He gave her the exact smile in response. A barricade. If there were dead cats and desperate, hopeless dreams in his heart, she could not see them.
“We’ll think of something,” he lied.
She nodded. “It’s fine, either way. After all, we have only known each other a week.”
“Have we?” He moved suddenly, rising to straddle her hips, setting his hands on the mattress at either side of her head. “Alice Dearlove, you have dwelt in my heart since the moment I first saw you in Clacton-on-Sea, a year ago.”
Alice gazed up at his mouth and the calm line of his cheekbone—for looking too long into his eyes overwhelmed her even more now thanit had before. He thrilled every nerve in her. He engulfed every thought.
And yet he was so familiar, she could have sworn she’d seen him every day of her life.
“I loved you even back in the Academy, years before we met,” she said, reaching up to trail fingers down his rose-and-thorn tattoo. “I was so alone as a child, so different from everyone except Student B, who had gone through ahead of me, and who had left a trail of psychological reports and broken brooms for me to follow. Each time I hid under the table because shooting practice or laundry class got too loud, the instructors reminded themselves of how they’d managed when B did that same thing. When I threw a knife into the chalkboard after Professor Hambly touched my arm without warning, it widened the crack B had made throwing a textbook—”
“Actually, a volume of Shakespeare’s complete works,” Daniel said. “I was readingCoriolanuswhen Professor Hambly walked behind me without warning. I’d just got to the line ‘action is eloquence,’ and it seemed instructive. Considering I only attacked the chalkboard, not the man, I still don’t understand why they were so furious with me.”
“Did they beat you?”
“No, they took me to the range and showed me how to get a better angle on—” He stopped, his expression tightening. “Did they beat you, Alice?”
“It does not matter,” she said. Turning her head to the window, she squinted against the light, determined to see neither the mingled look of love and lethality in Daniel’s eye nor the wan, sad ghost of a girl who had been caned repeatedly over the years until she learned to mask her oddness behind a thousand faces.
“It does matter,” Daniel argued. “You matter.”
But she knew that she did not. Not the woman she was deep within,nor the girl she had been. Neither did the love she shared with this beautiful, dangerous, gentle man matter. The mission might be finished, but A.U.N.T. owned her soul.
“Day is coming on,” she said, her voice as faint as the misty autumnal horizon. “We must escape before the pirates wake and rem—”
Daniel caught her jaw tightly between his thumb and forefinger. Turning her face back to him, he bent and kissed her hard. She clutched at his hair, kissing him back harder, waging a desperate battle with his tongue. Passion lit a fire under emotion, and only when all that remained was smoke and coals did they pull away, breathing heavily, safe again from the dangers of feeling.
“I can’t believe you’re alive!” Veronica exclaimed for the third time as they stood in her tiny bedroom, faces pale with weariness in the morning shadows.
Daniel frowned. “We won’t be alive for much longer if you don’t keep your voice down. Now, listen, we are going to collect Snodgrass and depart at once. Your mission—”
“Whatever it is, I accept it!” Veronica said, bouncing excitedly on her heels.
Daniel’s frown darkened. “I am not giving you a choice, V-2. There are two suitcases in our bedroom. Secure them, and ensure they are sent with all haste and security to A.U.N.T. headquarters. This is vital.”
Veronica gasped. “Do they contain weapons?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Guns? Knives? Explosive devices?”
“Books.”
“Oh.” The girl sagged a little. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked from Daniel to Alice and back again. “You seem different, somehow.”
“What makes you say that?” Daniel asked stiffly. After all, Veronica was not long out of the Academy—how astute could her discernment really be?
“Agent A, your complexion is pinker than usual,” the girl noted.
Alice shrugged. “It’s a warm morning.”
“Agent B, your cufflinks are crooked.”
“Hm,” Daniel replied irritably.
“And you’re holding hands.”
