Havemercy. Part 21

I had to leave; I had to be somewhere quiet, where the punctuation of Daguerreas moans would no longer shatter my thoughts like so much gla.s.s, and I could think this through to the end. There was something we were all missinga"I refused to diea"but Daguerre was always moaning, and Marcelline weeping against her pillow, and there were two young girls who curled together and shook so violently that their cot rattled against the marble floor. Because we were underneath the golden dome, everything was louder than it would have been in another rooma"louder and more p.r.o.nounced, every noise we made echoing across this grand triumph of architecture above us. I could no more think than I could stand.

I tried to devise a system of counting the hours, counting the daysa"I tried to ask an attendant how long it had been since I was brought to this placea"but for all I knew it could have been minutes or it could have been weeks. Time had become interminable, untrustworthy. I thought I would go mad.

And then Hal came to me.

At first I thought I was imagining things, hallucinating his face above my bed. It could have been the fever reaching an advanced stage, the signal that my end was nearer than I wished to admit. But when he sat upon the edge of my cot, it s.h.i.+fted, and his hands were cool upon my brow, his fingers brus.h.i.+ng through my hair.

aHal,a I said.

His eyes were red, as though head been crying. aThey arenat letting anyone in,a he said, soft and close as though it had been a year, and not weeks or days at all.

If Iad been able, I would have got up immediately to find out who was in charge that I might dispense with them in an appropriate fas.h.i.+on. Whatever the Esar was thinking, it was madness to hold us all here in one place without any indication as to when this policy would cease. Surely it was recipe for a riot. I couldnat imagine what the Esar thought he would accomplish by handling things in this fas.h.i.+on.

I fought to sit up. My motor skills were infuriatingly limited, but Hal had been crying. aIt isnat as bad as it may seem,a I said, which apparently was not at all the right thing to say, for as soon as I spoke, Halas shaky composure crumbled as swiftly as the blue rock of the Cobalts and he buried his face, wet with weeping, against my neck. His nose was very cold. aHal,a I said again, whereupon he made a high, keening sound in the back of his throat, like someone at the very end of his resolve. I put my arms about him instead and said nothing at all. I wished then that Iad not been so unrelentingly stubborn as to set what rules I had made for us in the carriage. There were so many opportunities lost to us, the awkwardness of the night after the ball, when Hal had started up the stairs to the bedroom after me, and countless days when I found my favorite chair made just a little too small by Halas joining me in it.

Head as good as made his decision, and I had been too blind to acknowledge it, too caught up in suspicion and headaches. And now that I knew it, I could barely summon the strength to lift my arms around him. It was a cruel joke of some kind or another, but I would not give in to regret just yet.

aThey wouldnat let me in,a he mumbled, repeating the words as though they were a poison that needed to be bled from the hurt head received by not being able to see me, of all things. Yet not even the most selfish part of me could be touched at the effect my departure had had on him, for it went against everything I held dear to know that Hal should ever be hurt unnecessarily.

I did feel a curious sort of pride, though, mingled with my sympathy and frustration at the situation. Hal had found some way in to see me, and judging by the number of invalids, there were many more people yet waiting for news. Iad known Hal was clever, and Iad known head be suited to the city despite his misgivings. To me, this was irrefutable proof that my beliefs hadnat been unfounded, nor clouded by whatever other feelings I harbored for him.

aWell, it isnat exactly a very pleasant place to be,a I said, curling my fingers in his hair even as I spoke. He fit so neatly against me that it made my chest tighten for a moment, and I found it difficult to breathe. Iad never experienced such a symptom previously with the illness that had so thoroughly possessed me, so I had to a.s.sume it was Hal who caused ita"a symptom of that other, quieter illness, which had nevertheless s.n.a.t.c.hed my senses away as completely as the fever.

aRoyston,a Hal said against my neck, like a plea or a prayer and not at all like my name.

I could have told him, aI believe the Wellas been poisoned and us along with it,a or, aYou should leave, before anyone tries to make you, and I am forced to remonstrate with them,a but I paused for too long, and the fleeting urge to be sensible withered and dropped from my mind like old fruit.

