“I keep waiting for my brain to do what it always does,” she began. “Find the problem, build the response, move forward. It’s not working.”
“It’s gone,” I said.
“You’re right.” She covered her face.
“Minerva failed. Whatever replaces it, doesn’t.”
Lyra raised her head, and her eyes bored into mine. “What did you say?”
“I was wrong when I said they won’t stop until they wipe us from the face of the earth. It’s our turn now, and we end them.”
A shadow passed the doorway.
“Blackjack? Is that you?” Lyra called out.
He stuck his head in the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You aren’t.” She held out her hand. “Come join us.”
He crossed the room, took the only empty chair, and pulled it closer.
Lyra reached for his hand. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything you did today.”
He didn’t say it was nothing, because it wasn’t.
“It’s enough for tonight,” said Henry.
Lyra turned to him and nodded. Then she squeezed Blackjack’s hand one more time. “Will you help Katarina upstairs?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”
Henry helped me up, and Blackjack took my arm. I leaned on him and the cane as we left the study. I froze when we got to the stairs, and I remembered counting all twenty-eight steps more than once in my lifetime.
“I know how much you hate this,” he said. “But for tonight, just let me.”
“Okay,” I muttered.
Blackjack lifted me in his arms, and rather than fight it, I rested my head on his shoulder.
He carried me up the steps and into my room, where he set me on the bed.
“Do you need help with anything?”
“No. But thank you.”
He walked to the door, but before leaving, he looked over his shoulder. “Good night, Katarina. I’m glad you’re still here.”
“I’m glad you’re still here too, Bishop.”
I managedto get my shoes off, but I didn’t have the energy to remove the clothes I’d almost died in.
I lay my head on the pillow and pulled the blanket over me. The room was quiet. The house was not.I could hear voices below me, phones, footsteps, the sounds of people taking care of things I wasn’t able to. And I accepted that. I’d been inside. They hadn’t. Tomorrow would be different. I’d be with them.
I reached for the cane that Blackjack had rested against the nightstand and put it next to me on the bed. My arm was broken, my knee was wrecked, but I’d told Lyra we were going to end the people who did this.
And I meant it.
3
