“I’d suspect myself before either of them, my lady.”
“Charitable of you,” she murmured.“And short-sighted.Considering that you’ve been cleared and your Younger called what was no doubt the last dropline he had a number for.”
“Which I’m told was more than a decade old.My lady.”It couldn’t irk him that she would presume to judge either IgnatiusorJake.He’d done so himself, and arrived at a few unpalatable conclusions.“And our Father was in touch with Control, or something acting like Control, for a long while.”
Still, Erik was a stupid Elder, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, the dim bulb on the marquee sign.Jake would have a few other terms to add, too, and he’d be at Erik’s shoulder, solidly behind his big brother.
Or would he?
“That’s true, I suppose.But not a single potential in Islington, all that while?”Her head turned slightly; she met his gaze, and he read exactly the thought he’d arrived at his first night here, lying semiconscious in the dormitory and waiting for the echoes of Daniel’s riffling his brain like a card index to stop ricocheting.
“Not one my Younger and I found, my lady.”In other words, there was nothing else for him to say.The implications were plain as paint; it didn’t help that Ignatius was probably dead under a tide of goatmen, unable to answer questions.Thisliraiwas checking all local control liaisons in the Truth Chamber, but it was slow work along with examining trainees and candidates.Daniel was occupied with sweeps, and Liv soon would be too.
Sara nodded before fluttering from the sitting room, no doubt eager for the comfort of her ownliraim.How long would it be before Liv felt the same way?Before she understood, more than intellectually, the meaning ofrefuge?
Dakshi let out a long low sibilant sound, not quite a whistle.He was looking at Robert, who shrugged slightly as the door closed.Both would have to visit their cells along the hallway for fresh clothes.And maybe to rinse themselves; cleansing sorcery got the grime off, sure, but sometimes a man liked scrubbing.
Especially as an antidote to thinking.
“What do you make of that?”Dakshi persisted, since Robert was Father-silent, clearly considering verbal analysis superfluous.
“I think she can guess who the traitor in my temple was.Ifthat’s where the treachery lies and it’s not with a control liaison burrowed in somewhere like a tick, possibly doing a decade’s worth of damage.”Erik stared at the bedroom door, its semipermanent, invisible baffle folded aside and theliraibehind it deep in the grasp of chemical sleep.“And she agrees with you and Father, so don’t repeat yourself.I don’t want to hear it.”
“Yessir,” Dakshi mumbled, and a knock on the sitting-room door was a replacement trio, stepping in so the primaries could all change and clean up.
Erik, however, strode for the bedroom.Dakshi, thankfully, said nothing.Robert merely shook his head and shooed the younger man out.Maybe both of them were assuming—or hoping—that he intended to seal her while she was out cold.
It was enough to make a man want to smash a few windows.But Erik had some hard thinking to do, and he’d never have a better time.
Besides, it wouldn’t take very long for the treachery to be revealed in all its fetid glory.Especially now that Daniel, in all the infinite wisdom of alirai, had waved Liv before the Mad God like a sequined cape in front of a very angry bull.
* * *
She slept through dawn, past noon, and into the short dusk of yet another winter night.The sky dropped, turned depthless, and flakes began to whirl down as the sun, an eternal busybody, went westward to pursue other business.Erik stayed at her bedside, counting her breaths and thinking things through.
By the time she stirred, restless and with an edge of metallic burning to her scent as her body metabolized the last of whatever Sara had administered, he was nowhere nearer a viable plan.
But he still knew what was going to happen.
A True Lirai
Her mouth wasfull of cotton.So was her head.At least the hideous laughter was gone, and so was the cold, and everything except the need to pee—of course—and a deep emptiness in her midsection.
It had been a while since she’d actually felt hungry.
Liv pushed herself up, braced on her elbows.There was a dark shadow near the window, and she might have been frightened—at the very least, unnerved—if she didn’t immediately know what it was.
Or, more precisely,who.Theoneirosgleamed; Liv managed to prop herself semi-upright, her head a bowling ball balanced on a dried cornstalk, and rubbed at her eyes as soon as her hands were free.“Ugh.”Her voice had been dragged through a gravel pit, the rest of her felt the same.“Do you usually get a hangover after a night like that?”
“It was your first.”Erik, his arms folded, barely moved, just turned his head slightly to show he was listening.“Mostliraiscream and throw up after theirs.You got the full package.”
“Is that what it’s called?”She tested her arms, her legs.Everything seemed in working order, and she supposed her bladder was working too because it hadn’t opened the floodgates, so to speak.“God.I never felt this bad even in college, and that’s saying something.”
“Sara came.She had to give you a sedative.”Erik’s tone was dead level.“They were waiting for us to bring you out, you know.”
Was that what happened?She didn’t want to ask.Liv slid her feet free of blankets, dangled them off the bed.Next came standing up.She’d been doing it since she was a toddler; it should be no damn problem at all.“Lucky me.”
He let her stagger to the bathroom under her own power, thank God.She even took the time to brush her teeth, since her mouth tasted like something dead in a swamp.Several liquid ounces lighter and much more clear-headed, she swept open the door to the bedroom again and almost couldn’t see him in the deep shadows, despite the necklace’s soft glow.