Instead, I kissed the top of his head, breathing in the familiar soap-smelling cleanness of him. It soothed me in a deep and satisfying way, a cool sensation filtering all the way down to my core and cutting right through the heat in my fevered brain. aItas all right,a I said, not entirely sure that it was. Yet I felt very much as though it might be, it could be, which was more hope than Iad possessed in all the time that had pa.s.sed since being brought here. aSometime soon you shall have to tell me the story of your daring break-in. Iam sure with your apt.i.tude, it was much like something out of a roman.a He laughed at that, quiet and diffident, and finally lifted his face to mine.

aIam glad you came,a I said at last, because it was true, even if some part of me couldnat bear to be seen in such a weakened state. It was the more frivolous side of me, vain and foolish, and I paid it little heed. There was no place for such preening idiocy in this room full of killing fever.

aYouare sick,a Hal said, carrying on even as his voice snagged on something low and unhappy. aThatas what they told me. Everyone here is sick.a aSomething like that,a I said, then, because I had resolved to be as honest with Hal as I possibly could, I continued. aI believea"though it is my own personal speculation, and nothing morea"that what has struck us has something to do with the Well.a I saw him struggle to understand, or perhaps to prioritize what I was telling him over his own feelings, which were plain as invitation on his face. aThen itas something to do with the magic,a he said at last. aAs a whole, and not just magicians?a aI suppose it is,a I said after a moment, though admittedly I hadnat been thinking of it in terms beyond my knowledge of what the poison was doing to me and my fellows, burning us from the inside out. In some ways, my worldview had shrunk to this room of the Basquiat, cramped and close with friends and strangers alike, and though Iad thought often of Hal, it was almost as though Iad lost the ability to think beyond the confines of it.

I supposed it was my own selfishness come full circle again that I could think of nothing but the ways in which a situation affected me and my immediate surroundings.

aThen itas true what the airmen were talking of,a Hal said, then shook his head slightly, as though head caught himself in a misstep. aTheyare how I got in, the Dragon Corps and theira"Well, Thom. His name is Thom.a The student Marius had often spoken of with the kind of pride reserved for a father had been named Thom, I thought, my fevered mind making the connection unbidden. Marius was here the same as I was, though he hadnat opened his eyes since the room had been flooded with sunlight this morning.

aDo you mean to tell me,a I said very slowly, both out of a desire to be very clear and because my head felt inconveniently fogged all of a sudden, athat you went to the Dragon Corps first to find a way into the Basquiat?a aWell, no,a answered Hal, flus.h.i.+ng to the tips of his ears. aThom found me waiting on the steps here, and he thought it might be a good ideaa"more helpfula"to get the airmen involved, because the Esar was more likely to listen to them. And theya"a He froze, looking around us suddenly as though expecting to see every face turned with interest toward our conversation. Finding no interest, he nevertheless leaned close, breath warm against my ear. aTheyare worried because thereas something wrong with the dragons, do you see? Because of the magic in them as well. They arenat flying properlya"your friend, the Chief Sergeant, he said he refused to let them fly under the circ.u.mstances, that the dragons had become too unpredictable.a aBastion,a I swore, loudly enough that Marcelline looked over at me in surprise. She was drawn and pale, but at that moment I could think of nothing but my own blind stupidity, that I could ever have thought something as deadly as this could be affecting only the magicians who walked and breathed, and not the creations into which they poured their Talents. Iad never worked on a dragon myselfa"it was too specialized an endeavora"but Iad known some of the men who had, old and powerful. Such men had been some of the very first to fall ill. None of them had made the immediate connection either, which hardly comforted me, as some of those men were now dead.

I had to take control of my thoughts. I recalled the very earliest days of harnessing my Talent, all the while doing my best to ignore the sickening vacuum that existed now in its place. Working against the cluttered state of my mind was a task I could accomplish: I simply needed to concentrate. Halas hands were on my shoulders, kneading with absent, fretful motions. I closed my eyes, allowing the reality of his presence to calm me as it always did.

aIn any case, I suppose what we did was storm the palace,a Hal went on, still so close that I couldnat see his face. I thought perhaps that Iad misheard him, or that this was another trick of the fever turning words into what they werenat, for if I knew anything I surely knew Hal, and the idea of his storming anything, let alone a palace, was so out of the realm of possibility that I felt it must be my delirium. How much could have happened since Iad been brought here that such a thing could change?

aPardon?a I asked finally.

aWell, it wasnat a real storming, not entirely, because the Esar let us in, but I got the feeling that wead have gone even if he hadnat. They were that serious about it. And I canat think of much that would have stopped them.a I could feel his skin growing hot against my cheek, blus.h.i.+ng at what head done or what head been caught up in by outside forces.

aHal,a I said, and traced my knuckles down the curved length of his spine. I felt a smile playing about my lips; it was the first Iad worn in days. aYou havenat been here a month and youare already storming the palace?a He drew back, eyes bright with something that stood out starkly against my bleak surroundings of illness and misery, and it filled me like a cup to the brim. aI was worried about you,a he said.

