I grab a bottle of water, and help Theo to drink. She gives me an exhausted grin. “Do you think we did it?”
“I’d lay money that we did, but the proof will be when we can talk to him.”
“What do you think he knows?” she asks, the water seeming to energize her. “What’s so important?”
“It’s a hunch, but Professor Amos used to be at the forefront of energy transference research. Last night I learned that he did, and I quote, truly unforgivable things. It seemed like he was being blackmailed? Maybe because of his wife?”
The old man’s words echo in my head.‘Don’t let them in, boy. Don’t let them know you care for someone. Love is a weakness, makes you do terrible things.’
I refuse to believe my love for Theo is a weakness. No, it’s a strength. “How are you feeling now?”
“Hungry?” A shaft of afternoon sunlight falls through the window, highlighting the rich mahogany lights in her dark hair. The sun makes her blink, her long lashes grazing those perfect cheekbones.
Theodora Wilson will never be my weakness. I’ll never let a situation arise where that could be so. Though I’ve known her for such a small amount of time, I already love her so fully.
Does she know?
How could she not? It seeps from my every pore. I pass her a granola bar, which she wolfs down.
“He’s waking up.” I maneuver the small man onto the saggy two-seater sofa, next to Theo, then squat down in front of him.
“Alright there, Bernard?” I ask, “You had a little spill.”
“Feniks?”
“That’s right.”
“Would you like some water?” Theo asks, and he just looks at her, puzzled. I incline my head towards a rack of plastic bottles on the floor, and she grabs one, opens it, then hands it to Amos.
“Now,” I say, squatting in front of him. “Tell us about the unforgivable things that you’ve done.”
Amos swallows a mouthful of water, the bottle trembling in his hand. “I didn’t want to get involved, I wouldn’t have done it, but my wife, my dear Petra. I did it for her and for little Phillip. Thatwas our son. He was born with both a weak spark and a weak heart. I was working in the WMO research facilities at the time, working on theoretical energy transference.”
He shudders.
“The Conclave approached me. Told me their researchers had made a breakthrough, but needed my expertise to complete the work.”
Of course, the Conclave is involved.
“A new energy had been discovered, and if I could harness it, find a way to make it compatible, I could save him. Save Phillip. I had to try. It was for my boy, you see, and Petra. If Phillip died, I knew she’d follow him.”
Theo takes my hand. I see the sweet compassion in her face for Amos. I’m reserving judgment because I know this story doesn’t lead anywhere good.
“I took their deal. I got the lab, the equipment… and I got the…babies. Babies from the orphanages, abandoned no spark children that no one would miss.”
“No!” Theo gasps.
He stops, dropping his face into his hands.
"You were about to tell us what your job was,” I prompt. “Continue.”
Amos looks shattered. “It was, it was, it was…i gyeafu eu gwreionen wan, yna ceio ei gud yn naws â'r egni tywyll newydd hwdd y Conclave wedi cae ael arno o rywle.”
What?
“What’s he saying?” Theo asks as I hurriedly start taking notes on the notepad, transcribing the phonetic sounds as best I can.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, frustration gnawing at me. “The cadence is Celtic, but the dialect is completely foreign to me.”
