead,” Marcus replies, before I can finish.“Since you went to the prison, his people have followed me.One tried to poison my wine, but I saw it in time.Another fired an arrow at me in the street.I barely survived.”
“But that’s exactly my point,” I insist.“They think you’re working with Selene.They’re going tocontinuebelieving that until we tell Alaric otherwise.If we’re going to beat Selene, we need everyone working together.”
“And you think I can work with the resistance?”Marcus says.
It’s a tricky prospect, when the resistance has always been dedicated to fighting corruption in the city and Marcus is at the heart of so much of it.But I believe any fight against Selene will need both Alaric and Marcus’s forces.It will need everyone we can bring together to oppose her.
“I think, if you can’t, there’s a good chance Aetheria will fall to Selene,” I say.
Marcus hesitates, but then nods.“That still leaves the problem of how we contact them.”
That’s a tricky part.If I still had my powers, I would use a bird to deliver a message.As it is, I’ll need to use other means.
“They won’t trust a message from you,” I say.“And I’m not sure if the old places to leave them have been compromised.”
“So what are you saying?”Marcus asks.
“I guess we’ll be testing how well I can act the part of your captive out in the city earlier than I thought.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
It isn’t easy, playing the part of Marcus’ prisoner.
He’s had me change for the journey out into the city, into a simpler dress more reminiscent of something one of his servants might wear, and no jewelry.I walk by Marcus’ side, half a step behind him as if taking his lead in everything.I do my best to look both sullen and obedient as we walk through Aetheria, as if Marcus has forced me to obedience only through threats.