I kissed him.

I might have blamed it on the fever, though I felt considerably more lucid now than I had since the onset in the Cobalts. And I might have blamed it on what Hal had done, for certainly the devotion apparent in it was a gesture that would touch even the most callous of hearts. Yet more than thata"and I knew it as surely as I had felt my Talent drained awaya"was the fact that I loved him, and that people were dying, and though there were things I regretted, I wouldnat allow Hal to become one of them.

His hands went still against my shoulders, then quickly slipped up behind my head, as if he were afraid Iad change my mind too soon and head miss his chance. I held him close, hands low to where his back narrowed, hoping to soothe his fears.

I knew it was foolish. If I could have chosen, I certainly wouldnat have opted for a setting such as this, surrounded by the sick and likely dying, myself so infuriatingly weak that it was all I could do to go on holding Hal when he pressed close to me.

The kiss was too eager, Halas inexperience too evident, and my fever cut it short before its time. Yet when it ended, Halas hands were curled tight at the back of my collar, and his s.h.i.+rt bunched up underneath my own hands, and there was no one here to tell us to stop.

We were, after all, very far from the countryside.

He said something so quiet that I almost missed it, but then he said it again and it was my name, broken and soft and nearly unfamiliar.

His fingers trembled; I could feel them against my cheek as he stroked the overgrown roughness at my jaw, the gray at my temple.

aHal,a I whispered against his mouth, and he s.h.i.+vered as though a current had pa.s.sed between us.

aFind somewhere private and leave us in peace,a Alcibiades muttered from a cot somewhere to my left. Hal colored all at oncea"I could feel it as well as I could see ita"and we parted, though I promised myself that one day Iad repay Alcibiades for the sentiment. Yet as embarra.s.sed as I was, I knew he was right. aHal,a I said, carefully. aThis isnata"a aI know,a he agreed, though he refused to relinquish his part in our embrace and, as I admit it was the only thing that presently held me up, I was grateful he insisted upon being so tenacious. aIam so glad. I thought, when I heard from the Esar that the magiciansa"a aI donat intend to die,a I told him firmly. aAnd as you can see, I am certainly not yet dead.a He nodded mutely, and I saw him struggle visibly with the worry that plagued him until I wished there were anything at all I could do to rea.s.sure him. There was however nothing but dissembling and false promises, and I refused to lie to Hal.

aWhen this is over,a I said, avoiding the terrible word if, aI hope youall allow me to kiss you properly, in a place that is neither a carriage nor a sickbed.a He flushed and bowed his head. aRoyston,a he said, aI donat think the Esar knows what to do.a aNo,a I agreed. aI donat think he does either.a aThen,a Hal asked, athen what are we to do?a For the moment, all I could think was that I wanted to lie down and surrendera"if only for a little whilea"to sleep. I fought the urge, however tempting, knotting my fingers in the sleeves of Halas s.h.i.+rt to keep myself upright. aWe must do what only we can do,a I replied, taking my time with the words; it was the only way I knew to keep them crisp and certain and indeed anything other than wearily slurred. aWe must put our minds to this. I donat suppose we might call a man to fetch some of my books?a Hal almost laughed at that, but there was something tearful behind the sound. aBetween us both,a he promised, aweall remember.a It wasnat the most original plan Iad ever come up with, but it was the only one we had.

aCome,a I said, aletas see if we canat arrange these pillows more comfortably.a In the bed next to mine, Alcibiades coughed something that sounded as if it might be derogatory. Let him scoff, I told myself; I was determined to save his life, along with mine, before the Ke-Han descended upon us all and none of our grand gestures in the hot, dark room mattered any longer to anyone.

THOM.

It was quiet in the Airman, the sort of quiet I imagined descended upon soldiers before a battle, or upon the desert before a sandstorm. It was an unnatural, tentative quiet, and there was nothing in it I could use to distract myself from how badly my hands were shaking.

af.u.c.king stop that,a Rook said. aYouare like as not to make somebody nervous if you keep on f.u.c.king doing that.a There was no one in the common room but him and me. Earlier, Evariste had pa.s.sed through once on his way to make coffee, then once on his way back with a cup in his hand and the smell of the burnt grounds thick on the air. Other than that, we were completely alone. I didnat think that Rook was capable of being nervousa"I believe head forgotten how it was to feel anything of the sorta"but nevertheless I clasped my hands together and put them between my knees.

