“Corith.”
My stomach did something strange, as if I were about to plunge from a great height—or was already falling. Llir hovered in the shadows above me, one velvet-clad arm braced against the curving wall.
“Yes?”
His jaw worked as though he was arguing with himself. Finally he forced out: “How do you do it? Control your emotions? Enough to make it work—properly.”
I stared at him, wide-eyed. “What? Why?”
I couldn’t quite tell if I was imagining it, but the faintest hint of rose seemed to enter his pale cheeks.
“Does it matter why? I just want to know.”
I frowned. “Haven’t you asked the others?”
“I did,” he said reluctantly. His face was guarded. “But Tigo and Mawre, they seem to be naturals. And Rhianne—she told me what they taught her, at that…school, but it’s never really worked for me. What did they teachyou?”
My gaze skittered. “They tell us lots of things. But, well, for me, nothing’s ever worked quite as well as a trick a…a friend once taught me.”
He watched me from the shadows, silent a moment. Then he said, “I saw you. Down at the cove. Practicing.”
It took me a second to process what he meant. That flutter of black; a cloak’s hem disappearing. “You saw me,” I said, frown deepening. “You followed me?”
“Looks like we have that in common.” He raised an eyebrow.
As my face warmed, he sighed and scrunched at his hair. “I won’t say anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. My silence for yours.”
After a pause, I nodded.
“So, will you share that trick with me? Here, tomorrow. Same place, same time.”
My heart thudded dully in my chest. Two days until the date I’d told Kielty to come. Two days until the Shearwaters’ lives could be upended. The nauseous dread that had been clawing at my insides returned. I found I couldn’t look Llir in the eye.
“All right. Tomorrow.” Everything had to appear normal.
“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he said.
We stood there. Something in the air felt charged.
“Goodbye, then,” Llir said, oddly formal. I nodded; I didn’t trust my voice not to waver.
I turned, practically running down the steps, not waiting to see if he was coming down after me.
29
I wokethe next morning under a shroud of foreboding.
I’d still not heard even a whisper from Kielty. I had no idea if my note had found him, if he and his group would be coming tomorrow. Maybe he’d thought it safer not to reply. Or perhaps, I brooded as I pulled on some breeches, the day itself would come and go and Rexim would decide he was better off without me.
I’d risen early again, planning to go down to the cove, thenremembered with a lurch that I’d agreed to meet Llir.
My chest felt heavy as I tugged on Rhianne’s clothes. I never normally paid much attention to my appearance, but now I found myself in front of my cracked mirror, peering blearily at my bird’s-nest hair. I dragged a brush through it, braided it, fiddled with it. I half wished I had Vercha’s powders from the ball. Then I frowned, flicked my gaze down to the washstand, knowing that how I looked hardly mattered. Tomorrow, if the Cage had heeded my message, they’d descend on the island. And what then, for me?
By now, after what I’d witnessed of the Hundred, I felt queasy at the prospect of continuing to serve them. Perhaps Kielty’s peoplecould smuggle me out. I could bargain Llir’s secret for a placement elsewhere, far enough away to be anonymous, to be out of Rexim’s reach…Surely, with all their contacts, including at Arbenhaw, the Cage could wrangle something like that.
But if it turned out Rexim couldn’t be persuaded? What would the Cage do to the Shearwaters then?
I shivered. I had to admit to myself that the prospect of Catua or Llir coming to harm, or Rhianne or Mawre or even Tigo, unsettled me. My loyalties felt muddied, my allegiances blurred.