There was the silence again.

It was better to know our fate, I was certain, than to be acutely, painfully unaware. Knowledge was the key; whether it was a knowledge youad been seeking or something else entirely, it made no difference. You had to work with what knowledge you were given. Only if you werenat given anything, you had to waita"and the waiting was interminable.

I flexed my hands between the bony press of my knees. I reminded myself of what wead accomplished that afternoon and kept my own private relief as a small flame against the darkness. At least Rook and the other airmen wouldnat be flying unarmed with the truth about their dragons. It was cold comfort, but it was nevertheless something.

aSo,a Rook said, awhat do you know about the magicians, anyway? I mean, that f.u.c.king Well. What do you know about it?a The question nearly startled a sound out of me, and for a moment I found myself so distracted by my own tangled thoughts I didnat even answer him. What I knew about the magicians was limited by my area of studies, but I knew magicians in particular, Marius being the most immediate example, and the handful of professors Iad had whoad been blessed, or perhaps cursed, with Talents of their own. I wondered where Marius was now; I could have used his guidance.

aNot very much,a I admitted.

af.u.c.k,a Rook said, but there was less malevolence in it than usual. aI thought you knew everything, aVersity boy.a I rubbed wearily at my eyes. aYes,a I said, awell. Not everything.a Rook gave me a look that seemed to intimate Iad suddenly grown a pair of horns, or perhaps a tail. aDonat start gettina womenas moods on me,a Rook said. aIave got enough f.u.c.king trouble right now without it being your time of the month.a aHardly,a I said. aIam simply feeling somewhat sobered by the dayas events.a aSimply feeling somewhat sobered by the dayas events,a Rook parroted back at me, giving each word a sneer. There was that malevolence Iad been missing. Iad spoken too soon about the change Iad imagined in him. It seemed I was much better at imagining changes than I was at effecting them. aBastion. You ever listen to yourself? Itas like you really are useless.a I recalled my earlier triumph with Hal, and felt heartened, however momentarily. aNot entirely that, either,a I said.

aNo,a Rook agreed, throwing me off somewhat. aGuess not, though it sure took you long enough to make yourself useful.a He chose that moment to stop pacing the length of the common room and sit down hard next to me on the opposite end of the couch, crossing his legs wide, and moving lazy as a cat. There was a certain tension beneath his movements, though, noticeable only when he came close, and even then it was rare. In some ways though, I had been training myself to do exactly that, notice the subtle changes, the slight variations in his nonchalance. I was only just now growing aware of how dedicated I was to the study of him, my long-lost brother.

It was a troublesome propensity of mine, and one I had no right to cultivate under these peculiar circ.u.mstances. I felt childish, and exhausted with the dayas efforts. I wanted to curl up on my couch and go straight to sleep, but to do that would have meant asking Rook to leave, and I could no more command him than I could thaEsar himself.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my forehead instead, staving off the advent of a headache. aI barely studied the Well,a I said softly. aI wish now that I had, but it never interested me.a aIdiot,a Rook said.

aIndeed,a I replied.

aSanot what Iadave studied,a he added, after a pause. aIf Iad ever lost my f.u.c.king mind and decided school was what I wanted to do with most of my life.a aYou would have done quite well,a I told him. If not for his cleverness, I added to myself, then certainly for his ability to intimidate others into giving him exactly what he wanted.

af.u.c.king right I wouldave,a he said. aBut I chose Have. s.h.i.+t.a He tore off and shook his head, his face angry and harsh in the fading sunlight, his blue eyes narrowed and his wide mouth tight. All his features, I decided then, seemed each to be taken from many different menas faces; they were a strange and startling a.s.sortment, and the ferocity behind his every expression was what made him so painfully handsome.

aIam sorry,a I said, as if I were talking to John and not Rook. aFor your dragon, that is. It may be that thaEsar and those close to him will divine a solutiona"a aOr it may be that thaEsar and those close to him may never divine a way to unstick their heads from being shoved so far up their own rumps they can barely see the light of day,a Rook offered.

aThat,a I agreed, ais also a possibility.a aYou did a pretty decent job in there,a he said then, as though every word of it were painful to him. aNot like you taught us a f.u.c.king thing, but you were all right.a I felt a strange suffusion of warmtha"pleasure, I supposed, at being complimented as though I were a stray dog whoad done right for the first time in his flea-ridden existence. I couldnat help my starved grat.i.tude from showing plainly on my face; as soon as Rook saw it his mouth curled down at the corners and he looked sharply away.

aThaEsara"the Esara"had no right to keep what he knew from you,a I said, choosing my words with the utmost care. aHe might have killed all of you for pride. It is treason to say so, but he has behaved more like a fool than a leader.a aIf heas f.u.c.ked my girl,a Rook said, aIall pay him back for it.a aThat mightnat be too wise,a I cautioned.

aYouare not my f.u.c.king mother,a Rook said, aso donat act like you are.a I turned away from him, feeling the blow more deeply for the hope head given me. Perhaps that had been his plan all along. Even with the feverishness with which I applied myself to studying him, I could no more predict him than I could predict the outcome of this war. But the hurt and my own shame coursed through me all the same, hot chasing cold in my blood. I had no room to judge him, nor room to love him, either.

I bowed my head.

That was when he took my chin in his hand, simple as reaching across the table for a slice of toast at lunch, and looked at me, really looked, while I fought the urge to run as far and fast as I could in the other direction. He was looking at my eyes. Something turned over in my stomach, uncomfortable and real, like the first moment of falling or the first time head taken a dive on Havemercy when I was up in the air with him. He let his hand drop after a moment, but he went on looking like I was a puzzle, something he couldnat quite figure out. I couldnat find it in my heart to drop my gaze a second time. I was fixed like an insect, caught in a box of my own making. Pinned. Trapped.

aDonat f.u.c.king know why you did it,a he said. aDonat even know if itall help.a I realized all at once this was his way of thanking me, whether he acknowledged it or not. My heart turned to gla.s.s in my chest, and I knew that at its next beat it was bound to shatter.

aJohn,a I said.

His face changed in an instant, more quickly than the turns head taken on Havemercy. There were shards of gla.s.s in my veins, and he shoved me away from him.

aWhat the f.u.c.k did you just call me?a he said. His voice was low and deceptively smooth; I felt certain it would whip around, fast as a dragonas tail, to strike me the moment my back was turned.

aJohn,a I said, the words drawn out of me by some force too powerful for me to stop, too powerful for me to name. I suppose it was the truth at last, at the wrong moment, at the most ruinous one. This was disaster, rolling like an avalanche. I couldnat stop speaking. aYour name is Johna"was Johna"you told me to stay where I was, and Ia"a aWho put you up to this?a Rook said. aWho f.u.c.king told you to say that?a They werenat questions; they were too terrifying to be questions. I knew head beat the answers out of me as soon as demand them, but I could admit no feeling that would allow me to be afraid of him.

aIam your brother,a I said.

af.u.c.k you,a said Rook. aMy brotheras dead.a aI went to live with the wh.o.r.es on Tuesday Street,a I said, frozen helpless in place for all I couldnat keep my tongue still. aThey took me in, they called me Thom. I . . . there was a man; he told me you were dead. I thought that you must have gone back inside to look for me, and that was whya"a aShut up,a he said.

I wished that I could.

aI never thought Iad see you again.a It wasnat the way Iad meant to do it. In fact it went against everything Iad planned, right down to my best of intentions in the very beginning. It was too late now, too late to cus.h.i.+on the blow for him as Iad wished it could have been for me.

He lunged forward then, and I thought he was going to hit me. Of course, he had every right to do so if he wished, as Iad hurt him in far worse ways. No matter what faults Rook possesseda"and they were many; I was not so blinded by my guilt to believe otherwisea"I knew that what Iad done was worse. Iad betrayed him; he was my brother and for a long timea"such a long timea"Iad known it.

Instead, he only took my face in one hand again, and pushed my hair back at the right temple where it hid a small white scar, a relic of running too fast on legs too short when Iad been younger and heedless of anyoneas remonstrations to be careful.

aYou were always f.u.c.king running near the stairs,a he said at last. Something squeezed tight in my chest, so that I had to exhale a nervous sound of release.

aIam sorry,a I said quietly, and he dropped his hands from me as quickly as head moved before, though there wasnat any real urgency behind his movements. Rather, it was more as if he was so disgusted that I didnat matter to him one way or the other and especially not because I had some silly scar proving we shared the same blood.

He didnat say anything after that, only sat still and stony as a mountain. My hands were starting to hurt, and I realized Iad been squeezing them between my knees since head told me to do something about their shaking. I felt a sudden and desperate wish for things to go back to the way theyad been, even before knowing I had a brother, because if I hadnat known, then I wouldnat ever have hurt him in this fas.h.i.+on. Even if all the parts of him that could hurt had disappeared along with the boy who had been John, that knowledge didnat preclude my own guilt, and it certainly didnat change what Iad done to him.

I put my head in my hands. aIam sorry,a I said again, though it sounded tinny and meaningless even to my own ears. aI meant to tell you sooner.a I felt a change come over the room, in the small s.p.a.ce between us, as though Iad somehow gleaned the same ability the airmen boasted, to be able to taste danger in the air or smell the stronger emotions. My mouth was impossibly dry.

aHow long,a he said, calmer than Iad ever heard him and all the more terrifying because of it, ahave you known?a He was adding up the details in his head, searching for the possible moment of revelation; his eyes held none of the callous distance to which Iad grown accustomed, but they were focused on the wall behind me, and not my face. Even then I wished head look at me, though the desire spoke only to the depths of a place in me I wished never to accept as mine.

I should have been straightforward from the start. Or, barring that, I should have gone on lying. Anything at all seemed better than this: this awful careening path Iad taken that tore up everything Iad carefully sown.

aSince you told me,a I whispered, as though by softening my voice I could somehow soften the impact of the blow. aThat night, when you were hurt, and Ia"Iam Hilary.a For all my restraint and the careful compartments in which Iad tried to keep my feelings, I couldnat prevent the desperation from crawling into my voice.

I didnat deserve to ask anything of Rook, and I wanted everything from him. It had been the same when we were boys, I thought. A familiarity, deep and irrational as blood, and I wanted to tear at my hair for what it had done to me. What I had done to him in return. John, Rook. My own brother, who was meant to make everything right.

He moved at that last and I flinched, though there was no need. He didnat even look at me. I began to think it might have been better if he had struck me, or at least reacted in some way that might have alleviated my guilt, however briefly. Instead, he got up, unfolding his legs very slowly, but with no ambiguity that could leave anyone to mistake it for hesitance. No, it was a deliberate pulling away, piece by piece, to sever all ties, and I felt it with a wrench, as though Iad somehow lost something more than a brother whom Iad never truly had to begin with. It was worse than being struck, worse than my bones breaking. But Rook, of course, was clever enough to know that.

I watched him go, helpless, with no right to call him back and no reason to believe his reluctance to do violence went beyond this silent exit. If I tried to stop him, I thought, it would most certainly push him into something regrettable.

He paused in the doorway, so fierce and unhappy that I felt it underneath my skin. How my brother had come to be such a person with his wild braids and quick jeering I couldnat understand. Whenever I studied his face I found not even a hint of the John I remembered. Of course, twenty-one years was a very long time, and perhaps the things I remembered were remembered all wrong. Perhaps in my brother had always been this man, just as in me there had always been someone who would grow up to develop the ability to manipulate others and a questionable code of what was right and wrong.

aYou donat talk to me,a said Rook, and for one wild moment I thought it was a complaint before the honest hand of reality came up to slap me in the face. This was the way things would be from now on. Our new rules, just when Iad made peace and felt comfortable enough to leave a handful of the old ones by the wayside. aI donat talk to you, and this? It never happened. Far as Iam concerned, my brother died when he was three. You go long enough believing something like thatas true, then it becomes true, you see what Iam saying?a I didnat. I couldnat. After all, Iad spent my whole life believing him to be dead, only to have it proved wrong, and the contradiction hadnat made me any less glad to discover him alive anda"in most waysa"well.

aIt isnat true, though,a I said, unable to keep from pus.h.i.+ng my luck, as though I was compelled by some greater force to see this to its bitter conclusion with no holds barred, nothing held back. aYou canat justa"We are brothers.a aI think itas a little rich, gettina a lecture from you on what a man can and canat do to his own brother,a said Rook flatly. There was no malice, or spite, or even the rare tolerance Iad come to cherish in his voice. There was only nothing, empty and clean the way I imagined his chest to be, a hollow echoing where his heart should be.

aMy brother is dead,a said Rook again, as though I hadnat heard him properly in the first place. I half expected him to follow up the statement with a threat detailing what would happen to me if I brought it up again, or at the very least something to forbid my coming near him in the future, but he merely turned away from me and walked out the door as though Iad ceased to exist altogether.

After that, I didnat see him at all. When I mentioned it as casually as I could to Adamo, he said that Rook had signed up for all the extra s.h.i.+fts he could to give thaEsar the time he needed to work things out.

I tried to slide a wall of gla.s.s between my thoughts and my heart, just as my brother had done for some reason I hadnat understood, and now would never know. With him flying the way he was, and under such dire conditions, it seemed likely I should prepare myself for the possibility that I might never see him again.

While this wasnat the worst Iad ever felt, it was certainly close.

It seemed that in the second meeting thaEsar had called, some manner of tentative truce had been called between him and the Chief Sergeant. The solution wasnat an ideal one by all means, but the way Adamo had explained it sounded as though what theyad agreed upon was a kind of unofficial system of volunteering, the way the crush s.h.i.+fts worked only now it was every s.h.i.+ft, and anyone who thought their dragon was good enough to fly that night could sign up and batter back the Ke-Han to the best of his abilities.

Much as I hated to admit ita"and I did hate it these days though Iad always considered myself a loyal citizena"thaEsar was a shrewd thinker. In a group such as the Dragon Corps, tightly knit and yet infused with a sense of honor and pride that would rival His Majestyas, asking for volunteers was a clever system to employ. In some ways, it became a compet.i.tion, indicating you were a coward if you didnat volunteer straightaway. It was the same mentality that had kept them quiet about their dragons in the first place, and yet for once, I made no notes for my own private doc.u.mentation.

If I were to be completely truthful, Iad have expected more of a split within the group, with the more pragmatic men electing to stay out of the mess entirely, at least until their dragons were rehabilitated, and the wilder risk-takers signing up for all the s.h.i.+fts. Instead, though there were certainly some who took longer to sign up, I found myself seeing everyone taking to the halls in much the same manner, soot-soaked and cutting in line for the shower, or falling asleep right in their chairs in the common room due to having been up all the previous night.

I asked Ghislain about it, as, beyond the vague sense of unease I got around him, head nevertheless struck me as one of the more sensible men bunking in the Airman.

aYou never played sports as a kid, did you?a He tugged at the blackened towel around his neck, waiting outside the shower room.

I didnat see what sports had to do with anything, and said so.

He only smiled, sharp and always startlingly bright. aDo anything as a team?a aNo. Well, study projects, sometimes. With a group,a I amended. The closest thing Iad had to a team, I supposed, had been the wh.o.r.es whoad taken me in, but that had all been very long ago, and anyway I didnat think it was what Ghislain was talking about.

aWell,a he said, aand this is only my own way of thinking, mind, but when youare doing something you lovea"really lovea"you canat let the way others play the game get in the way of that, if you follow. It donat matter if your coach is ha.s.sling you, or whether you donat like how some of your teammates indulge in the sport. When youare out there, youave got a goal to accomplish, and you canat see to letting all that mishmash weigh you down.a In some ways, I felt as though I would never stop learning the lesson. What Iad set out to accomplish with the Dragon Corps had been foolish beyond recourse. I would never understand them the way they understood one another. No matter which way I turned, it seemed that I was to be reminded of my failings as a teacher. And Rookas conspicuous absence reminded me of my failings in all other areas of life.

The nights were the worst. I lay on my couch listening to the far-off sounds of explosions, imagined or real, and all that stood between the Ke-Han and Rook was a dragon who wasnat even flying properly. I couldnat pinpoint exactly what it was I thought I stood to lose with Rookas death; Iad lost him this time just as surely as Iad lost my brother in the fire twenty-one years ago. Yet every night I listened just the same, terrified that every explosion would be the last, or that I wouldnat hear the telltale sound of boots in the hallway, denoting another nightas return, whole if not entirely safe.

I couldnat have said why I indulged in such a torture night after night. It certainly wasnat my business to look after Rook, and there was no reason now to wait up for him as there once had been. The only thing I could come up with, staring at the ceiling in the darkened common room while my brother raced off to risk his life or give thaEsaras men more time to win the war, was that I had a duty, however misplaced, and that it was mine and no one elseas.

Perhaps Iad given up the right to look after Rook when I hadnat called him brother straightaway, but if I didnat do it, I didnat know who would, and that thought kept me up much later than the explosions ever did.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.